Election Night Live posts

[Jason]

Just looked at the topic subject again. This is one hell of a long election night! 

[Jason]

We'd be remiss if we didn't mention Kanye West's faux campaign that managed to get 60,000 votes across 12 states! In Wyoming, his home state, he wrote himself in. Considering his fan base, you would have thought he'd have gotten a lot more votes but hey, 0.4% of the vote in three states is a good start for his next race. Kanye recognizing his defeat, said on Twitter:

WELP

According to Vulture, "he sadly later deleted this tweet, and reposted it with ââ,¬Å"KANYE 2024,ââ,¬Â but the sentiment prevails." The man clearly has a future on the political scene.

Btw, Republican strategists were working on his Presidential bid as an independent. It's likely that they thought they could split the Black vote among Democrats. They were a bit short.

[fox]

Interesting - I just looked again on the WaPo site, and it appears that the only state they are making projections for is Pennsylvania. I was hoping for projections in Georgia, where Trump's lead is now under 10,000.

Regarding the Pennsylvania projection, what I see now on that site is no different from what I remember when I first looked at it last night.

[Jason]

No love for Kanye West?  Also, I'm not sure where I saw it now but in one district, two Republicans were running against one Democrat. I didn't even know that was something that was still allowed. The Democratic candidate won. Historically, early on the US had multiple candidates for President from one party against one from the other party. Of course, the candidate with the second most votes became the VP so there was a lot of funny stuff going on back then. They had to change that with an amendment, quite understandably. Imagine today with Biden winning and Trump becoming VP. Jesus.

[Jason]

I shouldn't really depend on one source of news so much but WaPo seems to have fascinating analyses and some informative videos as well with various experts not just on politics, either. Anyway, this page is interesting showing that it's not just Arizona, Pennsylvania that are very close. Biden could end up winning one or more of these other states.

Georgia: Trumpââ,¬â,,¢s lead in the vote count in Georgia slipped to under 2,000 votes as of 9:40 p.m. Eastern. The state has approximately 16,000 ballots left to count; 8,900 requested overseas and military ballots have till tomorrow to arrive.

North Carolina: Election officials said they will review about 41,000 provisional ballots from voters whose eligibility may be questioned, along with around 110,000 outstanding absentee ballots. They expect to finalize their count by Nov. 12. Biden is about 76,000 votes behind Trump.

And while the gap with Trump in the lead is narrowing in Penn's Woods (seriously, that was the original name of the colony), in Arizona, it's the other way. Biden should get Nevada. If he gets that and Arizona, he'll be exactly at 270. If he gets Penn., he won't need either. For Trump to win now, he has to take all five states, hence all the lawsuits. That, and to convince his supporters the election was stolen from him because he can't bear to lose anything other than his dignity.

It looks less and less that Trump is going to be victorious.

The overwhelming majority of ballots in Penn. should be counted by tomorrow.

Even if Trump loses, he's sewn further distrust among the electorate of government and let to levels of irrationality that boggle the mind. There are demonstrations in the US of groups of Republicans who really do believe that there are millions of forged ballots out there.

And with the strong implacable stances of Republican supporters including a lot of racism, previously unimagined scenarios are being entertained. I believed and still believe that alarmist warnings of a civil war are far-fetched. But I no longer believe it'ss outside of the realm of possibility.

Both sides are becoming increasingly intractable and extremists on both sides (I mean non-moderates) are considering each other as monsters. These far-left and far-right sections of each party are becoming much more vocal. Combined with large-scale protests of Blacks and the rise of white supremacy, the conditions for large-scale violence to erupt across the nation. I don't really think it would be a war but I can see a lot of destruction happening with mass riots and chaos especially if Trump wins. He thrives on it and he's already shown to have a dictatorial approach.

In the lead up to the Civil War, similar animosity was growing between the southern slave states and the northern free states. When the balance between the two opposing views was maintained, that animosity was kept sedate. When it tipped to one direction (in this case, the election of Lincoln), secession began. Regardless of who wins, if the other side thinks they were cheated out of a win, terrible things could result. This isn't Bush v. Gore. Politics was much more civil then and I don't think the supporters of both parties had such vitriol for the other guys.

Maybe I'm just becoming worse of a pessimist than Buster.

