Election results discussion thread (and sadly the inevitable aftermath)

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Silvanus

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Throwing out votes because of fraud is bad?
Throwing out proven fraudulent votes isn't bad, no. Throwing out non-fraudulent votes because of speculation of fraud is bad.

Though this latest suit isn't even putting an allegation of fraud to court; its solely seeking to discount the votes because they disagree with who made the rule. The validity of the votes isn't even disputed in the suit: the relief is requested solely on the basis of improper procedure.
 
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SilentPony

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Throwing out proven fraudulent votes isn't bad, no. Throwing out non-fraudulent votes because of speculation of fraud is bad.

Though this latest suit isn't even putting an allegation of fraud to court; its solely seeking to discount the votes because they disagree with who made the rule. The validity of the votes isn't even disputed in the suit: the relief is requested solely on the basis of improper procedure.
And its also mentioned that its only improper procedure because Biden won. If Trump had won they wouldn't have seen any problem with it. And also the very states that are signed onto the Texas lawsuit also had extended mail in deadlines, they just all voted for Trump so it was okay. And the extended deadlines aren't in fact against the law, its just the Trump cultists would rather less votes be counted so their guy could win.
And also they're only calling for the presidential ballots to be discounted, nothing about any of the down ballot races should be discounted.
 

tstorm823

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Which rule are we talking specifically? Because it looks like you're very wrong on every count
Ok, now I'm pretty sure you're just messing with me. I complain specifically about the orders given by the courts in conflict with the legislature, and you link to an article about the rule that was changed by the legislature last year.

Mail-in voting in PA was passed through the PA legislature in 2019. All the proper procedure was done. That rule is law. That rule gave 50 days before the election to request and submit a ballot, with a deadline to return by the night of the election. All this crap people are saying in this thread about necessary additional changes is nonsense, PA as of last year adopted no-questions-asked mail in ballots with the longest submission period before the election in the country. The laws as written required a signature on the ballot envelope the same as the signature you give in person. The laws as written didn't establish de facto early voting at "satellite offices".

The courts, against the will of the legislature, against the people's representatives, decided that the deadline would be moved 3 days, the signatures would be ignored, the satellite offices would be allowed. All these things against the laws that the legislature wrote. I'm not linking them all again, I've done it several times.
What are you talking about? In the article you linked to, the court was acting because lawsuits were filed. Who is supposed to act on these lawsuits then? How was the court the originator of these orders?
By the freaking Democratic Party! The Democratic Party sued the state to change the election laws that they had absolutely no grounds to change, and partisan Democrats on the court went along with the charade because it was for their party.

Look at it this way: Trump has had people suing states constantly both before and after election trying to pull this same sort of crap, and most of it has been thrown out, as it should be. If Trump asked a court of mostly Trump loyalists to change election laws in his favor, and they did it even though by all measures they had no standing to do so, everyone here would freak out! I'm telling you that is what happened in my state, a political party sued the state to try and sneak in an election advantage, and the court did everything they asked.
As others have posted, what in the federal or state constitutions dictates late mail-in votes are not to be counted?
Nothing! But you have it backwards! The state and federal constitutions say nothing about whether mail-in votes must be counted or cannot be counted. There is no constitutional rule about it, state or federal. Thus, whichever way the legislature, who are tasked with writing the law, decides the election should be run with regards to mail-in deadlines, it's constitutional. There is nothing illegal about having a deadline to have mail-in ballots arrive by election day, so the court should have no say in it.

If either constitution specified specifically that late votes need to be counted to a certain point, and the legislature wrote a law setting an earlier deadline, then the courts could absolutely say "that law is unconstitutional, scrap it and start over." But if a law is constitutionally fine and not in conflict with any other law, courts don't get to add or remove things from the law based only on their preference. That's not the job of the judiciary.
I'd say you don't really understand the proscribed role of the judiciary very well.
You don't mean proscribed, that's not the correct word there.
 

Phoenixmgs

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By the freaking Democratic Party! The Democratic Party sued the state to change the election laws that they had absolutely no grounds to change, and partisan Democrats on the court went along with the charade because it was for their party.

