Nit-picky election question

[ImaginaryDay2]

It was a bit of a loaded question.

 

[Lamb]

Legal votes are also from the living...not the dead. Chicago and Philly are known for the dead voting (Democrat for the most part).

 

[JRT]

Is anyone else curious at the apparent rush to label Biden the "president elect"? It seems awfully sudden and awfully intense.

It is really quite simple, Biden received more votes both nationally and in enough states to secure a majority of electoral votes. A president-elect also needs time to establish himself and his cabinet and get up to speed on issues of national security. It is not sudden or intense, just standard procedure.

 

[tango]

It is really quite simple, Biden received more votes both nationally and in enough states to secure a majority of electoral votes. A president-elect also needs time to establish himself and his cabinet and get up to speed on issues of national security. It is not sudden or intense, just standard procedure.

The national popular vote is irrelevant, as just about anybody who knows even a little bit about US elections knows. Even though he has secured enough states to be expected to win, given Trump's legal challenges don't seem to be going anywhere useful, it's curious to see the media being so quick to tag "president elect" on him. I don't remember the media being quite so gushing about it with any previous candidate.

 

[ImaginaryDay2]

Legal votes are also from the living...not the dead. Chicago and Philly are known for the dead voting (Democrat for the most part).

This has been tossed around quite frequently in the current and past elections about dead voters and fraud. Either someone is really asleep at the wheel for it to have been going on for so long that it might affect election outcomes, or it's a smokescreen. Observe:

Press: "It's really happened. Donald Trump is the President-Elect. You're not dreaming. This is reality"
Democrats: "COLLUSION! RUSSIA! IMPEACH!"

Press: "Joe Biden is the (presumptive) President-elect.." (parenthetical mine)
Republicans: "I see dead people..."

 

[Lamb]

This has been tossed around quite frequently in the current and past elections about dead voters and fraud. Either someone is really asleep at the wheel for it to have been going on for so long that it might affect election outcomes, or it's a smokescreen. Observe:

Press: "It's really happened. Donald Trump is the President-Elect. You're not dreaming. This is reality"
Democrats: "COLLUSION! RUSSIA! IMPEACH!"

Press: "Joe Biden is the (presumptive) President-elect.." (parenthetical mine)
Republicans: "I see dead people..."

When the dead vote, they can't prosecute any living person because it's hard to find the evidence of who did it. That's why it's still ongoing.

 

[tango]

This has been tossed around quite frequently in the current and past elections about dead voters and fraud. Either someone is really asleep at the wheel for it to have been going on for so long that it might affect election outcomes, or it's a smokescreen. Observe:

Press: "It's really happened. Donald Trump is the President-Elect. You're not dreaming. This is reality"
Democrats: "COLLUSION! RUSSIA! IMPEACH!"

Press: "Joe Biden is the (presumptive) President-elect.." (parenthetical mine)
Republicans: "I see dead people..."

"Asleep at the wheel" isn't necessarily the case if the people at the wheel benefit from something happening. The thing with elections in general is that who counts the votes matters far more than who gets to cast a vote.

 

[ImaginaryDay2]

"Asleep at the wheel" isn't necessarily the case if the people at the wheel benefit from something happening. The thing with elections in general is that who counts the votes matters far more than who gets to cast a vote.

Agreed. And for that there are observers (Republican and Democrat) who are present during that process. part of my point, though, is that whomever is at the wheel, another will inevitably shout "FRAUD!"

 

[Lamb]

Agreed. And for that there are observers (Republican and Democrat) who are present during that process. part of my point, though, is that whomever is at the wheel, another will inevitably shout "FRAUD!"

I'm not sure if you heard that observers weren't allowed in some locations...and those would be the Republican ones kept away. It was a BIG thing in Philly with videos showing people not even letting them in the building which is illegal.

 

[tango]

Agreed. And for that there are observers (Republican and Democrat) who are present during that process. part of my point, though, is that whomever is at the wheel, another will inevitably shout "FRAUD!"

Some of the allegations were that votes were counted without observers present, and that Republican observers were kept 20-30 feet away from where the counting took place.

If observers from both parties are present, at similar distances from where the counting is happening (i.e. close enough to see that votes are valid, to question anything that looks wrong etc) there's less scope for either side to claim fraud.

 

[ImaginaryDay2]

I'm not sure if you heard that observers weren't allowed in some locations...and those would be the Republican ones kept away. It was a BIG thing in Philly with videos showing people not even letting them in the building which is illegal.

