Georgia Senate Runoff.

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  • Furtive GanderFurtive Gander Shipmate
    edited January 6
    Why are interim results made public in US elections at all? It makes no sense but unhelpfully fuels speculation in news media and social media plus claims of winning from supporters of those *currently* in the lead but does not serve democracy in any way thay I can see.

    Imagine a football game where one side is leading at half time and the coach claims a win, or a court case where jurors are interviewed on TV news shows during breaks following some apparently impressive testimony but before all the witnesses have been heard with calls to end the trial; it would be ridiculous and deny justice.

  • CrœsosCrœsos Shipmate
    orfeo wrote: »
    Commentary here that if the Democrats pull this off, Stacey Abrams will have lots of political capital for whatever sort of role she wants in the party.

    I think she's got the role she wants right now. One of the things that's frustrating about people who hold elected or appointed office (and the pundit class that mostly interacts with people who hold elected or appointed office) is that they tend to view all other political activity in terms of getting into some particular office. Stacey Abrams is doing important work where she is, and it's not immediately obvious that the work she's doing now could be done nearly as well as someone else. Admittedly Abrams had electoral ambitions in the past, and may still do so, but I'm not seeing a good reason for rushing to yank her out of a role that she's very good at and is heavily dependent upon personal factors that aren't easy to replicate.
    Gramps49 wrote: »
    Looks like McConnell is finally losing control of the Senate.

    He was always more competent promoting gridlock as minority leader than he ever was at running the Senate.
  • Martin54Martin54 Shipmate
    Dave W wrote: »
    Martin54 wrote: »
    Martin54 wrote: »
    Martin54 wrote: »
    And the truly lovely drone king Obama wouldn't have said, with all ironic irony 'Hey, and you got to meet the President of the USA!'?

    Not ten years before he became the president, no!

    Details, shmetails. It says NOTHING about clinical narcissism. Trump was presenting the initially phenomenally successful The Apprentice? From 2004. When were he and Radcliffe together?

    If it was just after the first Harry Potter film, that would have been 2001... details, I guess...

    So Trump was only a 55 year old Manhattan property, sports (football, wrestling, boxing), airline, hotel, 'beauty' pageant billionaire? And TV celeb from '85? Best selling author in '87? 'Starting in the 1990s, Trump was a guest about 24 times on the nationally syndicated Howard Stern Show.'.

    Daniel Radcliffe was 12.
    Even a 12 year old could easily realize that “the exciting thing that [he] should talk about on the show” would be the movie he had just starred in and was sent there to promote, not meeting another guest.

    Uh huh. And he was a psychologist too?
  • Gramps49Gramps49 Shipmate
    Why are interim results made public in US elections at all? It makes no sense but unhelpfully fuels speculation in news media and social media plus claims of winning from supporters of those *currently* in the lead but does not serve democracy in any way thay I can see.

    Election returns spell revenue.
    Imagine a football game where one side is leading at half time and the coach claims a win, or a court case where jurors are interviewed on TV news shows during breaks following some apparently impressive testimony but before all the witnesses have been heard with calls to end the trial; it would be ridiculous and deny justice.

    Yes, though there does come a time when the spectators realize there is no way the opponent can catch up to the winning team and the bleachers start emptying out.
  • Dave WDave W Shipmate
    Why are interim results made public in US elections at all? It makes no sense but unhelpfully fuels speculation in news media and social media plus claims of winning from supporters of those *currently* in the lead but does not serve democracy in any way thay I can see.

    Imagine a football game where one side is leading at half time and the coach claims a win, or a court case where jurors are interviewed on TV news shows during breaks following some apparently impressive testimony but before all the witnesses have been heard with calls to end the trial; it would be ridiculous and deny justice.
    I don’t think that historically reporting the results from partial counts has really been much of an issue, at least once the last polls have closed (an issue in a country with multiple time zones and a variety of poll closing times.) Once votes have been cast and only the counting is left, showing the running totals doesn’t make any difference to the final result, so why not report something that a lot of people are really interested in?

    As with so many things, our accepted practices weren’t established with an eye toward accommodating someone like Trump.
  • CrœsosCrœsos Shipmate
    Why are interim results made public in US elections at all? It makes no sense but unhelpfully fuels speculation in news media and social media plus claims of winning from supporters of those *currently* in the lead but does not serve democracy in any way that I can see.

