Election integrity and the transfer of power

[Jaymann]

"I believe in Donald Trump," Pennacchio said

One envisions his nose getting longer every time he speaks.

By that standard Trump would be sniffing the International Space Station.

[abr]

People show up at 2AM to get their license renewed in nj. We really need to get our shit together.

My daughter had to do that. They camped out in Randolph at like 3am to get a bracelet, and they were already like 30th in line. When they finally got in at 930 or 1000, her friend that was with her didn’t have enough documentation and almost lost his shit. His mom was with them luckily and had some information in her purse that allowed her to sign something to vouch for his identity and address and he got his license.

Some other guy was waiting with them for the 6 or 7 hours, and when it was his turn they politely informed him that the Randolph NJMVC wasn’t performing that particular service that he needed at the moment.

I would lose my mind.

As your avatar indicates.

[LawBeefaroni]

"I believe in Donald Trump," Pennacchio said

One envisions his nose getting longer every time he speaks.

[Carpet_pissr]

I passed a house today that had a huge banner hanging from his garage that said TRUMP 2020: NO MORE BULLSHIT!

And for the life of me I can't figure it out. Hasn't the last 4 years been nothing BUT bullshit? What bullshit is he talking about? I'm having trouble even understanding it from a Trump supporter's perspective.

My take: It's the same thing I have been suggesting for a while now. I suspect a lot of it is simply the WAY Trump talks. Plain. Simple. Few words, easy words. Bad words, when warranted. Stuff like this, saying the quiet parts out loud (bolding is mine for emphasis):

""Would you like a nice low-income housing project next to your suburban beautiful ranch style house? Generally speaking, no," Trump said in Muskegon. "I saved your suburbs -- women -- suburban women, you're supposed to love Trump," he said."

FANTASTIC comment in response to his "suburban housewives" series (although it remains VERY clear to me personally):
"It remains unclear if the President simply does not understand how those attacks on women could backfire at a time when millions of female voters are deciding whether to give him a second chance, or whether he simply can't resist engaging in those tactics because they rev up his crowds."


More greatest hits from the "suburban housewives" theme:

“So can I just ask you to do me a favor: suburban women, will you please like me?” Trump told the crowd in Johnstown, Pa. “I saved your damned neighborhood, OK?”
"“Remember this, 29 percent of the people experiencing the American dream in the suburbs happen to be minority and you don’t know that, but 29 percent,” Trump said. “We’re doing this for everybody.”
"The “suburban housewife” will be voting for me. They want safety & are thrilled that I ended the long running program where low income housing would invade their neighborhood. Biden would reinstall it, in a bigger form, with Corey Booker in charge!"

Unrelated, but equally as nauseating:
"At one point, he described his joy in watching law enforcement authorities move in on crowds to prevent violence in Minneapolis after the protests against racial injustice. "I don't know, there's something about that — when you watch everybody getting pushed around — there's something very beautiful about it. I don't care what I'm doing. Not politically correct ... But you people get it."

[Skinypupy]

Dropped off our ballots this morning. That felt good.

Let the tracking process begin.

[LordMortis]

"America. Where we keep the poors in their place. It's got nothing to do with bigotry. We just want to keep taking more of the pie. We only use bigots but we like you. We'd never use you. Vote Trump."

[Isgrimnur]

Vote cast. The death of straight-ticket voting means I had to risk carpal tunnel syndrome to bubble in all the Dem candidates. Despite at least one election being done by computer, this one has gone back to paper. No way to track it, but it is scanned as received by the computer before you depart.

I did one write-in vote for Freyja Odinsdottir for county sheriff. I'll be interested to see how that "race" turns out.

Tuesday, the lines were out the door. Voting today was open 11-4. I showed up at 2, and only had to wait because a couple entered immediately before me.

[Jaymann]

Here is a Washington DC prosecutor explaining why Trump will fail in his attempts to use the legal system to steal the election. It's a little long winded, but very thorough. You can get the gist fairly quickly.

[Alefroth]

The gist seems to be Trump loses all of his cases. He doesn't need to win to use the courts to his advantage, though.

[LawBeefaroni]

Vote cast. The death of straight-ticket voting means I had to risk carpal tunnel syndrome to bubble in all the Dem candidates.

Here there are so many unopposed elections that you can just skip they have to make it up to the orthopedic surgeons with dozens of yes/no retention votes on judges.

