11.23.2016 07:29 AM

Two million more votes, plus: rigging the vote

There’s this:

screen-shot-2016-11-23-at-8-43-48-am

And then there’s this:

27 Comments

  1. Ron says:

    “Let all the poisons that lurk in the mud hatch out.”

    ~ Claudius, I Claudius (Old King Log, 1976)

  2. Peter says:

    Clinton won by three and a half million votes in California and one and a half in New York. So Trump won the aggregate popular vote in the other forty-eight states. I’m sure it would be just wonderful for American national unity to reverse the results because the beautiful people weren’t sufficiently accounted for.

    Why do the losers in elections in federal states always complain after the fact that it wasn’t counted like popular referendum in a unitary state?

    • Luke says:

      Your comment makes no sense. This isn’t about California or New York in the slightest. It is about Michigan, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin. If Hillary won these states, she won the election. All you had to do was read the subheading.

      • Peter says:

        There are two completely different issues here. I was addressing the first.

        • BLukelele says:

          Fair enough. The first issue is not the significant one here though. I mean it is important in terms of academic discussion of the merits of the electoral college, but it is nothing that could invalidate the result. Which was your point I guess.

          The second issue is very important indeed, however, and admittedly I was too quick to get all bitchy about you going after the first one, as in my haste I thought them intertwined.

          • Peter says:

            I suppose they are linked in the sense that the first is giving some people a colour of righteousness to the second. But not even an anti-Trump Dem mouthpiece like WaPo is buying this.

            Gotta hand it to the Yanks, though. They certainly do conspiracy theories better than we Canadians. Russian hackers swinging an election by targeting the exact three states that tipped the scales? That’s worthy of an airport thriller. It sure makes our fevered indignation over confusing old folks with robocalls seem second rate. 🙂

          • Luke says:

            As long as the reasoning and methodology behind the charge is sound, I hardly would call it an irrational conspiracy theory. The computer dude gave his version of things, and he hardly comes across as a nut. Indeed, he thinks that probably everything was fine, but that there is enough reason to be suspicious that the result needs to be verified. That is not nutty. It is merely being careful and concerned about integrity of the result.

          • Peter says:

            Oh c’mon now. I might buy that if he were calling for a thorough, non-partisan forensic analysis to prevent future shenanigans, but he’s not. He’s lending his name to desperate calls to Clinton to make a formal challenge and leave the country in legal/political limbo and more fractured than it already is for months at least. Even though he says everything was probably fine and he has no hard evidence. Look, I know y’all are still blisteringly angry and desperate to make the bad dream go away, but please hold the “careful and concerned about integrity” bunkum, as if this were just about truth and science. I believe the football term for this is a Hail Mary.

      • You shouldn’t be too quick to criticize. Peter has read more carefully than you.

        Although you are likely correct that Warren’s main point was to address the allegation that the election was rigged, followed by the assumption it wasn’t, followed by new allegations that it was, the fact is that he led into it with the popular vote message, which Peter, reasonably, addresses. The issue of the popular vote is central to the first image posted by Warren, and the first half of his headline (which is distinguished from the remainder with the “plus:”).

        As many have commented recently, this election largely pitted the biggest urban centres (which inevitably house the majority) against the more sparsely populated, but widespread, rural areas. If national popular vote was the rule in the US, then California and NY would virtually always choose the president (in fact, I believe the national popular vote has always gone in the direction of either or both of those two states), and the rest of the country would have nothing to do with it. But that’s not the system, and so the election results and the national popular vote do not necssarily coincide (it has happened three times before, when Bush beat Gore, when Ben Harrison beat Cleveland, and when Hayes beat Tilden). Peter is right that national unity, as well the goal fairness in a vast and diverse democratic union, would be at risk if mere popular vote were the standard for a national election.

        As for Michigan, Wisconsin and Pennsylvania, yes, those should definitely be investigated.

        • doconnor says:

          “I believe the national popular vote has always gone in the direction of either or both of those two states”

          The only time the Republicans won the popular voter in recent years is 2004, but they still lost New York and California.

  3. Luke says:

    Holy shit, I’d better give this a read before I get too excited.

    Crazy times.

  4. Luke says:

    OK, so the evidence is circumstantial, but I think is necessary to look into. After all, the United States, if it wants to retain any credibility, needs to ensure that the election outcome is legitimate. The statement in the article that the White House doesn’t want to deal with a challenge to the result for fear of rocking the boat is fucking outrageous. “Oh, well maybe the result is false, but let’s not turn that rock over because… well, that would be annoying.” FML.

  5. dave constable says:

    There were outside observers of the election ( – minus the Russians). I haven’t come across any of their comments yet.

