US Election Day 2020

[Free]

GSA Leader Consulted With Predecessor Who Faced 2000 Recount

As President Donald Trump continues to refuse to acknowledge defeat, pundits and...

talkingpointsmemo.com

Murphy, in turn, has maintained a strict silence about why she’s withheld the official “ascertainment” that would grant additional resources and access to the Biden team. But she has reached out to the one man on Earth whose experience has remotely echoed her own: The GSA administrator during the 2000 Bush v. Gore recount, Dave Barram.

Barram, who held off on officially ascertaining Bush to be the winner of the 2000 contest until the Supreme Court weighed in in December, told TPM over the weekend that he’d spoken by phone and email to Murphy about her situation.

“I think she really wants to do the right thing, I just think that the pressures on her are heavy,” Barram told TPM. “I’ve not said anything about what she should do. I was asked point blank, ‘Would you ascertain?’ And I’m not going to answer that because it’s not fair to her.”

Barram’s point of view is clear: Biden is the obvious victor of the 2020 election. This presidential contest may have resembled the one two decades ago “for maybe two days, when it really wasn’t clear who’d won,” he said, but the ballot count since has been undeniable.

“The only thing unclear is why Donald Trump keeps holding off” on conceding, he said, adding separately: “I just think it’s disgusting and embarrassing behavior by the President. He should concede.”

 

[Innula Zenovka]

GSA Leader Consulted With Predecessor Who Faced 2000 Recount

As President Donald Trump continues to refuse to acknowledge defeat, pundits and...

talkingpointsmemo.com

Depending on what the law says about what her duties actually are, I'm wondering if the matter isn't subject to some form of juridical review, with the court being asked to find that she's acting unreasonably in refusing to ascertain that Biden has won.

That would absolve her from any responsibility, though I wonder whether Trump would see it that way.

(I know what I've read about her duties and responsibilities in these circumstances, but I'd want an expert in US constitutional and administrative law to tell me what they actually are, since I know the surface and legal meanings of words and phrases can be rather different in this kind of situation).

 

[Sid]

 

[danielravennest]

(I know what I've read about her duties and responsibilities in these circumstances, but I'd want an expert in US constitutional and administrative law to tell me what they actually are, since I know the surface and legal meanings of words and phrases can be rather different in this kind of situation).

Not an expert, but here is what I have garnered about how the Electoral College works. The Electoral College votes on Dec 14th. By law, Dec 8th is the final day for states to choose their Electors, which Governors must submit to the National Archives by that date. They can do it earlier if their elections are certified. Once 270 Electors are chosen for Biden, whether on Dec 8th or earlier, there is no longer anything to ascertain on the part of the General Services Administration. The election has been decided, and everything afterwards is merely procedural as set by law and the Constitution.

I would assume if she hasn't issued the ascertainment by that point, The Biden-Harris legal team can go to Federal court and make her do it. They might be able to force her hand once enough states have certified their election results, which would be some time earlier than that. Half the states will certify their results by Nov 24th, and all but California by Dec 8th. California is so lopsided (5 million vote margin for Biden) they can easily choose their electors before certification.

 

[Free]

That Bunny of Hope looks like it's been hiding out in quarantine for far too long

 

[Innula Zenovka]

ETA

 

[Aribeth Zelin]

ETA

Well, whoever it was that did that second tweet, they have been suspended.

 

[Innula Zenovka]

Well, whoever it was that did that second tweet, they have been suspended.

It was simply pointing out the misspelling:

 

[Free]

Uh-boy...

GSA official blocking Biden's transition appears to privately plan post-Trump career

Emily Murphy has the power to decide when a transfer of power begins, and although she hasn't green-lighted Joe Biden's transition, she is looking for a new job.

abcnews.go.com

The top General Services Administration official who's blocking President-elect Joe Biden's transition team from accessing government resources ahead of his inauguration appears to be looking for a new job, according to a message obtained by ABC News.

