Octopus Overlords

LawBeefaroni wrote: ↑Fri Jul 31, 2020 12:21 pm

Fireball wrote: ↑Fri Jul 31, 2020 11:22 am

LawBeefaroni wrote: ↑Fri Jul 31, 2020 11:11 am

Fireball wrote: ↑Thu Jul 30, 2020 12:16 pm

LawBeefaroni wrote: ↑Thu Jul 30, 2020 11:10 am

Fireball wrote: ↑Thu Jul 30, 2020 11:04 am as counted by the Congress on January 4, 2020.

What is they decide not to certify the results? Can they do that?

Do we trust them not to?

Who certifies what results?

Well...

Fireball wrote:provided he does not receive 270 Electoral College votes as counted by the Congress on January 4, 2020.

Congress certifies the results of the electoral college.

JANUARY 6, 2017 / 12:17 PM / 4 YEARS AGO
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The U.S. Congress on Friday certified the Electoral College vote that gave Republican Donald Trump his victory in the contentious 2016 presidential election after a raucous half-hour joint session punctuated by Democratic challenges.

I get that it is largely a formality but as we have seen, formalities and norms are out the window and nothing can be taken for granted now. So what happens if they [Congress] don't pass the formality of certifying the results [of the electoral college vote]?

The Constitution says "The President of the Senate shall, in the presence of the Senate and House of Representatives, open all the certificates and the votes shall then be counted." So Congress can't really stop this from happening. I really don't get what you're trying to assert would/could happen here.

From the 2016 article:

None of the representatives [objecting] had the backing of a senator, which would have allowed them to suspend the joint session and allow the House and Senate to meet separately to debate the objections.

So it sounds like there is a mechanism for Congress to delay the count/outcome. The assertion being that it is another front from which the GOP/Trump could attack an election result.

Fireball wrote: ↑Fri Jul 31, 2020 3:53 pm

When the votes are counted before Congress, if a member of the House and a member of the Senate both object to accepting the Electoral Votes from a state, a vote must be held on whether to reject the votes. Both Houses have to cast majority votes in favor of rejection for the votes to be set aside. The chances of this happening are, again, close to nil, absent a major breach of law or established protocols.

El Guapo wrote: ↑Fri Jul 31, 2020 4:37 pm

Fireball wrote: ↑Fri Jul 31, 2020 3:53 pm

When the votes are counted before Congress, if a member of the House and a member of the Senate both object to accepting the Electoral Votes from a state, a vote must be held on whether to reject the votes. Both Houses have to cast majority votes in favor of rejection for the votes to be set aside. The chances of this happening are, again, close to nil, absent a major breach of law or established protocols.

But wouldn't that also limit the ability to reject electoral votes from a GOP dominated state that were subject to obvious shenanigans?

Jaymann wrote: ↑Thu Jul 30, 2020 11:01 am If it comes down to an attempted military coup, Trump has consistently screwed the military.

Fireball wrote: ↑Fri Jul 31, 2020 3:53 pm
When the votes are counted before Congress, if a member of the House and a member of the Senate both object to accepting the Electoral Votes from a state, a vote must be held on whether to reject the votes. Both Houses have to cast majority votes in favor of rejection for the votes to be set aside. The chances of this happening are, again, close to nil, absent a major breach of law or established protocols.

Fireball wrote: ↑Fri Jul 31, 2020 3:53 pm The chances of this happening are, again, close to nil, absent a major breach of law or established protocols.

em2nought wrote: ↑Fri Jul 31, 2020 4:41 pm

Jaymann wrote: ↑Thu Jul 30, 2020 11:01 am If it comes down to an attempted military coup, Trump has consistently screwed the military.

Consistently screwed the military industrial complex more like.

Holman wrote: ↑Fri Jul 31, 2020 5:14 pm The military-industrial complex is doing just fine. Pompeo is selling weapons to the Saudis as fast as he can manage. The current Secretary of Defense was Raytheon's top lobbyist.

Actual soldiers, meanwhile, are out there earning Russian bounties for the Taliban, and POTUS refuses to bring it up in his biweekly Putin tongue bath.

em2nought wrote: ↑Fri Jul 31, 2020 4:41 pm

Jaymann wrote: ↑Thu Jul 30, 2020 11:01 am If it comes down to an attempted military coup, Trump has consistently screwed the military.

