2020 Presidential Election

[Meadmaker]

I really do think the states need to come to a consensus on the amount of days for federal election ballots to be counted.

I don't understand that whole issue. I understand having a deadline to receive ballots, but counting them? What happens if they aren't counted by the deadline? Those votes don't count? Oh, we didn't get to that pile in the corner, but the deadline is in an hour, so......burn them.

Shouldn't it be the case that the ballots are collected on or about election day, and the counting is finished whenever the counting is finished. If you have to recount, recount.

 

[acbytesla]

Well the ballot decision in PA will stay as it is. Barrett recused herself.

 

[angrysoba]

Jesus! I hope the UN or Transparency International are sending people to check that the elections are being run properly.

LOL! Of course they are not, and of course they are not.

Seriously, if these kinds of elections were being run in some country having its first democratic election after throwing off a dictator, people would be looking at this and saying, "Oh, these people don't really understand how it is supposed to work!"

 

[Aridas]

I wouldn't be surprised if some Republican-led swing states stopped counting ballots the instant Trump goes in the lead, no matter how many are left to be counted.

I would be. Not to say that it cannot happen, but much of the counting is not centralized at all and tends to be done bipartisanly, if I understand it correctly. Going further, it's highly likely that democrats, especially in the more heavily democratic areas, would not listen to any blatantly illegal orders like that and keep counting, which would quickly tip the scales solidly into a Biden lead. False reporting by the state that conflicts with the numbers that they were actually given would quickly be reported to the media, too.

 

[Meadmaker]

Well the ballot decision in PA will stay as it is. Barrett recused herself.

Ahhh....to see Trump's face.

I haven't paid close attention to the story, but I'm thinking she could have at least forced a hearing, and chose not to. I suppose I'll look up to see if my understanding is right, but it sounds like her first action on the court was to sit out of a case where Trump needed her vote.

 

[thaiboxerken]

I don't understand that whole issue. I understand having a deadline to receive ballots, but counting them? What happens if they aren't counted by the deadline? Those votes don't count? Oh, we didn't get to that pile in the corner, but the deadline is in an hour, so......burn them.

Shouldn't it be the case that the ballots are collected on or about election day, and the counting is finished whenever the counting is finished. If you have to recount, recount.

The problem is that with such a system, it's hard to retain minority rule.

 

[Skeptic Ginger]

Interesting news from SCOTUS - they denied an application to cut the counting deadline: https://www.axios.com/supreme-court...bid-559e1736-aff5-420d-97f1-fa1e8d9eb300.html

I see Kavanaugh is trying to redeem his drunken comments about the public will be upset if...

Seems to me they are essentially supporting preexisting state voting laws.

Here in WA we can count votes up to 3 weeks after the election.

 

[quadraginta]

Wait, is that the swamp Trump already drained and filled back up with his cronies?

I said four years ago (on these pages) that Trump would "drain the swamp" from the top. As in, it would overflow.

 

[Stacyhs]

Meh. I'm not so enamored with that idea. That's more because of the very wide variance in relevant local laws, equipment, and conditions, though. Something would need to be done about that, first, before I would be in favor of demanding such a consensus. Rather, I'd be more in favor of regulating media pronouncements a bit more until there's an official count/a winner has been determined.

I don't think I expressed myself very clearly; I was actually thinking of future elections, not this one. It would be wise for the states to agree on when mail-in/absentee ballots would be accepted for counting. In my own state of OR, they must have been received by the county elections office by 8 pm on election day to be counted.

 

[Skeptic Ginger]

And some even better news on polling: https://fivethirtyeight.com/feature...tle-sign-of-the-presidential-race-tightening/

tl;dr - Biden's national average lead has narrowed a little while his lead in states that matter have grown.

I'd put it down to a fair bit of voter apathy in overwhelmingly blue states.

Five more days!

Speaking as a Democrat in an always-blue state, I can guarantee you it isn't voter apathy. And I'm not sure how voter apathy translates to poll results anyway.

 

[Aridas]

I don't understand that whole issue. I understand having a deadline to receive ballots, but counting them? What happens if they aren't counted by the deadline? Those votes don't count? Oh, we didn't get to that pile in the corner, but the deadline is in an hour, so......burn them.

Shouldn't it be the case that the ballots are collected on or about election day, and the counting is finished whenever the counting is finished. If you have to recount, recount.

To poke at things, that counting should be completed as quickly and accurately as possible is generally accepted. The rub there is that the comparative weighing of the two concerns varies significantly from state to state, the specific methods used can vary locally, the relevant equipment availability and quantity can vary immensely, the rules for a recount vary...

Just to poke at an example to highlight things a bit - in 2018, Florida, recounts were done. In some counties, the system and equipment in place allowed for it to be done very quickly and supposedly accurately, especially when dealing with systems that created and saved a digital image of each vote the first time that they were fed through, allowing very fast reprocessing. In... Broward County, IIRC, they had to feed ballots through two machines by hand. One of the machines broke down completely and the other was having distinct problems. After 6 days of doing their best, day and night, to get the ballots recounted for the recount, they missed the deadline to submit the vote count by 2 minutes and had their recount numbers rejected.

There's lots that is wrong with that picture, really, but it's the system that we've got now.

