So (hosts permitting, I trust) I've opened this new thread to cover impeachment, and the various courts and creditors who are now set to bedevil the former president.
More general thoughts about the nature of America and its democracy should be a matter for a separate thread. It should be carefully phrased to avoid giving the impression that it comes from some stance of moral or political superiority. It should not be continued on this thread.
Although our parliamentary constituencies and counties are a lot smaller than the US states, they manage to wait until everything is counted to release any results. I don't know what the Australian authorities do on terms of interim results for their elections, as those include bigger areas, but the proportional system might complicate that.
Partial results are misleading. They should avoid declaring any official result until the count has been completed (in-person and mail-in counts) in each area. I understand that some results are published before ballots are closed in other areas which seems likely to affect the result.
I've always thought that veiling the vote counting process in secrecy invites more mischief than it prevents.
No, I don't think the count should take place in secret either. Just don't publish interim results which may be used to mislead people. Wait for the final tally, then let impartial officials declare a final official result.
Also don't let partisan people take any sort of control in the process. How was trump able to put pressure on a State Govenor or the Vice President to lie about or meddle with the result? Why are they involved? Counting must be done and controlled by impartial officials, not partisan poiticians.
I've only ever attended or observed one count here in the UK and that was for the 2016 EU Referendum. The count took place in a sports hall; counting was performed by council workers in the presence of observers from the parties who had an interest in the result and could presumably raise an issue if they thought there was something improper going on. We could see that the piles for Leave were bigger than for Remain but this is an area which strongly vote to Leave the EU.
Partial results are misleading. They should avoid declaring any official result until the count has been completed (in-person and mail-in counts) in each area. I understand that some results are published before ballots are closed in other areas which seems likely to affect the result.
I've always thought that veiling the vote counting process in secrecy invites more mischief than it prevents.
No, I don't think the count should take place in secret either. Just don't publish interim results which may be used to mislead people. Wait for the final tally, then let impartial officials declare a final official result.
Also don't let partisan people take any sort of control in the process. How was trump able to put pressure on a State Govenor or the Vice President to lie about or meddle with the result? Why are they involved? Counting must be done and controlled by impartial officials, not partisan poiticians.
It doesn't work that way here. First of all, there are very few people who have no political leanings. Everybody is "partisan" to a certain extent, though we rely on their ethics and various legal safeguards to prevent them doing crap they shouldn't in the service of those opinions. (Keep in mind that most American simply identify themselves as a Democrat/Republican/whatsit without going through any formal commitment process, such as signing up or donating. I understand things are different in the UK.)
Public servants come in two varieties, those who are hired (mostly career people) and those who are appointed to a position by the executive currently in power--which naturally means that the second group tend to be of the same political party as the executive, though this is not required. So that creates a slant. Again, we rely on safeguards--which include a semi-public count with observers. Local rules mean states differ on what they do, but an effort is made to have the observer thing open to more than a single party (naturally). And there are rules about recounts, vote audits and so forth, as well as the everlasting court lawsuits--so there are checks on the system.
But no, there's no way we're ever going to have complete silence on the number of votes as they accumulate, with a final number announced out of the blue. Nobody would stand for it. There will be speculation and news media extrapolating from exit polls, so you might as well announce official tallies as you get them, on the principle that it's better to have correct information out there than wild-ass guesses.
Partial results are misleading. They should avoid declaring any official result until the count has been completed (in-person and mail-in counts) in each area. I understand that some results are published before ballots are closed in other areas which seems likely to affect the result.
I've always thought that veiling the vote counting process in secrecy invites more mischief than it prevents.
No, I don't think the count should take place in secret either. Just don't publish interim results which may be used to mislead people. Wait for the final tally, then let impartial officials declare a final official result.
Also don't let partisan people take any sort of control in the process. How was trump able to put pressure on a State Govenor or the Vice President to lie about or meddle with the result? Why are they involved? Counting must be done and controlled by impartial officials, not partisan poiticians.
It doesn't work that way here. First of all, there are very few people who have no political leanings. Everybody is "partisan" to a certain extent, though we rely on their ethics and various legal safeguards to prevent them doing crap they shouldn't in the service of those opinions. (Keep in mind that most American simply identify themselves as a Democrat/Republican/whatsit without going through any formal commitment process, such as signing up or donating. I understand things are different in the UK.)
And as with all things in the US, the exact framework varies from state to state. In my state, the Secretary of State (who is elected) has zilch to do with elections. Elections are run by the State Board of Elections and county boards of elections—five members in each case, no more than three of whom can belong to the same party. (Party affiliation here is determined by voter registration; a voters can register as a Democrat, a Republican, a Libertarian, or as Unaffiliated.) Members of all these boards are appointed by the Governor from lists of nominees submitted by the political parties, and each board has permanent staff.
Partial results are misleading. They should avoid declaring any official result until the count has been completed (in-person and mail-in counts) in each area. I understand that some results are published before ballots are closed in other areas which seems likely to affect the result.