I'd heard that an it was not factual. Most news outlets (including Fox) had video showing adequate observers, Republican and Democrat. Hoopla about boarded up windows and such started as protesters became too much out of control

 

[Lamb]

I'd heard that an it was not factual. Most news outlets (including Fox) had video showing adequate observers, Republican and Democrat. Hoopla about boarded up windows and such started as protesters became too much out of control

Local Philly news showed people not being allowed in.

 

[ImaginaryDay2]

Local Philly news showed people not being allowed in.

I know there were protests, and some may have had valid points about not being able to replace observers who were going out for lunch breaks (in Michigan anyway), but I wonder what madness could have taken place in such a short window. I did notice, though, that the Judge in Pennsylvania who threw out the Trump legal challenge most recently is a conservative Republican and member of the Federalist Society. If they can't convince an ultra-conservative, who can they convince?

 

[Lamb]

I know there were protests, and some may have had valid points about not being able to replace observers who were going out for lunch breaks (in Michigan anyway), but I wonder what madness could have taken place in such a short window. I did notice, though, that the Judge in Pennsylvania who threw out the Trump legal challenge most recently is a conservative Republican and member of the Federalist Society. If they can't convince an ultra-conservative, who can they convince?

Well you do know that there are Republicans who weren't wanting Trump to get back into office?

 

[hedrick]

Let's take it as a given that Joe Biden has won the vote in enough states to secure the 270+ electoral college votes, and let's also take it as a given that Donald Trump has no chance of changing that. The question is, does Joe Biden become president-elect now or only after the electoral college meets to vote for the next president?

What we've just found is that there's no clear legal answer. There are a number of places you could reasonably call someone President Elect:

• When the networks call the election
• When the loser concedes
• What the GAO determines the winner, for the purposes of starting the official transition
• When the Electoral college decides, if they do
• When Congress decides, if it goes to Congress

In the recent past, the first three happened so close together that it didn't matter. In 2000 there was an issue in Florida, but both candidates agreed it was a significant question, so those three steps didn't happen until the Supreme Court decided.

This year we have a delusional president, who refused to concede after the election was called, and has continued to maintain that it isn't valid. The GAO decided not to determine a winner for a while. So the steps have happened at different times. Indeed it's not clear that Trump will ever concede in the usual sense. The person at the GAO who made the call for them complained that there was no clear standard for doing it. Unfortunately it's not obvious how to supply a standard that would work in all cases.

I don't think there's a legal definition of when Biden can call himself president elect. In fact he did it when the election was called by the networks. The mainstream press did as well. But you could argue for one of the other definitions, and there would be no real way to say you were wrong.

While things have been fairly simple in recent elections, that wasn't always the case. There was one time when two different electoral college slates were elected and Congress had to decide which to accept. A new law was passed after the experience to define the process better. But it's not absolutely certain that the current law could prevent weirdness. The fact that it didn't happen this time is a testimony to the integrity of Republican leaders at the State level, and judges, though you'd never know it reading certain news sources.

I should note that election fraud is not impossible. It was widely believed in the 1960s that Democratic machines in cities manipulated votes. However there's been a lot of concern about election security recently. The Republican Attorney General has just said that there was't any significant problem in this election, nor as far as I know in the last few elections. See this article for a controversy similar to this one in the election of Kennedy: The drama behind President Kennedy’s 1960 election win - National Constitution Center. That article claims that research done after the fact suggests that fraud wasn't as serious as claimed. So does the relevant Wikipedia article: 1960 United States presidential election in Illinois - Wikipedia

 

[ImaginaryDay2]

Well you do know that there are Republicans who weren't wanting Trump to get back into office?

I wouldn't say that about that particular judge, no.
And, btw, would this also now apply to Bill Barr?

 

[tango]

What we've just found is that there's no clear legal answer. There are a number of places you could reasonably call someone President Elect:

• When the networks call the election
• When the loser concedes
• What the GAO determines the winner, for the purposes of starting the official transition
• When the Electoral college decides, if they do
• When Congress decides, if it goes to Congress

I really struggle with the idea that the networks calling an election has any significance at all - it's hard to see how someone can claaim to have been elected based on nothing more than a partisan news network saying they were the victor.

The loser conceding would seem reasonably valid as a means for calling oneself the victor as long as it was understood the loser conceding had no legal standing and the results might still show they were the victor.

It seems curious to me that a transition period should begin before the election is finally decided. It makes sense to have a transition period but it would seem to make more sense for it to begin after the Electoral College votes are counted, or after Congress decides if it comes to that.