I went to the polls as soon as they opened. Here in small town America, voting is painless — no lines, no problems, just instant service and quick gratification.
However, it did feel a bit grim and unsatisfying. I felt like I’d been sent out to stop a raging, drug-addled hippopotamus with a hatpin, and my vote was just the tiniest little pinprick. I’ll feel better about it if everyone gets out there with their individually ineffectual hatpin and stabs the beast to the heart. We can do it!
I would like to point out that not only is it Election Day, it’s also Guy Fawkes. Given the stakes of this election and the violent fascists who support Trump, I find that coincidence… ominous.
I voted the 1st day of early voting here in Floriduh. My POTUS vote may have been an inconsequential blue drop in a sea of red. Yet by some miracle our infamous chad state could flip to Kamala. Imagine Desantis’ perplexed rage. I doubt that will happen. One can wish.
I voted straight D and for amendments 4 (abortion) and 3 (weed). I’ll need the latter if Trump wins.
I dread tomorrow.
3 of the current SCOTUS judges fixed the Florida vote for Bush in 2000. They are about to do it again, and I get the sinking feeling that Biden and his unwavering trust in “the process” and “the institutions” is what got us here in the first place. I’m afraid voting will not make one iota of difference this time, as MAGA will not accept anything other than a Trump win.
Btw, just watching CNN interviewing a female Puerto Rican first time voter saying she and her whole family will vote for Trump. I mean, what hope is there?
I was thinking the other day that our choice was between someone who would feel comfortable in Eisenhower’s cabinet or a spite-filled, grievance-driven, easily-manipulated old man with no principles what-so-ever.
@3, rorschach, we don’t know how hard CNN, or other news outlets, needed to look to find people who will help make this election appear close. Did they interview 1 person, or 50 people to get the clip they wanted? MAGA is a frog puffed up to look bigger than a cow by the media. If we hold here, it deflates, or explodes.
I voted! (For Jill Stein, of course.)
It was brisk and there was ice everywhere this morning, but I made it a few minutes before polls opened. They gave us neat little stickers with red and green chile peppers on them.
@5,
“I voted! (For Jill Stein, of course.)”
I’m hoping this is an inside joke of some kind. You never hear from Jill Stein for 4 years, and then she plops up again just before an election to do Putin’s work and siphon progressive votes away from Dems, see 2016. You can argue all you like how Trump and Harris are not really different choices when it comes to climate policy, mass murder of Palestinians, immigration or whatever. But Jill Stein is not the answer.
Re; beholder @ #5…
Why do you want Trump to win?
I went across the street to my polling place at 8am, hoping to be one of the first, only to find out the polls opened at 7.
There was a line (Yay!!!) and I was number 145 out of a town of 3500. So I’m hopeful we can get our governor evicted from St. Paul so he can go do something useful…
All jokes aside, I’m hopeful. The people in line were a diverse bunch, and everyone was eager to vote. Said hello to some neighbors who work elections, now I get to watch everyone else come and vote. Probably the busiest I’ve seen in the 12 years I’ve lived here. To the point I almost want to sit in my yard and yell at the people zooming 40 MPH down my street (it’s literally one block long, and you have to turn to get on it). Also, it’s an elementary school, so slow the fuck down people!
This boomer always votes in every election, even for the mythical dog catcher.
I expect that I voted on the losing side in all the state-wide races because Missouri is mostly rural and lots of folks get all their information from Rupert Murdoch or Elon Musk (or worse). We’ll probably wind up keeping our MAGA governor and U.S. Senator; and since I live in Missouri’s gerrymandered Republican Second Congressional District, I probably haven’t helped to flip a House seat either. But I’m in a somewhat blueish area of the 2nd District…lots of union workers live around me; so I’ll probably keep my Democratic state senator, state rep., and St. Louis County councilman.
The only other possibly good news is that Ammendment 3 (overturn the MAGA abortion ban) and Proposition A (raise the minimum wage) might well pass.
I now wait with bated breath for the polls to close. Mano says when that’ll be.
beholder @5: I think Charly nailed it.
I voted (Blue down the line) a few weeks ago, largely to avoid the possibility of AR-15-armed “poll watchers” deciding that I’m not voting correctly.
@ 6 & 7
Don’t feed the fascist.
rorschach@3
I doubt much can be made about the anecdotal musings of a rando Puerto Rican woman in the street. Is she representative of Puerto Ricans or Hispanics as a whole?