    Because counting votes unobserved and in secret is way destructive to democracy than publicly reporting vote tallies as they are counted. Because votes are counted in the open with observers on hand there's no way to keep that information a secret from the public.
    Imagine a football game where one side is leading at half time and the coach claims a win, or a court case where jurors are interviewed on TV news shows during breaks following some apparently impressive testimony but before all the witnesses have been heard with calls to end the trial; it would be ridiculous and deny justice.

    Imagine a football game where there was no publicly-viewable scoreboard or time clock until the game was declared over by officials.
    Gramps49 wrote: »
    Yes, though there does come a time when the spectators realize there is no way the opponent can catch up to the winning team and the bleachers start emptying out.

    For those familiar with baseball, this is why the bottom half of the ninth inning is not played if the team that bats last is already leading.
  • Furtive GanderFurtive Gander Shipmate
    edited January 6
    Crœsos wrote: »
    Why are interim results made public in US elections at all? It makes no sense but unhelpfully fuels speculation in news media and social media plus claims of winning from supporters of those *currently* in the lead but does not serve democracy in any way that I can see.

    Because counting votes unobserved and in secret is way destructive to democracy than publicly reporting vote tallies as they are counted. Because votes are counted in the open with observers on hand there's no way to keep that information a secret from the public.
    Imagine a football game where one side is leading at half time and the coach claims a win, or a court case where jurors are interviewed on TV news shows during breaks following some apparently impressive testimony but before all the witnesses have been heard with calls to end the trial; it would be ridiculous and deny justice.

    Imagine a football game where there was no publicly-viewable scoreboard or time clock until the game was declared over by officials.
    Gramps49 wrote: »
    Yes, though there does come a time when the spectators realize there is no way the opponent can catch up to the winning team and the bleachers start emptying out.

    For those familiar with baseball, this is why the bottom half of the ninth inning is not played if the team that bats last is already leading.


    OK, I'm convinced, though if the partial result is different from the true final result, mischief can ensue.
  • Gramps49 wrote: »
    To recap the vote. Initial counting from urban areas showed both Democrats with substantial leads, but then the rural vote started coming in which was heavily Republican. Still, the votes from the urban areas were still being counted and the Democrat vote gradually caught up and overtook the Republican vote. The final count will be finished by Friday because of mail-in ballots and military votes still coming in.

    Looks like McConnell is finally losing control of the Senate.

    From your lips to God's ears.
  • jay_emmjay_emm Shipmate
    "Furtive wrote:
    OK, I'm convinced, though if the partial result is different from the true final result, mischief can ensue.

    What you need is a swingometer combined with the result (I gathered from previous discussion that one of the papers does have it in practice), or everyone to otherwise be very specific about what's actually being reported*

    (and this Corona elections, to alternate counting postal and day bundles, have more city stations, and generally balance off uneveness)

    *In Britain it works well as the announced result is also a genuine result as well. Which doesn't really make up for effectively merging the house/elector vote (so straight ballots only). Also there's one less layer (you understand the relationship between your votes and the federal, much better than us we did with the union)
  • https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2021/01/05/us/elections/results-georgia-runoffs.html

    (Live count numbers)

    Not quite been called yet but beyond 0.5% lead...
  • The Guardian reports that Ossoff has indeed won, so that's one piece of good news for today.

    Well, not for Trump and his bully-boys, but hey...
  • ... and that brown-skin woman, Vice President Harris, will be the deciding vote ...
    The White-Supremacist Red Hat Brown Shirts ... will go NUTS ...
  • The Georgia capitol has been evacuated, and I gather there have been attacks on some other state capitols. In addition the unrest in Washington.
  • The Georgia capitol has been evacuated, and I gather there have been attacks on some other state capitols. In addition the unrest in Washington.

    There is a small coterie of Red Hat Brown Shirts at the Minnesota Capitol, but outnumbered by police ...
  • RuthRuth Shipmate
    They've stormed the Capitol. They passed up NUTS a while ago.
  • Ruth wrote: »
    They've stormed the Capitol. They passed up NUTS a while ago.

    sedition
  • WaPo is flat-out calling them terrorists.
  • mousethief wrote: »
    WaPo is flat-out calling them terrorists.

