2020 Election early voting and eventually results

In California, I don't know how many ballots have been turned in so far. We're in the vote-by-mail phase right now with early voting in person starting later.The calendar is:

• 05 Oct -- Vote-by-Mail ballot mailing began. Every registered citizen gets a ballot in the mail. As soon as you receive your ballot, you can fill it out and submit it either by mail or in a drop box. There are 116 official drop boxes in Orange County (not including the many fake and felony-level-illegal drop boxes set up throughout the state by the state GOP). Most of the drop boxes are walk-up only, some are drive-thru only, and some are both drive-thru and walk-up.
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• 30 Oct through 03 Nov -- Vote Centers open for in-person early voting. There will be 151 Vote Centers in Orange County, 40 of them with a drive-thru drop-off option. They will be open from 8AM to 8PM on Friday through Monday and from 7AM to 8PM on Election Day.

Obviously, California is not one of the states engaged in voter suppression. To my knowledge, ballots received by mail after the election will still be counted if postmarked by Election Day, but don't push your luck on that. Also, my understanding is that California has started tallying the ballots as they come in so those figures should be available after the polls close on Election Day.We do not need to jump through extra fine-print hoops to vote by mail. You fill out your ballot and place it into the return envelope. You write your name and address on the outside and sign and date it. When received, it's validated by comparing your signature with your signature on file. In contrast, some states have an extra "security envelope" that you put your ballot into to keep it secret and not using that "security envelope" can result in your ballot being rejected -- California keeps your vote secret by verifying the unopened envelope at one station and, if it verifies, then passing it to another station to open it and extract the ballot. Also, some of the other states require witnesses to your signing or even having it notarized (requiring that you find a pay a notary public, which sounds oddly like a poll tax).In addition, you can track the status of your mail-in ballot in order to see if there were any problems; eg, problems verifying your signature, problems with your registration status. That way, if there was a problem then you can try to get it corrected. Obviously, the earlier you get your ballot submitted, the better your chance to correct any problem. I dropped mine off on Saturday, 10 Oct, and verified it as having been processed by the next Tuesday.NBC reports that out of 20,430,665 ballots issued in California, 4,152,614 ballots have been returned in California so far: 56% Democrat, 21% Republican, 23% Other. So about a fifth of the votes are in so far.

That is the f*cking anti-American GOP traitor party doing that, not the state government itself.I hadn't heard about setting fires. I have heard that DeJoy's next step in destroying the ability of the US Postal Service doing its job was to put an end to the Postal police who ensure the security of mailboxes, trucks, postal carriers, etc. He did that literally the day after he said under oath he wouldn't do anything more to screw up the works. OK, the orders don't follow a clear path back to him, yet, but to still do your job as a postal cop you need to get special permission from the very top. ABE:The destruction of ballot drop boxes and their contents is yet another reason to follow up on your vote. Go to your registrar's website (eg, ocvote.com here in Orange County) and track your ballot. If it is not received, then follow up. Submit and verify.Edited by dwise1, : ABE

However, if you inquire at the official gov't site for your ballot's status and they have no record that it had shown up, then you would know that something had happened and you could then ask for a new ballot. Or else know that you would need to show up in person. There may be no way to track down what had happened, but at the very least you would know that something had happened.Now, as for your "selective disappearance or destruction of those ballots", that would require malfeasance by the government itself or at least by individuals involved in processing ballots. That is not what we are talking about, nor would fake or vandalized (eg, by fire as you described) ballot boxes fall under this category.From an MSNBC segment from 08 Sep 2020, here is how Orange County, Calif, does it: And here is a video by the Orange County Registrar of Voters from 2013: Of course, we are an example of a state and county dedicated to running an election correctly. Unfortunately, there are states and counties who are dedicated to fixing elections (eg, how GA's Kemp fixed his own election in 2018 with massive registration purges just before the election).One solution would be for the Biden Administration to pass a new Voting Rights Act that the new rigged Supreme Court couldn't f*ck up.

