US Election 2020

[laklak]

The Pennsylvania decision was a tie, 4-4. Alito has hinted he's going to ask the full court to rehear the case, which would then come out 5-4 to toss the late ballots. I don't think any of it will work and we've got Sleepy Joe for two years, if he can hold it together that long.

SCOTUS wouldn't toss ballots, they'd rule that the state law, which specifies ballots must be received by the end of election day, was valid. Their own state law would force them to toss the ballots.

[macdoc]

You just want that dumpf bone to chew on more with all them nassssty teeth. It's done and getting rancid. Time to toss him on the midden pile for the rats....if they'll even touch the stinking corpse.

[Tero]

PA

(a) As soon as all the ballots have been properly accounted
for, and those outside the ballot box, as well as the "Voting
Check List," numbered lists of voters and district register
sealed, the election officers shall forthwith open the ballot
box, and take therefrom all ballots therein, and at primaries,
separate the same according to the party to which they belong.
The ballots shall then be counted one by one, and a record made
of the total number, and at primaries of the total number cast
for each party. Then the judge, under the scrutiny of the
minority inspector, or the minority inspector, under the
scrutiny of the judge, in the presence of the other officers,
clerks, and of the overseers, if any, and within the hearing
and sight of the watchers outside the enclosed space, shall
read aloud the names of the candidates marked or inserted upon
each ballot (at primaries the ballots of each party being read
in sequence), together with the office for which the person
named is a candidate, and the answers contained on the ballots
to the questions submitted, if any, and the majority inspector
and clerks shall carefully enter each vote as read, and keep
account of the same in ink in triplicate tally papers
(triplicate tally papers for each party at primaries) to be
provided by the county board of elections for that purpose, all
three of which shall be made at the same time. All ballots,
after being removed from the box, shall be kept within the
unobstructed view of all persons in the voting room until
replaced in the box. No person while handling the ballots shall
have in his hand any pencil, pen, stamp or other means of
marking or spoiling any ballot. The election officers shall
forthwith proceed to canvass and compute the votes cast, and
shall not adjourn or postpone the canvass or computation until
it shall have been fully completed.

Section 1309. Public Records.--(a) All official absentee
ballots, files, applications for such ballots and envelopes on
which the executed declarations appear, and all information and
lists are hereby designated and declared to be public records
and shall be safely kept for a period of two years, except that
no proof of identification shall be made public, nor shall
information concerning a military elector be made public which
is expressly forbidden by the Department of Defense because of
military security.
(b) For each election, the county board shall maintain a
record of the following information, if applicable, for each
elector who makes application for an absentee ballot:
(1) The elector's name and voter registration address.
(2) The date on which the elector's application is received
by the county board.
(3) The date on which the elector's application is approved
or rejected by the county board.
(4) The date on which the county board mails or delivers
the absentee ballot to the elector.
(5) The date on which the elector's completed absentee
ballot is received by the county board.
(c) The county board shall compile the records listed under
subsection (b) and make the records publicly available upon
request within forty-eight hours of the request. ((c) amended
Mar. 27, 2020, P.L.41, No.12)
(1309 amended Oct. 31, 2019, P.L.552, No.77)

https://www.legis.state.pa.us/WU01/LI/L ... /0320..PDF

[NineBerry]

Televangelist Kenneth Copeland laughs at the media for declaring that Joe Biden has won the election

https://twitter.com/RightWingWatch/stat ... 7926932480

[JimC]

I want them to follow the law, whatever that law is. If state law says "ballots must be in by election day" then anything after that, military or otherwise, needs to be thrown out. If it says "ballots can come in up to a week later" then that's fine, but you cannot change legislated law to suit your partisan whims.

SCOTUS ruled correctly in the Wisconsin case, the state Supreme Court cannot change legislative law. The same should happen in Pennsylvania and every other state.

As I understand it, ballots that are postmarked as being mailed before election day are fine, even if your dilapidated postal service means they arrive a few days late...

[laklak]

I don't know, and it probably differs by state. Everything differs by state.

[Tero]

[Tero]

There is nothing changed for Biden in PA. They are treating the mail in votes just like the absentee ballots. Every voter is tracked.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics ... story.html

On Friday, Justice Samuel A. Alito Jr. approved a request from the Pennsylvania GOP and ordered county boards to comply with state guidance and segregate mail ballots delivered after Election Day. On Saturday, Pennsylvania Attorney General Josh Shapiro (D) responded, telling the Supreme Court there is no need for additional intervention by the court following Alito’s order.

The Pennsylvania Republican Party is seeking an injunction that Shapiro characterized as “ordering Pennsylvania’s counties to do that which the Commonwealth has already directed counties to do and which the counties are already doing.”

He said 63 of the state’s 67 counties — including the largest, Allegheny and Philadelphia — confirmed that they are following Alito’s order and there is no reason to think the others would defy it after instructions from both the state and the U.S. Supreme Court.

Stopping the count, Shapiro said, “would unnecessarily halt the counting of votes for Pennsylvania state races, impacting the Commonwealth’s ability to seat its General Assembly by December 1, 2020, as required by the Pennsylvania Constitution.” Pennsylvanians were voting for 25 state senators and all 203 members of the state House of Representatives.

In a separate Supreme Court filing, Luzerne County, which is in eastern Pennsylvania and includes Wilkes-Barre, told the justices that the ballots received after election night were negligible compared with the total vote. Officials there received only 255 ballots between 8 p.m. on Election Day and 5 p.m. on Friday, the extension authorized by the state Supreme Court. That contrasts with nearly 150,000 votes cast in the county before then.

[JimC]

I don't know, and it probably differs by state. Everything differs by state.

I know that you are keen on allowing states to have their own idiosyncratic differences, and in most things, fair enough. So, let Alabama make incest legal (some of their hotheads want it to be compulsory), and let Montana declare that doing embroidery in public requires the death penalty.

But the one area that should, for clear and rational reasons be uniform across all states is your method of voting in Federal elections; they are an overarching part of your democracy, and need to be treated as such...

[laklak]

I agree, but it would likely require a constitutional amendment. Certainly abolishing or altering the electoral college would. I can't see that happening, but who knows? Stranger things have happened. Trump was elected president, for example.

[Tero]

Trumpsters and others are confused. They think the PA votes being counted Fri and Sat were votes received after they deadline. They were not. They were just mail in votes that were counted last.

[JimC]

Trumpsters confused?

Say it ain't so!

[Scot Dutchy]

They will have to lock him up. He is a lose cannon.

[Brian Peacock]

An interesting prediction. But didn't you tell us he was a dead cert to win, like about 100 times, because America isn't a democracy?

My prediction for Trump's: now he's got nothing to stop him going full Alex Jones he's going to milk it until it's a withered husk.

[laklak]

He's probably more dangerous out of office than in. Think Adolf after Landsburg but pre Chancelorship.