Of course this should normally be a domestic affair for the people of the United States of America. But this year seems so extraordinary in many ways. I’m following events with interest, hope and alarm (not necessarily in that order). In 2016, I posted my thoughts on the imminent election, never for one moment thinking that the US would elect Donald Trump as president. Boy, was I wrong. Can I be wrong again? What do others think? Not that we have long to wait.
Vote early and vote often!
No predictions from me. I don’t want to jinx things.
What’s most upsetting is that, regardless of who wins, the losing side will be absolutely convinced that the wrong result is due solely to corruption – and that if the wrong side wins, it will spell the end of American democracy as we know it. In the past, the losing side has generally followed the “we’ll get ’em next time” philosophy, but this election both sides genuinely fear that if the other guys win, there won’t BE a next time. America will become either a socialist state or a dictatorship, depending on which party you favor.
There’s probably no truth to this, but truth has been a victim of the Trump administration (Trump recently exceeded 22,000 lies), and evidence means as little anymore as it does to your standard-issue creationist. We have two Americas now, each living in a world of their own alternative facts. So there simply can no longer be an accepted election result, and perhaps the best we can hope for is to keep riots to a minimum.
Had a long chat today with my eldest daughter, who is living in Raleigh where, as she put it, “heavily armed Proud Boys like to congregate”. Her building is boarded up once more. Thankfully the younger ones are in relatively sane places, such as DC[!] and Manhattan.
If you aren’t stressed out, you aren’t paying attention.
Here, courtesy of Patrick, is a list of Trump’s policies as of 2016:
Promises made, promises kept, indeed.
We watch with particular interest ‘over here’: the result will have a significant effect on the confidence of the present Government in its utterly mad Brexit plans. They feel sure that Trump will give them ‘the deal’ they desperately need to replace the excellent terms on which we traded with the EU. They are deeply mistaken – Trump is not in the charity business – but it will keep their paper balloon afloat a few more months.
Despite rumblings from this site, I voted for Biden, absentee, in Florida. I usually do a protest vote, and this year I could make my family happy at the same time. I have voted for female candidates in every presidential election at least since the 90s. I guess Harris counts.
I am not superstitious. I think Biden is a throwaway candidate. I think Trump has a shot at the popular vote. He will, at least, be much closer than 2016.
There will be anomalies, but I doubt if they will lead to a need for recounts.
What’s new this year is the serious attempt to forecast the outcome from early voting, by comparing party participation. I don’t recall this being done before. If it’s more successful than the polls, it could change many things.
Why not formalize it? Though drawing the map might not be easy.
He did build that wall (at least nine miles of it new). Has Mexico paid for it yet?
I suspect I’m in for a disturbed night here, too.
You voted for Sarah Palin? 😨
How does that work? Why are there registered Republican and Democrat voters – I mean what is the function of such a register? Presumably people can vote secretly as they wish.
Alan Fox,
It seems profoundly undemocratic to release any info about how votes are going before polls have closed. Not that we have much to shout about, democracy-wise.
Not all states require that one register for a party. But the basic idea is that only those registered to a party are eligible to vote in the primaries for that party. The purpose is to prevent those who would vote for the other party in the general election from crossing party lines to get a weak candidate nominated to run against their candidate later.
Ok, that makes sense, thanks.
I suppose it’s possible for people who are already aware their party is losing badly, to look at a 4 hour wait and decide, why bother. And for all I know, there might be people who didn’t plan to vote, but seeing a tight race might decide to show up this time. Either way, I doubt many election results change announcing the voting status early. In most election years, the networks have declared a winner before west coast states have finished voting. Doesn’t seem to make much difference.
Imagine it was simple and easy to vote on line. Suppose also a running total of votes cast was displayed in real time. Suppose also, until the period for voting closes, you could amend your vote. Would that be more or less democratic than existing systems?
Votes are secret. I don’t know why states release information about the number of votes cast by party affiliation.
Party loyalty is about 90 percent, but that varies depending on the candidates.
In some areas, one party dominates, so people tend to register for that party. It only affects your ability to vote in primaries. But some states have “open” primaries.
It occurs to me that releasing a real time count of votes cast is a hedge against fraud.
That too. Though my fear of being murdered in my bed by a deranged axe wielder is greater than the incidence of such an event (thus far).
I was thinking more on tactical voting. There are candidates A, B, and C. You really want A, you loathe B but C wouldn’t be terrible. You see B doing well, A has no chance so you switch to C.
Agreed that the level of polarization and rhetoric is pretty heated. I don’t hear a dictatorship if Trump wins — I fear an intensification of what America has always been, a Herrenvolk democracy. If Biden wins it will become slightly less of one, perhaps.
Speaking as a socialist (indeed as a kind of Marxist) the idea that a Biden administration would be even slightly socialist is manifestly absurd.