    It has been fascinating to watch the FauxNews coverage ...
    THIS is what/who they have been cultivating for >four years ...
  • mousethief wrote: »
    WaPo is flat-out calling them terrorists.

    I hope they are photographed and fingerprinted as they leave and put on a terrorist watch list - and have any firearms confiscated.
  • mousethief wrote: »
    WaPo is flat-out calling them terrorists.

    I hope they are photographed and fingerprinted as they leave and put on a terrorist watch list - and have any firearms confiscated.

    None of that will happen.
  • Gramps49Gramps49 Shipmate
    Interesting process in which the National Guard was called out. Rumors were saying Pence make the decision, but a Senator close to Pence said he was not involved. Rather, the mayor of DC directly contacted the acting Secretary of Defense who contacted the acting Attorney General. The three of them agreed for the safety of the capitol the Guard units were called out. (CNN reporting)

    This means the Commander in Chief has abdicated his power--or at least there was a mini coup behind his back.

    More people are calling on Pence invoke the 25th. However, I think it would Pence would need the concurrence of the cabinet. But I also wonder if the two chambers of Congress can invoke it as well.
  • Gee DGee D Shipmate
    OK, I'm convinced, though if the partial result is different from the true final result, mischief can ensue.

    If counting does not start until voting has closed, what mischief can ensue?
  • Gee DGee D Shipmate
    Gramps49 wrote: »
    More people are calling on Pence invoke the 25th. However, I think it would Pence would need the concurrence of the cabinet. But I also wonder if the two chambers of Congress can invoke it as well.

    That goes to the point that I raised the other day: Trump's behaviour in the last week or so seems to me to have gone so far off the rails that he is now certifiable.
  • Dave WDave W Shipmate
    edited January 7
    Gee D wrote: »
    OK, I'm convinced, though if the partial result is different from the true final result, mischief can ensue.

    If counting does not start until voting has closed, what mischief can ensue?
    Well, there’s the current mischief - a sociopath could convince his gullible, violent followers that the changes in the partial votes meant election was stolen. But unfortunately this isn’t among the topics addressed in the Federalist Papers.
  • Fr TeilhardFr Teilhard Shipmate
    edited January 7
    Dave W wrote: »
    Gee D wrote: »
    OK, I'm convinced, though if the partial result is different from the true final result, mischief can ensue.

    If counting does not start until voting has closed, what mischief can ensue?
    Well, there’s the current mischief - a sociopath could convince his gullible, violent followers that the changes in the partial votes meant election was stolen. But unfortunately this isn’t among the topics addressed in the Federalist Papers.

    However ... "Sedition" is a crime under US Law ...
  • Gee DGee D Shipmate
    Dave W wrote: »
    Gee D wrote: »
    OK, I'm convinced, though if the partial result is different from the true final result, mischief can ensue.

    If counting does not start until voting has closed, what mischief can ensue?
    Well, there’s the current mischief - a sociopath could convince his gullible, violent followers that the changes in the partial votes meant election was stolen. But unfortunately this isn’t among the topics addressed in the Federalist Papers.

    Sorry, but I can't follow this. Are you suggesting that people will cast their vote influenced by the votes already counted?
  • orfeoorfeo Shipmate
    Martin54 wrote: »
    orfeo wrote: »
    Martin54 wrote: »
    Trump is a political genius. A neo-fascist political genius who has made the alt and far right acceptable and polarized American politics more than at any time since the Civil War. Over the same issues. I fail to see anything clinical at all about his psychology. There is no evidence that he is a narcissist in his own front room. His legacy is assured way beyond the personal.

    Oh please. If you think he's a genius you've drunk the Kool-Aid**. The man has certainly tapped into the right-wing political zeitgeist, but that's not the result of genius, that's the result of him semi-accidentally aligning with it in much the same way that a clock is right twice a day, and being supplied with a script at the crucial time.

    And existing in an age where you can spout whatever you want directly to 'your' people without those annoying gatekeepers like journalists.

