IT'S OVER: Biden defeats Trump as US voters take the rare step to remove an incumbent president

Who is the lawyer?

 

2022? What happens then??
Had to google:

1. 2022 United States gubernatorial elections - Wikipedia
   https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2022_United_States_gubernatorial_elections
   2017-01-13 · The 2022 United States gubernatorial elections will be held on November 8, 2022, in 36 states and three territories. In addition, special elections may take place (depending on state law) if other gubernatorial seats are vacated. As most governors serve four year terms, the last regular gubernatorial elections for all but two of the seats took place in 2018.

Not being an American, this is hard to understand for me! Why all this voting?
So, you figure that in 2022 Trump will be back, or Biden will be gone and some other person will take his place?
O.k., I'll look forward to that day, too!!

1. 
   

 

If what you say is the case, and parties are like a membership club, it leads to other questions.
For example do members have to pay a fee to join the club?
Are membership lists given to some kind of 'neutral' person, so if somebody shows up to vote in a primary, said neutral person says 'you're not on the democrat/republican list, so go away you're not allowed to participate'?
The second bit that I have bolded seems to say that there can quite easily be 'insincere' voting in primaries, which you say is preposterous, yet can happen anyway.
At the moment in America there is a huge amount of angst about the process of voting, from postal votes, to deadlines, to impersonation, so it seems to me that all the processes, right back to the primaries where candidates are selected, are open to a form of abuse.
It isn't only the final Presidential vote that is vulnerable to an abuse of process.
I wrote above that I am interested in forms of 'democracy', and the American system is 'a' form of democracy rather than necessarily being 'the' form of democracy.
And it is mightily convoluted and difficult for an outsider to understand.
The result of a Presidential election is often trumpeted as a 'victory for democracy', but it is, as I say, a form of democracy and there may be better forms available, especially in the light of the possibility to abuse the primary process, and in the light of the current complaints about the Presidential voting process. Seems like a live issue to me.
I am not saying there is necessarily a better system, but simplifying the system might benefit everybody.

 

Most people don't like Kamala....and I'm including Democrat voters, as proven by the Democrat primaries. Kamala is a virtual apprentice in federal politics. She hasn't the experience to be going around the world negotiating treaties for us with experienced foreign leaders, many of whom are not our friends.

Joe Biden picked Kamala for her looks and genitals. If he wanted an experienced and respectable black woman, he should have gone with Susan Rice.

Kamala is going to shove Critical Race Theory down everyone's throats domestically, and completely get America screwed on foreign relations.

Fortunately, Americans were stupid-drunk on "Hate Trump" this year and didn't look closely at who they were electing, but Americans don't stay drunk for long. Kamala will not win any election where the voters actually have control whether she's in office or not.

 

Rudy Guilliani has 50 eye-witness sworn statements that they were barred from legally observing the counts across three or four states. He says he has verified 300,000 ballots which Republicans were barred from participation as legally requited observers, and is trying to verify what he believes area total estimated between 500,000 to 600,000.

 

lol

 

Voter registration is by county. The county lists get filed with the state.

The political parties have access to the information (although I think that is an invasion of privacy since the two parties are private corporations). During early voting, the Democrat Party was keeping track of who voted and who didn't, down to the individual voter. That made their marketing more efficient. As soon as someone voted, they dropped them off their list and spent their money on the individuals who they knew had not voted yet.

 

2022 is the next mid-term election. Biden will still be president, or Kamala by then if Biden's brain falls out. All of the House of Representatives have 2-year terms, so control of that house can flip every couple of years. Senators serve 6-year terms, but they are staggered so that some Senate seats are open every couple of years.

In non-presidential election years, the House and Senate are the focus. If the people are not happy with the party in charge of the Executive Office (i.e. the President) they will go vote to fill up the House and Senate to slow down legislation. If they are pleased (which usually never happens) people vote for the same party as the president to tilt power to push legislation through faster.

 

I understand. I think it will be a whirlwind for all of us as the Administration changes. I think there is a learning curve for all parties starting new positions and only time will tell who is strong enough to remain in the fight. Regardless of party, I think many of us just want some normalcy. This virus has taken a toll, the economy, jobs, evictions...we've been through the ringer this year. Maybe we can put aside our differences and come to embrace and appreciate where we can come together to heal as a nation. We need to put the "united" back in the United States of America.

P.S. I don't keep up with politics enough to really know everyone's background so it's helpful to read posts like yours (and I appreciate that we always have civil conversations despite being on opposite sides). Thank you.

 

I think most Americans are united as a people, and more and more, united in our angst at government establishment.

Unfortunately, there will be no normalcy in the next four years, and probably not until we have two candidates where one on them beats the other in a resounding statistically-significant defeat.