There's your mistake. You are trying to associate honesty with "Republican.""Honest Republican" makes even less sense than "hot ice" or "dry water" or "clean coal" or "creation science." Edited by dwise1, : "clean coal"

There are other issues in addition to Trump's upcoming avalanche of pardons only applying to federal crimes and not to state or international charges (according to my understanding of what has been explained by lawyers being interviewed and hosting on progressive talk radio):

1. Accepting a pardon constitutes admission of guilt. That is supposed to be why Roger Stone didn't want a pardon but rather have his sentence commuted -- I think that had he accepted a pardon that would have killed his chances for appeals.
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2. When you accept a pardon, then you lose your Fifth Amendment rights against self-incrimination in investigations of that crime -- since you cannot be prosecuted, you cannot refuse to answer for fear of prosecution. That means that you can continue to be interrogated about the crime and you must answer all questions put to you about that crime and your co-conspirators (possibly unless that would uncover even more crimes committed by you). Refusal to do so or lying would then be new crimes that you could be charged with.
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   Of course, I don't know what the effects of a blanket pardon would be in that scenario. Does it only pardon you for all crimes you had committed prior to the date of that pardon even if uncovered later? Or does it also pardon you from all future crimes? I would assume the former and very highly doubt the latter.
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3. What are the legal limits of a Presidential Pardon? Would a demonstrably (and flagrantly) corrupt pardon stand in court? That's a legal question that has never been tested, so it could very well end up being contested in court.
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   The specific scenario that was brought up about this question is where Trump issues blanket pardons including for VP Pence. Then Trump resigns and now-Pres Pence issues Trump a blanket pardon. For two partners-in-crime to commit their crimes and then pardon each other would very clearly be corrupt, making those corrupt pardons. Would that be able to stand in court? And what then of the decision on that by a corruptly packed US Supreme Court?

BTW, on the matter of international charges. I read somewhere that one of the most searched topics on Google has been world court.

My great-nephew posted this photo of The Rock at Holloman AFB:

Melania is not Russian, but rather is from Slovenia, part of the former Yugoslavia. And besides, she's just one of his possessions, a trophy. It's not as if she would ever actually matter to him. Unless she were to prove disloyal to him personally. Yes, he does owe more than $400 million, but to whom is part of what he's been fighting so desperately for years to keep secret. Since Trump's serial bankruptcies and loan defaults had so ruined his credit that US banks wouldn't go near him, Trump has had to look to foreign sources of financing; for example, Deutsche Bank which has a history of laundering money from former-Soviet Union countries including Russia. At this point we should remember one of his sons boasting to a journalist between 2013 and 2015 the huge amounts of money they were getting from Russia. Another source of money has been Turkey, where Trump has multi-million dollar business interests.Part of my 35 years of military service (6 years active, 29 reserve) was annual general military training (GMT) in security and counter-intelligence (the same GMT that all military members receive). In addition, I held security clearances which required slightly more specific periodic security training and in one civilian job I had the collateral duty of Facility Security Officer (FSO) in which I managed classified as well as employees' security clearances, which included preparing and conducting their annual security training. Those decades of GMTs also included training about avoiding conflict of interest situations. All of that has perhaps made me more aware of security and conflict of interest and corruption issues than most other people.Part of getting a security clearance is being able to show that you are trustworthy and that you are not a risk. For example, Jared Kushner demonstrated that he is not trustworthy by lying on his security questionnaire (SF 86).There are a number of issues that can make you a risk, primarily ones that could compromise you and that might give foreign interests (eg, Russia) leverage over, even to the point of being able to blackmail you -- refer to the acronym, MICE, for the four factors that aid in recruitment for espionage ("Money, ideology, coercion / compromise, extortion / ego").One key factor that would make you a security risk is financial difficulties, especially high debt -- a retired national security veteran who held a very high clearance recounted how he had missed just one mortgage payment and his clearance was suspended until he got that taken care of and could demonstrate that he was not a risk. Simply put, if you owe a lot of money to somebody then they can force you to do almost anything, including betraying your country (something that Trump could easily do without batting an eyelash).So when we started the investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 election and how much Trump's campaign colluded with them, that ended up getting split into two separately run investigations:

1. The Mueller investigation into possible criminal activities, including conspiracy.
2. A counter-intelligence investigation conducted by the FBI to investigate, among other things, Trump's financial ties to Russia.

