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Can’t Count Votes? Just Draw Straws.
It seems that we all will have to fill up our popcorn supplies as the rather comical and disgraceful process of U.S. vote counting is likely to continue until maybe December 8, the safe harbor date on which the states will have to certify their electors.
The race is nowhere near where the Democrats and their supporting media had expected it to go. Just last week polls claimed that Biden would lead in Wisconsin by 17 percent. The current margin is a rather dubious 0.6 percent which upcoming recounts may well eliminate.
That the Democrats lose House seats, do not win the Senate and barely manage to drag their demented presidential candidate towards a stalemate tells a lot about their lack of sane policies. A donor party completely disinterested in what the people really want – medicare for all, no fracking etc. – will have little chance to survive a future onslaught of conservatives with a more competent figure head than Donald Trump.
There will be protests, probably violent ones, and more legal action from either side. I see no compromise possible that would satisfy both parties. I fear that, should Trump lose this election. Trumpism will only grow and make the U.S. ungovernable.
Maybe Trump and Biden could publicly draw straws to get over with it.
From FiveThirtyEight:
Nate Silver Nov. 5, 6:59 pm
Trump’s lead is now down to about 3,600 votes in Georgia, per Decision Desk HQ.
Sarah Frostenson
Nov. 5, 6:57 pm
Trump is now giving remarks from the White House in which he is not only questioning the accuracy of the polls, but going a step farther to say that they were falsified. That claims is baseless, but one thing we found in the lead-up to the election is that Republican voters were less confident than Democrats that the election would be conducted fairly. Trump is actively stoking those fears in his address.
Geoffrey Skelley Nov. 5, 7:08 pm
We knew coming into the election that mail ballots would be counted last in many states because of how their ballot-processing system worked. We also knew mail ballots would be heavily Democratic because of a huge partisan split in how people planned to vote — a split that Trump himself exacerbated by trying to cast doubt on mail ballots and discouraging his own supporters from voting by mail despite the coronavirus pandemic. Trump is also making unfounded claims about fraud. His campaign complained in court earlier today about supposedly not having observers in the counting room in Philadelphia, but his campaign’s attorney admitted that the campaign already had observers in the room, which prompted the judge to ask, “Then what’s your problem?” Additionally, the votes being counted in places like Pennsylvania are votes that were cast by Election Day, which Trump is wrongly claiming were too late to be counted. This press conference is another attempt to undermine faith in the election result, just as the president has spent the entire campaign doing.
Kaleigh Rogers Nov. 5, 7:21 pm
One thing Trump repeatedly claimed in his speech tonight was that his campaign representatives were not being given access to observe the vote-counting process and that they’ve had to sue in order to “have people watch.” First of all, the vote-counting process is always bipartisan and campaign observers are allowed to witness it. Second of all, his lawsuits (in Pennsylvania and Michigan) weren’t about being allowed to observe — because, again, they are and have been allowed — they’re about how close those observers able to stand. The lawsuit in Michigan was thrown out, and the Pennsylvania one was dismissed today after both sides agreed to the number of observers each campaign can have in the room.
Laura Bronner Nov. 5, 7:11 pm
Even before Nov. 3, we expected vote counts to shift toward one part or the other depending on whether Election Day votes were counted first or early and absentee votes were counted first, a process that differed by state. In states where early and absentee votes were counted first, such as Ohio and Kansas, there was a “red shift” as Election Day ballots were added to the total, while in states like Pennsylvania, Wisconsin and Michigan, where early and absentee votes were not counted in advance, there was a “blue shift” once those votes were added to the tallies of Election Day ballots. Trump’s claim that the blue shift in these states is evidence of fraud or malfeasance is completely baseless. The fact that Republicans were more likely to vote on Election Day, while Democrats were more likely to vote early or absentee, combined with the differences in when these votes were counted, is what causes these shifts.
Dan Hopkins Nov. 5, 7:18 pm
Here in Pennsylvania, Trump’s margin continues to narrow, with ballot counts updating in multiple counties, including a bunch from Philadelphia; his lead now stands at 64,237 votes. On its own, Philadelphia should still have something at or above 60,000 mail ballots left to count. Allegheny County (Pittsburgh) has 35,000 mail ballots it is legally not allowed to count until tomorrow. And the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette’s Julian Routh estimated less than an hour ago that there were on the order of at least 255,000 mail ballots still outstanding statewide, although that number has dropped since. And there are provisional ballots still to count as well.
Micah Cohen Nov. 5, 8:22 pm
We wanted to follow up on a live blog post that we wrote on the afternoon of Nov. 4 and that was later tweeted from the main FiveThirtyEight Twitter account.
Two more batches of Pennsylvania vote were reported:
-23,277 votes in Philadelphia, all for Biden
-about 5,300 votes in Luzerne County, nearly 4,000 of which were for Biden
*With 83% of the expected vote in, Trump’s lead in PA is now just below 6 points. https://t.co/zspxaPkzKs
— FiveThirtyEight (@FiveThirtyEight) November 4, 2020
This one batch of votes in Philadelphia has been picked up by some people, including a commentator on Fox News, as possible evidence of fraud. It’s not. According to Edison Research, which aggregates vote data for ABC News and other networks (and is the source of the data in question), sometimes election officials and vote aggregators unintentionally enter vote updates one candidate at a time, rather than entering all candidates together. Other candidates’ votes are then included in a subsequent batch.