Instead:
https://www.pewresearch.org/2022/09/29/hispanics-views-of-the-u-s-political-parties/
Probably not a great sampling but:
https://amp.miamiherald.com/news/politics-government/article294878384.html
I would say the person on CNN and her family may reflect the views of a minority of Puerto Ricans in the US. Some Mexican Americans may vote for him too and may support deporting recent migrants as they prefer yanking the ladder away their recent ancestors used or maybe their families live in states where they precede statehood before ceding to the US.
beholder@5
I’m sure Nader voters were proud of their choice as the 2000 fiasco unfolded. Arguably, given pliability of some Cuban voters at the time the Elián González situation in South Florida was as much a factor as the contrarian Nader voter in the 2000 results.
@11,
“Is she representative of Puerto Ricans or Hispanics as a whole?”
Obviously not, but it just struck me as odd. Trump just called her state a garbage heap, American pregnant women are dying of preventable sepsis because doctors refuse to treat them because of GOP laws, and Trump announced mass deportations of immigrants. How can you sit down with your family and decide, ok let’s vote for this! Baffling.
It was quick here in my city polling location.
Early voting always takes hours. Day of voting? The walk’s longer than the wait.
@5. beholder : ““I voted! (For Jill Stein, of course.)”
Bitter LOL. No, you willfully guillible or malignant troll you didn’t vote for Jill Stein. You voted for Trump.
Because in the messed up USA voting system you have just two actual choices – Trump or not-Trump and you did NOT vote for NOT-Trump.
Shame on you. You voted for multiple genocides and for Putin’s puppet.
You know it, we know it, everyone now knows it.
Got my early vote in. I’m ready to receive the usual animosity if my family wasn’t enough to turn Texas blue.
It’s easy-peasy to vote here. My partner took our ballots to a drop box at the civic center a few weeks ago. Our ballots are already recorded as received.
While the voting is easy, waiting for the tally is tough this time. I barely slept last night because of anxiety about the outcome, and I don’t expect the anxiety to end immediately.
Oh and shame on Jill Stein and all the other third party spoilers. If they actually cared about what they claim they care about then they’d have the decency NOT to run at least NOT until the American system has been changed to allow preferential or run-off voting or suchlike improvements. Which badly need making and why there isn’t mroe push toreform things I really dunno. That or to run for the Democratic nomination like, I gather once (?) Independent Bernie Sanders did.
Live ABC news coverage here FWIW :
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2024-11-05/us-election-live-updates-kamala-harris-donald-trump/104543126
StevoR, your critique of my voting record is noted, but for the life of me I haven’t huffed enough BlueAnon fumes to figure out how you got there.
I vote against genocide and war.
As someone who’s always on the lookout for third parties, this is not a time I’d vote for them, except in elections where there is no Dem candidate. My big worry is that there will never be a safe time to dissent from the big two, because the one will always be out to create new crises.
@ beholder : Your vote for Trump means you voted today in favour of multiple wars and genocides as you well know. Netanyahu as well as Putin would thank you for your support – if they didn’t think of you as well as Stein and the other 3rd party spoilers – with almost as much contempt as I do. Of course, you are useful for Putin and Netanyahu and have hurt the people you claim to be supporting. Fact.
No, you don’t. You vote for more and faster genocide, the destruction of women’s bodily autonomy, the relentless persecution of transgender people, concentration camps and mass deportation for millions of people who never did you any harm, and civilizational collapse due to the end of significant hope of limiting global heating.
PS. FYI In Australia I personally vote for the Australian Greens ahead of the ALP and still put the LNP last. ( https://greens.org.au/ ) Indeed, I hand out how to vote cards for them on election days every few years or so.
Because in Australia we have preferential voting and we can do this without empowering the very worst of the worst.
Unlike in the USA where you can NOT do this becuase your political system is so messed up in so many ways compared to other democratic nations. Please remedy that Americans.
You’re not going to convince beholder. It’s only here to get a rise of of you by being a contrarian shit. Ignore it.
Canadian here.
One of my colleagues is an American citizen, and basically said that unless Kamala wins by a landslide, Trump will pull the 12th Amendment Clause, and since the Republicans have more people in the House of Representatives, it’ll go to a State by State decision. So basically he predicts bad things.
Trying to reason with comrade beholder is futile, he didn’t cast his vote after rationally assessing his choices but purely after what his innards told him. And he’s still fuming for the most popular gal in high school turning him down for prom night, so he avenged himself on her by voting for Trump. And if it isn’t for that it’s for some other petty little issue that comrade beholder can’t get over because he’s a self-loathing little turtle that can’t grow the fuck up.