This election very much did come down to reactions to Covid (aside from the emotional "Hate Trumpers"). People worried about infections voted Biden. People worried about the economy voted Trump. Reopening the economy at the risk of increasing infections helps the poor and would prevent involuntary homelessness of younger healthy people. Getting infections down through economic restrictions to save mainly elderly/senior citizens harms the poor. There are a lot of serious implications in the choice, more than "nice guy" versus "rude guy".

Thank you for the kindness. I appreciate you, too.

 

Is there really all that much still locked down?

Crowds at sporting events is all that I see left.

What's still closed? Florida is almost 100%; except for stadiums.

 

Depends on the state. I think Massachusetts has a 10pm to 5 am curfew, and the governor just restricted restaurants to stop serving food at 9:30pm. That's just one example.

Governors will still do what they want to do, so red states will fair far better economically (as we have been) and the people will be more free. So, yes, Florida and Texas are still protecting peoples' liberty and treating us like adults who can make our own decisions on risk.

Blue state governors will use Biden's stricter "guidance" to lock things down, and then those states will be begging for federal bail out money to pay for their decisions.

 

I don't think we need stricter guidance.

We need more cooperation with compliance.

I totally get "muh freedom," but being asked to wear a mask when in close quarters with strangers, is not unreasonable.

Anyway - we've gotten much better about curing it, and now with the resmidvir approval, things should go up.

That doesn't mean we should all run out and try and get it. Let's just be smart and open everything.

 

~ Oh be careful ! You sound like Donald Trump.

 

That sounded nothing like Donald Trump.

 

~ You haven't been listening.

 

offiYes, in a sense, the "members" pay a "fee" since many registered Democrat voters and registered Republican voters end up contributing financially to campaign funds. Parties have lists of their registered voters and routinely send mail to them, asking for donations to the DNC or RNC or specific campaigns.

Yes, depending on a state's rules, some primaries are "open" and some are "semi-closed" or "closed." In open primaries anybody can vote, and when you get to the precinct the officials ask if you want a Republican or a Democrat ballot (if both primaries occur at the same time). While anybody can vote, one can only vote in one party's primaries. In semi-closed primaries, registered voters for a party + independent (non-affiliated) voters can vote. If you are an independent you are asked the same question (which ballot do you want?) but if you are a registered Republican you can't vote in the Democrat primaries, and if you are a registered Democrat you can't vote in the Republican primaries. People can, however, change their registration. A registered Democrat can relinquish the party and re-register as a Republican, and vice-versa. In closed primaries, then only registered voters can vote, for their respective parties. Independents cannot vote. Again, a registered voter can change registration to the other party, and an independent can relinquish that status and join one of the parties.

My state has open primaries.

It is more common for states that vote earlier, such as pre-Super Tuesday and Super Tuesday states, to have open primaries. They figure that the other party voters are busy with their own contest and won't interfere with the other party's. It is more common for late-voting states to have closed primaries, to avoid the problem I was mentioning, that is, that one of the parties is done, with all other candidates having dropped out in favor of a last man or woman standing, so that their registered voters now are free to go mess with the other party's process in order to select the least competitive candidate.

Overall most primaries are open.

Me, I think that ALL primaries should be semi-closed; so, Democrats and Demoract-leaning independents would select the Democrat candidates, and Republican and Republican-leaning independents would select the Republican candidates. I think that a registered Democrat has no business messing with the Republican selections, and vice-versa. I also think that there should be a deadline BEFORE the primaries start, to change registration.

I also think that this process of holding primaries over several weeks and months is odd. It grants disproportionate power to states that hold earlier primaries. This can lead to distortions, such as a candidate getting an earlier lead, with people then jumping on the bandwagon, when that candidate maybe isn't the best one. We saw this, occurring very clearly this election cycle among the Democrats. Bernie Sanders had an earlier lead and everybody started talking of him as the favorite after the third state to vote, then Biden surged when the fourth state rolled in, and ultimately won the nomination and the general election. Much ado about nothing was made of Bernie Sanders.

Another distortion is the issue of debates. There are complicated rules to qualify for a debate, and sometimes they can seem unfair to some smaller candidates.

I would prefer a system like this: we'd have, say, two months of campaigning, with all candidates campaigning and participating in several debates. Then, ALL states would vote the same day. We'd then get the top two most voted candidates, and have a runoff one month later, only between those two, and again all states would vote simultaneously, and the victor would be selected.

Another way to bypass the need for an expensive runoff, would be to have ranking voting; one would vote for a preferred candidate then would also pick a second-preferred one (and maybe a third one too), and these secondary preferences would kick in to decide the tie-breaker between the two top-voted candidates.

About election day itself, I'd introduce five changes. One, I'd have it on a Sunday rather than a Tuesday, so that working people would have more time to vote. If we want to keep Tuesday then that Tuesday should be a mandatory national holiday.