I've always thought that veiling the vote counting process in secrecy invites more mischief than it prevents.
No, I don't think the count should take place in secret either. Just don't publish interim results which may be used to mislead people. Wait for the final tally, then let impartial officials declare a final official result.
In my state, that would mean no announcement until at least three days after election day (always a Tuesday), because absentee mail-in ballots that are postmarked by election day are counted if received by 5:00 PM on the following Friday. Waiting that long to announce anything just isn’t tenable.
But boards of elections are clear when they release results that the numbers reflect “x% of precincts reporting.” They also always note that ballots may continue to come in.
And fwiw, the results here are not actually certified as final until around 3 weeks after the election.
No, I don't think the count should take place in secret either. Just don't publish interim results which may be used to mislead people. Wait for the final tally, then let impartial officials declare a final official result.
Why not publish as the votes are being counted? As long as voting itself has closed, what is the evil being averted by not publishing.
American media will give the count as it is being posted by precinct or county boards. Meanwhile, the broadcast media uses data from sample precincts to project a winner once all polls close in the state and it is clear the sample precincts are closely matching the actual vote. If a state happens to stride two time zones, they will wait until the polls in the later zone closes. The use of sample precincts is getting harder since, as Nick pointed out there are more people voting early or absentee or by mail
About the only rationnelle for the electoral college I can think of is the argument the states, not the people, elect the president. Electoral votes are allocated among the States based on the Census. Every State is allocated a number of votes equal to the number of senators and representatives in its U.S. Congressional delegation—two votes for its senators in the U.S. Senate plus a number of votes equal to the number of its Congressional districts. Once the state voters cast a majority vote for a candidate of their choice, the electors representing that candidate are expected to cast all their votes for the candidate in the electoral college. The official title of the president is the President of the United States of America. It is not the People's Republic of America
Once the state voters cast a majority vote for a candidate of their choice, the electors representing that candidate are expected to cast all their votes for the candidate in the electoral college.
That's a choice made by (I think) 48 states. 2, Maine and Nebraska, split their electors. Then there are the states which have signed up to a compact that commits their electors to the candidate with the greater share of the national vote (once states having a majority of electors have agreed). There is nothing in the constitution that requires all a state's electors to vote the same way.
No, I don't think the count should take place in secret either. Just don't publish interim results which may be used to mislead people. Wait for the final tally, then let impartial officials declare a final official result.
Which level of "results" are we talking about here? Precinct level? Counties? States? National? I'm not sure I see the value of withholding the information on who won a race for state senate in Massachusetts based on the fact that that the polls haven't closed in the Aleutian Islands yet, and it seems like a huge logistical bother to separate out different races on the same ballot into different information embargo bins.
About the only rationnelle for the electoral college I can think of is the argument the states, not the people, elect the president.
Given that the states are held to derive their authority from the people therein, this seems like parsing a distinction finer than can really be justified.
The official title of the president is the President of the United States of America.
And yet the American Constitution claims to have been established by "We the People". They even put it in big, bold letters right at the top so you couldn't miss it (and yet so many people do when it comes to discussions of the electoral college). There is an American Constitution that claims to be established by "We, the people of the Confederate States, each State acting in its sovereign and independent character", but it's not the Constitution of the United States of America.
The term "We, the People" in the Preamble of the Constitution, was intended to counter the European Divine Right of Kings, The constitution was hardly written by "the people." The delegation that wrote the constitution was made up of wealthy, white landowners who were selected by the individual state legislatures. In fact, if you read the original constitution, state legislatures where supposed to determine the electors for the Electoral College. There was no intent to have a popular vote. However, a few states began to allow for popular votes because the state legislatures gave up that responsibility. It took a while for all the states to allow for a popular vote. I just quickly read through the amendments to the constitution, I don't think there is one amendment that specifically says there has to be a popular vote in each state.
In fact, this is the one loophole the Trump campaign sought to exploit to overturn the election results. Let the state legislatures select the electors for the electoral college after all, most of the state legislatures are Republican in make up.
And yet the American Constitution claims to have been established by "We the People".
Well, to be clear it claims to have been established by “We the People of the United States.” I think I good argument can be made that at the time, that was understood to mean “the people of each of the states that make up the United States” rather than “the people of the United States as a whole.” After all, that same Constitution stated that it would take effect upon “[t]he Ratification of the Conventions of nine States,” not upon approval of a national majority of voters, and requires that amendments to the Constitution be ratified by the legislatures of three-fourths of the states, not by national popular vote.
In fact, if you read the original constitution, state legislatures where supposed to determine the electors for the Electoral College. There was no intent to have a popular vote.
State legislatures were supposed to determine the "manner" in which presidential electors were chosen (Art. II, § 1, cl. 2). There was no requirement that they do so directly, and in the first presidential election six of the eleven* states did so by popular vote. So if there was no "intent" by the Framers to have electors selected by popular vote they did a pretty poor job of communicating that. I haven't found any specific documentation but it wouldn't surprise me if some of the signatories of the Constitution were presidential electors. You'd think they would have said something at the time about the popular election of presidential electors being against their master plan.
