The 2016 Election Day Results Thread (Potential Spoilers)

[Grifman]

Was I just not paying attention during previous post-election periods with these "thank you rallies"?

It's easier, than you know, trying to study up on all the issues he'll confront as president.

[Ralph-Wiggum]

Well done, North Carolina - you're really not making me want to move back there anytime soon...

In 2005, in the midst of a career of traveling around the world to help set up elections in some of the most challenging places on earth – Afghanistan, Burma, Egypt, Lebanon, South Africa, Sudan and Yemen, among others – my Danish colleague, Jorgen Elklit, and I designed the first comprehensive method for evaluating the quality of elections around the world. Our system measured 50 moving parts of an election process and covered everything from the legal framework to the polling day and counting of ballots.

In 2012 Elklit and I worked with Pippa Norris of Harvard University, who used the system as the cornerstone of the Electoral Integrity Project. Since then the EIP has measured 213 elections in 153 countries and is widely agreed to be the most accurate method for evaluating how free and fair and democratic elections are across time and place.

When we evolved the project I could never imagine that as we enter 2017, my state, North Carolina, would perform so badly on this, and other, measures that we are no longer considered to be a fully functioning democracy.

In the just released EIP report, North Carolina’s overall electoral integrity score of 58/100 for the 2016 election places us alongside authoritarian states and pseudo-democracies like Cuba, Indonesia and Sierra Leone. If it were a nation state, North Carolina would rank right in the middle of the global league table – a deeply flawed, partly free democracy that is only slightly ahead of the failed democracies that constitute much of the developing world.

Indeed, North Carolina does so poorly on the measures of legal framework and voter registration, that on those indicators we rank alongside Iran and Venezuela. When it comes to the integrity of the voting district boundaries no country has ever received as low a score as the 7/100 North Carolina received. North Carolina is not only the worst state in the USA for unfair districting but the worst entity in the world ever analyzed by the Electoral Integrity Project.

[Blackhawk]

Well done, North Carolina - you're really not making me want to move back there anytime soon...

On the bright side, they're actually making Indiana look better.

[Kraken]

NC had been at the top of our short list of potential retirement destinations before the bathroom nonsense started. Now that the Republicans have overturned democracy there it's off the list completely.

[Isgrimnur]

There's always Other Carolina.

[Kraken]

There's always Other Carolina.

Isn't that one of those states that lets people walk around with hidden guns? Nope, not going anyplace where guns are legal, thanks.

[Isgrimnur]

That, and they have a tendency to start civil wars.

[Defiant]

There's always Other Carolina.

Isn't that one of those states that lets people walk around with hidden guns? Nope, not going anyplace where guns are legal, thanks.

Isn't that most states?

[Kraken]

There's always Other Carolina.

Isn't that one of those states that lets people walk around with hidden guns? Nope, not going anyplace where guns are legal, thanks.

Isn't that most states?

This is why I only ever leave my house under duress.

Guns are technically legal in MA because it's technically a right, but in practice every yahoo with a pulse isn't packing heat here.

[Ralph-Wiggum]

There's always Other Carolina.

Speaking as a native North Carolinian, there is only one Carolina.

And Kraken - the state may have some terrible politics as a whole, but there are still some great places! Or, at least, Asheville is cool...

[Kraken]

There's always Other Carolina.

Speaking as a native North Carolinian, there is only one Carolina.

And Kraken - the state may have some terrible politics as a whole, but there are still some great places! Or, at least, Asheville is cool...

Asheville interested us until I read about how it was gerrymandered into impotence. This week's report that NC is no longer a democracy finally killed that idea.

[tjg_marantz]

I enjoyed my time in Hilton Head. Maybe that's something to look at? Close to Savannah also. Pretty place.

[Ralph-Wiggum]

Charleston is cool, but I can't recommend much else in South Carolina. Except for South of the Border - you never sausage a place!