That appears to be what happened here, and in the next update from Philadelphia, Trump got about double the share of votes that he was getting in the other updates from there during that stretch of time.
Dan Hopkins Nov. 5, 8:58 pm
Speaking of Pennsylvania, Trump’s lead there is now around 53,000 votes, with sizable numbers of mail ballots and provisional ballots still to count.
Geoffrey Skelley Nov. 5, 9:12 pm
The contest for Arizona just got closer, but Biden still leads there. That’s the takeaway from Maricopa County’s approximately 75,000-vote report a moment ago. Trump won 56 percent of that batch to Biden’s 42 percent, which cut Biden’s statewide lead to 1.6 points, or about 46,000 votes. With perhaps another 200,000 votes outstanding from Maricopa — and at least a few from other counties in Arizona — Trump is not out of the race for the state’s 11 electoral votes yet.
Nathaniel Rakich Nov. 5, 9:40 pm
Biden may pull into the lead in Georgia tonight. According to CNN, Clayton County plans to release results from its 5,700 outstanding ballots by midnight. Biden won the last batch of Clayton votes 87 percent to 13 percent; if he wins the remainder by the same amount, he’d net about 4,300 votes. Trump’s current Georgia lead is only 2,497 votes.
Dan Hopkins Nov. 5, 9:47 pm
New Pennsylvania ballots from Monroe County (Stroudsburg and the Delaware Water Gap, bordering New Jersey) bring Trump’s lead down to about 42,000 votes. That’s a meaningful number — it’s now below the 44,000 by which Trump won the state in 2016.
Posted by: Richard Steven Hack | Nov 6 2020 2:50 utc | 210
Posted by: exiled off mainstree | Nov 6 2020 8:01 utc | 235
Most of what you’re said is inaccurate. Everyone knew going in that this election was going to be marked by a high turnout. I have no idea what news you’ve been watching, but this was common knowledge. It was also predicted that the mail-in voting would produce different results than in-person in terms of when votes were counted by the counties, leading in many cases to a “red wave” when the in-person ballots were counted first or a “blue wave” when the mail-ins were counted, due to more Democrats voting by mail than Republicans due to Trump claiming the mail-ins were unreliable. So Trump shot himself in the foot.
And it appears most of Trump’s court challenges have been mostly BS and thrown out by the judges.
The idea that fraudsters took over the identities of the elderly in homes in every county to vote is ridiculous. And mail-in votes can be verified just like in-person ballots if someone wants to spot-check. From an article on USA Today:
To prevent fraud, all votes have to be verified to be counted. States have different ways to do that for in-person voting, but by mail, the principal method used to detect and prevent fraud is by verifying information on the mail ballot itself, according to the Brennan Center, a nonpartisan law and policy institute.
To vote by mail, voters must include personal identifying information, such as an address, birthday, driver’s license number or last four digits of a Social Security number. A voter’s remaining personal information is matched against the information stored on voter rolls, such as a signature.
States verify mailed ballots in different ways. For example, Alabama requires a copy of the voter’s ID to be included and either two witnesses older than 18 or a notary public must sign the envelope in addition to the voter. In Maine, a signature by the voter on the envelope is compared to the signature on the absentee ballot application. Likewise, Colorado uses bipartisan teams who compare the signature on every ballot to ones the state has on file for every registered voter…
“Absentee ballots, by the way, are fine,” Trump told reporters Aug. 13. “But the universal mail-ins that are just sent all over the place, where people can grab them and grab stacks of them, and sign them and do whatever you want, that’s the thing we’re against.”
But the only difference between the absentee and universal mail-in voting is that in states that use universal mail-in voting, registered voters don’t have to ask to have ballots sent to them. Regardless of the system, a person must be registered to vote to receive the ballot. And for any mailed-in vote to be counted, the voter’s information must be verified by state elections officials.
Another article from The Brennan Center quotes these statistics:
Despite this dramatic increase in mail voting over time, fraud rates remain infinitesimally small. None of the five states that hold their elections primarily by mail has had any voter fraud scandals since making that change. As the New York Times editorial board notes, “states that use vote-by-mail have encountered essentially zero fraud: Oregon, the pioneer in this area, has sent out more than 100 million mail-in ballots since 2000, and has documented only about a dozen cases of proven fraud.” That’s 0.00001 percent of all votes cast.*** An exhaustive investigative journalism analysis of all known voter fraud cases identified only 491 cases of absentee ballot fraud from 2000 to 2012. As election law professor Richard L. Hasen notes, during that period “literally billions of votes were cast.” While mail ballots are more susceptible to fraud than in-person voting, it is still more likely for an American to be struck by lightning than to commit mail voting fraud.
As I’ve said earlier here, to prove vote fraud, you have to go down to the county level and examine the procedures, the known number of registered voters, the expected turnout, the actual turnout, exit polls, etc., etc. You just don’t come in waving your hands and claiming everything is insecure because someone is losing.