[fox]

Georgia is now flipped, but by less than a 1,000 vote difference. But I'm less confident that Biden will end up winning it than I am in Pennsylvania. In Pennsylvania, Trump is still up, but only by about 21,000 votes and the difference is only 0.3%. I expect that one to flip permanently some time today.

[buster]

Numbers simplify most things

Either candidate needs 270 electoral votes to win. If youââ,¬â,,¢ve spent time in North Carolina, you know that Republicans will win here, so Iââ,¬â,,¢ve decided this state for Trump. At this moment, hereââ,¬â,,¢s where each is:

Biden 253 (17 votes short )       Trump 229 (41 votes short )

Here is what is left:

Nevada(6): Biden up by 1,440 votes with 89% counted, a 0.9% lead.
Arizona(11): Biden up by 47,000 votes with 90% counted, a 1.6% lead
Georgia(16): Biden up by 1100 votes with 98% counted, a 0% lead so to speak
Pennsylvania(20): Trump leads this state by 18,049 votes with 95% counted, a 0.3 lead.

I think my numbers are correct for the next part (I took off my shoes and socks to make it easier counting).

Trump has to win at least three of these states to get 41 more votes.
Biden needs to win any two of these to win (unless by some miracle he wins Pennsylvania). That would give him at least 17.

So thatââ,¬â,,¢s the numbers. And those are the four states to watch.

Professor B. Ellis, MBs

[buster]

Dr. Fox has just bluntly informed me  that Pennsylvania has Biden leading at the moment, a much needed miracle after these dark and gloomy 4 years. So magic does exist.

[Jason]

Numbers simplify most things

Not this time around, apparently where people are arguing over adding (votes).

Btw, my comment about violence around the country? Eric Trump. spoke at a rally where he said, regarding the legal challenges, "... fight each and every one of these legal battles, to the death..." That's like lighting a match to the powder keg. Biden is calling for calm and letting the process finish while the Republicans are trying to stop voting from happening (Trump outright put it that way) and talking about fights to the death. I know Americans are known for making bombastic statements but this is disturbing just the same.

I hope that events like this one reported by the CBC are isolated:

"In Philadelphia, two armed men were arrested Thursday near the convention centre where an ongoing vote count was happening, police said Friday.

"The men travelled to the city in a Hummer with Virginia plates and did not have permits to carry the weapons in Pennsylvania, police said. They were arrested after police received a tip about their plans.

"The car was adorned with an American flag and a window sticker for the right-wing conspiracy theory QAnon, which the FBI warned has occasionally led to violence perpetrated by its most fervent believers."


Update: I originally said that it was Donald Trump Jr. who made the call to arms but it was actually Eric Trump. Somebody really wants to be in daddy's will badly.

[buster]

Biden is going to speak to the nation in prime time tonight. i doubt it's an acceptance speech. More of a 'let the universe unfold calmly' speech would be my guess.

No time available that I can find. When someone knows, would you post it please/

[Jason]

No time available that I can find. When someone knows, would you post it please/

9 PM according to here. Evidently, Harris will speak first and Biden will take over.

Can you stay awake until then, Buster? ;-)

[Jason]

And there's the big difference between the two camps. One calls for calm and letting the process goes as it should, the other makes incendiary comments that could cause violence but will certainly instill distrust. One side believes in democracy, the other site in authoritarianism. Think it's just Trump? How come elected Republican representatives aren't calling Trump's claim for what it is, nonsense? The best we've seen is Mitch McConnel saying to let the process continue and that Americans should trust the result. He and all Republicans need to say a lot more than that. They need to condemn Trump's poisoning of the well in no uncertain terms.

"All it takes for evil to flourish is for good men to do nothing."

[Jason]

Stephen Colbert began his 'The Late Show' with a sombre talk and then the monologue, which is as amusing as always. It's no coincidence that he makes similar points.

[buster]

Thanks Jason.

[Jason]

Now they're saying he's going to speak inside of the Chase Center but he hasn't yet (at least as of 9:40 pm) done so. I'm also not seeing news of what he said anywhere so I'm guessing he hasn't spoken yet. Is he waiting for final results in Pennsylvania to secure his presidency before he speaks?