Election Meddling

SpaceNut · 2020-05-13 07:46:02

Supreme Court to debate whether 'faithless electors' can stay in the Electoral College

A broken system when a state must give all votes to a candidate that does not win them all just as much as being forced to vote against ones conscious...

tahanson43206 · 2020-05-13 09:19:00

For SpaceNut re #401

Thanks for the alert about this important debate ...

We (US citizens) have evolved substantially away from the Founders' original intent, as I understand it. At the time (and obviously still today) substantial numbers of citizens are simply unprepared to make important decisions about the future of the Nation. As I understand the original idea, uneducated citizens would elect representatives who would (hopefully with benefit of intelligence, education and perhaps even wisdom) select the President. Thus, at the beginning, the idea of an elector being "faithless" would not have made sense.

Now, (as I understand the situation), the Electors are merely stand-ins for the voters, who pick declared Electors as a way of indicating preference for a particular candidate.

It seems to me that this is a situation that needs to be resolved by Constitutional Amendment. I would expect the Supreme Court to follow the intention of the Founders, and reject the 'faithless Elector' concept.

The ONE thing the Electoral College achieves is to give rural populations a competitive influence in Congress, and (occasionally) in selecting the President.

I would expect a proposal to amend the Constitution to fail, simply because the rural States would (and do) control the outcome.

(th)

kbd512 · 2020-05-13 14:11:58

tahanson43206,

The purpose of the Electoral College is to prevent a majority population's politics from some specific State of the Union from deciding who is elected President. If California voters could muster 1 more vote than the other 49 states combined, then should California voters alone decide who the President is? If yes, then you can all but ignore the will of the people from the other 49 states and spend most of your time and money pandering to California voters. My personal opinion is that that's NOT representative government, but others disagree (because they REALLY want their way, and to hell with anyone who doesn't subscribe to every part of their ideology).

In any event, Democrats make every attempt to subvert the will of the people whenever it conflicts with their ideology or desire to seize power from legitimate (supported by the people) authority. A good example, also from California, is Proposition 8 from 2008, regarding same-sex marriage. The voters living there rejected the proposal to permit same-sex marriages, so the Democrats ran off to the Supreme Court to find a judge that would rule in their favor. Beyond that, they also publicly disclosed who voted against allowing same-sex marriages to target people who didn't vote the way they thought they should. If their employers disagreed with their employees' personal voting record, then they lost their jobs. If their employers agreed or just didn't care either way, then they threatened to murder (the language of the threats made direct reference to support for Proposition 8) or vandalize the homes and businesses of those who opposed same-sex marriage. In general, the vandalization was limited to LGBT activists throwing bricks through windows and doors at churches, or their members' cars, and spray-painting their epithets on those peoples' homes and churches. You know, run-of-the-mill petty street violence.

As someone who believes in personal liberties and freedom- for everyone and irrespective of personal ideology / sex / race / creed / etc, I don't think any government has any business whatsoever determining who can marry who, but that's just my own personal ideology at play. However, that same belief in liberty runs squarely against the belief by some that a human baby, whether that baby has passed between it's mothers legs and "magic happened", or not, should never be murdered- especially using the tax payers' money. It also means I allow both communists and nazis (just different sides of the same coin) to speak their minds in public without threatening or otherwise trying to silence them. Those of us who claim to have better ideas than they do, and I'm pretty sure that I do, will use our own freedom of speech to explain why their ideas are bad and why no governance policies should be based upon them.

Liberty's funny thing in that way. It tends to make you unpopular with everyone who just wants a dictatorship to their liking. In my estimation, there are far too many Americans who would vote for a dictatorship to their liking. My assertion is that our non-educational system failed them. Long term, even a form of servitude that you agree with isn't a very good system. Freedom isn't free and maintaining a free society isn't an easy thing to do. It's tumultuous and uncertain. There was a time in American history when "government" was just as dirty as any other four-letter word. The notion that "more government" will solve all of life's problems is a self-evident absurdity. No matter how much or how little of it that you get, all of life's problems are still there.

Anyway, dictatorship to their liking is what the mob-rule wing of the Democrat Party wants, as do the assorted radicals in the Republican Party. Any time the rules don't produce the result they want, they want to change the rules and they'll commit acts of violence against otherwise peaceful people who don't support their ideology. If the kkk / neo nazis / antifa people in this world are such a threat to our way of life that we can't at least allow them to voice their opinions, however ignorant or distasteful we may find them, then it means we lack the ability to articulate better ideas. I can't speak for anyone else, but I think my command of the English language and my ability to argue ideas are more than sufficient to counter them. I don't need to play word games or try to make them look stupid to make logically congruent rebuttals to their arguments, either. They'll do that all on their own when they can't respond to my arguments with anything other than angry or spiteful rhetoric or mindless repetition of their ideology without an explanation as to why they believe what they believe.