For what it’s worth, voting here in California was easy-peasy this year. Ballots were mailed out to every registered voter in early October. The ballot packet included a list of the ballot drop-boxes that are nearest to the voter’s address. It turned out that in my case, the nearest drop-box was even nearer than any mailbox or post office. Two days after I dropped of my ballet, I received an email from Ballottrax.com (where I had registered) informing me that my ballot had been accepted.
It’s sad that so few other states make the process easy. Republican-controlled states, on the contrary, go out of their way to make the process difficult.
Alan Fox,
Yes, I was thinking of tactical voting. Also seeing a candidate do less well than expected might mobilise support to swing it. Some constituency elections have been as close as a couple of votes; it may not affect a nationwide result, but can matter locally.
Not looking too good for Democrats.
Allan Miller,
The electoral college system looks designed for Trump.
It does look to an outsider that fairness and integrity lose to unashamed self-interest.
It’s painful to watch, with the early states not being a random sample. The BBC is still upbeat, though. Mystifying that, with 90% of votes counted, the counters send everyone home. Yeah, get your beauty sleep, no rush!
Allan Miller,
Maybe things will get a bit clearer today. Hope there’s no Al Gore type scenario about to unfold.
I’m not the only one wondering!
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2020/nov/04/ok-america-so-what-the-hell-happens-now
Allan Miller,
I blame this boondoggle on people like Newton, Flint, and the entire centerist Democratic establishment who couldn’t see the obvious. How could it be any surprise to anyone that there didn’t exist any strong coalition of people who were super excited about voting for a Biden presidency? I don’t know how dumb you have to be. Did they learn nothing from 2016? Biden’s policies are a virtually copy of Obama’s who won in landslides, so why the difference? Its pretty simple-there is no excitement for Biden.
The Democrats could have picked any young, articulate candidate, and they would have wiped the floor with the orange disaster. But no, no, the brilliant strategists decided, lets go with Old, stale, uninspiring, semi-inoffensive, won’t that be great! Fucking idiots.
How many of this brilliant, Ivy League educated, statisticians, political science PHD’s, managerial experts, psychologists, sociologists, and news analysts does it take to be so completely wrong that one can finally come to the conclusion that people who say there are experts and are paid millions are mostly totally full of shit?
That’s the biggest lesson that can be learned from this.
There’s still hope in the rust belt, let’s go!
If Beta O’Rourke would have been the Democratic candidate the total electoral vote probably would have been something like 535 to 3, with the 3 going to Kanye West.
No one figured in the American stupidity factor highly enough.
dazz,
Yes, he can still win it. But will they ever ask, why oh why did it come to this?
If George Clooney was the Democratic candidate, there wouldn’t have even needed to be an election. The orange idiots flock would have just said, oh fuck it, let’s go home.
I partially blame George for not running.
According to the NYT, Biden may win Georgia too, that would be huge right?
With Arizona, Wisconsin, Michigan and Georgia going blue, Pennsylvania would become irrelevant if I’m not missing something
Pennsylvania is once again a key. Trump is ahead, but that will narrow.
2000 all over again.
dazz,
I am worried about Michigan. He can afford to lose Pennsylvania.
Wayne County is still sitting at just 64% reported. That’s a lot of democrat votes yet to be counted, right?
dazz,
Yes. Fingers crossed. I sacrificed two lambs and three virgins last night.
phoodoo,
ROFL
Biden already ahead in Michigan!
dazz,
+10+16+6=270.
I am almost afraid to type it.
Pennsylvania went from 74% reported with Biden down 13% to 77% reported, down 10%. Let’s go!
In that case, Trump would have easily won.
You really don’t understand the American electorate.
Does anyone?
The problem is it isn’t homogeneous. There are at least two, if not multiple, electorates.
Far from homogeneous, to be sure. But I think Neil is correct that any ‘bright young thing’ would have fared considerably worse than Amtrak Joe.
I was puzzled by Ohio, though. The wife points out that it’s a lot more rural than I give it credit for…
Biden just won Michigan by 1.3%. So Trump can’t demand a recount there because the gap is bigger than 1%, or is that only in Wisconsin?
Here’s something that’s easy to understand, and that few people appreciate: the largest demographic group of Americans who ordinarily do not participate in elections is white, and has no education beyond high school. I’ve long feared increased turnout, because I’ve anticipated that the number of voters in this group would increase disproportionately.
“Key States Could Be Headed Toward Recounts. Here Are the Rules.”
Tom English,
Thanks, Tom.
It’s kind of hilarious for Trump to call fraud on the election considering everything he’s done to hamper mail-in voting. It might have been a landslide if it wasn’t for Louis DeJoy
I have to disagree. In the states where Trump has won, the results have not been close. I haven’t seen any indication that the number of undelivered mail-in ballots has been large enough to account for Trump’s margins of victory.
I’m fairly sure that there were systematic errors in polling, prior to the election. I’m guessing that the demographic breakdown of people who actually voted is quite different from what the pollsters expected.
ETA: Perhaps you had the popular vote in mind. In the U.S., people are usually referring to the electoral vote when they speak of landslides.