Consistently screwed the military industrial complex more like.

At the same time, the mail system is being undercut in ways set in motion by Mr. Trump. Fueled by animus for Jeff Bezos, the founder of Amazon, and surrounded by advisers who have long called for privatizing the post office, Mr. Trump and his appointees have begun taking cost-cutting steps that appear to have led to slower and less reliable delivery.

In recent weeks, at the direction of a Trump campaign megadonor who was recently named the postmaster general, the service has stopped paying mail carriers and clerks the overtime necessary to ensure that deliveries can be completed each day. That and other changes have led to reports of letters and packages being delayed by as many as several days.

Voting rights groups say it is a recipe for disaster.

“We have an underfunded state and local election system and a deliberate slowdown in the Postal Service,” said Wendy Fields, the executive director of the Democracy Initiative, a coalition of voting and civil rights groups. She said the president was “deliberately orchestrating suppression and using the post office as a tool to do it.”

Fireball wrote: ↑Fri Jul 31, 2020 4:39 pm Absent a major and clear breach of the law, the public would not accept Congress rejecting the Electoral College winner.

Alefroth wrote: ↑Fri Jul 31, 2020 10:54 pm

Fireball wrote: ↑Fri Jul 31, 2020 4:39 pm Absent a major and clear breach of the law, the public would not accept Congress rejecting the Electoral College winner.

Pretty sure a good number of them would, and even if they didn't, what does it matter? What is the public going to do? Protest in the street?

Paingod wrote: ↑Mon Aug 03, 2020 7:45 am Re: Diddling with the USPS to screw up mail-in ballots...

How far do ballots really travel when mailed in? If I vote at my local Rec Center, it's about 2 miles from the town hall. The post office is 3 blocks from town hall. Do mail-in ballots have to cross the country, or are they counted inside the counties they're mailed from? Would anything short of closing USPS actually create a situation where it takes more than 36 hours for a ballot to go from a pick-up point to the drop-off point?

LordMortis wrote: ↑Mon Aug 03, 2020 8:56 amI don't know if counting happens locally if ballots are sent to the SOS at the state capitol.

Alefroth wrote: ↑Mon Aug 03, 2020 5:27 pm If only some sort of priority system could be employed for ballots within a couple of days of the election.

YellowKing wrote: ↑Mon Aug 03, 2020 10:09 pm Trump's assault on mail voting
is backfiring

Looks like Trump is doing his classic "shoot himself in the foot by making shit up" routine. TLDR - Trump's constant warnings about mail fraud are scaring more Republicans away from voting than Democrats.

The president's comments have made his base distrustful of mail voting ahead of an election that may hinge on turnout by mail

El Guapo wrote: ↑Mon Aug 03, 2020 11:08 pm

YellowKing wrote: ↑Mon Aug 03, 2020 10:09 pm Trump's assault on mail voting
is backfiring

Looks like Trump is doing his classic "shoot himself in the foot by making shit up" routine. TLDR - Trump's constant warnings about mail fraud are scaring more Republicans away from voting than Democrats.

The president's comments have made his base distrustful of mail voting ahead of an election that may hinge on turnout by mail

Well, when you put it like *that*, it sounds stupid.

Though obviously this is only part of the equation - Trump could still benefit if mail in ballot processing is better in rural than urban areas, and/or if mail in ballots favor Biden but Trump is ahead on election night, allowing Trump to declare 'victory' and then fight it out afterwards.

Grifman wrote: ↑Tue Aug 04, 2020 12:57 am

El Guapo wrote: ↑Mon Aug 03, 2020 11:08 pm

YellowKing wrote: ↑Mon Aug 03, 2020 10:09 pm Trump's assault on mail voting
is backfiring

Looks like Trump is doing his classic "shoot himself in the foot by making shit up" routine. TLDR - Trump's constant warnings about mail fraud are scaring more Republicans away from voting than Democrats.

The president's comments have made his base distrustful of mail voting ahead of an election that may hinge on turnout by mail

Well, when you put it like *that*, it sounds stupid.

Though obviously this is only part of the equation - Trump could still benefit if mail in ballot processing is better in rural than urban areas, and/or if mail in ballots favor Biden but Trump is ahead on election night, allowing Trump to declare 'victory' and then fight it out afterwards.

He can't declare victory on Election Night because he wants to.

