2020 Election: Predictions, Results and Reactions

[Maria]

Thanks Dave!

[N.E. Brigand]

This claim by David Shafer, the chair of the Georgia Republican Party, has been circulating widely today (one of the president's sons shared it, for example):

"One of our monitors discovered a 9,626 vote error in the DeKalb County hand count. One batch was labeled 10,707 for Biden and 13 for Trump - an improbable margin even by DeKalb standards. The actual count for the batch was 1,081 for Biden and 13 for Trump."

But it turns out that when you look at the affidavit the GOP filed on Sunday regarding this discovery, it's basically the process working like it should. And note that even if this error (which is significant given Biden's margin of victory in Georgia) hadn't been caught, this wouldn't affect the original machine count. Rather, Biden's lead would appear to have grown in the hand count. And there's still a required machine recount to come, because of the margin in the original machine count.

[River]

Clerical errors happen. They get corrected. A similar issue is how the whole conspiracy theory around Dominion's software got ginned up.

[N.E. Brigand]

Worth remembering this message from Julian Assange to Donald Trump Jr. in October 2016 (emphases and typos in the original):

"Hi Don if your father 'loses' we think it is much more interesting if he DOES NOT conceed and spends time CHALLENGING the media and other types of rigging that occurred-- as he has implied that he might do. He is also much more likely to keep his base alive and energised [sic] this way and if he is going to start a new network, showing how corrupt the old ones are is helpful. The discussion can be transformative as it exposes media corruption, primary corruption, PAC corruption, etc."

In 2016, Trump won, so Assange's advice was moot, but now that's Trump's lost, he seems to be following it.

[Voronwë the Faithful]

Ah yes. Julian Assange. We had an interesting discussion about him here a number of years ago.

[Voronwë the Faithful]

Don't be surprised if the same thing that happened in Wayne County, MI repeats itself when the four-member (2 Republican and 2 Democrat) state Board of Canvassers votes to certify the election in Michigan on Monday, 11/23.

[Dave_LF]

Plus, the two Wayne County GOP canvassers who decided to certify after all are now asking to change their votes (they can't do that), whining that they only changed their minds in the first place because everyone was being *so mean*.

[Inanna]

Mumble mumble mumble

[Voronwë the Faithful]

I'm addressing myself as much as anyone else, but please let us maintain a modicum of civility in addressing these challenging times.

[Voronwë the Faithful]

Plus, the two Wayne County GOP canvassers who decided to certify after all are now asking to change their votes (they can't do that), whining that they only changed their minds in the first place because everyone was being *so mean*.

Apparently, this was after at least one of them, Monika Palmer, received a direct phone call from President Trump. She claims, however, that he did not "pressure" her to try to rescind her vote (as of receiving a phone call from the "most powerful person in the world" would not in and of itself be pressure).

Washington Post: Trump spoke to GOP official who now wants to 'rescind' vote to certify Detroit's results

[Voronwë the Faithful]

And now ... Michigan GOP lawmakers meeting with Trump as he tries to stop state from certifying Biden win



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[Voronwë the Faithful]

This follows the Trump campaign dropping its lawsuit seeking to block certification of the results in Michigan.

https://www.cnn.com/politics/live-news/ ... b27193a2e4

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[Frelga]

I think we have some Harlan Coben readers here.

The obligatory note to the doubting Thomases around here that I took the screenhsot myself.

Screenshot_20201119-114750.jpg (72.08 KiB) Viewed 1784 times

[N.E. Brigand]

Perhaps you watched the Trump campaign press conference today featuring Rudy Giuliani and Sidney Powell as they explained that Joe Biden worked with George Soros and the late Hugo Chavez (d. 2013) to rig the software of Dominion election machines to change this year's votes in Biden's favor. I think they may even have used the phrase "global elites."

You may ask: why would Democrats rig the vote for Biden that but still lose seats in the House, and lose two races they'd been expected to win (Maine and North Carolina) that would give them control of the Senate, and fail to flip any state legislatures? You might say to yourself: Dominion machines were used in Georgia, so why didn't the hand recount (i.e., a tabulation unaffected by software) give the state to Trump? You could ponder this: if Hugo Chavez had this software, why didn't he use it to help his own party in Venezuela?

In short: who could possibly fall for such unhinged claims?

But as Wait! Wait! Don't Tell Me! host Peter Sagal points out, Sidney Powell has also pushed wild conspiracy theories in her role as Michael Flynn's attorney, and in doing so managed to convince Attorney General Bill Barr to attempt to drop the government's case against Flynn. (Pending the approval of the judge in the case. I suspect that in the end he will give in, but "without prejudice" so that the Dept. of Justice under Biden can choose to bring the prosecution again -- if Flynn isn't pardoned. Although the judge might determine that Flynn committed perjury in the course of changing his story.)

[Dave_LF]

If I'm not mistaken, Georgia was supposed to report its recount results by noon eastern today. It is substantially later than that now, and I've heard nothing, not even "why hasn't Georgia reported anything yet?!" *Am* I mistaken??

[Voronwë the Faithful]

I'm 99.99% sure that Michael Flynn will be pardoned.

I didn't see the press conference, but I did read some of the brief filed by the attorneys Giuliani is working with in Pennsylvania opposing the motion to dismiss the case there. Really scary stuff.

I still don't think any of this will go anywhere, but the fact that they are pushing so hard against reality, and even flying the Michigan lawmakers to Washington to meet with Mr. Trump at the White Bunker, is really, really, really, really, really disturbing.

x-posted with Dave. I think they have until tomorrow to announce the results of the hand recount, though i also heard that they were going to report by noon today. I don't know what the hold up is.

[N.E. Brigand]

I didn't see the press conference, but I did read some of the brief filed by the attorneys Giuliani is working with in Pennsylvania opposing the motion to dismiss the case there. Really scary stuff.

I still don't think any of this will go anywhere, but the fact that they are pushing so hard against reality, and even flying the Michigan lawmakers to Washington to meet with Mr. Trump at the White Bunker, is really, really, really, really, really disturbing.

Yeah.

Chris Krebs, who was in charge of U.S. election security until President Trump fired him two days ago, tweeted this comment:

"That press conference was the most dangerous 1hr 45 minutes of television in American history. And possibly the craziest. If you don’t know what I’m talking about, you’re lucky."

[Voronwë the Faithful]

If I'm not mistaken, Georgia was supposed to report its recount results by noon eastern today. It is substantially later than that now, and I've heard nothing, not even "why hasn't Georgia reported anything yet?!" *Am* I mistaken??

They are now saying by 6 p.m., but since that is in less than 20 minutes, I am doubtful that they will make that timeline either.

[Voronwë the Faithful]

Georgia confirms Biden victory after statewide audit

Georgia has finished its statewide audit of the razor-thin presidential race, according to a news release from the Secretary of State’s office.

President-elect Joe Biden beat President Trump by 12,284 votes, according to the final results from the audit. This is a slight drop for Biden compared to the pre-audit results.

Georgia plans to certify Biden’s victory on Friday.

Officials have said repeatedly that the audit confirmed there was no widespread fraud or irregularities in the election.

[N.E. Brigand]

Actual Washington Post headline this evening, and it's a news article not an opinion piece:

"Trump uses power of presidency to try to overturn the election."