The 2020 US Presidential Election

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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!

474 thoughts on “The 2020 US Presidential Election”

  2. Pretty much every election is accompanied by vague, poorly-sourced claims of magical ballot count changes. It would be surprising if such rumors were NOT doing the rounds with the tinfoil hat brigades. The “blocking our observers” claim is a new one, and demonstrably false, as Flint explains above.
    The thing is, we knew, prior to the election, that Republican strategy would include trying to cast doubt on ‘late-arriving’ vote tallies; that was why they refused to allow the tallying of postal votes prior to election day. So it is entertaining to see Miele specifically allude to ballots not “counted on a timely basis”.
    I do agree that the USA electoral process is a total clusterf*ck, and unlikely to improve any time soon.

  5. “Power leaking out of him like a cracked septic tank”, as a Guardian commenter put it.

  7. petrushka: I’d readily trade votes by felons for voter ID and simple paper ballots that can be audited.

    My state has a paper trail as well as the software version.Not sure how one can trade rights for others that were approved by voters.

  10. Adapa:
    Next we get the Orange Clown discovering there are no golf courses on Rikers Island.

    I rather doubt there will be any repercussions from his consistent abuse of power, or using his position to pad his wallet, or anything like that. But I hope to be able to follow the investigations into his (and his family’s and his organization’s) finances, especially now that I expect at least the top few layers of corruption to be skimmed off the Department of Justice. There may no longer be any good reason for Deutsche Bank, Mazar’s, or the Russians to shield him.

    I’m probably not the only one irritated that when Richard Neal asked the IRS for Trumps tax returns, and the law requires that the IRS shall provide them on demand, and Mnuchin told Neal to pound sand, Neal did exactly that!

  11. Flint,

    I agree completely.

    Without the justice department to shield him, it will be much easier to unwind all of his dubious financial transactions. And it appears there are many. I suspect a lot of his companies are going to struggle now. They were already way in debt. Almost none of his projects actually make money.

  12. Flint: I rather doubt there will be any repercussions from his consistent abuse of power, or using his position to pad his wallet, or anything like that.

    I’d agree with you if President Trump had not asserted repeatedly that he has the power to pardon himself. I believe that he will attempt to pardon himself of any and all federal crimes that he might have committed. Then it will be necessary to prosecute him for obstruction of justice, on the basis of evidence described in the second part of the Mueller report. The primary objective will not be to obtain a conviction, but instead to force the Supreme Court either to decide that presidents do not have the power to pardon themselves for crimes that they commit while in office, or to make it plain to the citizenry that the Court itself is horribly pathological.

    I hope to see President Biden grant Trump a pardon for any and all crimes that he may have committed during his presidency, immediately after the Supreme Court decides that presidents do not have the power to pardon themselves.

  13. If Trump is successful in his endeavours to reverse the result, I fear America will burn. You can’t get there from here.

  14. Tom English: I hope to see President Biden grant Trump a pardon for any and all crimes that he may have committed during his presidency, immediately after the Supreme Court decides that presidents do not have the power to pardon themselves.

    I must be missing something. Why would you hope Biden would do that?

  15. I’m not seeing any recent news of or comments from Mike Pence. You’d think he’d be out in the media supporting DONALD.

  16. Allan Miller:
    If Trump is successful in his endeavours to reverse the result, I fear America will burn. You can’t get there from here.

    Maybe separation is an answer: RUSA (rural America) and UUSA (urban America). The Brexit solution, only bigger.

  17. phoodoo: I must be missing something. Why would you hope Biden would do that?

    Because the pardon would be null and void, because of the court decision Trump evoked himself.

  18. Corneel: Because the pardon would be null and void, because of the court decision Trump evoked himself.

    But he is saying the Supreme Court decision would be that presidents can’t pardon themselves. So his own pardon would not be in effect, but then Biden’s pardon would be.

  20. phoodoo: But he is saying the Supreme Court decision would be that presidents can’t pardon themselves. So his own pardon would not be in effect, but then Biden’s pardon would be.

    I see what you mean. Then Tom will have to explain it himself, I guess.

  21. Allan Miller:
    If Trump is successful in his endeavours to reverse the result, I fear America will burn. You can’t get there from here.

    For some Trump voters that is a feature not a flaw.