And that is if he even got his lazy ass off the cheeto-ridden gaming chair and voted at all which I doubt. He strikes me too much as a mythomaniac who lies habitually.
Akira Mackenzie@23,
You do you. I’ll do me.
Michael@24,
I’m sure Trump will try to overturn the result if he loses. But he’s not in a position to unilaterally “pull the 12th Amendment clause”. Remember, he’s not President this time, and he failed to overturn the result even when he was President. He’d have to persuade enough state electors to go against the verdict of their state’s voters to deprive Harris of 270 EC votes. It’s clear enough they would be breaking the law, and risking jail by doing so if the attempt then failed. Of course the bigger majority Harris gets, the more difficult it will be for Trump to mess with, but even if she gets exactly 270 votes, I’m inclined to think he will fail to overturn it.
I’d add to #27 that if Harris earns at least 270 EC votes, and there’s an attempt to overturn her win by false claims of electoral fraud, frivolous court cases, pressure on state electors, andor outright violence, people must turn out in their millions to make clear the attempt to steal the election will not be tolerated.
Nick @28,
“people must turn out in their millions to make clear the attempt to steal the election will not be tolerated.”
I remember thinking that during the 2016 and 2020 election, that the result would depend on whether the military would go with Trump or not if he lost. But this time he has SCOTUS and all kinds on state and county judges on his side, so if this isn’t 60/40 to Harris, he will be dictator. I don’t see a civic uprising in the US, police are essentially robocops, noone will dare going against them. Look what happens when someone displays a scarf at a university.
I don’t know what “ pulling a 12th amendment “ might entail, since it requires each elector to cast one of their votes for the President and the other for VP based on which pair won. Trump has zero standing to invoke anything, seeing as he is a private citizen.
Confirming the election results is mostly perfunctory for Congress. Mike Pence was quite clear on that point.
The only time congress gets any sort of decision is in the event of a tie. However, if congress is so useless that it can’t pass a simple, routine (since 1804) vote to confirm the winning POTUS by January, guess who is POTUS while they wrangle? The VP, Kamala Harris.
I am looking forward to some insane theories about fraud and the massive tantrums that the putrid orange will soon be posting on his social media. With so many votes already cast the results should be known soon after polls close. I think he will start rage posting about 6:00pm. Karma is famously, a female.
Also, based on comments from Marc Elias, if the Democrats take the House, that makes it a lot harder for the Republicans to do anything significant: formally contesting a state’s electors requires a House vote just to start the process, and the new members of the House are certified and seated a few days before the certification of the President. So Mark Johnson hopefully won’t be Speaker of the House by the time the President is officially decided.
Harris being VP and thus ‘President of the Senate’ puts her in Pence’s position from last time, and she’s unlikely to go along with any shenanigans, obviously. (And because this is formally a position with no actual power to change the outcome anyway, this isn’t a conflict of interest any more than it was when Bush Sr. was taking over from Reagan, though I wouldn’t be surprised if Republicans try to claim Harris was biased during certification anyway.)
I voted blue early this morning. Felt a little trepidation beforehand. Live in a county/town where the red outnumbers the blue by more than 2 to 1. Going to the polls to vote should not cause anxiety like I felt today. Will take one my Xanax later today so I can sleep through the night, wake up early and find out who one.
rorschach@29,
Trump had the seditious six on SCOTUS and all the other judges he appointed last time – because he appointed them while he was President! Didn’t do him much good. He was C-in-C of the military (which Biden is now). Didn’t do him much good. I don’t say he won’t try whatever he can, but (if Harris is the legitimate winner) it will really be down to whether he can get enough state Republicans to (illegally) cause enough chaos to deny her 270 EC votes.
No, not quite. If no candidate can muster 270 EC votes, they get involved. That could be because of a 269:269 tie, because one or more states somehow fail to appoint electors, or because more than two candidates get EC votes (obviously not going to happen this time unless by some shenanigan).
As I read the 20th amendment, it’s the newly elected VP who would act as President, not the old one – and if neither Pres nor VP has been selected:
I don’t know exactly what this means, and rather suspect it doesn’t exactly mean anything! So in such a case I’d expect a full-blown constitutional crisis. Any scholars of constitutional law among us?
Also, there presumably could be disputes about who has been validly elected to Congress.
I did my civic duty on the 24th October and since I live in MD and know my state will, very fortunately, choose Harris, I know my vote for president did very little.
It’s not possible to install a new VP if the congress doesn’t confirm a winning ticket in the first place.
The VP presides over this process, which is why a mob of magats built a gallows and went after Mike Pence.