After all, that same Constitution stated that it would take effect upon “[t]he Ratification of the Conventions of nine States,” not upon approval of a national majority of voters, and requires that amendments to the Constitution be ratified by the legislatures of three-fourths of the states, not by national popular vote.
I think this argument cuts the other way. The ratification of the Constitution was deliberately set up to avoid giving the state governments any say over the ratification of the new government, vesting that power instead in purpose-built state conventions.
* North Carolina and Rhode Island had not ratified the Constitution by 1788 so there were only eleven states participating in that year's presidential election.
No, I don't think the count should take place in secret either. Just don't publish interim results which may be used to mislead people. Wait for the final tally, then let impartial officials declare a final official result.
Why not publish as the votes are being counted? As long as voting itself has closed, what is the evil being averted by not publishing.
Because time zones. Voters in western states (in federal elections, anyway) cast ballots several hours later than those in the east.
I think this argument cuts the other way. The ratification of the Constitution was deliberately set up to avoid giving the state governments any say over the ratification of the new government, vesting that power instead in purpose-built state conventions.
No, it doesn’t cut the other way. Either way it supports my point that it is the states—whether through convention or through elected legislatures—that ratified the Constitution and that ratify amendments to it. It was and is a state-by-state process, not a national referendum. And that is consistent with understanding “We the people of the United States” to mean “We the people of each of the states that make up the United States” rather than “We the people of the United States as a whole.”
So, is this the thread to put a post about American Muckrakers(the same Republican PAC that took down Cawthorn) now making some rather sensational(*) allegations about trumpite congresswoman Lauren Boebert?
Interestingly, these supposed revelations don't seem to be getting the same attention from legacy media as Cawthorn's antics. But I do wonder who is behind these Republican "muckrakers" who seem bent on taking out fledgling social conservative superstars.
(*) Well, nothing that most Shipmates would consider particularly scandalous, if at all, except from the POV of Boebert being a high-profile SoCon, and Ted Cruz apparently being mixed up in some of her activities.
So, is this the thread to put a post about American Muckrakers(the same Republican PAC that took down Cawthorn) . . . .
They certainly get some credit for helping take down Cawthorn, but not all the credit. Cawthorn royally pissed off the North Carolina Republican establishment by announcing he would run in a district where he didn’t live for a seat widely believed to have been drawn specifically for the Speaker of the NC House of Representatives, and saying he was doing that so that “another establishment, go-along-to-get-along Republican” would not be elected to Congress. A court order to redraw the maps sent Cawthorn back to his original district, but the Republican establishment here was determined to take him down, and some voters in his district didn’t appreciate his plans to “abandon” them.
Thanks. I wasn't aware of that. I think I had the idea that they just turned against him because of his claims about coke and orgies among his fellow Republicans.
Thanks. I wasn't aware of that. I think I had the idea that they just turned against him because of his claims about coke and orgies among his fellow Republicans.
Oh yeah, that was a factor too, especially for Thom Tillis, who is about to be NC’s senior senator.
So, is this the thread to put a post about American Muckrakers(the same Republican PAC that took down Cawthorn) now making some rather sensational(*) allegations about trumpite congresswoman Lauren Boebert?
Interestingly, these supposed revelations don't seem to be getting the same attention from legacy media as Cawthorn's antics.
As @Nick Tamen pointed out, Cawthorn had pretty egregiously offended his state party, so whenever news of Cawthorn's many run-ins with the police came to light (mostly speeding, but also trying to bring his gun on a plane) the complete incident report somehow always managed to get brought to the attention of the local media.
In more Trump-related news, apparently the trial of Steve Bannon for contempt of Congress will go forward, his motion to dismiss being rejected. Apparently "I don't wanna" is not considered sufficient grounds for ignoring a Congressional subpœna.
No, I don't think the count should take place in secret either. Just don't publish interim results which may be used to mislead people. Wait for the final tally, then let impartial officials declare a final official result.
Which level of "results" are we talking about here? Precinct level? Counties? States? National? I'm not sure I see the value of withholding the information on who won a race for state senate in Massachusetts based on the fact that that the polls haven't closed in the Aleutian Islands yet, and it seems like a huge logistical bother to separate out different races on the same ballot into different information embargo bins.
I don't see the need for it either. It used be the rule here that there could be no publication of counted votes in federal elections until all voting had ceased. Given that there's 2 hour's difference between the east and west coast ( and from memory it's 3 hours in the US) enforcement of the rule meant that the result could be long delayed - don't forget that voting here is preferential for the lower Federal house and proportional for the Senate and counting is often slow. Even in votes for the Representatives the results were badly delayed. As the result in the Representatives will determine the most likely new government, the sooner the result is known the better.
The number of votes here is high, given that voting is compulsory for all citizens over 18. I have no idea how many staff there are to count, but there probably aren't that many. It may be necessary to count preferences should no candidate gain more than 50% of the formal vote. More complications arise in the Senate where the entire State is the electorate, and much the same in the upper houses of the States.