[stessier]

Checkout Greenville, South Carolina (not the one in North Carolina). It's not as liberal as Ashville - which is about as close to Amherst/Northhampton as I've seen in the South - but it's modern yet small. 2 hours from Atlanta and Charlotte, 3 hours from Hilton Head, 4 hours from Charleston and Savannah. Very low property tax, moderate state income tax, and moderate temperatures (for the South). Has the Peace Center for culture and the Bon Secours Wellness arena for concerts.

[Holman]

I've considered returning to the South at some point. I like the climate, and there are of course places like Asheville and the Research Triangle and Atlanta or even Nashville where a liberal could be comfortable. My wife is from NY, but she's been open to the possibility.

Now, though, I'm not sure. For the first time in my adult life it seems possible that certain states will go full retrograde. I don't expect a new civil war, but I can easily imagine a Trump/Pence-appointed SCOTUS greenlighting the return of Jim Crow, only this time as much about religion as skin color.

[Kraken]

Now, though, I'm not sure. For the first time in my adult life it seems possible that certain states will go full retrograde. I don't expect a new civil war, but I can easily imagine a Trump/Pence-appointed SCOTUS greenlighting the return of Jim Crow, only this time as much about religion as skin color.

Not a civil war, but an intensified culture war. Up to now that's been a somewhat vague term for something that was only semi-real. It's turning more defined and open now, as people culturally self-segregate more than ever. You don't want to be deep behind enemy lines any more than the enemy wants you there.

[El Guapo]

Now, though, I'm not sure. For the first time in my adult life it seems possible that certain states will go full retrograde. I don't expect a new civil war, but I can easily imagine a Trump/Pence-appointed SCOTUS greenlighting the return of Jim Crow, only this time as much about religion as skin color.

Not a civil war, but an intensified culture war. Up to now that's been a somewhat vague term for something that was only semi-real. It's turning more defined and open now, as people culturally self-segregate more than ever. You don't want to be deep behind enemy lines any more than the enemy wants you there.

This seems like *more* of a reason to move to North Carolina. It's pretty evenly divided between democrats and republicans, so if you live there you can have a material impact pushing back on far right politics just by voting. Plus since you're a white older male, it's hard for the state GOP to accurately suppress your vote.

[Max Peck]

Election system susceptible to rigging despite red flags

ALLENTOWN, Pa. (AP) -- Jill Stein's bid to recount votes in Pennsylvania was in trouble even before a federal judge shot it down Dec. 12. That's because the Green Party candidate's effort stood almost no chance of detecting potential fraud or error in the vote - there was basically nothing to recount.

Pennsylvania is one of 11 states where the majority of voters use antiquated machines that store votes electronically, without printed ballots or other paper-based backups that could be used to double-check the balloting. There's almost no way to know if they've accurately recorded individual votes - or if anyone tampered with the count.

More than 80 percent of Pennsylvanians who voted Nov. 8 cast their ballots on such machines, according to VotePA, a nonprofit seeking their replacement. A recount would, in the words of VotePA's Marybeth Kuznik, a veteran election judge, essentially amount to this: "You go to the computer and you say, 'OK, computer, you counted this a week-and-a-half ago. Were you right the first time?'"

These paperless digital voting machines, used by roughly 1 in 5 U.S. voters last month, present one of the most glaring dangers to the security of the rickety, underfunded U.S. election system. Like many electronic voting machines, they are vulnerable to hacking. But other machines typically leave a paper trail that could be manually checked. The paperless digital machines open the door to potential election rigging that might not ever be detected.

What's more, their prevalence magnifies other risks in the election system, such as the possibility that hackers might compromise the computers that tally votes, by making failures or attacks harder to catch. And like other voting machines adopted since the 2000 election, the paperless systems are nearing the end of their useful life - yet there is no comprehensive plan to replace them.

"If I were going to hack this election, I would go for the paperless machines because they are so hard to check," said Barbara Simons, a former IBM researcher and co-author of "Broken Ballots," a history of the unlearned lessons of flawed U.S. voting technology.

[Kraken]

This is why we can't have nice things.