That is the essence of what this is about. The rest is just smoke-filled coffeehouse crap, to borrow a line from one of my favorite movies. And yes, a lot of people can't handle the truth. That's a recurring theme lately. Instead of allowing young people to run smack into ideas that conflict with their own, we've instead decided to patronize or infantilize them to the point that they can't deal cards in the marketplace of ideas. All those "safe spaces" aren't doing anyone any favors. Without understanding at least two different viewpoints surrounding any particular issue, it's hard to imagine how anyone could possibly understand their own views.

SpaceNut · 2020-05-21 16:07:13

The virus is causing quite the stir in light of the primaries that did votes even with some cleaning when they had an amount of people become infected. So its not a surprise to want to error on the side of caution for the voter by what ever means are reasonable.
Debate over Mail in Ballots

One thing is that a single day to vote is a turn off but how long should we drag getting the results out?
Plus getting the results of states that have closed there votes before yours is another thing that should not happen until yours is closed as well.

SpaceNut · 2020-06-03 19:04:23

Appears Trump tried and failed the first time to register to vote in Florida of which owning property to declare residency. What a joke to commit a crime and not be tried for false document creation.

SpaceNut · 2020-06-16 21:24:52

Top officials from Facebook, Google and Twitter will appear before U.S. lawmakers on Thursday

http://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/ … &ocid=iehp

SpaceNut · 2020-07-07 19:30:00

Laws on the books that should have been gone a long time ago.Jim Crow-era voting provision that critics say suppresses Black political power... Mississippians could vote to strike a Jim Crow-era voting process in November

The proposed constitutional change comes as state legislators faced mounting pressure and possible court action stemming from a June 2019 challenge to the Electoral College-type voting system.

SpaceNut · 2020-07-18 08:55:59

The recent twitter internal account attacks are showing that Biden: After intel briefings, warns of election interferenceUS intelligence agencies say Russia meddled in the 2016 election with the goal of swaying the contest

SpaceNut · 2020-08-01 17:42:01

What Happened to Stacey Abrams Will Happen to Joe Biden

November of 2018 laid out a winning dirty playbook that the GOP is about to roll out nationwide, with partisan officials charged with running state elections using voter suppression and disenfranchisement tactics to chip away at Democratic votes and the electoral process itself

SpaceNut · 2020-08-02 20:14:10

Expect nothing less from Trump...House Majority Whip Jim Clyburn on Sunday likened President Donald Trump to fascist Italian dictator Benito Mussolini, warning that Trump would resist leaving office.

SpaceNut · 2020-08-03 21:06:33

Mail-In Voting Concerns Prompt House to Ask Postmaster General to Hearing

SpaceNut · 2020-08-08 21:06:45

This the crap that needs to be stopped Their mail was not delivered for days. Now these Minneapolis residents are worried about their votes counting.

SpaceNut · 2020-08-10 17:50:15

Judge balks at White House’s executive privilege claim over Ukraine emails about a hold President Donald Trump put on U.S. aid to Ukraine in 2019.

The messages are considered key evidence about the event that triggered Trump’s impeachment by the House last year that the government had failed to make a convincing showing that the 21 messages between White House aide Robert Blair and Office of Management and Budget official Michael Duffey were eligible for protection under legal privileges protecting the development of presidential advice or decisions made by other government officials.

kbd512 · 2020-08-10 18:22:24

SpaceNut,

So now you have a problem with the COVID-19 social distancing measures used by the USPS in Minneapolis?

How is this in any way related to election meddling?

SpaceNut · 2020-08-10 19:11:31

Mail is delivered to a mailbox not to a person making any social distance claim false for election ballots to not be delivered on time.

kbd512 · 2020-08-10 19:29:51

SpaceNut,

If the workers at the USPS facilities there can't properly social distance without changes to their mail sorting facility, then I fail to see how them working on their facilities has anything at all to do with election ballots. This looks like another media-driven "false narrative" to me.

SpaceNut · 2020-08-10 20:32:20

Nothing in news for any out breaks effecting postal services since june. Mail piling up at Postal Service due to July directive, which eliminates overtime for hundreds of thousands of postal workers and mandates that mail be kept until the next day if distribution centers are running late. For 245 years, the Postal Service has worked to provide reliable, consistent and on-time delivery that keeps Americans connected no matter where they live – especially in rural areas. Constant attacks from the president on mail in ballot use.