  23. Miele on “RealClearPolitics” [LOL] notes

    The allegations range from mysterious ballot drops that seem to show tens of thousands of votes for Joe Biden and zero votes for President Trump

    Yeah, that mealy-mouthed language is necessary. He’s referring to the “138k votes for Biden and zero for Trump” in Michigan that Matt Mackowiak screenshot and tweeted, and Trump retweeted, yelling “WHAT IS THIS ALL ABOUT?”. Well, Miele should know that 138k bump was, you guessed it, a typo in an unofficial count that was detected and promptly corrected. Matt Mackowiak had the decency to issue a correction.
    What happened? Shiawassee County reported an unofficial tally of 153,710 votes for Biden. State called them back inside 20 minutes “Say what?” Shiawassee “ooops, that should read 15,371”.
    None of this has anything to do with the official tallies, which are signed off by two Republican and two Democrat canvassers.
    But everybody’s heard about the magical vote bumps…

  24. Looking at the data over at the NYT, it looks to me like Petrushka’s conspiracy theory holds no water. There’s not a single state, other than Georgia, where Trump would have beaten Biden even if every single ballot without a vote for the senate had been excluded.

  26. DNA_Jock,

    Well you can’t really blame Miele . Sometimes David Ickes gets a few small details wrong about the lizard people controlling the royal family.

    Mielie will probably issue a correction.

  28. Let us take this moment to recall our personal favorite Trump moment. This is mine. Sharpie on a hurricane map:

  29. dazz:
    Looking at the data over at the NYT, it looks to me like Petrushka’s conspiracy theory holds no water. There’s not a single state, other than Georgia, where Trump would have beaten Biden even if every single ballot without a vote for the senate had been excluded.

    Non sequitor. My home town has a republican mayor, but generally votes for democratic presidents. It’s a curiosity. I don’t think evidence exists to support any theory. Saying the voters don’t understand the ballot sounds a bit like saying they aren’t intelligent enough to read party affiliation on the ballot. It’s not like they have to remember candidate’s names. It’s even more curious with mail ins, because there’s no time pressure, and there’s plenty of opportunity to get help.

    Besides, I’ve already stipulated that recounts are unlikely to change the outcome. Never have.

    I have one theory that you are unlikely to disabuse me of. That is, it is inherently a bad policy to begin counting before publishing the number of ballots received and accepted.

    Counting itself is trivial, or should be. Most states get it done in a few hours. Florida, California, New york, Texas — the most populous states — never seem to find new ballots after counting is nearly complete. This is a simple case of Caesar’s Wife. The process should not invite suspicion.

    Interestingly, in 2016, the New York Times website was able to report in real time, the number of ballots remaining to be counted in every precinct. They dropped that feature in 2018 and 2020. Don’t know why. Most data related processes improve over time.

  31. DNA_Jock: The thing is, we knew, prior to the election, that Republican strategy would include trying to cast doubt on ‘late-arriving’ vote tallies; that was why they refused to allow the tallying of postal votes prior to election day. So it is entertaining to see Miele specifically allude to ballots not “counted on a timely basis”.

    There’s quite a difference between collecting and verifying ballots, and reporting the total votes.

    You might recall a quaint, and apparently obsolete custom by news services, of not reporting East coast counts until the polls closed on the West coast.

  32. newton: That was a strategic decision by some State Legislatures controlled by Republicans, they knew the Democrats were more like to vote by mail which takes longer to tabulate.

    I acknowledge that it’s a bit more time consuming to verify a mail in ballot, but Florida has had open absentee voting for decades and has no problems. There is no physical difference in the ballot. It goes through the counting machines as fast as an in person ballot.

    Nor is there any good reason that given six weeks to vote and mail the ballot, it should not arrive on time.

    There are numerous potential problems to spreading the actual counting over weeks. Security for the machines simply cannot be maintained. And it obviously isn‘t necessary.

  33. petrushka: Counting itself is trivial, or should be. Most states get it done in a few hours. Florida, California, New york, Texas — the most populous states — never seem to find new ballots after counting is nearly complete

    Those states must count mail-in ballots before election day by law, right?

  34. Rumraket: Let us take this moment to recall our personal favorite Trump moment.

    That was quite a surreal moment. I think I’m going to wait and enjoy the moment he leaves the White House for the final time.