    There's ample evidence that Trump is a mouthpiece of Fox News, not the other way around. Time and again the stuff that Trump tweets is stuff he's seen on Fox, sitting in that front room of his while chomping on burgers. He's not the genius, he's the stooge that's put up as a front.

    As to your claim there's no evidence of being a narcissist in private, there is plenty. Where have you been for the last several years as the anecdotes emerge of what he says and how he behaves behind closed doors? For heaven's sake, I'll never forget Daniel Radcliffe talking about meeting Trump after the first Harry Potter film because they were both going on the same breakfast talk show. Trump thought that the exciting thing that Radcliffe should talk about on the show was meeting Trump.

    **Noting they didn't actually drink Kool-Aid, but that's the expression.

    Er, Fox know what he'll say. They are the Machiavellian genii, the Beast, but he is the real deal, he is the Beast's Prophet. Crazy like a fox.

    And the truly lovely drone king Obama wouldn't have said, with all ironic irony 'Hey, and you got to meet the President of the USA!'?

    The incident I referred to was not when Trump was President.
  • orfeoorfeo Shipmate
    Why are interim results made public in US elections at all? It makes no sense but unhelpfully fuels speculation in news media and social media plus claims of winning from supporters of those *currently* in the lead but does not serve democracy in any way thay I can see.

    Because people want to know the outcome before they go to bed. Official election results take days.

  • Dave WDave W Shipmate
    Gee D wrote: »
    Dave W wrote: »
    Gee D wrote: »
    OK, I'm convinced, though if the partial result is different from the true final result, mischief can ensue.

    If counting does not start until voting has closed, what mischief can ensue?
    Well, there’s the current mischief - a sociopath could convince his gullible, violent followers that the changes in the partial votes meant election was stolen. But unfortunately this isn’t among the topics addressed in the Federalist Papers.

    Sorry, but I can't follow this. Are you suggesting that people will cast their vote influenced by the votes already counted?
    No. Some early partial counts appeared to favor Trump in places where he lost in the final count, and he has used this to inspire a mob to storm the US Capitol. Perhaps you’ve heard?
  • Gee DGee D Shipmate
    No, complete news for me to hear that. Did they do any damage?
  • Dave WDave W Shipmate
    Could be worse.
  • Gee D wrote: »
    OK, I'm convinced, though if the partial result is different from the true final result, mischief can ensue.

    If counting does not start until voting has closed, what mischief can ensue?

    I was thinking of the misleading claims by trump and his lawyer that ~ if their vote tally was ahead and was later overtaken, there must clearly have been be some funny business. No-one would think there might be some truth in that line if the partial result had been kept back until the result was beyond doubt. Trouble resulted because some gullible people think the final official result was not the true one.
  • orfeo wrote: »
    Why are interim results made public in US elections at all? It makes no sense but unhelpfully fuels speculation in news media and social media plus claims of winning from supporters of those *currently* in the lead but does not serve democracy in any way thay I can see.

    Because people want to know the outcome before they go to bed. Official election results take days.

    Responsible media outlets make a judgement of when to declare a winner - when the result is beyond all reasonable doubt but before every single vote has been counted, which seems fair. Their reputations can suffer if they declare it too soon and turn out to be wrong.

    People wanting to know a 'final' result for personal convenience must not be allowed to force out a partial result which may mislead people and possibly cause trouble.
  • Gee D wrote: »
    OK, I'm convinced, though if the partial result is different from the true final result, mischief can ensue.

    If counting does not start until voting has closed, what mischief can ensue?

    I was thinking of the misleading claims by trump and his lawyer that ~ if their vote tally was ahead and was later overtaken, there must clearly have been be some funny business. No-one would think there might be some truth in that line if the partial result had been kept back until the result was beyond doubt. Trouble resulted because some gullible people think the final official result was not the true one.

    This is true but it's not just an unfortunate accident, it's more malign than that: it's a pre-meditated strategy.

    Trump's team know how the voting patterns and counting patterns go and saw the opportunity to mislead. Whether Trump is deliberately misleading or so down the rabbit hole of his own making that he honestly believes the nonsense is beside the point here.

    It is a premeditated strategy to cause mischief.