[malchior]

NY Times

This month, a federal judge struck down a decree from Gov. Greg Abbott of Texas limiting each county in the state to a single drop box to handle the surge in absentee ballots this election season, rejecting Mr. Abbott’s argument that the limit was necessary to combat fraud.

Days later, an appellate panel of three judges appointed by President Trump froze the lower court order, keeping Mr. Abbott’s new policy in place — meaning Harris County, with more than two million voters, and Wheeler County, with well under 4,000, would both be allowed only one drop box for voters who want to hand-deliver their absentee ballots and avoid reliance on the Postal Service.

The Texas case is one of at least eight major election disputes around the country in which Federal District Court judges sided with civil rights groups and Democrats in voting cases only to be stayed by the federal appeals courts, whose ranks Mr. Trump has done more to populate than any president in more than 40 years.

The rulings highlight how Mr. Trump’s drive to fill empty judgeships is yielding benefits to his re-election campaign even before any major dispute about the outcome may make it to the Supreme Court. He made clear the political advantages he derives from his power to appoint judges when he explained last month that he was moving fast to name a successor to Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg so the Supreme Court would have a full contingent to handle any election challenges, which he has indicated he might bring in the event of a loss.

In appointing dozens of reliable conservatives to the appellate bench, Mr. Trump has made it more likely that appeals come before judges with legal philosophies sympathetic to Republicans on issues including voting rights. The trend has left Democrats and civil rights lawyers increasingly concerned that they face another major impediment to their efforts to assure that as many people as possible can vote in the middle of a pandemic — and in the face of a campaign by Republicans to limit voting.

[malchior]

NY Times

Progressive activists who want Democrats to expand the Supreme Court and pack it with additional liberal justices are mustering a new argument: Republican-appointed jurists, they say, keep using their power to make it harder for Americans to vote.

Backed by a new study of how federal judges and justices have ruled in election-related cases this year, the activists are building on their case for why mainstream Democrats should see their idea as a justified way to restore and protect democracy, rather than as a radical and destabilizing escalation of partisan warfare over the judiciary.

The study, the “Anti-Democracy Scorecard,” was commissioned by the group Take Back the Court, which supports expanding the judiciary. It identified 309 votes by judges and justices in 175 election-related decisions and found a partisan pattern: Republican appointees interpreted the law in a way that impeded ballot access 80 percent of the time, versus 37 percent for Democratic ones.

The numbers were even more stark when limited to judges appointed by President Trump, who has had tremendous success at rapidly reshaping the judiciary. Of 60 rulings in election-related cases, 85 percent were “anti-democracy” according to the analysis.

“There is a systematic pattern of Republican-appointed judges and justices tipping the scales in favor of the G.O.P. by making voting harder,” said Aaron Belkin, a political-science professor and the director of Take Back the Court.

Edward Whelan, president of the conservative Ethics and Public Policy Center, questioned the value of reducing judicial decisions to statistics. Noting that many of the cases this year come from the aberrational circumstances of the pandemic — litigants are trying to get judges to relax local restrictions in light of the need for social distancing — he argued that showing deference to established rules does not necessarily mean hostility to voting.

[Paingod]

I passed a house today that had a huge banner hanging from his garage that said TRUMP 2020: NO MORE BULLSHIT!

And for the life of me I can't figure it out. Hasn't the last 4 years been nothing BUT bullshit? What bullshit is he talking about? I'm having trouble even understanding it from a Trump supporter's perspective.

I know I'm late to the party on this one, but I've seen some similar things and it's really baffling - like these people are almost pretending he hasn't been running the country for the last 4 years, and it's time for him to finally step in and clean house.

I'm like Really?

[LordMortis]

I think what they are trying to say is that Trump and his MAGA legislators are sick of democrat obstruction and it's going to stop with his re-election. IE "We want a single federal level autocrat that we can blindly follow. Consider this a threat and beacon that I can legally put on my lawn."

[Scraper]

I passed a house today that had a huge banner hanging from his garage that said TRUMP 2020: NO MORE BULLSHIT!

And for the life of me I can't figure it out. Hasn't the last 4 years been nothing BUT bullshit? What bullshit is he talking about? I'm having trouble even understanding it from a Trump supporter's perspective.

I know I'm late to the party on this one, but I've seen some similar things and it's really baffling - like these people are almost pretending he hasn't been running the country for the last 4 years, and it's time for him to finally step in and clean house.

I'm like Really?