[Defiant]

Will economic populism lead Democrats to victory? Senate results should make us skeptical.

Still, as Democrats debate whether to follow Bernie Sanders’s advice and move to the left on economics with the goal of winning back working-class white voters, it is surely at least worth noting that the two Senate candidates most identified with that strategy who ran this year did worse than Hillary Clinton despite her much-discussed weaknesses, and the two Senate candidates who tried hardest to frame themselves as moderates did better than her in their respective states.

[Max Peck]

Somebody is still feeling a little insecure...

So getting 270 EV is fabled now? Really?

[hepcat]

Words. They're a crutch for Trumputin.

[Defiant]

Bernie Sanders voters helped Trump win and here's proof

According to the analysis of the 2016 Cooperative Congressional Election Survey, fewer than 80 percent of those who voted for Sanders, an independent, in the Democratic primary did the same for Clinton when she faced off against Trump a few months later. What’s more, 12 percent of those who backed Sanders actually cast a vote for Trump.

The impact of those votes was significant. In each of the three states that ultimately swung the election for Trump—Michigan, Wisconsin and Pennsylvania—Trump’s margin of victory over Clinton was smaller than the number of Sanders voters who gave him their vote.

[LordMortis]

Bernie Sanders voters helped Trump win and here's proof

According to the analysis of the 2016 Cooperative Congressional Election Survey, fewer than 80 percent of those who voted for Sanders, an independent, in the Democratic primary did the same for Clinton when she faced off against Trump a few months later. What’s more, 12 percent of those who backed Sanders actually cast a vote for Trump.

The impact of those votes was significant. In each of the three states that ultimately swung the election for Trump—Michigan, Wisconsin and Pennsylvania—Trump’s margin of victory over Clinton was smaller than the number of Sanders voters who gave him their vote.

Pray the Democratic party isn't so terribly deaf of the electorate in Michigan, Wisconsin and Pennsylvania in 2020 because this more directly proof that they helped Trump win than Sanders did.

[hepcat]

I don't think you're reading that correctly.

[Zaxxon]

Could we be less obtuse and blame it on the real culprits: the majority of eligible voters who don't vote?

[hepcat]

Problem being that they could very well have voted for Bernie or the Mangerine.

[Zaxxon]

Problem being that they could very well have voted for Bernie or the Mangerine.

Indeed, but I'll cling to the small semblance of home in the human race that Trump would not have 'won' that group, as well.

Could very well be wrong, in which case you'll find me on a small deserted island somewhere sipping cocktails made of my own tears.

[El Guapo]

Could we be less obtuse and blame it on the real culprits: the majority of eligible voters who don't vote?

New Clinton Memoir: ‘We All Made Mistakes But You Made Most Of Them’

NEW YORK—In candid excerpts released Wednesday from her forthcoming memoir What Happened, Hillary Clinton reflects on her unsuccessful 2016 presidential bid, revealing to readers, “We all made mistakes, but you made most of them.” “I’m not suggesting it’s entirely your fault, but, let’s be frank, 99 percent of it is,” read one passage from the chapter entitled “Seriously, What Were You Thinking?” in which the former candidate conceded missteps she had made over the course of her campaign while also clarifying that none of them should have produced the final election outcome, which she characterized as “squarely on you fucking people.” “Indeed, fake news and Russian meddling played a part, and I’ve acknowledged I wasn’t the perfect candidate, but let’s not lose sight of the fact that the majority of the blame—all but the tiniest sliver—lies with you, the idiot voters. You really blew it, dumbasses. Bravo!” Sources later confirmed that Clinton devotes the final chapter of her memoir to how she has moved on from the election, begging her readers to not fuck that up for her too.

[Zaxxon]

That's pretty good.

[hepcat]

[El Guapo]

Tough, but fair.

[LordMortis]

I don't think you're reading that correctly.

I think if a major message going into 2018 continues to be "Blame Bernie" nor even blame whatsherface from the Green Party then 2018 is not going to be the statement to GOP/RNC I am hoping it is.

