US Election - 2024

[mdgv2]

I’m sure these was an accepted ballot in Scotland, where they’d written “wank” against all but one name, where they’d written “good guy”.

A reference to Chewin’ The Fat, a criminally under recognised sketch show. But also? A clear expression of preference.

theconversation.com/explainer-how-britain-counts-its-votes-41265\

And the video -https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z_UGD7AazMI

[herzlos]

A few cases of various phallic interpretations to determine if it's a vote for or against too. One of the few things that makes British politics amusing if you haven't quite grown up!



Trump is already ramping up the election fraud rhetoric, priming folk for another steal should he lose. I can sadly only see this getting messy.

edition.cnn.com/2024/11/01/politics/trump-poison-trust-election-analysis/index.html?iid=cnn_buildContentRecirc_end_recirc

What's interesting there is this snippet:

Just 30% of registered voters think Trump would accept the results of the election and concede if he loses, while 73% say that Harris would accept an election loss.

I'm surprised as many as 30% of voters think Trump would accept the result, and curious about the  27% who think Harris wouldn't, given there's absolutely no indication that she wouldn't. I'm guessing it's just the accusation-admission thing again and that some now think denying the results is a valid election tactic.


I don't think Trump is physically capable of accepting an election loss. He still can't admit he lost last time.

[A Town Called Malus]

Nov 1, 2024 8:33:55 GMT -5 herzlos said:

I'm surprised as many as 30% of voters think Trump would accept the result, and curious about the  27% who think Harris wouldn't, given there's absolutely no indication that she wouldn't. I'm guessing it's just the accusation-admission thing again and that some now think denying the results is a valid election tactic.


I don't think Trump is physically capable of accepting an election loss. He still can't admit he lost last time.

They probably still believe that Hillary didn't concede to Trump. She did, but the right-wing press downplayed or ignored that.

[herzlos]

I didn't even realize Hilary's concession was up for debate.

[adurot]

Well you see she talked about Russian interference in the US election, which is the same thing as denying the results and inciting a mob to storm the capital. It’s actually probably worse than that actually. How is she not in jail yet? A clear example of the Deep State protecting her I ever saw one.

[Disciple of Fate]

Same projecting about the garbage comments.

[easye]

Not sure if Biden's comments matter, after all; he isn't running again.

However, it does serve to drown out Harris' closing arguments. 

Trump manages to keep in the spotlight with stuff like this too.  Just flooding the zone with shit and taking up all the media oxygen day-after-day: 

www.cnn.com/2024/11/01/politics/donald-trump-liz-cheney-war-hawk-battle/index.html

Trump says ‘war hawk’ Liz Cheney should be fired upon in escalation of violent rhetoric against his opponents

[herzlos]

Is it legal to incite violence towards an ex Politician like Cheney? I assumed it wasn't, but I guest the 1st Ammendment counts it as free speech until someone actually shoots her?

[Peregrine]

Nov 1, 2024 8:15:00 GMT -5 Haighus said:

Very few ballots were rejected for reasons of ambiguous marking (574 with no official mark). There were over 32 million ballots cast at polling stations that election. About 0.002%, which would essentially never meaningfully change the outcome of an election.

You say that but Florida came down to a ~500 vote margin out of almost 6 million total.

And yes, it was a flawed system (but done for valid reasons). After 2000 it was quickly abandoned and replaced by less error prone alternatives.

Nov 1, 2024 13:07:22 GMT -5 herzlos said:

Is it legal to incite violence towards an ex Politician like Cheney? I assumed it wasn't, but I guest the 1st Ammendment counts it as free speech until someone actually shoots her?

Legally the standard for an illegal threat/incitement is extremely strict. There has to be a specific plausible threat made, not merely a rhetorical device, exaggeration for shock value, etc. And while Trump's comments are arguably tasteless and inappropriate they almost certainly fall short of that standard even without considering Trump's de facto immunity to prosecution. And the first amendment very clearly protects speech which is merely objectionable or offensive.

[Haighus]

Nov 1, 2024 13:12:13 GMT -5 Peregrine said:

Nov 1, 2024 8:15:00 GMT -5 Haighus said:

Very few ballots were rejected for reasons of ambiguous marking (574 with no official mark). There were over 32 million ballots cast at polling stations that election. About 0.002%, which would essentially never meaningfully change the outcome of an election.