Look at it this way: Trump has had people suing states constantly both before and after election trying to pull this same sort of crap, and most of it has been thrown out, as it should be. If Trump asked a court of mostly Trump loyalists to change election laws in his favor, and they did it even though by all measures they had no standing to do so, everyone here would freak out! I'm telling you that is what happened in my state, a political party sued the state to try and sneak in an election advantage, and the court did everything they asked.

Nothing! But you have it backwards! The state and federal constitutions say nothing about whether mail-in votes must be counted or cannot be counted. There is no constitutional rule about it, state or federal. Thus, whichever way the legislature, who are tasked with writing the law, decides the election should be run with regards to mail-in deadlines, it's constitutional. There is nothing illegal about having a deadline to have mail-in ballots arrive by election day, so the court should have no say in it.

If either constitution specified specifically that late votes need to be counted to a certain point, and the legislature wrote a law setting an earlier deadline, then the courts could absolutely say "that law is unconstitutional, scrap it and start over." But if a law is constitutionally fine and not in conflict with any other law, courts don't get to add or remove things from the law based only on their preference. That's not the job of the judiciary.
What is the word-for-word letter of the law? Because according to articles the law is ambiguous.

The court acknowledged that the law is ambiguous but pointed to the intent of the mail-in voting law to provide voters “with options to vote outside of traditional polling places.”

Why are you so against wanting to restrict legit votes from being counted? Why would you ever have a rule that something mailed must get there by a certain date? When does that happen literally ANYWHERE else? It doesn't happen because it's asinine to expect the person mailing to know how long something takes to get somewhere and asinine to throw it out because there was a delay by a third party that the person has no control over. If I say mail a check paying my credit card by or on the due date, I'm not charged late fees regardless of when it gets there.
 

Agema

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...a political party sued the state to try and sneak in an election advantage, and the court did everything they asked...
So you're admitting that the Republican legislature legislated themselves a political advantage?

If under the weight of massively increased mail-in ballots there were potential delays to postal services, a load of people could have lost their votes and that's no big deal, because they're mostly Democratic voters. If Trump decided that just before an election requiring record amounts of mail in votes was a perfect time to gut USPS and increase the likelihood of delays, that also is totally fine because - hey - it's mostly Democrat voters losing their ballots.

And that's the sort of reason that so many people don't trust the Republican Party's attitude to voting rights.
 

tstorm823

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What is the word-for-word letter of the law? Because according to articles the law is ambiguous.

The court acknowledged that the law is ambiguous but pointed to the intent of the mail-in voting law to provide voters “with options to vote outside of traditional polling places.”
This is not ambiguous: " Deadline.--Except as provided under 25 Pa.C.S. § 3511 (relating to receipt of voted ballot), a completed mail-in ballot must be received in the office of the county board of elections no later than eight o'clock P.M. on the day of the primary or election. "
Section 3511 is extra time for specifically overseas military ballots to arrive. There is no ambiguity in that open to judicial interpretation. None at all.
Why are you so against wanting to restrict legit votes from being counted? Why would you ever have a rule that something mailed must get there by a certain date? When does that happen literally ANYWHERE else? It doesn't happen because it's asinine to expect the person mailing to know how long something takes to get somewhere and asinine to throw it out because there was a delay by a third party that the person has no control over. If I say mail a check paying my credit card by or on the due date, I'm not charged late fees regardless of when it gets there.
a) I wish all of you would stop asking me to defend positions I haven't taken. I have no qualms with the extra few days to arrive, only with the way it was enacted.
b) Bullcrap. Literally anything that happens on a date is going to have a deadline. If you're registering for an event and your registration arrives after the cut-off, they aren't checking the postmark after they've already begun the next steps without your name in the list.
So you're admitting that the Republican legislature legislated themselves a political advantage?
No. The legislation was fair. The Republican legislature didn't legislate themselves a disadvantage, unless you think mail-in ballots specifically benefit Democrats, in which case they did actually legislate themselves a disadvantage.

The rules were fair. Then it became obvious that Democrats were going to disproportionately mail-in vote, so Democrats loosened the rules on mail-in ballots after voting had already started, and opened up satellite offices for early voting specifically in deep blue areas. The election began with uniform, agreed upon rules, and Democrats changed the rules by court order part way through the mail-in period because they saw advantages in doing so.

