The 2016 United States Presidential Election

not that alarmist i think its a real possibility trump would be hitler 2.0, but hillary ist that much better it must suck to live in a country where your democracy is a sham Edited by frako, : No reason given.

I think many people care less about democracy and more about their way of life. Political institutions are just the means to maintain or improve a way of life. Trump supporters are responding to threats to their way of life and see Trump as willing to do whatever's necessary to save it, no matter that his means are undemocratic as well as politically, economically, internationally and militarily destabilizing. Trump supporters see human rights concerns as just an excuse for emphasizing the plight of minorities and 3rd world peoples at the expense of themselves. If it takes a trade war or a real war or whatever else to put their white lives back on track, then so be it, and hang the consequences on others.Most notable in these primary and election threads has been the tepid support for Hillary. Obviously some regions are rabidly pro-Hillary, but I think tepid support is more the rule than anything more enthusiastic. If she wins it won't be for what she represents but for who she isn't.--Percy

I posted this in July before the primary on facebook:

quote:

---

Okay, so the current tabulated count (ignoring the mail-in votes that have yet to be counted in California and elsewhere) is (total delegates so far — as of 06/18/16):

​

Hillary 2221 (55%)
Bernie 1830 (45%)

​

with 4051 of 4051 possible pledge (elected) delegates currently allocated, leaving a delta of 391 delegates.

​

There are 715 Super-delegates so they CAN decide on one OR the other to make them the candidate. In fact in other years 45% has been sufficient to get the nomination (when that was the highest count).

​

There is a lot of talk about coming together and how we need to unify so that we can beat Donald Trump in November. The question I have is why pick Hillary to be the standard bearer -- should we not consider ALL possible paths and choose the one most likely to succeed in November -- if that is truly the goal here?

​

There are a lot of democrats who will stay home or vote for Jill rather than vote for Hillary. Certainly she won't inspire independents to vote for progressive down-ticket candidates.

​

If we would be voting for "the lesser of two evils" in November, between #SHiliary and #ScaryHairy, shouldn't we be talking about picking a candidate that is not a "lesser evil" in the first place?

​

Let me put this out here once again: the super-delegates will pick the candidate in the July 25-28 convention, ... but INDEPENDENT voters will pick the PRESIDENT in the November election.

​

If the DNC (super-delegates) picks Hillary and she loses to Trump it will NOT be because of Bernie, or Bernie supporters, ... it will be because they - the DNC and democrat establishment and the corporate media - picked a WEAKER candidate, one with less mass appeal and one who is seen by many - especially by independent voters - as part of the corrupt system\establishment problem instead of as part of a solution.

---

Seems that prediction is coming true.So a lot of "Hillbots" are posting "Remember Nader" and accusing people of endangering the election, ... when the nadir truth is that Gore did not earn enough votes:Dispelling the Myth of Election 2000: Did Nader Cost Gore the Election?

quote:

---

George Bush beat Al Gore by only 543 votes in Florida. Gore needed Florida’s electoral votes in order to win the presidency. He did not get them. Gore’s diehard Democratic Party supporters have declared Green Party presidential candidate Ralph Nader the reason their candidate lost the 2000 presidential election, even though numerous other factors in the climactic Florida vote-counting drama affected the outcome. Instead of focusing solely on the votes Ralph Nader took from Al Gore, a balanced analysis would also take into account the following: (1) voters who were disenfranchised; (2) voting systems and procedures that failed; (3) the party-line United States Supreme Court vote declaring George W. Bush the winner; and (4) Democrats who voted for Bush or not at all.

---

Gore also alienated progressives in the campaign, and sealed that when he picked hawkish independent Lieberman for VP. Hillary is making those very same mistakes by ridiculing Bernie people and picking DINO Tim Kaine for VP.Those who do not learn from history are bound to repeat it.If Hillary loses it will be because she does not earn enough votes.Her tepid non-response to the DAPL protest is indicative of HER wrong direction. Her comment in the (leaked email) account of talks about having a "private face" and a "public face" are also indicative of trustworthiness in actually meaning what she says in public.I expect that Hillary will win, because Trump is a troglodyte, not because she is a good candidate.I also expect that the senate may stay in republican hands because she won't inspire voters to elect down ticket candidates. Or that the republicans will win it back in 2018.