The states certify the votes and electors and Trump has no control over that. The states will count until they are finished. The real potential problem is if Trump is in the lead in a given state before mail ballots are counted. At that point, I would not be surprised to see Trump call fraud and file a suit trying to toss some/most/all of them out for whatever reasons he can imagine.

Then our only protection will be the Supreme Court. Without any proof (and he won't have any), the Supreme Court would hand him a defeat on this issue - they may be conservatives but i don't see them letting Trump steal an election without any substantial evidence. I think that would be a line too far for the Supremes.

Prime state officials for the possibility of a contested election. Prepare for the mass mobilization of peaceful protests. And get the public ready for the idea that Election Day could essentially last for weeks as a wave of mail-in ballots are counted.

Those are some of the recommendations released on Monday by the Transition Integrity Project, a bipartisan group of political operatives, former government officials, and academics who quietly met four times in June to game out what would happen if the apparent losing candidate in November’s general election refused to concede, as President Trump has hinted he might.

“We assess with a high degree of likelihood that November’s elections will be marked by a chaotic legal and political landscape,” the group wrote in a 22-page report. “We also assess that President Trump is likely to contest the result by both legal and extra-legal means, in an attempt to hold onto power.”

...

“The purpose of this report is not to frighten, but to spur all stakeholders to action,” the report said. “Our legal rules and political norms don’t work unless people are prepared to defend them and to speak out when others violate them.”

One Republican participant in the enterprise, however, said the games had simply underscored how ill-prepared Democrats are to go to battle with Trump if he tried to sow doubt about the election results and ultimately refused to concede.

“I felt like a lot of Democrats who were participating in these games really expected him to play by the rules and be above board and honorable,” said that person, who requested anonymity to honor the agreement of the game.

The person added: “I thought it was absolutely terrifying how unprepared a lot of Never-Trump forces are to actually deal with what could actually go down on the day.”

...

“Planners need to take seriously the notion that this may well be a street fight, not a legal battle; technocratic solutions, courts, and a reliance on elites observing norms are not the answer here,” the report said.

Twenty-three postal executives were reassigned or displaced, the new organizational chart shows. Analysts say the structure centralizes power around DeJoy, a former logistics executive and major ally of President Trump, and de-emphasizes decades of institutional postal knowledge. All told, 33 staffers included in the old postal hierarchy either kept their jobs or were reassigned in the restructuring, with five more staffers joining the leadership from other roles.

As Common Dreams reported earlier Friday, Sen. Elizabeth Warren was among those who signed the letter and also called for DeJoy's efforts to be investigated by the Inspector General of the USPS. Since 2016 alone, DeJoy has donated more than $2.5 million to the Republican Party and candidates. In 2020, prior to his appointment as Postmaster General by the GOP-controlled board of governors, DeJoy had already given approximately $360,000 to a Super PAC supporting Trump's reelection.

Deliberate sabotage to disrupt mail service on the eve of the election — an election that hinges on mail-in ballots.

Blackhawk wrote: ↑Sat Aug 08, 2020 10:57 am I may despise Trump, but I consider him to have won the office in 2016 through the current rules.

Kraken wrote: ↑Sat Aug 08, 2020 11:51 am

Blackhawk wrote: ↑Sat Aug 08, 2020 10:57 am I may despise Trump, but I consider him to have won the office in 2016 through the current rules.

...with more than a little help from Putin. Enough, maybe, to account for his 11,000-vote margin in MI. Whenever context forces me to refer to trump as the president*, it always gets an asterisk. He lost the popular vote by nearly 3 million, only "won" the EC by around 78,000, and had Russian help doing it. Not legitimate in my eyes.

Blackhawk wrote: ↑Sat Aug 08, 2020 7:29 pm It's only a couple of walls away from being Minas Tirith Morgul.

YellowKing wrote: ↑Sat Aug 08, 2020 4:01 pm I swear to God if Trump somehow steals this election, we need to be marching to the White House and burning the motherfucker to the ground.

Blackhawk wrote: ↑Sat Aug 08, 2020 10:05 pm
I think the reason we haven't seen bigger responses is that we're counting on this election to put things back on course and turn Trump into a freak detour for the history books. People are letting things slide because people see a solution. They have hope. If Trump stays in the White House and the election isn't crystal clear, they'll no longer have a solution or any hope. That's when people get desperate, and that's when people will respond.