The Senate would be responsible to select a VP in a contingent election, but the tie scenario would have to happen first, which is likely why a bunch of right- wing pollsters have released so many polls showing a dead-heat.
The only time the election resulted in a tie was between Thomas Jefferson and Aaron Burr, which is why the 12 amendment was passed.
Yeah, that’s my read too. I think that’s pretty clear: if somehow it were just Trump/Harris that couldn’t be “qualified”, then Vance/Walz would take the seat until it was sorted out. I’m not sure what events could produce that situation though. I guess maybe something like a question about the President-elect’s qualifications (birth certificate?). Obviously, with the 12th Amendment, the electoral disputes we’re worrying about now would tend to affect both the President-elect and VP-elect at once.
The first part pretty clearly means that Congress can pass a law defining a back up President for this situation.
I think the law currently applying to this situation would be the Presidential Succession Act, which states:
So it looks like the Speaker of the House (of the new Congress sworn in on 3 January) would become President.
@jack lecou:
Which is all the more reason that the House is critical for the Democrats to win this time as well.
Which is all the more reason that the House is critical for the Democrats to win this time as well.
Yes. President Mike Johnson is pretty much Handmaid’s Tale territory. Possibly a worse prospect than Trump, since he seems like an actual zealot, instead of just a very stupid, narcissistic nihilist with a short attention span.
We’d probably be pretty fucked at that point in any case, but the slim hope would be that is still supposed to be a temporary situation. At some point a “qualified” President-elect needs to be found. The Speaker is in principle just keeping the seat warm while the lawsuits or whatever is holding things up work themselves out, so maybe Harris still prevails. (Of course, if it’s lawsuits, that’s probably working itself out in front of
a wretched hive of scum and villainyThe Supreme Court, so…)PS: I’d have to read back to see how the 20th Amendment came up in the first place. IIUC, the more likely nightmare scenario here is that during the Electoral College certification process, the GOP manages to get a majority together and stage a successful objection — I think this requires a majority in a Joint Session.
The fallback procedure once the EC is disqualified is then the somehow even less democratic mechanism of a state-wise vote by Congressional delegations. The GOP would have an almost certain majority in that case, and thus appoint Trump.
The 20th Amendment only comes into it if the above process goes past 20 January. In that case, the Speaker would take the Presidency, yes, but probably only for a few hours/days, or whatever the gap is.
If Trump wins lots of opposition will be needed. At every level of society. That’s true if Harris wins in lots of ways too.
I voted last week. There is only one early voting station in Cheyenne, and lines have been out the door every day. That’s unusual around here. There were a lot of county seats that had just one Republican running unopposed. Not unusual for Wyoming. I voted Dem anywhere I could and put my vote down for the few sane Repubs we still have on the ballot. Not that my vote counts for much here in Wyoming.
The fastest way to tell someone isn’t serious about their politics is to know if they are a green party voter in the usa. The green party is a money laundering scheme to fleece boomer and GenX rubes from their cash. Sure abstain from voting, find a real third party and work on real races you have a chance to win locally or state wide, all legotimate positions i respect aside from voting for the dems; strategically, i think your wrong but whatever its largely irrelevant. You tell me your protest vote for the president was for the green party? Lol, lmao, rofl :clown:
On the way back from the polling place, I stopped for gasoline and noticed that politicians use the station where I stopped. One o the payment options was Kickback.
My urban voting site reported constant brisk traffic, but the only line was for registration. It was quick annd painless. Apparently the poll workers were delighted to have so many new voters.
It was quite sad that the polling site has a bunch of temporary fencing surrounding it due to an abundance of caution. MN is safely Harris/Walz and has thankfully not had any incidences of violent asshats attacking the poll workers or firebombing ballot drop boxes.
Not a hatpin against a hippopotamus, I prefer a raindrop as my analogy. No single raindrop ever put out a forest fire, but enough of them together will do the job every time.
I just hope there are enough drops in the right places today.
Apparently and not a great surprise sadly, there’s some misinfo and disinfo already spreading wildly. AJ has a good article here :
Source : https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2024/11/5/fact-check-us-election-2024-your-guide-to-spotting-falsehoods
:
Being a Vermonter, I voted nice and early and simply.. Paper ballot, drop box.. Of course also being a Vermonter, my vote counts for little,but it’s made. I am diligently avoiding the news. I scheduled a colonoscopy for the day, guaranteeing that not only would I not be watching the news, but that both my country and I would be taking it up the ass together.
Seems all the worry about the supreme court and violent mobs were unecessary. Looks like the fascist are simply winning the election. Fuck.