So far, the fallout from the recent email snafu seems to not have had much of an effect on the numbers. Latest from Real Clear Politics shows Clinton with about 263 electoral votes sewn up:realclearpolitics.comAs it stands, all she needs to do is win Colorado and she has won the election. And she is currently ahead there by 4.5 points.Trump has increased his lead slightly in Ohio and Florida is still waffling back and forth. But otherwise, not much in the way of change.My guess is unless something of substance comes out of that FBI investigation in the next few days, it appears most of the email controversy is already baked into the results.Then again, anything can happen.

During the campaign it has taken a few days for new controversy to get reflected into the results. But given that huge numbers of folks have already voted, issues will have less effect.Besides that, what we currently have isn't really all that much. I think if something is to be made from them, it will take some active pumping by the media or Trump.

Sure, her official position is that it is to save lives, but the unofficial [and actual] reason is to keep the so-called Axis of Evil in check. This is all about keeping Russia/Iran/Syria/North Korea/China tightly constrained so that the United States and NATO allies can continue to do whatever they want unopposed.

That is quite a leap there. From no-fly zone to world domination in two sentences.What is it that US and NATO have conspired to do if unopposed?

I think the Trump campaign knows this, even if they are unwilling to address it publicly. When someone from the Trump campaign is asked to comment on the national polls they try to redirect by saying that they are ahead in Ohio, as if Trump is running to be President of Ohio.

The problem is also exacerbated by the rhetoric coming from Trump about the election being 'rigged'. He is essentially setting the stage for defeat, but because he is so thin skinned, he won't accept a legitimate loss. It has to be illegitimate. The problem is, many of his most strident supporters are taking those statements literally. My big concern is some nitwit goes on a rampage after a Trump loss because Trump stupidly called for people to exercise '2nd Amendment Solutions'. The guy is so batshit he literally doesn't have a filter of any sort. And that is dangerous.Hillary is not perfect, but she summed up Trump in the best way possible: "Anyone that can be baited by a Tweet is not fit to be president."

It’s a test.If the USA and its allies can show that we control the world and can keep the others in line thereby proving we are the superior human’s on this planet then we stand to gain the most startling technologies the aliens have to offer. New weapons, controllable machine super-intelligence, FTL star ships, virtually instant long range transport around the planet and the solar system, and, the end to disease, hunger, war. All we have to do is set up Siberia and a bit of northern China as a sanctuary home for the aliens to occupy free of human presence and interference and all these gifts will be ours. OK, so we would have to accept a wee bit more ammonia in our atmosphere (not to exceed 9% for the first 300 years) but we can handle that easy.Anyway, that’s how I understand it.

I also think the global warming has to do with all the atmosphere converters the aliens have already installed back during the Eisenhower administration in Roswell. Everything is going to plan.

quote:

---

Des Moines Woman Says She Voted Twice For Trump Because "The Polls Are Rigged"

​

A Des Moines woman has been charged with Election Misconduct, a Class D felony, after allegedly voting twice for GOP presidential nominee Donald Trump. Terri Rote says she was afraid her first ballot for Trump would be changed to a vote for Democratic candidate Hillary Clinton.

​

"I wasn't planning on doing it twice, it was a spur of the moment," says Rote.* "The polls are rigged."

​

But Polk County Attorney John Sarcone says voter fraud in Iowa is very rare, which is evidence that Iowa’s election system is secure.

​

"I think in the 25-plus years that I've been doing this job, this maybe the third 08-20-2022 5:56 PM we've had some irregularity that's resulted in a criminal charge," says Sarcone. "People aren’t voting more than once. And if they do, or attempt to do it, they will get caught because there are safeguards in place....We want everybody to exercise their right to vote, but only once."

---

quote:

---

Trump Loyalists Planned Voter Intimidation Using Fake ID Badges, Fake Exit Polling Until HuffPost Asked Them About ItVote Protectors, the anti-voter-fraud group hosted by Donald Trump ally and political dirty trickster Roger Stone, plans to send volunteers to monitor polling places in nine cities with high minority populations on Election Day, Stone said last week. Untrained poll-watchers have intimidated voters in previous elections. But Vote Protectors is going further than its predecessors.