You say that but Florida came down to a ~500 vote margin out of almost 6 million total.

And yes, it was a flawed system (but done for valid reasons). After 2000 it was quickly abandoned and replaced by less error prone alternatives.

Sorry, I should've been clearer, would never meaningfully affect the outcome in the UK when distributed around the country. That is less than one ambiguous ballot per constituency.

Also, at a basic level, the method made the problem at least fivefold bigger if less than 6 million votes had equivalent ambiguous ballots to 32 million votes. Also, the actual number of ambiguous ballots was probably considerably higher than ~500 given more-or-less everyone thought the 9000 votes being recounted would comfortably take Gore over that number. That isn't even getting into the issue where ~500 votes in one small region can swing the outcome of a nation of 300 million against the popular vote.

Honestly, why change the basic voting method of a paper ballot marked with a pencil? I presume the answer is something to do with insufficient staff to process the ballots given the one hand recount last presidential election took something crazy like a month to do.

[A Town Called Malus]

Nov 1, 2024 16:31:46 GMT -5 Haighus said:

Nov 1, 2024 13:12:13 GMT -5 Peregrine said:

You say that but Florida came down to a ~500 vote margin out of almost 6 million total.

And yes, it was a flawed system (but done for valid reasons). After 2000 it was quickly abandoned and replaced by less error prone alternatives.

Sorry, I should've been clearer, would never meaningfully affect the outcome in the UK when distributed around the country. That is less than one ambiguous ballot per constituency.

Also, at a basic level, the method made the problem at least fivefold bigger if less than 6 million votes had equivalent ambiguous ballots to 32 million votes. Also, the actual number of ambiguous ballots was probably considerably higher than ~500 given more-or-less everyone thought the 9000 votes being recounted would comfortably take Gore over that number. That isn't even getting into the issue where ~500 votes in one small region can swing the outcome of a nation of 300 million against the popular vote.

Honestly, why change the basic voting method of a paper ballot marked with a pencil? I presume the answer is something to do with insufficient staff to process the ballots given the one hand recount last presidential election took something crazy like a month to do.

Which could be alleviated by having more polling and counting stations. But one party in America is opposed to that, and prefers to have single polling stations serving populations of tens of thousands.

[adurot]

Nov 1, 2024 16:46:10 GMT -5 A Town Called Malus said:

Nov 1, 2024 16:31:46 GMT -5 Haighus said:

Sorry, I should've been clearer, would never meaningfully affect the outcome in the UK when distributed around the country. That is less than one ambiguous ballot per constituency.

Also, at a basic level, the method made the problem at least fivefold bigger if less than 6 million votes had equivalent ambiguous ballots to 32 million votes. Also, the actual number of ambiguous ballots was probably considerably higher than ~500 given more-or-less everyone thought the 9000 votes being recounted would comfortably take Gore over that number. That isn't even getting into the issue where ~500 votes in one small region can swing the outcome of a nation of 300 million against the popular vote.

Honestly, why change the basic voting method of a paper ballot marked with a pencil? I presume the answer is something to do with insufficient staff to process the ballots given the one hand recount last presidential election took something crazy like a month to do.

Which could be alleviated by having more polling and counting stations. But one party in America is opposed to that, and prefers to have single polling stations serving populations of tens of thousands.

And that need to be counted by hand. Thank god the court threw that bit out.

[A Town Called Malus]

Interesting latest tactic from Trump campaign, simulating a handjob and blowjob on a microphone stand.

[mdgv2]

I still cant get my head around just how deeply in danger US Democracy is right now.

I mean, the world has largely survived Moron Presidents. But they at least didn’t have such an obvious view of wanting to dismantle democracy.

[dabbler]

Nov 3, 2024 9:18:25 GMT -5 mdgv2 said:

I still cant get my head around just how deeply in danger US Democracy is right now.

I mean, the world has largely survived Moron Presidents. But they at least didn’t have such an obvious view of wanting to dismantle democracy.

This time next year we could be basically down a country too (Ukraine). If he wins, the world is going to drastically shift for the worst. And there'll still be left wingers in the US who will say "well at least I didn't vote Dem, I'd have felt bad about their approach towards Israel"