If under the weight of massively increased mail-in ballots there were potential delays to postal services, a load of people could have lost their votes and that's no big deal, because they're mostly Democratic voters. If Trump decided that just before an election requiring record amounts of mail in votes was a perfect time to gut USPS and increase the likelihood of delays, that also is totally fine because - hey - it's mostly Democrat voters losing their ballots.
Hindsight is 20/20, and this didn't happen. You should feel foolish to even bring this up in retrospect, because it didn't happen. Even with how tight the race was here, there were far fewer late arriving ballots than would be needed to overturn the results. A fraction of a percent of mail-in ballots arrived in the grace period. The expectation that Trump was going to prevent the USPS from delivering ballots on time was absolute nonsense conspiracy theory that people should be sad they ever believed. People here had 7 weeks to mail in their ballots, it turns out that's plenty of time to mail an envelope after all.

Like, what makes you fear that specifically Democratic voters would be unable to return their ballots within the 7-week timeframe? Are you perhaps being a bit racist? I don't think allowing late ballots mattered at all. I don't think the people who made late ballots count thinks it really mattered. Unlike the opening of satellite offices for early voting in specifically blue places to make it easier for only majority Democrat places to vote, I don't think the fight over late ballots had any significant impact on the election at all. I think they did that entirely because they were selling the lie that Donald Trump was destroying the mail service to steal the election, and that change existed only to spit at Trump. For something he didn't even do!
 

Agema

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Hindsight is 20/20, and this didn't happen. You should feel foolish to even bring this up in retrospect,
It is in fact you using hindsight to make an argument that these measures turned out to be unimportant, which is something you could not guarantee at the time the PA court ruled. It is a responsible thing to do to plan for adverse eventualities that may occur rather than try to fix them after the fact. I also think as a general matter of principle that it should be the responsibility of a democratic state to facilitate its citizens' votes counting rather than impede them.

Let's be clear, the Republicans have a trust deficit when it comes to enabling voting. 2020 specifically, much of that is very much the fault of Trump, e.g.:
“They need that money in order to have the post office work so it can take all of these millions and millions of ballots,” Trump said in an interview with Fox Business’s Maria Bartiromo. “If they don’t get those two items, that means you can’t have universal mail-in voting because they’re not equipped to have it.”

Now you see, when I try to express how much I think Donald Trump is a terrible president, part of it is the fact that he gleefully goes round sowing chaos and dissent. It's no good to turn round and say he didn't do this and didn't do that: because he keeps saying or implying that he could or might. He's deplaying a strategy of deliberately fucking with people, who feel they need to respond because he can and might do it. (And it's credible he would, given the immorality of his conduct over the years.)
 

Houseman

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When your definition of "fraud" is "they weren't for our guy", it's not just bad- it's evil.
They truly believe they have evidence of fraud. Have you been blinded by partisanship so much that you can't even give your political opponents the benefit of the doubt?
 

Hades

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unless you think mail-in ballots specifically benefit Democrats, in which case they did actually legislate themselves a disadvantage.
Mail in ballots don't benefit Democrats specifically but they did benefit Democrats in this particular election.

Its just the inevitable result when Trump spend most of the year demonizing mail in voting while at the same time downplaying the dangers of COVID which made mail in voting so vital. If someone distrusted mail in voting too much to use it then that person was likely a Trump supporter. If a voter decided he couldn't bring himself to the polls out of fear of getting COVID that person was likely to be a democrat.

This arrangement made it convenient for Trump to restrict mail in voting while it would be more convenient for Democrats to endorse it.

What's really interesting is the state of Arizona. That state supposedly already has a long history of mail in voting and so Trump casting suspicions about it wouldn't be effective. And in this state were Republicans weren't trained to distrust mail in ballots they actually favored Trump. It were the mail in ballots that were counted later which nearly cost Biden the state.
 

Hades

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They truly believe they have evidence of fraud. Have you been blinded by partisanship so much that you can't even give your political opponents the benefit of the doubt?
As a rule you should probably never give Trump the benefit of the doubt. It might be easier to accept this all as genuine if Trump hadn't presented himself as someone who'd do whatever it takes to avoid giving up his power and if his base hadn't been so slavish his entire term. They way he rushed installing judges he (wrongly)hoped would vote in favor, the month long campaign against mail in voting and his admittance he wasn't likely to accept the election all suggest he planned to take this course long in advance.
 
