US mid-term elections

Mr. Tea

Let's Talk About Ceps
Are these expected to be the usual run-of-the-mill affair whereby whichever party doesn't have their man in the White House is expected to make gains? Or is it more interesting this year due to splits within the GOP between relatively 'normal' candidates and those riding the MAGA train? I assume any losses by the latter will be met with the now familiar claims of vote-rigging.
 

Leo

Well-known member
Republicans were always expected to win control of the House, and probably the Senate. Then the Supreme Court decision on abortion revved up the Democrats and it looked like they could retain the Senate, but now that one's a coin toss. The abortion ruling leaked out in the spring and was officially announced in the summer, so Democratic enthusiasm might have peaked too early.

For a number of reasons, polling firms have had a hard time with their accuracy in recent elections, so it's really hard to tell how the Senate will go.
 

Leo

Well-known member
soon. states like Arizona take a long time to count mail-in ballots, so that race probably by tomorrow. Georgia might require a run-off if neither candidate wins 50%, which means another month. but the senate might be decided before then, so Georgia might not matter.
 

IdleRich

IdleRich
Interesting point I saw here about mail-ins, not quite what I was expecting

It's the mail ins...they are a game changer. Elections used to be about who could better motivate their base. Now...you don't really have to. They can sit on their rumps and still vote. So far the Ds are better with mail ins

I understand the argument here is not that there are fraudulent mail-in votes happening, but that people are voting by mail-in who couldn't be arsed to actually queue up and vote in person. And it's not quite made explicit here but the person seems to believe that although the Dem votes that are now coming in are indeed being cast legitimately by people who are entitled to vote, their votes should count for less cos they probably wouldn't have bothered to vote if they had to go out and do it. They're lazier or less passionate so their votes should not be as valuable.
 

Mr. Tea

Let's Talk About Ceps
Georgia might require a run-off if neither candidate wins 50%, which means another month. but the senate might be decided before then, so Georgia might not matter.
This seems excessively complicated. Why not just say the winner is the candidate with the most votes, even if it's less than 50%?
 

Leo

Well-known member
This seems excessively complicated. Why not just say the winner is the candidate with the most votes, even if it's less than 50%?

States gets to make their own election laws, some require a majority. This is one of the reasons why some people are pushing for ranked voting, where you get to pick multiple candidates in order of preference.
 

Leo

Well-known member
A bigger issue is why the same handful of states always need 2-4 days after Election Day to count all their votes, while all the others are able to call a winner on election night. That never used to happen. If mail-in voting has increased a lot in the past decade (certainly since the pandemic), then account for that and staff up to accommodate that change. Or change vote counting procedures, like start counting mail-in ballots a few days before Election Day (but keep the tally a secret) so that you aren't faced with only starting to count the mountain of mail-in and same-day ballots once voting ends. Early voting allows them to get a head start on counting, but those states are too cheap to budget for the additional staff to handle the increased in mail-in votes, or just choose not to.
 
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Mr. Tea

Let's Talk About Ceps
A bigger issue is why the same handful of states always need 2-4 days after election date to count all their votes, while all the others are able to call a winner on election night. That never used to happen. If mail-in voting has increased a lot in the past decade (certainly since the pandemic), then account for that and staff up to accommodate that change. Or change vote counting procedures, like start counting mail-in ballots a few days before Election Day (but keep the tally a secret) so that you aren't faced with only starting to count the mountain of mail-in and same-day ballots once voting ends. Early voting allows them to get a head start on counting, but those states are too cheap to budget for the additional staff to handle the increased in mail-in votes, or just choose not to.
Yeah, it's just conspiracy-fuel, innit.
 

Leo

Well-known member
Interesting point I saw here about mail-ins, not quite what I was expecting



I understand the argument here is not that there are fraudulent mail-in votes happening, but that people are voting by mail-in who couldn't be arsed to actually queue up and vote in person. And it's not quite made explicit here but the person seems to believe that although the Dem votes that are now coming in are indeed being cast legitimately by people who are entitled to vote, their votes should count for less cos they probably wouldn't have bothered to vote if they had to go out and do it. They're lazier or less passionate so their votes should not be as valuable.

I don't think that's the argument, I haven't heard anyone imply that mail-in voting should be considered less valuable, or count for less. I think he's just annoyed that Dems are getting more voters to do it.

There's also a huge irony here: Republicans always used to LOVE early mail-in voting because for decades it was primarily used in sparsely populated rural states (ie, conservative ones) where the alternative was to drive many miles to the closest voting location. When the pandemic hit, lots of other states decided to make early mail-in voting available and easier to do, which opened up the option in all the states with higher numbers of Democratic voters. Once the GOP saw the huge uptake in Democratic voters using that option, they suddenly had a problem with it!
 
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IdleRich

IdleRich
I don't think that's the argument, I haven't heard anyone imply that mail-in voting should be considered less valuable, or count for less. There's also a huge irony here: Republicans always used to LOVE early mail-in voting because for years it was primarily used in sparsely populated rural states where the alternative was to drive many miles to the closest voting location. When the pandemic hit, lots of other states decided to make early mail-in voting available and easier to do, which opened up the option in all the states with higher numbers of Democratic voters. Once the GOP saw the huge uptake in Democratic voters using that option, they suddenly had a problem with it!

It's not the general argument but it's what this person was saying.

Reminds me of those arguing after the election that they should discount certain groups on the flimsiest of technicalities (ie they believed the state rules were illegal) even though the voters were clearly legitimate and had voted according to the rules at the time. To me you're on shakey ground claiming a moral victory in the circumstance where - as here - you admit that the other guy was more popular among legal voters.
 

woops

is not like other people
guy Fawkes night had just gone otherwise we could of staged a coo data and installed idle rich as prime minister
 

Leo

Well-known member
guy Fawkes night had just gone otherwise we could of staged a coo data and installed idle rich as prime minister

What would the UK equivalent be to our January 6 insurrection? A bunch of football hooligans and GB News viewers storming Parliament?
 
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