Voter suppresion/"stealing the election" megathread

[BlueSwan]

https://twitter.com/MittRomney/status/1329629701447573504

Thank you Romney for being a sane person!

Indeed. Romney has proven that he is an honorable Republican.

It actually could be important that Romney made this statement in the situation where MI/WI/PA submit competing slates of electors. When the electoral votes are counted on Jan. 6, if both the House and Senate can agree on which electors are valid, then those are counted. Dems have 48 Senators in the next Senate. Romney is 49. I'm not sure how the Georgia seats work in this calculation with the runoff elections happening the previous day, let's assume Loeffler is still sitting and Purdue's seat is vacant. Then Dems need just one more senator, probably Collins or Murkowski, to side with them, and this would basically guarantee that the "state legislature coup" would fail.

I think there's a small chance Collins is salty after Democrats spent so much money against her, but I have a hard time seeing Lisa Murkowski not voting with the Democrats in this case, especially if American Democracy is at stake.

I know we like to dump on Susan Collins and for good reason. But remember that the reason why we dump on her is because we basically KNOW that SHE KNOWS that Trump is a disaster, so we roll our eyes when she says stuff like "he's learned his lesson" to avoid voting for impeachment.

But Susan Collins is not voting for a coup.

[Non Swing Voter]

So FYI the Michigan Legislature does not go into session again until December 1, and only the Governor can call a special session. By then there will be the slate of Biden electors certified. Michigan law clearly does not allow the Legislature to unilaterally appoint their own electors and the Legislature has no role in certification of the results. The Michigan Supreme Court (nominally 4-3 conservative but one of those is basically a Snyder-appointed RINO who was even endorsed by the teachers' union with the liberals in her last election, and another is pretty moderate and broke with the other RINO to uphold the redistricting commission 4-3 back when the court was nominally 5-2) is not going to uphold any theft by Trump or ignoring state law here.

Also the Pennsylvania Legislature's last day in session is tomorrow and then they adjourn for the rest of the year. The law does state that the majority of members can "petition" the Governor for a special session but is kind of vague after that, presumably Wolf could at least delay it until after the EC votes. The PA Supreme Court is on his side after all.

Good to know.  It's still outrageous that those 2 MI legislators are flying to the White House.  What absurd excuse do they have for visiting him other than discussing stealing the election?

[HisGrace]

https://twitter.com/GOP/status/1329490975266398210

This is the official GOP account....

If anyone was still doubting that the GOP is actually pursuing a civil war here.

People who keep thinking a civil war will result don't know what a war actually is.

Not a full scale war like our last one, but if Trump managed to seize power by force after losing the election I could absolutely imagine a California secession crisis and a Paris 68 type situation in DC plus general riots all over the country that would make the Floyd stuff this summer look like nothing. Not a road anybody should want to go down. 

[Non Swing Voter]

https://twitter.com/GOP/status/1329490975266398210

This is the official GOP account....

If anyone was still doubting that the GOP is actually pursuing a civil war here.

People who keep thinking a civil war will result don't know what a war actually is.

Not a full scale war like our last one, but if Trump managed to seize power by force after losing the election I could absolutely imagine a California secession crisis and a Paris 68 type situation in DC plus general riots all over the country that would make the Floyd stuff this summer look like nothing. Not a road anybody should want to go down. 

With the exception of Georgia, all the blue states in the last election are directly connected to Canada.  All three regions could secede, join Canada and leave Trump country in abject poverty (as they barely contribute to the economy).

[Hammy]

So FYI the Michigan Legislature does not go into session again until December 1, and only the Governor can call a special session. By then there will be the slate of Biden electors certified. Michigan law clearly does not allow the Legislature to unilaterally appoint their own electors and the Legislature has no role in certification of the results. The Michigan Supreme Court (nominally 4-3 conservative but one of those is basically a Snyder-appointed RINO who was even endorsed by the teachers' union with the liberals in her last election, and another is pretty moderate and broke with the other RINO to uphold the redistricting commission 4-3 back when the court was nominally 5-2) is not going to uphold any theft by Trump or ignoring state law here.

Also the Pennsylvania Legislature's last day in session is tomorrow and then they adjourn for the rest of the year. The law does state that the majority of members can "petition" the Governor for a special session but is kind of vague after that, presumably Wolf could at least delay it until after the EC votes. The PA Supreme Court is on his side after all.

So essentially he'd require WI/GA/AZ for his plan to work, and as far as I know Georgia's legislature has no role in choosing electors under any circumstances.

[I spent the winter writing songs about getting better]

So here's a fun anecdote from the last time a state had a disputed electoral slate:

In 1960, Hawaii voted in its first Presidential election and was actually a swing state somehow (never understood that, I'm guessing the Republicans had a machine amongst some ethnic communities.) In the first results Nixon was ahead by 141 votes. Hawaii's Republican Governor William F. Quinn quickly certified the results and signed the Republican elector slate's certificate.