    AFZ

  • Yes quite right. I was responding to Gee D who queried what mischief I meant when I said that releasing partial results (when overturned by the final result) could lead to 'mischief'. Badloser trump and his main sycophants used those instances of changed final outcomes to rouse the ill-informed zealots and knuckledraggers to violent action.
  • And, in one case, to a violent death.
    :disappointed:
  • Gee D wrote: »
    No, complete news for me to hear that. Did they do any damage?

    Smashed windows. Stolen goods. Four people died. Other than that, yes.
  • It is a premeditated strategy to cause mischief.

    Quite. It's not actually hard to interpret partial results - you do it with reference to the demographics and polling from the areas that have returned results, and you say things like "Candidate X has done 5% better than expected in the votes from region Y. If this trend continues across the state, things are looking goof for X".

    This election had an additional complication of the massive partisan bias in the mail votes vs the in-person votes, which is completely explainable because one candidate was telling his supporters to vote in person, and the other was encouraging people to keep themselves safe in the ongoing viral pandemic and vote by mail.

    Pollsters, media outlets, and anyone with a brain were doing exactly this. It's not possible for even vaguely intelligent people not to understand this. It follows that promoting the false Trumpian narrative of a "stolen election" and "mysteriously appearing" votes is deliberate malfeasance.
  • RuthRuth Shipmate
    mousethief wrote: »
    Gee D wrote: »
    No, complete news for me to hear that. Did they do any damage?

    Smashed windows. Stolen goods. Four people died. Other than that, yes.

    Our democracy is a bit worse for wear as well.
  • Bishops FingerBishops Finger Shipmate
    edited January 7
    Yes, but the US now has a chance of at least beginning to put things back together again...a long haul for Mr Biden, Ms Harris, and all people of goodwill, but hopefully a better day is dawning.
  • BoogieBoogie Shipmate
    Yes, but the US now has a chance of at least beginning to put things back together again...a long haul for Mr Biden, Ms Harris, and all people of goodwill, but hopefully a better day is dawning.

    Amen 🕯

  • Yes, but the US now has a chance of at least beginning to put things back together again...a long haul for Mr Biden, Ms Harris, and all people of goodwill, but hopefully a better day is dawning.

    Yep. Please pray for the UK. America's rebuild begins on January 20th at 1201pm.

    Ours? No one knows yet but probably not this year or next.

    AFZ
  • Ruth wrote: »
    They've stormed the Capitol. They passed up NUTS a while ago.

    Sorry, probably being a bit dim, but what is NUTS in this context? I tried a quick search and found 25 possibilities, but none seemed to fit. https://abbreviations.com/NUTS
  • I thought Ruth meant that they were no longer just *nuts* (as in eccentric), but criminally insane.

    Or something like that.
  • RuthRuth Shipmate
    Ruth wrote: »
    They've stormed the Capitol. They passed up NUTS a while ago.

    Sorry, probably being a bit dim, but what is NUTS in this context? I tried a quick search and found 25 possibilities, but none seemed to fit. https://abbreviations.com/NUTS

    A previous poster put "nuts" in all caps, so I did likewise.
  • Gee DGee D Shipmate
    mousethief wrote: »
    Gee D wrote: »
    No, complete news for me to hear that. Did they do any damage?

    Smashed windows. Stolen goods. Four people died. Other than that, yes.

    My "query" was an answer to the post from Dave W immediately above.
    Ruth wrote: »

    Our democracy is a bit worse for wear as well.

    That's the worst damage from the attack. I suppose it's unlikely but his replacement by Pence for the next few days would be by far the best outcome. Apart from removing Trump from the possibility of creating further damage, it would very clearly point out just how bad Trump's incitement was.
  • That's the "other than that, yes" part.
  • Gee DGee D Shipmate
    Sorry Mousethief, I was being ironic.
  • The only trouble with replacing Trump with Pence is you're just putting another carpetbagger in the oval office.
  • The only trouble with replacing Trump with Pence is you're just putting another carpetbagger in the oval office.

    True. But, whilst Pence has very few qualities, he's not Trump. Hence you take power away from a wounded sociopathic ego maniac and give it so someone who does have thousands of cultists at his command.

    In the time left Pence can do very little damage. This is not true of Trump.

    Moreover, when abuses of democracy are without consequence, democracy is weakened. There is a key precedent that needs to be set here.

    AFZ
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