Emily Murphy, head of the GSA, recently sent that message to an associate inquiring about employment opportunities in 2021, a move that some in Washington interpreted as at least tacitly acknowledging that the current administration soon will be gone.

 

[Innula Zenovka]

Thread:

 

[Free]

A knee-slapper.

 

[Bartholomew Gallacher]

BTW this is what Kenneth Copeland had to say on Biden's victory:

 

[Kamilah Hauptmann]

A knee-slapper.

 

[Sid]

Georgia’s secretary of state says Lindsey Graham suggested he throw out legal ballots

Brad Raffensperger says the Republican senator asked if he had the authority to toss out all mail-in ballots in certain counties

www.theguardian.com

They better march to get the senator in jail NOV 21.

 

[Free]

After Trump tweets Defcon hacking video, voting security experts call BS

Dozens of computer scientists say there’s “no credible evidence” of election fraud.

arstechnica.com

Over the weekend, Trump tweeted a video from last year’s Defcon hacker convention. It showed attendees participating in an event called the voting machine hacking village. Organizers of the event held it to raise awareness about the importance of security in electronic voting. Some of the event organizers were beside themselves that Trump was using the video as innuendo that voting machine hacking played a role in the results of this month’s election, or in any election ever, for that matter.

“Anyone asserting that a US election was ‘rigged’ is making an extraordinary claim, one that must be supported by persuasive and verifiable evidence,” the computer scientists wrote. “Merely citing the existence of technical flaws does not establish that an attack occurred, much less that it altered an election outcome. It is simply speculation.”

 

[Free]

 

[Free]

Just because it's good to remind us (and HIM):

Donald Trump Has Suffered a Defeat of Historic Proportions

The president may deny reality, but he cannot change the fact that he is now losing the popular vote and the Electoral College by momentous margins.

www.thenation.com

Reagan took 50.7 percent of the vote in 1980.

Biden so far has 50.8 percent of the vote, and that percentage will continue to rise as millions of additional ballots are counted in the heavily Democratic states of California, Illinois, and New York. Even before the last of the votes are counted, the Democrat entered into historic territory. Biden has won the presidency with a higher percentage of the vote than Trump in 2016, George W. Bush in 2004 or 2000, Bill Clinton in 1996 or 1992, Reagan in 1980, Jimmy Carter in 1976, Richard Nixon in 1968, John Kennedy in 1960, or Harry Truman in 1948.

What that means is that, even as Trump keeps claiming that “WE WILL WIN!,” he has already lost. Bigly.

 

[Kara Spengler]

I was watching YouTube the other day and someone who talks about credit cards from ny was doing it from dc. Ok, odd, but maybe he had a good reason to be here. Near the end he said he was here to report on the March. Ok, the channel name sounded like it was maybe a republican one but did not know for sure. Then he showed a clip of him doing his job and one of the March whackos drooled on about how they loved the channel and stuff like it was the only one they watch. Why do maggots when talking about something completely different think their entire audience has the same politics as them?

 

[Cindy Claveau]

I understand Joe's reasoning, but my hope is that once everyone's sworn in and things start to come up there will be a change of attitude when the sheer breadth and depth of the Trump administration's corruption comes to light. Those assholes can NOT walk free and some of the worst Federal crimes can't be prosecuted by SDNY.

Biden hopes to avoid divisive Trump investigations, preferring unity

 

[Jolene Benoir]

I understand Joe's reasoning, but my hope is that once everyone's sworn in and things start to come up there will be a change of attitude when the sheer breadth and depth of the Trump administration's corruption comes to light. Those assholes can NOT walk free and some of the worst Federal crimes can't be prosecuted by SDNY.

Biden hopes to avoid divisive Trump investigations, preferring unity

Agreed. The dems always want to make peace with a group of people who view them as their sworn enemy. That there has never been punishment is no small part of the reason it continues and grows ever more ugly and illegal.