Trump equates mail-in voting to Russian election interference claiming with no evidence that it is a ploy to help them win the election by opening the doors to voter fraud.

The reality 2020 Daily Trail Markers: Wisconsin voters head to the polls again after "the disaster of April 7"

April, clerks were swamped with last minute requests for absentee ballots and many voters around the state reported that they did not receive their ballots by Election Day. There were also issues finding poll workers in April and some cities had to cut the number of polling sites, leading to massive lines. Most dramatically, Milwaukee was only able to operate 5 of its usual 180 polling locations.
Wisconsin National Guard is providing more than 650 election workers around the state on Tuesday, after municipalities reported a shortage of more than 900 workers last week. Milwaukee has about 40 National Guard members on standby for Tuesday's election in case there are workers who call out at the last minute, but the city is opening nearly 170 polling locations

kbd512 · 2020-08-10 22:48:26

SpaceNut,

I've had plenty of mail that was delivered late, to the wrong address, or damaged. In all that time, I've never attributed to malice that which was so easily explainable by human error. People are fallible and mistakes will be made. Generally speaking, most people try to do their best. Unfortunately, the COVID-19 response threw a monkey wrench into everything. We're still dealing with the effects of that response as a result. There's no conspiracy here. Sorry, but there just isn't.

President Trump has also had some unkind things to say about our media as well, much of it well-deserved in my opinion, and yet they continue their 24/7/365 political attack advertisement against him and nobody inside or outside of the government has lifted a finger to stop them from doing so. Even if you can't see it, I think you have an unhealthy obsession with our President. It's Trump this, Trump that, Trump the other, 24/7 Trump Trump Trump.

The media is preying upon your worst deep-seated fears of people you don't like / don't understand / don't care to understand, over something that's objectively not happening, and you're just lapping up the brain excrement that the nihilism cheerleading squad (aka, "mainstream media") is feeding to you. You've been ensnared in a self-reinforcing logic loop. It happens quite frequently when you don't stop to question whether or not what you're being told has any underlying motivation and make a concerted effort to rationalize what the motivations are behind any specific action or governance policy or political propaganda or whatever.

Try to imagine what would have to be true for what you believe to be happening, to actually happen:

Ballots being handed out by a state government, run by Democrats, and delivered through the USPS (most of whom wouldn't be fans of President Trump by now, given his remarks on what he'd like to do to the USPS- meaning, shut them down), would have to have been deliberately withheld by the very people you tend to vote for (Democrats). Furthermore, the USPS workers who deliver the mail would have to be "in on the conspiracy" (many of whom would also be black and also be Democrats and also live in the very neighborhoods they provide service to). For all of that to be simultaneously true would be a very remarkable set of circumstances (as in, very nearly completely impossible), wouldn't you say? Anyway, most of us would, but that's because we're using our powers of intellect to discern what is actually happening, rather than taking everything we're being told by media talking heads who, more likely than not, have some kind of political ideology to satisfy.

It's so stunning to me that the simplest explanations are always overlooked by people who are supposed to belong to the intellectual class. In fact, I don't know if there's any such thing anymore.

Fanatical Political Ideologue Explanation for President Trump:

President Trump "stole" the election by "colluding" with those crafty Russians. Everyone here in America just couldn't figure out on their own if they wanted Hillary Clinton or Donald Trump to be President.

Simplest Explanation for President Trump:

People didn't care too much for the results of former President Obama's administration, so they either sat on their hands on Election Day or they voted for President Trump to see if voting for someone who wasn't a career politician would produce better results.

Some of the stuff that would have to be true for these political beliefs you have to carry water is stranger than any fiction I've ever read. In short, the opposing political party would have to deliberately prevent people from voting for them, but even at that, there would also have to be multiple other logical inconsistencies for what you claim is happening, to actually happen.

SpaceNut · 2020-08-11 19:59:29

Interesting Biden VP choice. Joe Biden picks Kamala Harris as his VP in 2020

Trump's take on this pick Trump says men may be 'insulted' by Biden's female VP pledge

SpaceNut · 2020-08-13 17:45:32

Finally Judge orders Trump campaign to produce evidence of voter fraud in Pennsylvania

Supreme Court Lets Rhode Island Make Voting by Mail Easier Amid Pandemic

Not good if votes cast are not counted due to delivery not happening.