OK, silly question, why can't all votes, including postal, be counted on polling day?
Because they have not all arrived on polling day (overseas military etc.)
Exactly. In my state, regular absentee mail-in ballots have until 5:00 PM Friday to be received, provided they were postmarked by election day (Tuesday). Military and overseas ballots can be received up to 6 or 9 days (depending on whether it is a general election or not) after election day.
OK, silly question, why can't all votes, including postal, be counted on polling day?
Because they have not all arrived on polling day (overseas military etc.)
Why not? Can't they be counted on American - sovereign - bases? On the day? States' rights again, eh? And the lie about the steal is restricting the vote in 19 states.
Given that there's 2 hour's difference between the east and west coast (and from memory it's 3 hours in the US) . . .
Three hour time difference between the east and west coasts of the continental United States, but it's five hours if you include Alaska and Hawaii. Everyone seems to forget that those are part of the United States. So when the polls close in the Aleutian Islands (population ~5,000) at 8:00 pm it's already 1:00 am on the east coast of the U.S.
It occurs to me that the "wait for the final tally" rule is one that could be badly abused by a few partisan election officials. (One of the post-2020 election strategies Republicans have been pursuing is to put their loyalists into positions as poll workers or election officials.) If one precinct claims to be still counting, the results of every election in the U.S. would be put on indefinite hold. That would be very convenient for a president (or other official) who didn't want to admit defeat.
For those who are interested the third public hearing of the January 6 Committee will be livestreaming here, starting at 1:00 pm EDT (5:00 pm UTC) today (16 June 2022).
OK, silly question, why can't all votes, including postal, be counted on polling day?
Because they have not all arrived on polling day (overseas military etc.)
Why not? Can't they be counted on American - sovereign - bases? On the day?
Leaving aside questions of ballot security, of recounts and the like, and of having people other than trained elections officials count ballots, that would be a logistical nightmare. You have to remember that when American voters go to the polls, they’re usually not just voting for one office, such as member of parliament. On any given general election day in a presidential election year, I will have at least 15 offices to vote for, and depending on specifics of that year I could have well more than 20 to vote for. Many of those offices are elected by district (constituencies), and each possible combination of districts requires a distinct ballot. Exactly what offices will be on the ballot for any given election varies from state to state and within states. Then there could be statewide and/or local referenda on the ballots.
That means that there could be hundreds if not thousands of separate ballot forms in just one state. And results have to be reported to the county (or appropriate political subdivision) where the voter resides, or the elections officials can’t process the information. No point in reporting a vote to one county when the district in question is in another county.
So, you’re suggesting that every military base provide people to accurately count possibly thousands of different ballot styles and report the results to the appropriate county/county equivalent out of the 3,243 counties/county equivalents in the US, all on election day. And that’s before you get to possible additional differences, such as that some states may use some form of alternative voting system (such as ranked choice) for some or all offices, or may be experimenting with alternative systems, so these vote counters on military bases would have to be familiar with and navigate all of those differences. All on election day. And just so that a final vote count could be announced on election day, without any intervening partial counts.
(FWIW, at least in my state, there is a secure system by which military and other overseas voters can submit their ballots electronically, so that it can be printed off and run through the counter like other ballots. Those must be received by election day. But military and overseas voters may still choose to mail their absentee ballots.)
Wouldn’t it make more sense to just say that postal ballots have to be received by polling day, rather than sent by polling day?
That would be one way of doing it, and it is the requirement in some states, but I don’t think it makes more sense or less sense. It’s a value judgment—is more value placed on absentee mail-in ballots being received by election day so that a final count can be made that day, or is more value placed on allowing voters using absentee mail-in ballots to have the same ability to consider last-minute information and developments that those who choose to vote in person on election day have.
All of this seems to be based on the idea that there’s value in not announcing results until final results can be announced, and in being able to announce final results on the night of election day, but I have yet to see anyone put forward a compelling reason why that value should outweigh other considerations. It seems like a solution in search of a problem to me.
Thanks @Nick Tamen. I just like the idea of election day, especially for head of state, or rather Her first lord of the treasury. It's as difficult as you make it it seems to me. It's not here. But then again we're not a federal republic.
Given that there's 2 hour's difference between the east and west coast (and from memory it's 3 hours in the US) . . .
Three hour time difference between the east and west coasts of the continental United States, but it's five hours if you include Alaska and Hawaii. Everyone seems to forget that those are part of the United States. So when the polls close in the Aleutian Islands (population ~5,000) at 8:00 pm it's already 1:00 am on the east coast of the U.S.
It occurs to me that the "wait for the final tally" rule is one that could be badly abused by a few partisan election officials. (One of the post-2020 election strategies Republicans have been pursuing is to put their loyalists into positions as poll workers or election officials.) If one precinct claims to be still counting, the results of every election in the U.S. would be put on indefinite hold. That would be very convenient for a president (or other official) who didn't want to admit defeat.
Thanks - and yes, I was forgetful.