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SilentPony

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They truly believe they have evidence of fraud. Have you been blinded by partisanship so much that you can't even give your political opponents the benefit of the doubt?
They were given the benefit of the doubt. That's why Judges even bothered to hear their cases. That was the benefit. And they were thrown out because they were meritless, fact-less, hearsay accusations specifically designed and stated not to prove anything, but to prolong fund raising windows.
That's how the system works. They bring a claim to court, the court hears that claim and decides if its enough to warrant a case, and it wasn't, so it was thrown out. That's way more benefit of the doubt that you or I would ever get on anything. Court cases take years, and at that level should cost millions. They got emergency hearings in days. That's way more consideration than they ever deserved.
 

Silvanus

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They truly believe they have evidence of fraud. Have you been blinded by partisanship so much that you can't even give your political opponents the benefit of the doubt?
If they truly believed they had grounds for this, they wouldn't be siphoning off their own supporters' donations to pay off campaign debt under the guise of a "recount fund" that doesn't fund recounts. It's a money-making scam.

The ordinary Republican voters supporting it, and some of the representatives, deserve the benefit of the doubt: they've been lied to and defrauded by a career liar and scam-artist. The same man who refuses to pay his contractors, and who defrauded students with a fake university. Benefit of the doubt for that man has been spent years before he ran for President.
 

Phoenixmgs

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This is not ambiguous: " Deadline.--Except as provided under 25 Pa.C.S. § 3511 (relating to receipt of voted ballot), a completed mail-in ballot must be received in the office of the county board of elections no later than eight o'clock P.M. on the day of the primary or election. "
Section 3511 is extra time for specifically overseas military ballots to arrive. There is no ambiguity in that open to judicial interpretation. None at all.

a) I wish all of you would stop asking me to defend positions I haven't taken. I have no qualms with the extra few days to arrive, only with the way it was enacted.
b) Bullcrap. Literally anything that happens on a date is going to have a deadline. If you're registering for an event and your registration arrives after the cut-off, they aren't checking the postmark after they've already begun the next steps without your name in the list.
The case was argued with EVIDENCE that "there is a strong likelihood that voters who wait until the last day to apply for a mail-in or absentee ballot will be disenfranchised, as their mail-in ballots will not be delivered by Election Day and thus will not be counted."

I've never seen any paperwork with high importance state that it must arrive at or by a specific date, it's always it must be mailed by a specific date as that's what the person can control. What event has mail be the only means of registering for it?
 

Phoenixmgs

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If they truly believed they had grounds for this, they wouldn't be siphoning off their own supporters' donations to pay off campaign debt under the guise of a "recount fund" that doesn't fund recounts. It's a money-making scam.

The ordinary Republican voters supporting it, and some of the representatives, deserve the benefit of the doubt: they've been lied to and defrauded by a career liar and scam-artist. The same man who refuses to pay his contractors, and who defrauded students with a fake university. Benefit of the doubt for that man has been spent years before he ran for President.
I don't get why anyone would vote for a con artist. I told a guy at work that as the reason why I would never vote for Trump and he said Trump University was just a failed business and businesses fail all the time...
 

Houseman

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Buyetyen

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I don't get why anyone would vote for a con artist. I told a guy at work that as the reason why I would never vote for Trump and he said Trump University was just a failed business and businesses fail all the time...
Apparently your co-worker doesn't consider grifting to be morally or ethically problematic. Never loan them money.
 

SilentPony

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How many of those cases got thrown out because the evidence was evaluated and disproven by an expert from the defense?
They were thrown out because there was no evidence. Giuliani himself said so when he removed allegations from their allegations specifically so that it didn't rise to the level required to be appraised as legitimate evidence for the defense to then look at.
You're not entitled to a full trial, just a hearing and the hearings found no reason to go to trial.
 

Avnger

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How many of those cases got thrown out because the evidence was evaluated and disproven by an expert from the defense?
If I file a lawsuit claiming you're a pedophile and it is thrown out by a judge prior to a trial starting and you having a defense expert to "evaluate and disprove" my evidence in court, should everyone just assume you're a pedophile?

Spurious lawsuits are regularly tossed out prior to trial stages. That is a normal part of our legal system.
 
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