Most fraud these days comes from manipulating the voting districts and corrupt voter role cleansing. It’s hard to manipulate actual election results in multiple states on election day sufficiently to insure your fraudulent votes override the legitimate votes – and not be detected by recounts and spot checks.
Provide some real evidence of vote fraud in specific states and counties or don’t waste my time with speculation.
Posted by: Richard Steven Hack | Nov 6 2020 9:07 utc | 238
From FiveThirtyEight:
Dan Hopkins Nov. 6, 7:50 am
Philadelphia Might Put Biden Over The Top, But It’s Not Driving His Strength In Pennsylvania
All eyes are on a handful of states now, including Pennsylvania, with Philadelphia and other jurisdictions expected to report additional votes today that could put Biden into the lead. But if Biden wins Pennsylvania, it will likely be thanks to his improved performance (relative to 2016) in other parts of the state. And despite some baseless claims to the contrary, there’s absolutely no reason to question the trustworthiness of the vote count in Philly.
For one thing, voting in Philadelphia is overseen by a bipartisan group of three elected officials, the Philadelphia City Commissioners. One is Al Schmidt, a Republican. (Of course, bipartisanship is by no means a prerequisite for trustworthiness.)
What’s more, while Philadelphia is the largest source of net Democratic votes in Pennsylvania, Biden’s improvement in the state relative to 2016 is actually driven by other jurisdictions. In 2016, Clinton won about 584,000 votes in the city to Trump’s nearly 109,000, a pro-Democratic vote margin of about 475,000. With nearly 122,000 votes as of 7 a.m. Friday morning, Trump has already won more votes in Philadelphia than he had in 2016. While Biden could wind up besting Clinton’s vote total in the city once the counting is done, he hasn’t yet, and there’s no guarantee he will. What that means is that Biden’s strengthening position in Pennsylvania isn’t powered by Philadelphia; while the timing of vote counting — dictated by the state’s Republican legislators — has put Philadelphia in the position to potentially put Biden ahead of Trump, Biden’s strong performance relative to Clinton is actually driven by other parts of the state.
First, consider York County, a GOP stronghold in south-central Pennsylvania. In 2016, Trump bested Clinton by about 60,000 votes in the county. As of this morning, though, Trump was winning York by just under 58,000, and that margin may narrow further with provisional ballots.
Or better yet, consider Montgomery County, home to the Main Line suburbs just outside Philadelphia. In 2016, Montgomery gave Clinton a net of over 93,000 votes over Trump. But as of this Friday morning, the county’s vote stood to give Biden at least 130,000 over Trump. Mitch McConnell said that the election showed GOP weakness in the suburbs. And he was right.
So Democrats’ improving fortunes aren’t driven by Philadelphia but by other parts of the state. These facts are especially key in light of the allegations that “bad things happen in Philadelphia,” a claim Trump made in the first presidential debate, weeks before the vote counting began. So when GOP senators, including Lindsey Graham and Ted Cruz, baselessly allege that there are improprieties in Philadelphia’s vote count, they are undermining the election’s integrity in service of a factless narrative.
In 2016, one straightforward way to see the legitimacy of Trump’s victory in Pennsylvania was to observe that similar trends were afoot across demographically similar counties here and elsewhere. In 2016, for instance, many upstate New York counties showed the same pro-GOP shift that put Trump over the top here in Pennsylvania. The same is true today. In tilting slightly Democratic relative to 2016, with suburb-powered shifts, Pennsylvania is tracking with broader national trends. And like 2016, I see no reason to question the legitimacy of the count.
Micah Cohen Nov. 6, 8:02 am
An update on Georgia from our colleagues at ABC News. Biden’s lead still stands at +1,096 votes. But Gabriel Sterling, the statewide voting systems implementation manager, joined “Good Morning America” and said that there were at least 8,197 votes still outstanding. This includes at least 4,800 ballots from Gwinnett County, which has trended blue and is likely to add to Biden’s margin.
But note, that figure does not include provisional ballots, potential absentee ballot cures or military and overseas ballots. The deadline to verify provisional ballots/cure absentee ballots is today, as is the deadline for military/overseas ballots to be returned, as long as they were postmarked by Election Day. (Sterling said the maximum number of military/overseas ballots that could come in is 8,899.)
“When we know the outcome of this election, we’re going to have an audit afterwards and we have a very good likelihood that it’s going to be within a half of a percentage,” Sterling said. “Under our laws, whoever comes in second in this election [in Georgia], they can request a recount.”
Clare Malone Nov. 6, 8:19 am
Happy Friday, dear readers. In a different kind of election news, the U.S. Office of Special Counsel is apparently opening an investigation into whether the Trump campaign violated the Hatch Act by using federal property for campaign events, including the use of the Old Executive Office Building as a campaign command center of sorts.
RSH Take: Heh, how soon they turn on the losers! Before this is over, Trump will likely be facing all kinds of Federal criminal investigations. Nothing would make me happier than to see Trump frog-marched into the same Federal prison I was in. LOL
Posted by: Richard Steven Hack | Nov 6 2020 13:42 utc | 278
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