[hepcat]

I don't blame Bernie. I blame the people who voted for him when the stakes were that high. Any other campaign and I'd be fine with it. But your choice came down to "vote for an adult you don't like" or "give your vote to a complete, drooling imbecile who will rob you blind and molest your house pets".

Can you guess which is which?

[LordMortis]

I don't blame Bernie. I blame the people who voted for him when the stakes were that high. Any other campaign and I'd be fine with it. But your choice came down to "vote for an adult you don't like" or "give your vote to a complete, drooling imbecile who will rob you blind and molest your house pets".

Can you guess which is which?

Now if you were bringing this up 10 months later, as a lot of people are and even more are now with Clinton's next publication on why she lost, you're perpetuating division from the exact people you are trying to get on board. The tactic continues terrible. What is the media fond of calling it? Hurbris?

[El Guapo]

I don't blame Bernie. I blame the people who voted for him when the stakes were that high. Any other campaign and I'd be fine with it. But your choice came down to "vote for an adult you don't like" or "give your vote to a complete, drooling imbecile who will rob you blind and molest your house pets".

Can you guess which is which?

Now if you were bringing this up 10 months later, as a lot of people are and even more are now with Clinton's next publication on why she lost, you're perpetuating division from the exact people you are trying to get on board. The tactic continues terrible. What is the media fond of calling it? Hurbris?

Everyone does that, though. The bad things that happened are the fault of the people that I already disliked, and if everyone just did what I have been recommending then we would win. The Sanders people blame the democratic centrists, the centrists blame the Sanders people.

[malchior]

I blame the wretch idiotic populace first,the the RNC is next, and the DNC follows not too far behind. The media get a special mention for complete and utter failure as well.

The idiotic populace exposed itself in fine form by not having even a lick of common sense. Trump. Are you fucking kidding? That speaks for itself. His performance and ability to divide instead of unite since has been exactly as expected by anyone with half a brain. Good work jabronis!

The RNC courted white hate for years and had a clown car primary which divided up the few but majority sane GOP primary voters enough to squeak a unqualified terrible excuse of a human being through. Maybe one of the worst people possible for the job with the resources to get it. Great work!

The DNC at least managed to nominate a very qualified person but also one that had huge unfavorable numbers from the onset. That person was also *under investigation* and might have been *indicted* in the middle of the campaign. What would have happened then, idiots? A person whose charisma was questioned for decades. They stole defeat and the future of the United States from the jaws of victory.

The media managed to equate the email scandal with Trump. Are you fucking kidding (part 2)? They played his rallies end to end to get ratings and helped deliver us Trump. And they still largely won't take their share of responsibility even while Trump wages war upon them.

Quite a feat of failure all around to end the United States as the preeminent world power seemingly voluntarily for no other purpose than spite of self.

[hepcat]

Now if you were bringing this up 10 months later, as a lot of people are and even more are now with Clinton's next publication on why she lost, you're perpetuating division from the exact people you are trying to get on board. The tactic continues terrible. What is the media fond of calling it? Hurbris?

It was brought up frequently 10 months ago on this very forum. VERY frequently.

Sorry, but I really, really dislike Trump and I do blame those who voted out of spite instead of thinking through the consequences of doing so. I bit down on the pillow and voted for Hillary even though I'm no fan. I just wish more people had pillows to bite during the election.

[TheMix]

I'm with hepcat on this. (Though my descriptions are not as impressive as his.)

I don't blame the Bernie supporters that voted for Trump. At least not specifically. I blame everyone that voted for Trump. I don't care, at all, who they preferred. On the final ballot it was a binary choice. One horrible, and one not. If they chose the horrible option, then they deserve to be blamed. The lies reasons excuses that they told themselves to make it easier to make that choice are irrelevant.

[El Guapo]

I would go farther and say that I blame everyone who did not vote for Clinton. Yeah, it sucks that we have an archaic system that boils it down to a binary choice, but that's the situation that we were in in November.