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Edited by Mrph1 on Nov 30th 2023 at 11:03:59 AM
New Texas strategy for Republicans: get 100,000 already-cast votes thrown out by trying to have the voting method declared unconstitutional.
As part of their current strategy of insisting that only state legislatures can arrange anything for elections and then only directly, therefore any delegated power or open-ended statutes are wrong and they can then try to have federal courts step in and, essentially, mandate voter suppression.
Unfortunately, I can't say this surprises me. "Biden wins in Texas by a slight margin but the GOP tries to ratfuck it and succeeds" was always a perfectly plausible scenario.
That's why what happens in the midwestern states is really important since the democrats have more control there and stuff like this is less likely to happen.
While this is disgusting, at least Georgia and Texas aren't Biden's tipping point states, though the situation is even worse in Georgia given that there are two Senate races in play.
If the Republicans have to cheat to win either of those states (especially Texas), it likely means Biden has won Arizona, North Carolina and most if not all of the Midwest.
Politics is the skilled use of blunt objects.If they have to throw out votes in Georgia, what's going on in Wisconsin, Michigan and Pennsylvania?
"Georgia decides the election" is a ludicrous narrative which should be discarded. It's a fire the GOP has to put out in its own backyard, but it's probably still certain they'll win there.The fact that they're resorting to ratfucking in GOP strongholds should be a pretty good indicator of the chaos in Trump's campaign war room right now.
Edited by CrimsonZephyr on Oct 31st 2020 at 6:29:22 AM
"For all those whose cares have been our concern, the work goes on, the cause endures, the hope still lives, and the dream shall never die."This causes serious problems if it gets carried through to the SC and upheld, though, because it would fuck with how every state conducts elections by making apparently any delegation or open-endedness in legislation unconstitutional on... some... grounds. Also overturning precedent that yes, legislatures are quite allowed to delegate legislative power to some other body including for this exact reason.
Oh, this is very helpful from 538: a guide to which states to watch when on election night: https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/both-candidates-might-fall-short-of-270-electoral-votes-on-election-night-but-how-close-might-they-get/
Eastern time:
7:00 pm: Georgia (and VA, SC, IN, VT)
7:30pm: North Carolina, Ohio (and WV)
8:00 pm: Lots, but the more competitive ones are Florida, Pennsylvania, Maine’s 2nd district, and New Hampshire. Note that PA’s early votes will take a while to count, so it may swing back and forth a lot; ignoring it may be best for your stress levels.
9:00pm: Michigan, Wisconsin, Minnesota, Arizona, Colorado, New Mexico, Texas, and Nebraska’s 2nd district, among others. Again, vote count from MI and WI will be slow and swingy because they don’t pre-count early votes.
10pm: Nevada, Iowa, Montana
After that, you might as well go to bed, because the eastern-state vote-counters will probably have done so, and the remaining states where the polls haven’t closed yet (AK, HI, WA, OR, CA, ID) are either solid red or solid blue.
Edited by Galadriel on Oct 31st 2020 at 6:41:15 AM
Pointing out that going "but 2016!" is not a valid comment when it's repeatedly explained to you what happened and why things are different is not the same thing as claiming Biden will definitely win and nothing bad can or will happen.
There is no contradiction there.
Edited by LSBK on Oct 31st 2020 at 5:56:49 AM
Also, not to be pedantic, but the more recent and potentially more valid concern of the supreme court ruling in favor of the GOP to steal the election is not a repeat of 2016 so even if you are worried about trump winning again, that's a bad argument.
Edited by Draghinazzo on Oct 31st 2020 at 8:02:40 AM
With the Texas although the supreme court is very bad with voting rights, they are not unsalvageable. As has been noted, the current composition opinion of the court seems to be let the states decide. As pointed out in this slate article
, the drive-thru voting was authorized by the legislature. In addition the supreme court seems to be very averse to challenging this stuff right before the election. Thus if it makes it to the supreme court I expect it to be thrown out. Of course maybe I'm hoping too much there, but as 538 says, the democrats don't need to win Texas (although if they do that's great).
I'm definitely more worried now than I was during 2016. I was greatly surprised that Trump won in 2016. Also, I resolved to be more open-minded about whoever the next president was as I regretted not really giving Obama a chance. However, Trump has had his chance and the possibility of him having another four years genuinely causes me a noticeable amount of distress.
Having said that, I still expect Biden to win and am overall coping pretty well. Actually, 2020's been a shockingly good year for me, which is a rare sentence.
Leviticus 19:34Huh? Whenever I made a visit to Florida (my extended family on my dad's side owned a condo in Tampa, and we would make infrequent visits there. It's since been sold off), we would never have to make adjustments to our EST clocks.
ASAB: All Sponsors Are Bad.

Things are stressful right now, so I'm binge-reading Shakespeare's most light-hearted comedies. Love's Labour's Lost; All's Well That Ends Well... Stories where nobody's all that bad, and that end quite happily.
But come election night, I think I'll read Richard III. The story of a corrupt ruler who gains power illegitimately but can't manage to keep it. Seems appropriate, and—let's hope—prophetic.
Edited by MichaelKatsuro on Oct 31st 2020 at 10:59:18 AM