As to your second paragraph - I can't remember an occasion here where there's been any suggestion of impropriety of election officials.
As to your second paragraph - I can't remember an occasion here where there's been any suggestion of impropriety of election officials.
Really? The entire Trump 2020 campaign (and post-campaign) was nothing but suggesting the corruption of election officials. Or did you mean credible suggestions?
I don't remember any cases of suggestions of corruption by election officials here (UK) either.
We do have a 'history' of civil servants being expected (perhaps required) to be non-partisan in politics. When I was a child (in the 1970s) my father was a civil servant and he wasn't allowed (ie part of his conditions of employment) to join a political party or openly support one. I don't know if that condition still holds. It would matter for those who are brought in to perform election duties or for eg handling job applications or registering candates etc.
Given that he said “here,” I think he meant in Australia.
Thank you - exactly what was meant. Perhaps I should have said "credible" as no doubt there have been some loopies complaining about why they were not elected.
Today will be the fourth public hearing of the January 6 committee. For those who are interested it is livestreaming here starting at 1:00 pm EDT (5:00 pm UTC). Today's hearing is ostensibly going to cover Trump's efforts to get various states to change their electoral votes. Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger is expected to be among today's witnesses.
I really felt angry that Trump and company targeted the one election counter, Lady Ruby. She got death threats. To this day she really does not feel safe. She said she cannot go to the grocery store for fear someone will recognize her. I hope she has the where-with--all to file a civil law suit against the Orange One.
I really felt angry that Trump and company targeted the one election counter, Lady Ruby. She got death threats. To this day she really does not feel safe. She said she cannot go to the grocery store for fear someone will recognize her. I hope she has the where-with--all to file a civil law suit against the Orange One.
It seems to me that trump has opened himself to a criminal charge there by deliberately naming her in public and endangering her life. When the mob tried to get into her house she must have felt terrifyingly close to a lynching.
Interesting revelation from Politico yesterday. Apparently there was a project to film Trump and his inner circle for a documentary about his re-election* campaign, starting in September 2020 through January 2021. The January 6 Committee sent a subpœna [PDF] to filmmaker Alex Holder last week (June 15, 2022) demanding he turn over certain footage. According to the AP the Committee already has [some?/all?] of the requested footage.
According to the New York Times (which has some of the footage) Ivanka Trump was acting very differently during the transition than her testimony would have you believe
Today (23 June 2022) at 3:00 pm EDT (7:00 pm UTC) is the fifth public hearing of the January 6 Committee. It can be seen live here, for those who are interested.
[ Committee Chair Bennie ] Thompson said the committee needs more time to go through the new documentary footage it received from documentarian Alex Holder, who possesses never-before-seen footage of Trump and his family, new information from the National Archives, and new tips coming in through the panel's tip line since the hearings started in order to move forward with its hearings. Thompson said he has reviewed some of the footage Holder provided to the committee, and characterized it as "important."
The schedule is still very fluid and is subject to change, but a round of hearings in July is the current goal. The House is scheduled to be in recess until the week of July 11, so Thompson said it is likely the hearings will not resume until "after the recess."
Speaking of Alex Holder, he's allegedly giving closed door testimony to the Committee today, which is probably why the public hearings won't start until 3:00 pm.
Essentially, you are saying that there are tapes...
I'm not sure it's going to matter, is the problem. 🙁 It's true that the Jan. 6 hearings have shown the public some damning details that weren't widely known before - the videos of deposition testimony by Trump aides, the bodycam footage of Capitol police being assaulted by the rioters, Mrs. Thomas's texts and so forth - but the insurrection itself was broadcast live on network TV. Trump's public speech which encouraged the "protestors" to march to the Capitol building was broadcast live on TV. The Proud Boys' preparations for violent action to disrupt the vote certification were made openly on social media between November 2020 and January 2021.
The broad scope of the truth, if not all the details, was clear and visible to the public from the moment the Capitol was breached - if anybody doesn't understand it at this point it's because they don't want to.
Essentially, you are saying that there are tapes...
I'm not sure it's going to matter, is the problem. 🙁 It's true that the Jan. 6 hearings have shown the public some damning details that weren't widely known before - the videos of deposition testimony by Trump aides, the bodycam footage of Capitol police being assaulted by the rioters, Mrs. Thomas's texts and so forth - but the insurrection itself was broadcast live on network TV. Trump's public speech which encouraged the "protestors" to march to the Capitol building was broadcast live on TV. The Proud Boys' preparations for violent action to disrupt the vote certification were made openly on social media between November 2020 and January 2021.
The broad scope of the truth, if not all the details, was clear and visible to the public from the moment the Capitol was breached - if anybody doesn't understand it at this point it's because they don't want to.
The assault on the Capitol is what I refer to as the "outside coup", the big, violent, easily recognizable attempt to reverse Trump's election loss. Most people are familiar it, having either watched it happening live or seen summary clips on the news. What fewer people are familiar with is the "inside coup", the political maneuvering within the government to give legitimacy to the demands of the outside coup. Bringing the details of the inside coup to light has been the most valuable service of the January 6 Committee. The basis of the inside coup was to have friendly legislators prevent or subvert the electoral vote counting, presumably with pressure from the outside coup mob to keep wavering conspirators in line. It's incredibly important to know who these conspirators are and which weak points in the electoral process they intended to exploit.