​

Stone’s group created an official-looking ID badge for its volunteers to wear, and its volunteers planned to videotape voters and conduct fake exit polls, efforts that election experts say risks intimidating and confusing voters. Or at least that’s what the group was planning to do before The Huffington Post asked Stone about it on Tuesday. The controversial Trump ally, long known for his bare-knuckled political tactics, said that key proposals on his group’s websites were there without his knowledge, and assured HuffPost that he would operate within the confines of election law.

---

There are several types of fraud that can be committed during an election. Voter fraud type 1 (people voting twice or pretending to be someone - dead - else) is rare. It is an individual trying to game the system. Voter fraud type 2 (people not being allowed to vote, voter intimidation) is very prominent this year -- since the voter rights bill was gutted -- and almost all are committed by republican run states. An exception is Rhode Island that passed the ALEC voter photo ID law, which has resulted in fewer people of color getting to vote. Election fraud type 1 (electronic voting machines hacked with virus that alters votes) is relatively easy, especially for the party in charge of running the elections in the state, and when there is no paper ballots to recount it is not possible to check (except by exit polls indicating significant differences). This is usually done by the party or a segment of the party. There are videos on the internet showing how easy this is. One such source is https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GamR4y_ykA0 Election fraud type 2 (old school ballot stuffing or not counting some ballots, electronic vote count tallying machines hacked and tallies altered, ballots moved to different district with different order on ballots) is also covered by articles and videos on the internet. One such source is Hacking Democracy - WikipediaThe media tries to paint all fraud as type 1 voter fraud and ignores the evidence of other types, when they are more likely and much more dangerous in their ability to alter results.Note that the woman was trying to counter type 1 election fraud with type 1 voter fraud (with no guarantee of the second vote not being altered as well)Exit polls have traditionally been used to see if any of the frauds are being conducted in significant numbers -- ie results outside the margins of error of the poll -- but cannot identify the exact amount nor the source of the differences. See Exit poll - Wikipedia also see Stanford Study Proves Election Fraud through Exit Poll Discrepancies | Snopes.com The obvious solution is to insist on a paper trail that can be (a) verified and (b) recounted by independent vote auditors.There are several reforms that would be needed for more democratic elections:1. No more "winner take all" states for electoral college delegates: make delegates proportional to popular votes.2. Every primary, state and national election should be by verifiable paper ballots with ranked/instant runoff voting, so no candidate can be a "spoiler" in any race. The final primary ranked votes are not counted until the convention, and the final ranked national elections are not counted until the electoral college. Use the electoral college as the final counting system for the ranked votes. This has two benefits: (1) it does not require amendment to the constitution and (2) this shifts the media circus from election night to the day of the convention or the electoral college. This shift allows states time to validate and recount the ballots.3. House of representative districts need to be apportioned by a rational metric removed from party bias, such as population density based on census data, and all candidates should be a resident of their district and have voted in it in the previous election.4. Every citizen should be able to vote without question or restriction of any kind. The federal government could issue photo ID voter cards through the post office just as passports are issued. They can be issued on the 18th birthday for natural born citizens, and issued when naturalized citizens pass their citizenship requirements.5. Mail in ballots should be available for everyone to send (or handed) in before the election day dead-line, and be exactly the same ballot as paper ballots at the polls.This can be initiated through ballot initiatives: see Home Page - Ballot Initiative Strategy Center Ignoring the evidence of rigging in US primaries and past elections does not make the evidence disappear, rather we should be advocating ways and means to ensure that neither party, nor any private group (like Diebold?), interferes with elections.Enjoy

Oh, do say more about our suppression of the Axis of Evil so that we can just run wild.--Percy

RAZD writes: ...and get a receipt of your own ballot (like a carbon copy) with your same ballot's long serial number you take home. Ballots are serial-numbered randomly. Later you can look up on the website and see how they counted the ballot with your serial number, which no one but you, yourself, knows.This could also help understand how your IRV ballot wound up being counted. I seem to recall that Lani Guinier of the Clinton Administration wanted the IRV system.

I'm not going to dispute that this is possible and even easy. My question is about your statement about who "usually" commits this kind of fraud. What evidence is there regarding a pattern of abuse that we can label "usually"?