Trump suggests he'd oppose USPS funding to hurt mail-in voting, then says he won't

Trump says he'd sign bill funding USPS but won't seek changes to help mail voting

Thats about right for the president.

Terraformer · 2020-08-14 10:29:21

I really don't get why Americans are talking so much about mail in voting. Is it normal practice in the States for people to crowd into ballot cubicles? In most countries, that's actually illegal.

SpaceNut · 2020-08-14 18:02:16

Previous vote in person balloting corona infection is why the change..

What you need to know about US Postal Service's funding crisis, and how it could impact your vote in the November election

Terraformer · 2020-08-15 02:29:56

Like I said, I really don't get it. In most democratic countries, you don't share the polling booth with other people, so there shouldn't be much risk of passing on disease.

Make it a holiday, and commandeer parking lots if need be. America has a *lot* of those.

SpaceNut · 2020-08-15 19:58:20

Apr 29, 2020 · At least 52 people have tested positive after participating in Wisconsin's April 7 election, though it's unknown if that was the source of the infections.

https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/pol … 994508002/
•Idaho. Idaho's Department of Health and Welfare says, as of Monday, the state has no coronavirus …
•Michigan. Michigan, which has the most delegates (125) up for grabs on Tuesday, also has no …
•Mississippi. There are currently no confirmed coronavirus cases in Mississippi, according to the …
•Missouri. There is one coronavirus case in Missouri after officials in St. Louis County announced a …

Numbers for infected are even after masks, gloves, sanitizers ect...

Fact check: New Jersey ballot fraud case doesn't signal 'national trouble' with vote by mail

http://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/ … ?ocid=iehp

USPS warned 46 states that it can't guarantee that all mail-in-ballots would arrive on time to be counted

trying to 'sabotage'... "Our postal workers have a motto: 'neither snow, nor rain, nor heat...
Arizona Secretary of State Katie Hobbs (D), the state's top election official, has accused President Trump of trying to derail November's general election by hamstringing the United States Postal Service (USPS).

A Nevada county mailed out 1.3 million ballots for its primary election but 1 in 5 were never delivered

Rep. Bill Pascrell (D-N.J.) announced on Friday that he had made a criminal referral to the New Jersey attorney general calling for a grand jury investigation into President Trump and United States Postal Services (USPS) chief Louis DeJoy, alleging they have possibly subverted the November election.

SpaceNut · 2020-08-17 17:34:52

More than dozen U.S. states expected to sue Trump administration over postal cuts

Speaker Nancy Pelosi finalized plans Monday to provide $25 billions of dollars in funding to the flailing Postal Service as Democrats seek to prop up the agency ahead of the November election, even while senior Republicans decry the move as partisan and unnecessary amid Trump attacks.

Louisiana legislators are expected to consider a plan from Secretary of State Kyle Ardoin that may ask some voters who request an absentee ballot for the November election prove that they have tested positive for COVID-19.

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#401 2020-05-13 07:46:02

Re: Election Meddling

#402 2020-05-13 09:19:00

Re: Election Meddling

#403 2020-05-13 14:11:58

Re: Election Meddling

#404 2020-05-21 16:07:13

Re: Election Meddling

#405 2020-06-03 19:04:23

Re: Election Meddling

#406 2020-06-16 21:24:52

Re: Election Meddling

#407 2020-07-07 19:30:00

Re: Election Meddling

#408 2020-07-18 08:55:59

Re: Election Meddling

#409 2020-08-01 17:42:01

Re: Election Meddling

#410 2020-08-02 20:14:10

Re: Election Meddling

#411 2020-08-03 21:06:33

Re: Election Meddling

#412 2020-08-08 21:06:45

Re: Election Meddling

#413 2020-08-10 17:50:15

Re: Election Meddling

#414 2020-08-10 18:22:24

Re: Election Meddling

#415 2020-08-10 19:11:31

Re: Election Meddling

#416 2020-08-10 19:29:51

Re: Election Meddling

#417 2020-08-10 20:32:20

Re: Election Meddling

#418 2020-08-10 22:48:26

Re: Election Meddling

#419 2020-08-11 19:59:29

Re: Election Meddling

#420 2020-08-13 17:45:32

Re: Election Meddling

#421 2020-08-14 10:29:21

Re: Election Meddling

#422 2020-08-14 18:02:16

Re: Election Meddling

#423 2020-08-15 02:29:56

Re: Election Meddling

#424 2020-08-15 19:58:20

Re: Election Meddling

#425 2020-08-17 17:34:52

Re: Election Meddling

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