Originally published at: https://boingboing.net/2020/11/12/biden-wins-arizona-first-dem-to-take-state-since-clinton-era.html
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Good to hear Decision Desk is calling it. I kind of agreed that FOX and AP might have made that call a bit prematurely, but one or both of them must have done some really solid math before reaching that conclusion (helps probably that AZ has had wider use of mail in through no-reason absentee voting in past years, made it easier to guess how the remaining ballots would break).
Separate note: Arizona has one of the best state flags, too.
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True! But considering how awful most US state flags are, that’s not very hard. 
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If only we could get a decision on GA, but Raffensperger decided to call for a fucking hand recount to soothe Loeffler and Perdue.
He lost. Get over it.
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And here’s the huge elephant in the room that nobody on the losing side ever wants to discuss.
YOUR votes don’t actually matter. The ELECTORAL COLLEGE votes are the ones that matter.
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I’ve been watching a really good vote tracker for the past week. It’s been consistently saying that Trump needed about 57-60% of the remaining ballots to win (slowly creeping up over time), but also saying that he’s been getting 56-61% 0f each batch. Those numbers have been too close for comfort. Currently, it says there’s a 22,456 estimated vote remaining, of which Trump needs 76.3% to win.
At this point, I’m not so worried that he’ll win; but he doesn’t need as many votes to get a recount. He only needs 68% of the remainder to get the margin under the 0.1% mandatory recount threshold. He probably won’t get it, but who knows where that last batch of ballots are from.
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True as this is, it’s also becoming a thought-stopping cliche. People generally understand the EC, its rightward bias, and how it can suppress the popular vote.
As infuriating as that is, once the election’s over and someone has 270 or more, the EC then becomes irrelevant.
At that point, the margin of victory becomes significant, because it reflects popular support (for Biden) that could manifest in various politically meaningful ways.
The problem is really that Biden picked up that 5% margin largely from ashamed Republicans rather than from the left, so it won’t be a very durable or loyal 5%.
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At the risk of opening a can of worms, what result are you crossing your fingers for?
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Very good point, but this is what really bothers me:
I wish many conservatives would stop being ashamed. Call a spade a spade and don’t cling to leaders who not only exhibit unethical behavior, but also actively promote it in their own self-interesest.
What’s upsetting is that most trumpeters are doing this to pack the judicial branch.
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Abortion and guns. It’s the same single issue voting pattern seen time and time again.
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Sure. Just in general, he has no way to overturn the entire election a this point. That doesn’t mean he can’t cause trouble, of course, and gum up the works, but the election is in the bag, no matter what new posters trying to sow doubt and discord try to tell us.
They lost, they know they lost, so they’re trying to stage a coup via recounts and (incredibly inept) court challenges. We can’t let them to do that, because THAT puts us in a dangerous situation.
True. GA has shown what is possible with a solid ground game that focuses on bringing in new voters rather than hand wringing over the white working class men who’ve sided with the most racist and reactionary party since the Democrats in the interwar period. Voting DOES matter, as does other forms of activism in the political realm.
Me too, but they’ve bought into the construct that it’s an all out war between the political parties which represent vastly different ideas about being an American.
I think it’s more what those represent, the larger culture wars.
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That’s what keeps me up at night.
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Others have already replied to this, but here’s where we stand on this: the legislatures can decide the manner and choosing of electors. Once that decision has been made and executed, they cannot change their mind. Anytime prior to election day, they could have passed a law canceling the vote and usurping the right to select electors by the state legislature. After that, they are violating the Constitution and would be disenfranchising millions of voters. The choosing part is done.
Now, there is a clause which says in very extreme conditions they can override the choices. No one really seems to know what that means, but assume war or natural disaster was the intent. Certainly Trump’s team is TRYING to sow enough doubt that they hope to convince 3 or 4 states to do that, but it seems very unlikely at this point that even 1 would step over that line. (If there’s one thing a rough election cycle is good for it’s learning a TON about the Constitution I didn’t know before).
That way lies massive unrest, vast protests, huge labor strikes, and a level of unrest that will put every protest (or police caused riot) to shame. This country would grind to a halt for weeks. Because there’s more of us. Minority has been ruling through electoral college tyranny, but we still outnumber them. Their millions will cry and sulk for a while, but in the end the conservatives will get what they REALLY want: a president they can hate and oppose with all their heart and the backing of all of Donnie’s admirers.
Soon enough, we’ll be back to where we were prior to Donnie’s candidacy: the GOP opposing everything a Democratic president proposes, trying to block his nominees, and screaming about the dangers of socialism. Sucky in other words, but with a bit less existential dread that president is going to blow up the world.
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regarding arizona, dave weigel of the washington post commented, “trump can win arizona if he can get 190% of the remaining votes.”
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Right?
People signing up to post these past few days are literally here to make us doubt the robustness of our institutions that help hold this country together, and make sure that, in the words of Masha Gessen, our government remains horizontal, and not autocratically vertical. They are trying to create a situation where we are so mistrustful of the process, that we GIVE INTO THE AUTOCRAT! Fuck that noise. They are trying to end our democracy, and we need to fight back against that.
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You’ve nailed precisely what all the knuckleheads on Twitter pontificating about how Trump’s 4d chess plans are just about to spring into action fail to understand: yes, it is up to the state legislatures to determine the method of assigning electors, and that choice was to have an election under their own state procedures.
The problem, as it has always been with this cult, is that they don’t understand how basic government functions work (or how court cases actually work) so they act like the guy doing the video from the front seat of his Honda has the same qualifications to opine on what the Constitution does and doesn’t require as, say, the state AGs or the ConLaw professor on the news. Just as with their cult leader, they think that the fact that they have never learned about this before now means that nobody knew about how election certifications work or how transitions are supposed to work or how ballots are processed.
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Seriously, dude, no one is buying your shit here. Take it back to breitbart or whatever…
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Maybe also.
- They didn’t expect it to be this close, many thought they’d have the senate and the white house, also, most americans don’t want to think their fellow americans are racist assholes, it hurts if you believe in people’s good nature.
- That’s because there’s no evidence there was malfeasance, just votes that have yet to be counted, all we hear from the incumbents are some crap about legal or illegal votes, which they don’t get to decide.
- It’s what he is, until the electoral college says yes, and Jan 20th, he’s not fully president.
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Do we really know that, though? Seems like speculation until we have full demographic breakdowns. Since trump got a higher number of votes this time, I’m more biased toward thinking this is due to higher turnout among traditionally lower-turnout demos like POC and youth. I definitely think there were defectors, but not as many as the polls led us to believe there would be.
@Swanee, is this sarcasm? Because this would be a laughable argument on Facebook.
ETA: Ah, I see. For some reason I thought I recognized your profile, but you’re just a common disinformation trolley. For some reason I can’t take my heart back from your first post in this thread, so here: -
EETA: Aaaand they’re gone. Heart restored.
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would it surprise you to hear that the swanee river drains into the world’s biggest swamp?
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