To take one example, prior to Tuesday's hearing not a lot of Americans were familiar with the plan to submit fake slates of electors from states Trump narrowly lost, yet this was an integral part of the Eastman/Chesebro strategy. Naturally this kind of thing requires coordination with at least one friendly member of Congress, which is why this exchange between Sean Riley, chief of staff to Senator Ron Johnson, and Chris Hodgson, Mike Pence's legislative director, is so important:
Riley: Johnson needs to hand something to VPOTUS please advise
Hodgson: What is it?
Riley: Alternate slate of elector for MI and WI because archivist didn't receive them
Hodgson: Do not give that to him
Johnson later faked a phone call to avoid a reporter's questions about his staff's involvement in what looks like sedition.
I think the way a lot of powerful people were coordinating to overturn the presidential election, and to use the threat of a mob to secure cooperation from the rest of Congress, is not as widely known as you suggest.
Federal investigators on Wednesday conducted a search of the home of former Justice Department official Jeffrey Clark, people briefed on the matter tell CNN.
Clark is the former DOJ lawyer who former President Donald Trump sought to install as attorney general in the days before the January 6 Capitol riot as top officials refused to go along with his vote fraud claims.
He was at the center of an effort by Trump to get the Justice Department to falsely claim there was enough voter fraud in Georgia and other states that he lost, in a last-minute bid to help sow doubt about Joe Biden's victory and pave the way for him to remain in power.
<snip>
In the days before January 6, Clark helped Trump devise a plan to oust then-acting Attorney General Jeffrey Rosen, place himself atop the department, and have the DOJ intervene in Georgia to set aside its voting results in order to sway the state toward Trump.
Today's public hearing by the January 6 Committee will be focusing on efforts by the Trump administration* to get the Department of Justice to back their election fraud narrative. That may or may not be a coincidence.
Comments
More general thoughts about the nature of America and its democracy should be a matter for a separate thread. It should be carefully phrased to avoid giving the impression that it comes from some stance of moral or political superiority. It should not be continued on this thread.
BroJames, Purgatory Host.
Care to expand on that? Of course there are differences, most notably that Johnson isn't nearly as stupid but the similarities are much more striking.
No, I don't think the count should take place in secret either. Just don't publish interim results which may be used to mislead people. Wait for the final tally, then let impartial officials declare a final official result.
Also don't let partisan people take any sort of control in the process. How was trump able to put pressure on a State Govenor or the Vice President to lie about or meddle with the result? Why are they involved? Counting must be done and controlled by impartial officials, not partisan poiticians.
I've only ever attended or observed one count here in the UK and that was for the 2016 EU Referendum. The count took place in a sports hall; counting was performed by council workers in the presence of observers from the parties who had an interest in the result and could presumably raise an issue if they thought there was something improper going on. We could see that the piles for Leave were bigger than for Remain but this is an area which strongly vote to Leave the EU.
It doesn't work that way here. First of all, there are very few people who have no political leanings. Everybody is "partisan" to a certain extent, though we rely on their ethics and various legal safeguards to prevent them doing crap they shouldn't in the service of those opinions. (Keep in mind that most American simply identify themselves as a Democrat/Republican/whatsit without going through any formal commitment process, such as signing up or donating. I understand things are different in the UK.)
Public servants come in two varieties, those who are hired (mostly career people) and those who are appointed to a position by the executive currently in power--which naturally means that the second group tend to be of the same political party as the executive, though this is not required. So that creates a slant. Again, we rely on safeguards--which include a semi-public count with observers. Local rules mean states differ on what they do, but an effort is made to have the observer thing open to more than a single party (naturally). And there are rules about recounts, vote audits and so forth, as well as the everlasting court lawsuits--so there are checks on the system.
But no, there's no way we're ever going to have complete silence on the number of votes as they accumulate, with a final number announced out of the blue. Nobody would stand for it. There will be speculation and news media extrapolating from exit polls, so you might as well announce official tallies as you get them, on the principle that it's better to have correct information out there than wild-ass guesses.
In my state, that would mean no announcement until at least three days after election day (always a Tuesday), because absentee mail-in ballots that are postmarked by election day are counted if received by 5:00 PM on the following Friday. Waiting that long to announce anything just isn’t tenable.
But boards of elections are clear when they release results that the numbers reflect “x% of precincts reporting.” They also always note that ballots may continue to come in.
And fwiw, the results here are not actually certified as final until around 3 weeks after the election.
Why not publish as the votes are being counted? As long as voting itself has closed, what is the evil being averted by not publishing.