  6. Greyapple says:

    Cripes Warren, this reeks of denialism and desperation. I’m as upset over Trump’s victory as any sane person, but he won by the accepted rules of the contest, period. There is absolutely no evidence to suggest vote tampering, all the advocates of the theory offer is circumstantial speculation. Trump was rightly mocked and criticized when he was going on about the election being rigged, the same principle applies the other side. That being said, the electoral college is a ridiculous system for electing a President and should be scrapped before it does anymore damage, but I’m not holding my breath.

  7. smelter rat says:

    I don’t see why the GOP wouldn’t support an audit of the votes in Wisconsin, Pennsylvania and Michigan. An audit in their favour would give them legitimacy.

  8. dave constable says:

    …anyway, I’m still miffed about the 1960 election. Nixon won more states than Kennedy did, yet Kennedy got to be president. How fair was that? The rules should have been changed to say that…

  9. Charlie says:

    I personally don’t see any benefit into picking at the carcass of this election. While there may be some irregularities, there likely won’t be anything sufficient enough to make any consequential change.

    The results are the results at this point and contesting them could undermine the democratic process.

    What should be the focus of the post-election biopsy is the Russian interference in the US election and the possible FBI coordination with the Trump campaign. I’m surprised by the lack of attention given to either of these as the potential ramification for either are huge. Under thorough investigation, if either can be proven true, the US effectively becomes as vulnerable as a third-world country if it cannot protect its democratic process from exploitation.

    The result being what it is, I strongly believe that both parties (Trump vs Clinton) should have had an equal opportunity to present their case to Americans. I don’t believe that happened in this case and the scale was drastically tipped to make a sub-par Democratic candidate look as litigious and dishonest as the Republican candidate.

    Whereas, in a normal election, Trump would have been disqualified on the first day of his campaign for his rhetoric, he survived the sequential displays of horrible behaviour and judgement. In other words, for every pussy-grab, billion dollar bankruptcy and rape accusation that came to light, an email completely erased any contrast between Trump and Clinton.

    Accepting the results is one thing; accepting the path to the result is another.

  10. Ruth says:

    I think Charlie has hit the nail on the head. The role Russia and Comey (FBI) has for the most part, not been reported on. Either of them on their own would be cause for serious concern. The fact that both seem to have been as normalized as Trump’s behaviour/language/attitudes and flagrant abuse of all “rules” around conflict of interest, do not bode well for American democracy.

  11. MississaugaPeter says:

    When people start to question the legitimacy of their elections, you know the end is near.

    Like the Roman, British, and Soviet Empires (and Spanish, French, and Portuguese) before them, we are witnessing the decline and end of the American Empire.

  12. Ronald O'Dowd says:

    Warren,

    I don’t think it’s a stretch to say that Bush vs. Gore proved that going before the Supreme Court is sheer folly. Even if irregularities were widespread, the court would not overturn the Electoral College results. (That would require case law with judicial balls.)

  13. Steve T says:

    And furthermore, most Americans don’t agree with Trump’s key policy platforms:
    http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2016/11/23/poll-despite-trump-victory-voters-support-abortion-oppose-border-wall.html

    (and this is on FoxNews, for God’s sake…)

  14. smelter rat says:

    Jill Stein has already raised close to 2 million on her quest to have the results audited. She’ll have what she needs by Friday.

  15. Maps Onburt says:

    I see Michigan has just gone over to Trump by almost 11,000 votes… that makes it Trump 306, Clinton 232. Warren had predicted 310 Clinton, 228 Trump. For fun, I predicted 310 Trump, 228 Clinton and then as I started to use RCP’s election predictor, I actually built up the math to get there. I was out by 4 (I had also predicted that New Hampshire would go Trump but it went Clinton by 0.2%).

    For every vote that the Progressive sides could argue went their way, the Republicans could argue that democratic non-citizens or double votes could have swung it the other way in their favour. Hillary has conceded, the Democrats lost for good reason… they’d be better off figuring out why their base stayed home than trying to count people who were too lazy to get off their couches and vote when the other side was riled up and ready.

    Anyway, not supposed to be here as I’m on my self imposed sabbatical from WK.com until the silliness is over. Just thought I’d check in and see what the reaction to Michigan officially going over to the dark side was and I can’t say I’m surprised to see the rise in silly conspiracy theories. As for the 2M extra votes, that’s a VERY dumb argument given the electoral college. Do you think that many Republicans bother to get up and vote in NY or California given how they always vote? They know the state is going democrat so why bother… same goes for Democrats in Texas I imagine. Popular vote is meaningless in a system that awards states based on majorities. Whinging about it is just sore loser talk (like losers in Canada whinging about majorities with < 40% of the vote).

  16. Oleg says:

    Now, if the Clinton people were able to stuff the locked ballot boxes with thousands of bogus ballots, and a manual count did not coincide with the computerized results, what happens next? An overthrow of the Trump win? If that happened I suspect the Second Amendment guns would emerge on the street and then the demonstrations would become serious.

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