I pass several of those flags every day and I know people who think it's a valid political opinion. What it means to them is that Trump isn't putting up with liberal ideas and movements. Some examples, Black Lives Matters protests, kneeling for the flag, Defund the Police, LGBTQ rights, girls in the boy scouts, welfare, they see all of this as Bullshit. So it has a very broad meaning, but essentially it is any liberal idea that they don't agree with.

[coopasonic]

I did one write-in vote for Freyja Odinsdottir for county sheriff. I'll be interested to see how that "race" turns out.

Well now I know she'll have TWO votes. Going some time this week, when the wife is ready, whatever that means

[coopasonic]

If you haven't seen it, this is a really cool site. It allows you to see on a state by state level how many people have voted and the % of the 2016 vote total that would account for. SC is doing pretty well at almost 20% of the 2016 totals already having voted. Hopefully this pace keeps up or at least only slightly slows down.

That's kind of nuts. It is saying Texas has 29% of the 2016 election turnout already. Early voting started 3 days ago (and 80% of the votes so far are in person).

45% of the 2016 turnout in Texas now. Apparently leading the nation. I wonder if that means we just didn't bother in 2016.

The voting age population was 19,307,355, of which 15,101,087 were registered to vote. Turnout was 8,969,226, which is 46.45% of the voting age population and 59.39% of registered voters.

Overall turnout was 55.5% per wikipedia so yeah Texas just stayed home in 2016 I guess.

[Unagi]

If you haven't seen it, this is a really cool site. It allows you to see on a state by state level how many people have voted and the % of the 2016 vote total that would account for. SC is doing pretty well at almost 20% of the 2016 totals already having voted. Hopefully this pace keeps up or at least only slightly slows down.

That's kind of nuts. It is saying Texas has 29% of the 2016 election turnout already. Early voting started 3 days ago (and 80% of the votes so far are in person).

45% of the 2016 turnout in Texas now. Apparently leading the nation. I wonder if that means we just didn't bother in 2016.

The voting age population was 19,307,355, of which 15,101,087 were registered to vote. Turnout was 8,969,226, which is 46.45% of the voting age population and 59.39% of registered voters.

Overall turnout was 55.5% per wikipedia so yeah Texas just stayed home in 2016 I guess.

Is there any implication that this is a Dem wave happening there?

[LawBeefaroni]

Going some time this week, when the wife is ready, whatever that means

Don't know what it means either but I know the feeling. I have a mail-in ballot and the wife asked me to fill it out before she took hers to the drop box. I just wasn't ready to tackle it. No idea why, I know my votes, just not ready.

[Isgrimnur]

Because then comes the waiting. Two weeks of knowing you participated without any ability to check on the outcome. You then have as much impact on things going forward as a chihuahua in the back seat of an SUV barking at cars going the other direction.

[LawBeefaroni]

Because then comes the waiting. Two weeks of knowing you participated without any ability to check on the outcome. You then have as much impact on things going forward as a chihuahua in the back seat of an SUV barking at cars going the other direction.

I live in Cook County. My November vote has never mattered.

[$iljanus]

The Commonwealth of MA has registered my ballot as accepted after checking online. It took 10 days from dropping it off. Efficient democracy for the win!

[Isgrimnur]

Because then comes the waiting. Two weeks of knowing you participated without any ability to check on the outcome. You then have as much impact on things going forward as a chihuahua in the back seat of an SUV barking at cars going the other direction.

I live in Cook County. My November vote has never mattered.

tips cowboy hat

[geezer]

If you haven't seen it, this is a really cool site. It allows you to see on a state by state level how many people have voted and the % of the 2016 vote total that would account for. SC is doing pretty well at almost 20% of the 2016 totals already having voted. Hopefully this pace keeps up or at least only slightly slows down.

That's kind of nuts. It is saying Texas has 29% of the 2016 election turnout already. Early voting started 3 days ago (and 80% of the votes so far are in person).

45% of the 2016 turnout in Texas now. Apparently leading the nation. I wonder if that means we just didn't bother in 2016.

The voting age population was 19,307,355, of which 15,101,087 were registered to vote. Turnout was 8,969,226, which is 46.45% of the voting age population and 59.39% of registered voters.

Overall turnout was 55.5% per wikipedia so yeah Texas just stayed home in 2016 I guess.

Is there any implication that this is a Dem wave happening there?