About the only rationnelle for the electoral college I can think of is the argument the states, not the people, elect the president. Electoral votes are allocated among the States based on the Census. Every State is allocated a number of votes equal to the number of senators and representatives in its U.S. Congressional delegation—two votes for its senators in the U.S. Senate plus a number of votes equal to the number of its Congressional districts. Once the state voters cast a majority vote for a candidate of their choice, the electors representing that candidate are expected to cast all their votes for the candidate in the electoral college. The official title of the president is the President of the United States of America. It is not the People's Republic of America
That's a choice made by (I think) 48 states. 2, Maine and Nebraska, split their electors. Then there are the states which have signed up to a compact that commits their electors to the candidate with the greater share of the national vote (once states having a majority of electors have agreed). There is nothing in the constitution that requires all a state's electors to vote the same way.
Which level of "results" are we talking about here? Precinct level? Counties? States? National? I'm not sure I see the value of withholding the information on who won a race for state senate in Massachusetts based on the fact that that the polls haven't closed in the Aleutian Islands yet, and it seems like a huge logistical bother to separate out different races on the same ballot into different information embargo bins.
Given that the states are held to derive their authority from the people therein, this seems like parsing a distinction finer than can really be justified.
And yet the American Constitution claims to have been established by "We the People". They even put it in big, bold letters right at the top so you couldn't miss it (and yet so many people do when it comes to discussions of the electoral college). There is an American Constitution that claims to be established by "We, the people of the Confederate States, each State acting in its sovereign and independent character", but it's not the Constitution of the United States of America.
In fact, this is the one loophole the Trump campaign sought to exploit to overturn the election results. Let the state legislatures select the electors for the electoral college after all, most of the state legislatures are Republican in make up.
State legislatures were supposed to determine the "manner" in which presidential electors were chosen (Art. II, § 1, cl. 2). There was no requirement that they do so directly, and in the first presidential election six of the eleven* states did so by popular vote. So if there was no "intent" by the Framers to have electors selected by popular vote they did a pretty poor job of communicating that. I haven't found any specific documentation but it wouldn't surprise me if some of the signatories of the Constitution were presidential electors. You'd think they would have said something at the time about the popular election of presidential electors being against their master plan.
I think this argument cuts the other way. The ratification of the Constitution was deliberately set up to avoid giving the state governments any say over the ratification of the new government, vesting that power instead in purpose-built state conventions.
* North Carolina and Rhode Island had not ratified the Constitution by 1788 so there were only eleven states participating in that year's presidential election.
Because time zones. Voters in western states (in federal elections, anyway) cast ballots several hours later than those in the east.
Interestingly, these supposed revelations don't seem to be getting the same attention from legacy media as Cawthorn's antics. But I do wonder who is behind these Republican "muckrakers" who seem bent on taking out fledgling social conservative superstars.
(*) Well, nothing that most Shipmates would consider particularly scandalous, if at all, except from the POV of Boebert being a high-profile SoCon, and Ted Cruz apparently being mixed up in some of her activities.
Thanks. I wasn't aware of that. I think I had the idea that they just turned against him because of his claims about coke and orgies among his fellow Republicans.
As @Nick Tamen pointed out, Cawthorn had pretty egregiously offended his state party, so whenever news of Cawthorn's many run-ins with the police came to light (mostly speeding, but also trying to bring his gun on a plane) the complete incident report somehow always managed to get brought to the attention of the local media.
In more Trump-related news, apparently the trial of Steve Bannon for contempt of Congress will go forward, his motion to dismiss being rejected. Apparently "I don't wanna" is not considered sufficient grounds for ignoring a Congressional subpœna.
I don't see the need for it either. It used be the rule here that there could be no publication of counted votes in federal elections until all voting had ceased. Given that there's 2 hour's difference between the east and west coast ( and from memory it's 3 hours in the US) enforcement of the rule meant that the result could be long delayed - don't forget that voting here is preferential for the lower Federal house and proportional for the Senate and counting is often slow. Even in votes for the Representatives the results were badly delayed. As the result in the Representatives will determine the most likely new government, the sooner the result is known the better.
Because they have not all arrived on polling day (overseas military etc.)
Why not? Can't they be counted on American - sovereign - bases? On the day? States' rights again, eh? And the lie about the steal is restricting the vote in 19 states.
Three hour time difference between the east and west coasts of the continental United States, but it's five hours if you include Alaska and Hawaii. Everyone seems to forget that those are part of the United States. So when the polls close in the Aleutian Islands (population ~5,000) at 8:00 pm it's already 1:00 am on the east coast of the U.S.
It occurs to me that the "wait for the final tally" rule is one that could be badly abused by a few partisan election officials. (One of the post-2020 election strategies Republicans have been pursuing is to put their loyalists into positions as poll workers or election officials.) If one precinct claims to be still counting, the results of every election in the U.S. would be put on indefinite hold. That would be very convenient for a president (or other official) who didn't want to admit defeat.