However a recount was required under Hawaii law, and the Democratic electors sued forcing the recount. After the recount, JFK actually led by 115 votes and the Democratic electors presented a certificate. Quinn was forced by court order to certify this result and sign this certificate as well. So two certificates were sent to the Electoral College. Once the electoral votes were counted before Congress, it was presided over by the outgoing Vice-President: Nixon himself. And Nixon actually ruled to count the Democratic certificate and assign the electoral votes to JFK.

While this story makes Nixon sound like a good guy and a bit un-Nixonlike, there's a few things to consider:

-Hawaii's electoral votes wouldn't have made a difference anyway.
-Had Nixon ruled to assign the votes to himself, it's likely someone in Congress would object and the Democratic-controlled Congress would almost certainly vote to overturn Nixon's decision.
-Nixon had obvious reasons to still care about his reputation and not look like a sore loser at that point.

Still the fact that Nixon didn't put up anywhere near as much of a fuss as Trump is now in regards to the election results despite any case he could make in regards to vote fraud being FAR FAR less dubious than what Trump is claiming, does show that yeah, Trump is well under Nixon in terms of quality of character.

[Splash]

https://twitter.com/therecount/status/1329774931861778433

[Badger]

I really don't understand certain posters and the media 's hypocrisy.

 What happened in Michigan or more specifically Wayne County where Detroit is is a protest against shoddy election administration.

https://rrhelections.com/index.php/2020/11/18/political-roundup-for-november-18th-2020/

The Wayne County Board of Canvassers has voted to certify the election results after initially voting 2-2 along party lines not to do so. The dispute in question seems to stem from the absolutely atrocious bookkeeping in Detroit, with many precincts having out-of-balance tallies, i.e. having more or less total votes than ballots counted. Avid followers of the 2016 election might remember this being a thing then too, when the out-of-balance tallies were an issue when Jill Stein tried to force a recount. The board agreed to certify the election in exchange for auditing some of Detroit’s most out-of-balance precincts, but not before ripples of “REPUBLICANS ARE COUPING THE ELECTION” flooded across the twitter verse, along with a Trump tweet saluting the (initial) decision, because of course he did.

How can you on one hand argue count every vote and on the other hand argue against this? If total votes are less than ballots cast, you're literally not counting every vote. If total votes are more than ballots cast, then you are nullifying the legal vote of someone else, which means you're not really counting it.

https://www.detroitnews.com/story/news/politics/2020/11/17/wayne-county-canvassers-deadlock-certifying-november-3-election-results/6324274002/

The board's votes came after absentee ballot poll books at 70% of Detroit's 134 absentee counting boards were found to be out of balance without explanation. The mismatches varied anywhere from one to more than four votes.

In August, canvassers found 72% of Detroit's absentee voting precincts didn't match the number of ballots cast. The imbalances between August and November are not an exact comparison since August's canvassing was based on results from 503 precincts and November's canvassing was based on 134 counting boards.

How are 70% of Detroit's absentee counting boards having inaccurate vote counts per the Detroit News possibly acceptable to anyone? Counting votes is pretty much the only job these boards have. I'll be fair, don't attribute to malice what can be explained by stupidity, and if they're incompetent at their jobs, they should be fired, and never put in a position regarding election administration ever again. If it's because it's just not possible for them to conduct an election properly and accurately, that's a failure of Wayne County government failing its citizens in their constitutionally required role.

Is it going to change the result of the presidential election in Michigan? No. Is this the correct action to take? Yes. If conducting fair and open elections is the bedrock upon which democracies are based, then the only acceptable standard is 100% accuracy with zero errors in conducting the election and counting votes. It's why I have an immense amount of ridicule for election boards with out-of-date voter rolls, which are everywhere in this country because they don't do good maintenance keeping them up.

Know how I know you don't work in election administration. There is no human system with millions of points of data that could ever achieve 100% perfection absent hundreds of millions of dollars and tens of thousands of workers... and even then, it would still almost certainly have flaws.

When presented with mistakes and errors you FIX THE MISTAKES AND ERRORS, not say "it's wrong, doesn't matter". I'm an engineer and I'm almost required to be 100% correct for the sake of my company and the government who is my customer. Anyone when presented with evidence that something is wrong and does not fix it is in my opinion sufficient grounds for being fired. This isn't Trump. This is the Detroit News saying 70% of all the boards are wrong. Are you calling them fake news?

Forget the presidential election for a second. What about every other election on the ballot down to Soil & Water Commissioner or City Council or School Board, and every other time that these errors occurred before this election they shrugged their shoulders on them.

No one sit and lie to me about "count every vote" and yet you find nothing wrong with this bullsh**t, because it's evidence of votes not being counted. It's a demonstration you are a hypocrite.

No, it is proof you are being a partisan hack per usual. No one is disputing counting every vote. What non partisan hacks are disputing are that the claims of trump being cheated are based in literal fantasy.

Get yourself a big glass of cope juice, and drink deeply.

[Splash]

https://twitter.com/ZachGorchow/status/1329815330001186816

[Bomster]

Wtf is going on in Michigan

[Gass3268]

https://twitter.com/TimAlberta/status/1329830804076244993?s=20

[Penn_Quaker_Girl]

So here's a fun anecdote from the last time a state had a disputed electoral slate:


-Nixon had obvious reasons to still care about his reputation and not look like a sore loser at that point.