Anybody here more optimistic than I?
Mordred, you aren’t getting any replies because everyone is either sinking into depression or completely terrified. Or both.
Raven, I suppose. I’m not even from the US and I don’t know how I will get through the day. Logged in at work but barely able to concentrate. And at other websites the fascists are gloating.
I’m having flashbacks to waking up 8 years ago.
Oh God I think the moron is winning! I’m terrified as I’m not one of trump’s favored people.
Mordred, I’m from the USA and I don’t recognize this place any more.
I can’t think of anything to do tonight but hold my cat.
Raven, cats are good. I try to think of my cats. And not what next year will bring.
Also need a migraine pill. The way I feel this was to be expected.
Can Biden do this :
https://freethoughtblogs.com/pharyngula/2024/10/04/infinite-thread-xxxiii/comment-page-3/#comment-2241921
Maybe? Please?
No, it’s not that he can’t (although some of that is beyond the realms of the possible), it’s that he wouldn’t. He already said the SCOTUS decision was wrong in principle.
Told you soY’know, maybe overseeing an entire holocaust wasn’t the winning strategy after all.@ ^ Beholder : Because now with Putrin’s puppet we’re going to get a lot more genocides and that’s .. better somehow?
Oh & no POTUS was ever NOT going to stand behind Israel after October 7th and we all know that really don’t we? Dupes like Jill Stein and her useful tools aside. Not Michigan even mattered and if those fwits expect gratitude fromTrump, well, is there bridge to sell them..
@ 55. Xanthë : Yes it was and is. Now its time for Biden to give them a very painful lesson in just why its wrong in my view. Demonstrate and prove it to them and .. yeah. He’s better than that? Yes, he is. They are not. He needs to remember that and act accordingly before they do. Drastic times, drastic measures..
No-one here ever implied it was, or approved of it in any way, as you know perfectly well. But you’ve got what you evidently wanted, so carry on gloating.
From across the ocean, your country looks like a train wreck and I can’t stop watching. Watching in fear, both for the occupants of the train and for the debris flying everywhere.
Not that The Netherlands is doing much better.
beholder@5:
If you did that in a swing state, and if I ever cross paths with you, then God help you. (And everyone here knows the likelihood of that happening.)
@60 Bekenstein Bound
I’d like to see you try. You were supposed to be the ones defending democracy, weren’t you? Chasing down all transgressors and exacting vengeance against them for their vote, or lack of a vote, is an interesting way to go about that.
But it fits. Scratch a liberal, find a lynch mob. Point fingers and blame everyone else except your favorite team’s egregiously shitty campaign, worthy of being called Hillary 2.0.
I just got a piece of snail mail from the DNC (destructive numbskull Corruption) saying my ballot was rejected because of a signature mismatch. I checked online and the county recorder site said my ballot was accepted. I called them just to make sure and they confirmed my ballot was accepted and counted and that they would have called me if there were a problem. They said the DNC has their head up their rectum and is causing the county recorder offices HUGE headaches because of this kind of bullshit misinformation.
All these broken pieces just further proves this SOCIETY IS A FAILURE on all levels.
Oh, and by the way, the DNC crap was printed on 02 Nov. and I just got it 07 Nov. in the afternoon. One of our org. members ballots was sent by mail to them 26 Oct. and the ahole dejoy’s system tore it up terribly, made it unusable, and it wasn’t delivered until 04nov.
I repeat: All these broken pieces just further proves this SOCIETY IS A FAILURE on all levels.
When a nation elects a convicted felon as president, you know the country is doomed to live in the new DARK AGES. And, I’m being optimistic compared to some.
beholder@61: Is that your tacit admission that you were, in fact, in a swing state?
@65 Bekenstein Bound
Hell yes it is.
Please lay out this manifesto of yours, I’d love to read it.
@ traitor & trump enabling troll beholder : “Scratch a liberal, find a lynch mob.
What do we find when we scatch Repugs?
Also who sent a lynch mob where on January 6th again? Wjich group literally set out to lynch Mike Pence? Hint :Not liberals
Hey Beholder, Netanyahu and Itamar Ben Givir say thanks for voting for Trump :
Source : https://www.aljazeera.com/features/2024/11/8/yesssss-israel-reacts-to-donald-trumps-return-to-power-in-us-election
You helped doom Palestinians completely – you and fucking Jill Stein & those who opposed Democracy for everyone because of this one issue where Trump is going to be many times worse. Oh and welcome to Trumpian fascism. You’ll probly never get another real chance to vote
@beholder:
You piece of shit.
Welcome to The List.