The 2020 Presidential General Election thread

Georgia vote discrepancies reconciled on last day of recount


Election officials corrected vote counting mistakes and explained an allegation by the Republican Party about miscounted DeKalb County ballots on Wednesday, the final day of Georgia’s manual recount.

The latest unofficial count puts Joe Biden 12,781 votes ahead of President Donald Trump, who gained over 1,000 votes this week that county election officials initially failed to count.

There’s no indication of broader problems beyond three counties that didn’t load all votes from memory cards and one county that didn’t rescan all ballots after an optical scanner was replaced because of a technical issue, said Gabriel Sterling, Georgia’s voting system manager.

Three of the four counties that had issues are Republican-leaning politically.

When the recount and audit exposed issues, election workers fixed them before results are finalized, Sterling said.

It still surprises me that 73-74 million voted for Trump despite everything he has said and done the last four years.

Do we have that many people living in a FOX/Breitbart/OAN news bubble? What percent of those are voting for him because they approve of the explicit racism? Maybe the majority of those are just folks who automatically vote Republican no matter what.

That’s what I’m hoping at least. The alternatives are disturbing to think about.

For the ones I observe, it's the news bubble. One of them told me she doesn't even watch the news anymore because it's so full of lies. Not bothering to ask her how she knows it's full of lies if she doesn't watch it, I asked her where she got her information. She said "Facebook and YouTube." IOW, things her friends send her from the Bubble.

Another one insists the Proud Boys are just a bunch of clean-cut kids who like to camp out in the woods. Sort of like Boy Scouts, only with no adult supervision. How does she know "the msm" is lying about them? Because she knows one - one member - and "he's a great kid."

Oh, but BLM and Antifa are the spawn of Satan and should be in prison.

To remind you of one of the central truths of existence: people are stupid.

Yes, as shown by the fact that Ayn Rand's books are still in print, widely read and influence a lot of people.

President Donald J. Trump called Monica Palmer, one of two Republican members of the four-member Wayne County canvassing board, on Tuesday night.

Let me repeat that:

President Donald J. Trump called Monica Palmer, one of two Republican members of the four-member Wayne County canvassing board, on Tuesday night.

The Michigan Wayne County canvassing board is responsible for certifying the results of the presidential election.

On Wednesday, Ms. Palmer and the other GOP canvasser asked to rescind their certification votes.

Seriously. Let that sink in for a moment.

In any other democracy, this would immediately be construed as election interference and the offending politician would either be charged criminally or forced to resign.

But this is America.

Nothing to see here, folks.

Move along.

Posted this in the Kicking and Screaming thread as well:

Look one post above you.

When all is said and done, and the Democrats hopefully get control of the Senate, Congress needs to pass a "Trump Law" that basically prevents any of this stupid shit from ever happening again.

The sad thing is, Trump could run again in '24 and have a very good chance of winning.

America!

The irony is that the very thing that made a Trump presidency possible was the denial of the "establishment" that it could happen along with the insatiable appetite of the American public for something "new, different and exciting". No one is going to be caught unawares this time and the novelty of Trump will be old hat. Does that mean it can't happen again? Nope, but it will be a much harder climb. There's also the very real possibility (likeliehood) that his obesity, horrible diet and general bad health practices may take care of that possibility ahead of time. However that does remind me of what Groucho Marx said "The good ones die young. The schlemiels live forever."

The trouble is twofold.

I am not even sure what a potential law would say that would have a decent chance at spelling out all the various ways that someone determined to interfere could do so. But more to the point, some of what Trump did could very well run afoul of existing law.

Which leads to the second problem: willingness to enforce the law. The prevailing thinking is that a president cannot be prosecuted while he's in office. Thus, even if the most bulletproof laws were in place, a future president could still blatantly do these sorts of things and only face the political consequences as opposed to criminal consequences. And if doing these things keeps him in power, well...

Even if Trump personally is a longshot to run again, he has put together a playbook for someone to follow in his footsteps who would actually be a little smoother, a little more concerned about policy and appearances. It might be Ivanka, Don Jr. or Jared who is actually related to Trunp, or it might be one of the many Republicans who sucked up to him.

I doubt Don Jr. can find the men's room without help. As for Javanka, they'll end up on the boards of Goya Foods and several Big Pharma companies. They're all political nonstarters. Look what the fear of a Bush dynasty did to Jeb.

There aren't enough facepalms on the entire internet for the abysmal stupidity that represents...

I don't think Don Sr. is any smarter than Don Jr.

As for Jeb, I don't think it was fear of a Bush dynasty. I think it was wrong place, wrong time (plus his own low-key nature). Had Jeb been running against a field of conventional Republicans, he probably would have done well, maybe even won the nomination. In 2024, he'll be about 70. I tend to doubt that he'll run again, but crazier things have happened.

The media are calling Georgia for Trump. Sucks for him that the asshole spread so many lies about absentee/mail-in balloting that the Faithful who supported him in the primary ran away or he might have picked up an extra 10K votes. Regardless, he still would have lost.

Let the weeping and gnashing of teeth begin...

AP called it for Biden based on the hand-audit (essentially a recount by hand - a normal recount would be by machine) revealed nothing interesting beyond the previously-reported human error.

That's nice, Mitt.

Now as a United States senator, do something about it.

Er...

At this rate Trump will have Giuliani include a link to this thread on his next lawsuit...

Jeb would have no chance regardless of whether or not Trump ran. Since leaving public life in 2006, the Republican base has moved much further to the right and will never vote for a candidate who supports amnesty for illegal immigrants or who backed common core. His political career is finished.

I have a friend like this too. I keep trying to pierce the bubble but there doesn't seem to be any penetrating it. No matter how nonsensical the claim or how solid my response. It's like they want to live in a fantastical world.

They are willing fascists now, T.R. The overwhelming majority of the party has shown they are willing to back the subversion of our democracy, as long as they themselves get what they want out of it.

No different than the conservatives after reconstruction.

Jeb started off with a lot of money, name recognition and the backing of much of the GOP establishmennt. He lost because of some of his own flaws ("Please clap"), but those flaws were magnified and given an alternative in Donald Trump. Ted Cruz or Marco Rubio or pretty much anyone else running would not have gone after Jeb in the same way because most of them were establishment politicians or at least would not want to piss off the donor class of establishment politicians.

We have come to the point where individual policy decisions/positions (outside abortion) do very little to drive politics. Immigration is one of the few that people are passionate about, but it's certainly possible that Jeb could have moved to the right on that issue or that the base could conpromise if they liked the rest of his personality and platform.

Trump himself shows (I hope) that a lot of what Republicans claim to value or to dislike they are willing to set to the side under the right conditions.