Also of note - California has tended to take weeks to count votes there, for a variety of reasons. One example of the complaints that have been made is that there were lots and lots and lots of people with the same first name and last names (Joe Smith, for example) who lived in the same areas and that needed to be individually verified, which could take from a couple minutes to a half hour each.

 

[acbytesla]

I see Kavanaugh is trying to redeem his drunken comments about the public will be upset if...

Seems to me they are essentially supporting preexisting state voting laws.

Here in WA we can count votes up to 3 weeks after the election.

Yeah, that's pretty much it. It's kind of hard for them to allow State rules that allow voter suppression because the philosophy that States decide their own voting rules and then somehow overturn the rules in other states on flimsy reasons.

 

[Skeptic Ginger]

I wouldn't be surprised if some Republican-led swing states stopped counting ballots the instant Trump goes in the lead, no matter how many are left to be counted.

That would be very hard to pull off except maybe in some tiny rural towns.

 

[angrysoba]

To poke at things, that counting should be completed as quickly and accurately as possible is generally accepted. The rub there is that the comparative weighing of the two concerns varies significantly from state to state, the specific methods used can vary locally, the relevant equipment availability and quantity can vary immensely, the rules for a recount vary...

Just to poke at an example to highlight things a bit - in 2018, Florida, recounts were done. In some counties, the system and equipment in place allowed for it to be done very quickly and supposedly accurately, especially when dealing with systems that created and saved a digital image of each vote the first time that they were fed through, allowing very fast reprocessing. In... Broward County, IIRC, they had to feed ballots through two machines by hand. One of the machines broke down completely and the other was having distinct problems. After 6 days of doing their best, day and night, to get the ballots recounted for the recount, they missed the deadline to submit the vote count by 2 minutes and had their recount numbers rejected.

There's lots that is wrong with that picture, really, but it's the system that we've got now.

Also of note - California has tended to take weeks to count votes there, for a variety of reasons. One example of the complaints that have been made is that there were lots and lots and lots of people with the same first name and last names (Joe Smith, for example) who lived in the same areas and that needed to be individually verified, which could take from a couple minutes to a half hour each.

Yeah....but...shouldn't all ballots be counted?

The whole "well we have to weigh up speed and accuracy" thing...

NO! Shouldn't all ballots be counted?

 

[phiwum]

I don't understand that whole issue. I understand having a deadline to receive ballots, but counting them? What happens if they aren't counted by the deadline? Those votes don't count? Oh, we didn't get to that pile in the corner, but the deadline is in an hour, so......burn them.

Shouldn't it be the case that the ballots are collected on or about election day, and the counting is finished whenever the counting is finished. If you have to recount, recount.

There is a deadline, isn't there? It's December 8, when states must make their electors official or some such.

 

[Robin]

Yes, it would have.

Here's the part I alluded to upthread:
Kavanaugh writes. “Those States want to avoid the chaos and suspicions of impropriety that can ensue if thousands of absentee ballots flow in after election day and potentially flip the results of an election.

That's just stupid. As noted by Kagan(?) there is no result until the ballots are counted. Now that McConnell has packed the Supreme Court with right wing ideologues, we're headed into at least a generation of backward looking decisions.

But what else is Trump's Mini-Me on the Supreme Court gonna say?

 

[phiwum]

Ahhh....to see Trump's face.

I haven't paid close attention to the story, but I'm thinking she could have at least forced a hearing, and chose not to. I suppose I'll look up to see if my understanding is right, but it sounds like her first action on the court was to sit out of a case where Trump needed her vote.

I understand she recused because she has not read up on the arguments sufficiently. This doesn't mean she will recuse from election matters later.

 

[angrysoba]

That would be very hard to pull off except maybe in some tiny rural towns.

Which is where they would be voting Trump anyway...

I dunno. I suppose the question could be whether this could happen... "Hey, here at Whitesville Suburbs we have to weigh up a complicated calculus of speed over accuracy. Oh...just a minute, our consignment of ballot papers from the South Central Projects has just been delivered. Yes, those should be put on the If We Get Round to Them table. Oh, and our 80-year old counters may need to go home early tonight. They'll be back in tomorrow, but it would be unreasonable to expect them to come in for more than a couple of hours...yes, I know the deadline is Thursday, I didn't get elected Head of Polling Decisions for not knowing how these things work, thank you very much...."?

 

[Skeptic Ginger]

I said four years ago (on these pages) that Trump would "drain the swamp" from the top. As in, it would overflow.

 

[Aridas]

I don't think I expressed myself very clearly; I was actually thinking of future elections, not this one. It would be wise for the states to agree on when mail-in/absentee ballots would be accepted for counting. In my own state of OR, they must have been received by the county elections office by 8 pm on election day to be counted.

Mmm. I suppose that it's true that I was addressing something slightly different, so I should answer this, as well.

Broadly speaking, I don't have too much problem with a cut-off like that, with a caveat. The mail has to be swift and trustworthy, which is problematic at a time like this when Trump and the Republican leader have worked hard to sabotage the mail system. Even in somewhat better times, I very much didn't like the stories that I hear of a bunch of mail-in votes that were sent in decent time that just... weren't delivered to the appropriate place on time, which means that I also include the somewhat nebulous concept of reasonable delivery time into any calculations there.