I'm sure Nixon felt that if he missed the train in 1960, he could just wait patiently for the next one (so to speak). 

[Vaccinated Russian Bear]

https://twitter.com/TimAlberta/status/1329830804076244993?s=20

News at 11. As I have been saying, it's about undermining Biden, not stealing election LOL.

[HisGrace]

https://twitter.com/GOP/status/1329490975266398210

This is the official GOP account....

If anyone was still doubting that the GOP is actually pursuing a civil war here.

People who keep thinking a civil war will result don't know what a war actually is.

Not a full scale war like our last one, but if Trump managed to seize power by force after losing the election I could absolutely imagine a California secession crisis and a Paris 68 type situation in DC plus general riots all over the country that would make the Floyd stuff this summer look like nothing. Not a road anybody should want to go down. 

With the exception of Georgia, all the blue states in the last election are directly connected to Canada.  All three regions could secede, join Canada and leave Trump country in abject poverty (as they barely contribute to the economy).

Well, that's the kind of thing I think is a bit OTT. Secession is a big pill to swallow and while something like this would certainly generate some support for it the support for it now is basically nill so it's still going to be a minority of people. The reason I viewed California as a possibility is it's the only state that actually has a serious secession movement and some people who support it. I could imagine California secession becoming an issue in like 50 years even if things stay "normal" so something like this would obviously accelerate the time table.

Plus, Canada is not going to alienate the US and theoretically even risk war by taking in seceding states. They'd view it as a US internal conflict and stay out of it.

[Hammy]

With what Republicans are trying to pull in MI and PA, and what it seems Kemp tried to with GA, now we know why "no reason making laws, criminals will find ways around them" was their line of thought to go to any time gun laws come up.

[GeorgiaModerate]

https://twitter.com/stphnfwlr/status/1329872932491948033

[I spent the winter writing songs about getting better]

So the big meeting with Michigan legislative leaders was just to ask for Covid money.

https://twitter.com/SenMikeShirkey/status/1329925843053899780?s=19

[Absentee Voting Ghost of Ruin]

https://twitter.com/GOP/status/1329490975266398210

This is the official GOP account....

If anyone was still doubting that the GOP is actually pursuing a civil war here.

People who keep thinking a civil war will result don't know what a war actually is.

Not a full scale war like our last one, but if Trump managed to seize power by force after losing the election I could absolutely imagine a California secession crisis and a Paris 68 type situation in DC plus general riots all over the country that would make the Floyd stuff this summer look like nothing. Not a road anybody should want to go down. 

With the exception of Georgia, all the blue states in the last election are directly connected to Canada.  All three regions could secede, join Canada and leave Trump country in abject poverty (as they barely contribute to the economy).

Well, that's the kind of thing I think is a bit OTT. Secession is a big pill to swallow and while something like this would certainly generate some support for it the support for it now is basically nill so it's still going to be a minority of people. The reason I viewed California as a possibility is it's the only state that actually has a serious secession movement and some people who support it. I could imagine California secession becoming an issue in like 50 years even if things stay "normal" so something like this would obviously accelerate the time table.

Plus, Canada is not going to alienate the US and theoretically even risk war by taking in seceding states. They'd view it as a US internal conflict and stay out of it.

Point of Information:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cascadia_(independence_movement)

[Middle-aged Europe]

Everything is corrupt, except for Donald Trump, apparently.


https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/1330288302663069701

[GeorgiaModerate]

Everything is corrupt, except for Donald Trump, apparently.


https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/1330288302663069701

He's mostly correct.  Neither the election or the mainstream media is particularly corrupt.  The right-wing media, however, is corrupt as hell.

[Non Swing Voter]

So the big meeting with Michigan legislative leaders was just to ask for Covid money.

https://twitter.com/SenMikeShirkey/status/1329925843053899780?s=19

Well played on their part actually.  Not that they're gonna get covid money.  If anything, Trump would punish MI now.

[Absentee Voting Ghost of Ruin]

So the big meeting with Michigan legislative leaders was just to ask for Covid money.

https://twitter.com/SenMikeShirkey/status/1329925843053899780?s=19

https://twitter.com/mitchellrivard/status/1330161956792266757

[I spent the winter writing songs about getting better]

Michigan AG Dana Nessel has also made it clear that if there are any attempts to tamper with the election results she then has grounds to file criminal charges...so I'm betting there won't be.

Michigan really has a triumvirate of awesome ladies leading them! Whitmer, Benson and Nessel don't take any sh!t and have the right wingers so furious at them for it.

[NewYorkExpress]

Trump calls on GOP state legislatures to overturn Biden victories.

I'll bet anyone here any amount of money, that the GOP legislatures in Wisconsin, Pennsylvania, Michigan and Georgia actually do this.

[I spent the winter writing songs about getting better]

Trump calls on GOP state legislatures to overturn Biden victories.

I'll bet anyone here any amount of money, that the GOP legislatures in Wisconsin, Pennsylvania, Michigan and Georgia actually do this.

Reality check: none are in session. And the only one going into session before the EC certification deadline is Michigan and that'll be well after the results are certified.