Leaving aside questions of ballot security, of recounts and the like, and of having people other than trained elections officials count ballots, that would be a logistical nightmare. You have to remember that when American voters go to the polls, they’re usually not just voting for one office, such as member of parliament. On any given general election day in a presidential election year, I will have at least 15 offices to vote for, and depending on specifics of that year I could have well more than 20 to vote for. Many of those offices are elected by district (constituencies), and each possible combination of districts requires a distinct ballot. Exactly what offices will be on the ballot for any given election varies from state to state and within states. Then there could be statewide and/or local referenda on the ballots.
That means that there could be hundreds if not thousands of separate ballot forms in just one state. And results have to be reported to the county (or appropriate political subdivision) where the voter resides, or the elections officials can’t process the information. No point in reporting a vote to one county when the district in question is in another county.
So, you’re suggesting that every military base provide people to accurately count possibly thousands of different ballot styles and report the results to the appropriate county/county equivalent out of the 3,243 counties/county equivalents in the US, all on election day. And that’s before you get to possible additional differences, such as that some states may use some form of alternative voting system (such as ranked choice) for some or all offices, or may be experimenting with alternative systems, so these vote counters on military bases would have to be familiar with and navigate all of those differences. All on election day. And just so that a final vote count could be announced on election day, without any intervening partial counts.
(FWIW, at least in my state, there is a secure system by which military and other overseas voters can submit their ballots electronically, so that it can be printed off and run through the counter like other ballots. Those must be received by election day. But military and overseas voters may still choose to mail their absentee ballots.)
All of this seems to be based on the idea that there’s value in not announcing results until final results can be announced, and in being able to announce final results on the night of election day, but I have yet to see anyone put forward a compelling reason why that value should outweigh other considerations. It seems like a solution in search of a problem to me.
Thanks - and yes, I was forgetful.
As to your second paragraph - I can't remember an occasion here where there's been any suggestion of impropriety of election officials.
Really? The entire Trump 2020 campaign (and post-campaign) was nothing but suggesting the corruption of election officials. Or did you mean credible suggestions?
We do have a 'history' of civil servants being expected (perhaps required) to be non-partisan in politics. When I was a child (in the 1970s) my father was a civil servant and he wasn't allowed (ie part of his conditions of employment) to join a political party or openly support one. I don't know if that condition still holds. It would matter for those who are brought in to perform election duties or for eg handling job applications or registering candates etc.
Thank you - exactly what was meant. Perhaps I should have said "credible" as no doubt there have been some loopies complaining about why they were not elected.
It seems to me that trump has opened himself to a criminal charge there by deliberately naming her in public and endangering her life. When the mob tried to get into her house she must have felt terrifyingly close to a lynching.
According to the New York Times (which has some of the footage) Ivanka Trump was acting very differently during the transition than her testimony would have you believe
The Committee has postponed any further public hearings until July, citing the need to process a large amount of new information that has lately been uncovered.
Speaking of Alex Holder, he's allegedly giving closed door testimony to the Committee today, which is probably why the public hearings won't start until 3:00 pm.
I'm not sure it's going to matter, is the problem. 🙁 It's true that the Jan. 6 hearings have shown the public some damning details that weren't widely known before - the videos of deposition testimony by Trump aides, the bodycam footage of Capitol police being assaulted by the rioters, Mrs. Thomas's texts and so forth - but the insurrection itself was broadcast live on network TV. Trump's public speech which encouraged the "protestors" to march to the Capitol building was broadcast live on TV. The Proud Boys' preparations for violent action to disrupt the vote certification were made openly on social media between November 2020 and January 2021.
The broad scope of the truth, if not all the details, was clear and visible to the public from the moment the Capitol was breached - if anybody doesn't understand it at this point it's because they don't want to.
The assault on the Capitol is what I refer to as the "outside coup", the big, violent, easily recognizable attempt to reverse Trump's election loss. Most people are familiar it, having either watched it happening live or seen summary clips on the news. What fewer people are familiar with is the "inside coup", the political maneuvering within the government to give legitimacy to the demands of the outside coup. Bringing the details of the inside coup to light has been the most valuable service of the January 6 Committee. The basis of the inside coup was to have friendly legislators prevent or subvert the electoral vote counting, presumably with pressure from the outside coup mob to keep wavering conspirators in line. It's incredibly important to know who these conspirators are and which weak points in the electoral process they intended to exploit.
To take one example, prior to Tuesday's hearing not a lot of Americans were familiar with the plan to submit fake slates of electors from states Trump narrowly lost, yet this was an integral part of the Eastman/Chesebro strategy. Naturally this kind of thing requires coordination with at least one friendly member of Congress, which is why this exchange between Sean Riley, chief of staff to Senator Ron Johnson, and Chris Hodgson, Mike Pence's legislative director, is so important:
Johnson later faked a phone call to avoid a reporter's questions about his staff's involvement in what looks like sedition.
I think the way a lot of powerful people were coordinating to overturn the presidential election, and to use the threat of a mob to secure cooperation from the rest of Congress, is not as widely known as you suggest.
Today's public hearing by the January 6 Committee will be focusing on efforts by the Trump administration* to get the Department of Justice to back their election fraud narrative. That may or may not be a coincidence.