Two, I'd have a national voter registration card with a photo. To have that voter card issued, the voter should have to demonstrate American citizenship. Not that I think that illegals vote in any expressive number, but if we had this national card, the issue would be put to rest and wouldn't be used to falsely claim fraud and to delegitimize the election, like a certain orange candidate has been doing.

Three, I'd make uniform rules for early voting across all states, and would abolish mail-in voting. I'd rather use a system of absentee vote only accessible to people with real justification for why they can't show up in person to an early voting site or to an election day site, such as people confined to hospital, paralyzed, etc. Such people would be issued personalized voting material and a witness would be allowed to take that ballot to a drop-in site controlled by the local board of elections; authorized persons would only be certain categories, and would have to prove to the local board that they indeed fulfilled that category: spouses, legal guardians, first-degree relatives (siblings, parents, offspring), and if someone didn't have any of those, such an elderly person with no living relatives, the local board should go collect that vote, sending an official there to the hospital or nursing home where the elderly voter resided.

Four, I would not have mail-in overseas and military ballots. Instead, I'd have voting precincts in all embassies and consulates abroad, and all military bases abroad. Expats and soldiers would have to show up to vote, or would be able to use the same rules for absentee ballots in case of incapacity to show up in person.

Five, I would establish electronic voting devices that would be the same one for all precincts, domestic and abroad, and would provide an immediate voting count right after polls closed. In a couple of hours, all precincts would be tabulated and the winners would be known.

You may think that these changes would be impossible. Far from it. There are large democracies that proceed exactly like this. I happen to know very well a country's system, Brazil's, out of having lived there for a while in working missions, and I was curious about their system and asked the locals to explain it to me. All items above exist in Brazil, just like this. They vote during the weekend. They have a runoff system. They have a national voting identification card. They have uniform rules for all states. They have voting precincts in embassies and consulates abroad. They have no mail-in voting, but rather, the need to proof the necessity to be exempt from showing up in person. They have an extremely clever electronic voting device in all precincts, and their votes are tabulated within a couple of hours after the precincts close, and winners are known to the last vote immediately. There isn't this mess we see here. And their election is as big as ours. They have 220 million inhabitants, two thirds of our population, but the voting population is as big as ours because voting there is mandatory for citizens aged 18 to 65 (and optional for citizens older than 65). One can vote blank if the person doesn't agree with any candidate, but the person does still need to register that blank vote (or a valid vote for candidates) otherwise the person will have to pay a fine. I'm not in favor of that; I'm just saying, for this reason, they have approximately the same number of voters every cycle as compared to ours, and their electronic voting system works, and delivers precise and fool-proof results within two hours.

Of course the most controversial aspect of our democracy is the Electoral College. People abroad are puzzled that proportionally, certain voters count more than others here, depending on the state of residence. They also don't understand how we can have a candidate who wins the popular vote but is not elected president.

But I do agree with the Electoral College. We are a FEDERATION of states. So, yes, our process should be a state-by-state process, otherwise large and populous states will crush the interests of smaller states. If we only had a popular vote total system, candidates would only campaign in states like California, Texas, New York, etc., and would pay no attention to the needs and demands of small states like Delaware, Rhode Island, and Vermont. So, I'm perfectly fine with the Electoral College.

 

Now this is a strong woman, defending our Constitution and rule of law.

Noem 2024?

 

So, please go find exact quotes of Trump saying:

1 - We need more cooperation with compliance.

2 - being asked to wear a mask when in close quarters with strangers, is not unreasonable.


Cheers.

 

~ No thanks. Trump is all over the internet and YouTube. You can go listen for yourself.

~ Yes indeed . With all the excitement I forgot about her. Good candidate for president ? We shall see ...

 

I have.

I understand that you have nothing. If you did, you'd show, instead of tell.

Having a great weekend, James? We're having a blast down here - getting rained on from a November tropical storm.

Good times ahead!

 

I'll make a note of this post and remind you of it later.

"Lord, grant that today my words be tender and sweet, for tomorrow I may have to eat them."

Making an open claim of superior intelligence is the "trapped in my own corner" defense of the truly vacuous. Defensive snark, as usual.

 

~ Yes we are experiencing climate change also. Chilly and a bit of rain after a hot summer. Now I watch another hurricane heading to southeast Florida . I hope my roof holds up !

 

IMO it allows us to vote outside what may be our usual party leanings, something I've done several times. I tend towards Democrats in high office, but there have been times when I've voted for Republicans.

Those days are gone now, though. After the utter fiasco of Trump and the shameless, honorless manner in which the GOP pushed him on us and kept supporting him and covering up for him, no Republican will ever get my vote again.

The last Republican I voted for will remain Jon Huntsman in the 2012 GOP primary. They're dead to me now.

 

Right now, the eye is in the Keys.

Where is your winter home?