  35. dazz: Those states must count mail-in ballots before election day by law, right?

    No, but the ballots must be received by the time the polls close. This is true by law in Pennsylvania, which is the cause of some litigation.

    This is not complicated. The most time honored way of cheating is to wait until the votes are counted. If it’s close, you know how many you need to flip the election. Obviously, it needs to be close.

    If you announce how many ballots have been received before you count, you close up an opportunity for cheating, AND you close up an opportunity to claim cheating. A twofer.

    I might add, that the Florida results were predicted to within a thousand or so before counting, by knowing history, and by knowing how many ballots were received from each party. In Florida, independents split evenly, to a fraction of a percent.

    My gut feeling is that contested elections, over time, result in better processes. I know people who are analyzing this election. Not using any technique that’s showing up on the net. I hear them say they’ve found stuff here and there, but not anything that could flip the election. I stick with my prediction that the election won’t flip.

  40. dazz,

    Haven’t personally encountered anyone using Benford’s Law. I’m not aware of any dataset where it would apply. Nor aware of any argument that it is universally not applicable.

    As far as I know, the legal work is currently focussing on sworn testimony of corrupt practices, and the Pennsylvania law regarding the cutoff date for accepting ballots. I don’t expect it to go anywhere, ultimately.

  41. petrushka: legal work is currently focussing on sworn testimony of corrupt practices

    That sounds like a rather tendentious way of saying hearsay

  42. Mung:
    Stealing elections goes hand in hand with being a racist country.

    The underlying message of sarcasm in Mung’s message is that just because the orange idiot constantly says racist things, and just because his followers love this, that doesn’t make the country racist. Because unless someone says they are racist they are not racist. Isn’t it funny, hehehe.

    I guess its not a racist country because the orange klansman lost. Apparently only a few million are racists-to Mung’s chagrin.

  45. Mung:
    Stealing elections goes hand in hand with being a racist country.

    If you are appealing to a racist majority there is no need to steal anything .

  46. petrushka: My gut feeling is that contested elections, over time, result in better processes. I know people who are analyzing this election. Not using any technique that’s showing up on the net. I hear them say they’ve found stuff here and there, but not anything that could flip the election. I stick with my prediction that the election won’t flip.

    Given your previous predictions, that makes me a little nervous.

  47. petrushka: I acknowledge that it’s a bit more time consuming to verify a mail in ballot, but Florida has had open absentee voting for decades and has no problems. There is no physical difference in the ballot. It goes through the counting machines as fast as an in person ballot.

    The time consuming extraction the ballot combined with not being allowed to start the process until Election Day guarantees a much slower process.

    Added to that is the sheer volume of mail in ballots this year. And one more issue is in Pennsylvania does not have early voting. It is mail in or show up on Election Day.

    Nor is there any good reason that given six weeks to vote and mail the ballot, it should not arrive on time.

    Assuming mail service has not been tampered with.

    There are numerous potential problems to spreading the actual counting over weeks. Security for the machines simply cannot be maintained. And it obviously isn‘t necessary.

    Provisional ballots are even more time consuming , and every step has to be observed and rechecked. Traditionally overseas ballots take some time to arrive. The higher the volume the longer it takes.

  49. newton,

    Its an absolute disgrace that a country that constantly touts its great democracy can’t even have a federal holiday on election day.

    What in the fuck is that?

  50. phoodoo: Its an absolute disgrace that a country that constantly touts its great democracy can’t even have a federal holiday on election day.

    The United States has always opposed democracy whenever democracy did not favor the interests of white affluent citizens. It’s best described as a Herrenvolk democracy. Making election day a federal holiday, or making it easier for people to vote, would weaken the herrenvolkisch character of the United States. What changed in the American herrenvolk democracy from the 19th century to the 20th and 21st centuries is that in the 19th century, the herrenvolkisch character of the US was evident to all, celebrated, and legitimized. Now it is concealed underneath layers of omissions, lies, distortions, and red herrings.

    The Republican party wants to preserve the Herrenvolk democracy. This was implicit in the GOP machinery since the criminalization of Blacks with the War on Drugs. Trump’s overt racism was just the quiet part out loud. They want to put up as many obstacles to voting as they can legally get away with, because they are the minority and they know it. They know that they can’t win on the popularity of their policies, so they try to win by preventing people from voting against them.

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