US Politics

Might as well burn Ol' Glory and raise a red hammer and sickle

Overnight changes to the remaining votes stats...

Georgia has come down from:-

Trump 102823 lead with 301,000 est. votes to be counted (requiring Biden to get at least 67.1% of them)

to

Trump 22567 lead with 100,000 est. votes to be counted, Biden needing 61.3% of them

Obviously if that continues on the same trajectory then Biden will take Georgia.

PA has gone from 675012 Trump lead (2,992,000 est votes remain) Biden needing 61.3% to
164418 Trump lead (784,000 est votes remain) Biden needing 60.5% of those.

I just want it to be over.

I don’t remember another time the entire world held its collective breath for days like this.

I just want to be on the winning side for once.

It'll be over soon, this morning hopefully if GA comes in (they're staying up until their count is done).

CNN/Fox/ABC tend to call first.
AP are a bit more tentative (this is what the Guardian uses).
BBC is trusting Reuters who are even more conservative.

As soon as the major media groups have called it then Trump is dead in the water. It'll just be frothing rants, baseless accusations and lawsuits that won't really go anywhere.

I just want to be on the winning side for once.

I don’t remember another time the entire world held its collective breath for days like this

Especially for a president that affect the world yet only a select few can vote base on rumour and conspiracy theories

GA comes in (they're staying up until their count is done).

I didn't know this.

I had just convinced myself that incessantly watching CNN for the next 5 hours would be a waste of time.

Looks like I was wrong.

I've thought this, he's not winning on policy is he. My hope is that he could come out of the traps quick on gerrymandering and vote(r) suppression, immigration, abortion, weed legalisation, minimum wage, taxation etc. Especially the stuff around who can and how to vote, so a better candidate than him can come through after. Naive for sure, he'll probably do fa and leave the mess for someone else

At least trump made a big song and dance about trying to do all his madness, even if it was struck down by courts or held up by congress. He looked busy, like he was working for his support.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/live/election-us-2020-54786937

"
In Georgia, officials said they would keep counting all night until all the ballots are tallied. But as of 04:45 GMT, there were still about 90,000 to count. Trump's lead is slowly dwindling - down to 28,000 now
"

Some current project decisions spring to mind.

Is there any chance this could lead to a reform of the US election process?

I'm just waiting for Donnie T to win the popular vote and create.
Shouting about the people want him, not the electoral college, blah blah, unfair, illegal, blah blah.
Without an iota of irony.

Don’t know much about US politics but guessing they’d have to push any reforms though the senate which will mean Biden can’t realistically make much progress domestically. For international politics, Paris accord etc. it looks more hopeful.

And if Biden wins, then he's not likely to be as incentivised to change the process that got him there.

You'd hope so, but a lot of it is controlled at the state level I believe

Biden won't be able to do much with the Senate against him. Also will be interesting to see what Trump tries to get through before he's out.

He'll never win the popular vote though. He's 3.5 million votes down on Biden in this election.

The Republicans have only won the popular vote once since 1998. That was in 2004 with Dubya/Cheney.

Yes - it's down to the states hence the different counting rules in each one. Bugger all chance of major reform.

Think he's currently trailing by around 3.5 million votes, so doubt he'll get the popular vote this time either.

CNN is based in Atlanta. They have a better chance at an earlier scoop on the results.

And if Biden wins, then he's not likely to be as incentivised to change the process that got him there.

There must be some incentive - as @Greenbank says, they've won the popular vote every year bar one for 20 years but only had 8 years of power. I also doubt that Biden is under any illusion as to why he's where he is, he must appreciate that at least some of his role is to strengthen processes to stop another Trump happening rather than the creation of a personal legacy.

There's parallels with our fptp system isn't there? An obvious, fatally flawed somehow no doubt, solution would be to make electoral college votes proportionaly allocated per state. I can't imagine that kind of change will ever happen.

The problem is that modifying the polling method often introduces unintended/unforeseen consequences.

(Not saying that's a reason not to do it. I'd love to see some form of PR here in the UK for example. But the two main parties would the biggest losers, so it's unlikely to get backing from them. Anyway, don't want to divert the discussion from US politics, there are plenty of threads for UK politics)

I posted https://www.fairvote.org/fuzzy-math upthread - which is a nice overview of some of the options pros/cons