The FBI investigation was kept secret, as is necessary in a counter-intelligence investigation. Whenever the Mueller team encountered financial information, they would pass it on to the FBI to be passed to that other parallel investigation team. Even after Mueller had issued his report (and Bill Barr immediately lied about it), we all "knew" that the counter-intelligence investigation was still in progress and we awaited its findings.Well, then a few months ago the New York Times reported that very shortly after that counter-intelligence investigation had started, Rod Rosenstein killed it (Justice Dept. Never Fully Examined Trump’s Ties to Russia, Ex-Officials Say: The former deputy attorney general maneuvered to keep investigators from completing an inquiry into whether the president’s personal and financial links to Russia posed a national security threat.). That vitally needed information about Trump's financial ties with Russia were never investigated and still needs to be!In addition to Trump's heavy debts to what could only be foreign powers creating a grave national security threat, there's also the issue of his conflicts of interest. Normally, a high ranking official (eg, the President) will divest himself and have his investments sold and the assets transferred into a blind trust. That way, without any knowledge of where his personal interests lie he will be able to make decisions based on national interests and not his own. Trump's refusal to divest himself has created a vast swamp of conflicts of interest. As a result, he has repeatedly acted in his own interests instead of in our national interest.So Trump's close subservient cooperation with Putin, Erdogan, et alia, can be seen as due to leverage over him because of his debts as well as his conflicts of interest because of his business interests. 
The thing is that none of this is new! We've know about Trump since long before 2016 and we've observed his scams for years. Including his Trump University swindle which specifically targeted his most loyal followers and his "charity", the Trump Foundation, which he used as his own personal slush fund (and which undoubtedly also served as a conduit for bribe money in the same manner as contributions to his campaign). His use of the 2016 and 2020 campaigns to accept contributions (which bought large contributors government appointments) and funnel money into his own businesses and hence into his own pocket -- that many millions of dollars in his billion-dollar 2020 campaign fund came up missing needs to be investigated. His inaugural fund received about triple the contributions as Obama's fund, but it bought far less bang for those buck, Trump's own businesses got the contracts, and tens of millions of dollars are still missing and unaccounted for (to my knowledge).In the 2016 campaign, the Wrong was going almost as crazy over Obama going golfing as they did with him once wearing a tan suit, so Trump highlighted that in the 2016 campaign, promising that he would be so busy and unable to get in any golfing. By the end of the second or third year, Trump had already spent more time golfing than Obama ever did in all of his 8 years. That's not the issue. The issue is that every single golfing trip Trump has made has been to one of his own golf resorts -- in contrast, Obama's golf trips would usually be to a military base's course. Every single one of Trump's golf trips funneled taxpayer money into his own businesses and hence into his own pocket. Not only did he charge taxpayers full price for rooms, meals, rentals, etc for his entire Special Service entourage, but he undoubtedly also charge us full price for his own room and meals (we do know that he charged us the full $3 for a glass of water for himself). The figure I recall is about $44,000 per golf trip and a total of about $9 million for the first three years of that nonsense. Now that is practically the textbook definition for corruption.In addition, he had military flights rerouted so that the aircrews would have to overnight at a Trump resort. When Trump was in Ireland and had a photo op scheduled with the Irish President, Trump wanted it to be a Trump resort and have them rent that resort's three limousines for $1 million to transport them from and back to the airport. The Irish President countered with using an Irish government building, so Trump just had them meet in an airport lounge next to the vending machines. Trump required Pence to stay at a Trump resort near the Irish west coast such that Pence had to commute all the way across the country (such as that is) to Dublin for the official meetings (I wonder if Pence's commute involved any of those million-dollar limousines). All of that, using his office to grant government contracts to his own businesses, is yet again classic textbook corruption.And Trump selected his own resort, Doral, as the site of the 2020 G-7 meeting. Not only would those world leaders and their entire retinues have to pay Trump for their rooms and meals and drinks, but Doral would have to be renovated to add helo pads, security and other support buildings, etc, at taxpayer cost in the millions. And then after the meeting, Doral would have to be "restored" at taxpayer cost of even more millions of dollars, such that the entire resort would have been renovated entire at government cost, leaving Trump with a far more valuable property at no cost to himself. That would be an example of very flagrant corruption. And isn't Doral the one that has a big problem with bed bug infestations? In this case, Trump backed down when faced with strong bipartisan push-back, but he kept grousing that he couldn't see any reason not to use his own property.And with the COVID relief that Congress passed, Pelosi insisted on a comprehensive accounting for where all that money was going, but Trump just said, "Nope!", and now there are many millions of dollars that have disappeared. How much of that money found its way into Trump's own pockets?Throughout his term, Trump has prevented any oversight, any investigation from being done. We have a corps of inspectors general whose job is to ensure that everything the government does is done correctly. And as they have tried to do their jobs, Trump has been firing them left and right, especially when they started getting too close to what he and his cronies are doing.And on top of all that corruption, everybody and anybody with even the slightest bit of counter-intelligence training could clearly see indications that Trump is a Russian asset -- that doesn't automatically mean that he is, but the probability of all those red flags and klaxons just being false clues is vanishingly small.Edited by dwise1, : added paragraph at end