Maybe. In Travis County (Austin - pretty big D lean), voter registration is at record levels, and early voting is trending way ahead of 2016. I believe the same is true to some extent in Harris County (Houston) which is also surprisingly liberal, at least in its core. At a minimum, Dem enthusiasm is running very high and translating to actual votes.

https://www.statesman.com/news/20201016 ... clerk-says

[Skinypupy]

Some asshole shoves burning newspapers into a ballot box.

[Paingod]

Hey there 2020. I'm glad you're still going strong.

[msteelers]

Wife and I dropped off our ballots earlier today. It’s the first time she’s voted.

Today was the first day of early voting in Florida. I wouldn’t say the voting location was packed, but there wasn’t any parking. Luckily there was a box setup outside where I was able to drop off our ballots.

[malchior]

Tonight SCOTUS handed down an order that did not grant a stay on a PA Supreme Court ruling on mail-in ballots. There was a bit of a shock wave though because the order came with a warning. The 4 Conservative judges would have granted the stay and effectively overrule the PA Supreme Court on a question of Pennsylvania only election law. It would effectively be for the entirety of the election by the time it was reviewed. And Barrett is seen as the tie breaker there.

Edit: I've seen some chatter - of unknown quality - that they've essentially kettled a bunch of voters in PA. Those voters may rely on this ruling to see Barrett show up to throw out their ballots later on. I guess it's possible but it's so radical that I don't think it is worth worrying about. It'd have potentially drastic consequences. In the end though it indicates that there may be more risk in the court system than we might think there is.

https://twitter.com/MaxKennerly/status/ ... 4763688960

[El Guapo]

It seems *unlikely* that SCOTUS would hand down a ruling in late November / early December disqualifying PA voters whose ballots were received after Nov. 3rd in a situation where that would change who won PA and thereby who won the election, BUT I wish I had more faith that they wouldn't do that.

It is, however, one more reason why Democrats need to urge voters to vote ASAP, especially if they are going to vote by mail.

It's also another reason why Democrats really need to fight for the courts the way that the GOP has for decades, though I am skeptical that they actually will.

[malchior]

It's also another reason why Democrats really need to fight for the courts the way that the GOP has for decades, though I am skeptical that they actually will.

Yes - especially in light of the many shoddy decisions we're seeing from seemingly politicized appellate level electoral decisions. This is a smoldering fire at the moment but ignored it might burn the whole place down.

[El Guapo]

It's also another reason why Democrats really need to fight for the courts the way that the GOP has for decades, though I am skeptical that they actually will.

Yes - especially in light of the many shoddy decisions we're seeing from seemingly politicized appellate level electoral decisions. This is a smoldering fire at the moment but ignored it might burn the whole place down.

This is where the Senate elections could matter a lot. If Biden wins but we wind up with a 50-50 Senate (with Harris tie-breaker), then there's almost no chance of getting adequate court reforms in place before 2022 unless the SCOTUS issues an early and unfathomly partisan decision (could happen if they like strike down the whole ACA and Roe v. Wade or something).

If Democrats run the table in remotely competitive races and we wind up with like a 56-44 or 57-43 Senate, a lot more options open up. Though I'm still skeptical that Biden will push a sufficiently aggressive plan - but we'll see.

[Jaymann]

It's also another reason why Democrats really need to fight for the courts the way that the GOP has for decades, though I am skeptical that they actually will.

Yes - especially in light of the many shoddy decisions we're seeing from seemingly politicized appellate level electoral decisions. This is a smoldering fire at the moment but ignored it might burn the whole place down.

This is where the Senate elections could matter a lot. If Biden wins but we wind up with a 50-50 Senate (with Harris tie-breaker), then there's almost no chance of getting adequate court reforms in place before 2022 unless the SCOTUS issues an early and unfathomly partisan decision (could happen if they like strike down the whole ACA and Roe v. Wade or something).

If Democrats run the table in remotely competitive races and we wind up with like a 56-44 or 57-43 Senate, a lot more options open up. Though I'm still skeptical that Biden will push a sufficiently aggressive plan - but we'll see.

Good thing Hunter the Puppet Master will actually be in control.

[El Guapo]

It's also another reason why Democrats really need to fight for the courts the way that the GOP has for decades, though I am skeptical that they actually will.

Yes - especially in light of the many shoddy decisions we're seeing from seemingly politicized appellate level electoral decisions. This is a smoldering fire at the moment but ignored it might burn the whole place down.

This is where the Senate elections could matter a lot. If Biden wins but we wind up with a 50-50 Senate (with Harris tie-breaker), then there's almost no chance of getting adequate court reforms in place before 2022 unless the SCOTUS issues an early and unfathomly partisan decision (could happen if they like strike down the whole ACA and Roe v. Wade or something).

If Democrats run the table in remotely competitive races and we wind up with like a 56-44 or 57-43 Senate, a lot more options open up. Though I'm still skeptical that Biden will push a sufficiently aggressive plan - but we'll see.

Good thing Hunter the Puppet Master will actually be in control.

No, I have it on good authority that AOC will be issuing all the secret instructions to Biden. Probably along with Ilhan Omar.

[malchior]

No, I have it on good authority that AOC will be issuing all the secret instructions to Biden. Probably along with Ilhan Omar.

I'll only accept this new order if they issue commands signed 'By authority of the S.Q.U.A.D.'

[Smoove_B]

Edit: I've seen some chatter - of unknown quality - that they've essentially kettled a bunch of voters in PA. Those voters may rely on this ruling to see Barrett show up to throw out their ballots later on. I guess it's possible but it's so radical that I don't think it is worth worrying about. It'd have potentially drastic consequences. In the end though it indicates that there may be more risk in the court system than we might think there is.

When I read the initial take, I was surprised it wasn't making more news. So I thought maybe I misunderstood the implications, but after reading what smarter people have written, no I had it correct. This seems like a point where democracy hit the guardrails and bounced back, but the next swerve will send us over the cliff.

I don't know how a (presumptive) Biden administration is going to deal with everything - the pandemic, unwinding capricious Trump regulations, addressing the issues with the judiciary, Congress, etc... but this really feels like we're at a precipice.

[malchior]

When I read the initial take, I was surprised it wasn't making more news. So I thought maybe I misunderstood the implications, but after reading what smarter people have written, no I had it correct. This seems like a point where democracy hit the guardrails and bounced back, but the next swerve will send us over the cliff.

Yeah we were one SCOTUS vote from endorsement of disenfranchisement efforts we have been seeing at the appellate level. It is not hard to see a few years down the line where disenfranchisement is even more openly happening -- and its pretty obvious right now -- and the GOP-aligned appellate courts and SCOTUS shrugging, "It's a political problem. Nothing we can do about it. Too bad your political system can't do anything about it either."

I don't know how a (presumptive) Biden administration is going to deal with everything - the pandemic, unwinding capricious Trump regulations, addressing the issues with the judiciary, Congress, etc... but this really feels like we're at a precipice.

We're in the abyss. We're just so far down in the dark that we can't put this in perspective anymore. Every day we see activity that would have been a major career ending scandal only 8 years ago. Every day. The President has certainly committed actual crimes that his subordinates went to prison for and directly implicated him in. He has championed a course of action that killed a quarter million people so far this year. Even if he goes we are in deep, deep trouble. So much damage has been done. We need to recognize how bad it actually is and start to chart a path to climb out.

[Smoove_B]

It really is mind boggling that McConnell has been sitting on all kinds of legislation - including voting rights and relief aid for months, but he's moving like greased lightning to get Barrett through. And people from all different political stripes are saying it's wrong, and yet he's pressing on unaffected. Nothing else seemingly matters right now - not the election, not people unable to pay bills, not COVID. Everything is about the SCotUS, and I think that's telling.

But there's nothing that can be done about it either. So yeah, I guess we are in the abyss. But the NFL is playing multiple games a week so I guess I should be thankful.

EDIT: And yes, I'm convinced that 30 seconds after it's clear Biden has this election secured, the existing GOP will immediately pivot to complaining about how Democrats ruined the economy over the last year and that they want to raise taxes to pay for the pandemic.

[LordMortis]

The only mind boggling thing to me is that he keeps getting re-elected and all signs point to him getting re-elected this time too. I really should have sent money from out of state to Amy McGrath, however that's done.

[Daehawk]

I voted today. The first time I passed by the voting place to look for a line. Didn't see one but I also didn't see a parking spot for over 2 blocks. So I went and did my other rounds and came back. Got to park right in front. The line was all inside. Down the hall then wrapped back around. I got there at 11am and was done at 11:16am.

[El Guapo]

So much of the rot in American government is attributable to the anti-democratic character of the Senate and (to a lesser degree) the electoral college. If we can fix that, then McConnell's shit won't work nearly as well.

But part of the problem is that we can alleviate the Senate issues somewhat by admitting DC and PR, but beyond that it gets pretty difficult.