In response to voters’ frustration at having to wait a week for their election results during the June primary, Kentucky Governor Andy Beshear (D) and Secretary of State Michael Adams tweaked the rules for the general election.
Heads up…Hawkfish is sounding the alarm of the possibility of “Red Mirage” whereby during election night, Trump will lead. However…
Once 75% of mail ballots were counted, perhaps four days later, the lead could flip to Biden’s favor.
This particular modeling scenario portrays Biden as ultimately winning a massive victory, 334-204…based on part from FiveThirtyEight in August.
Hawkfish is educating state/county elections officials, news/social media orgs, and the courts to the perils of premature results (Red Mirage) as well as warning voters that rejection rates for mail ballots are higher than in-person voting.
Beat me to it! Just read this this morning. Sadly, if this scenario occurs, I can see the right wing losing their shit.
*Yes. I am aware they will lose their minds no matter how their Dear Leader loses the election.
Double the work and potentially confusing. Not smart.
Edit: Upon re-reading this it feels sensible, as long as they are very clear what percentage of the vote has been counted. This is how our election went last spring, we didn’t know the winner for a week and all was civil. Of course Trump supporters are not civil but that’s gonna happne anyway.
I suggest that the confusion can be averted just by always reporting on the percentage of votes counted so far. The networks have always done that way, being [somewhat] careful to note that an election can’t be called, or statistically projected, until a certain percentage is counted. This could even help viewers get used to the idea that the counting process is a developing story of its own.
And right wing news organizations won’t report this so the right wingers won’t know about. So that will enrage them if it happens. Completely planned because the right wing news organizations know about the story but won’t report it to their sheep in order to create the possibility of outrage if their messiah “wins” on Election Day and loses days later.
Not really sure what the story is… We almost always see partial results as precincts report in.
And it’s a lose-lose. If they report nothing for a week, Trump runs around saying that they’re hiding the results in order to rig the election. If they report partial, and fill in and he’s losing, he’ll say it’s rigged.
Let’s face it, he’s going to be doing a lot of screaming about rigged elections. Doesn’t mean we need to light our hair on fire and join him.
Trump is declaring himself the winner on election night, followed by contesting the validity of EVERY mail-in and absentee ballot in EVERY state in the union, all the way to SCOTUS. He’ll appeal every lost court ruling at the state level to SCOTUS, save for every state he’s the clear winner regardless uncounted or contested ballots. It’s going to be a month of ugly, rancorous, litigious bullshit. He’ll never concede, and may very well succeed in running out the clock on the whole process, ending in a victory in the Electoral College, as states will be up against statutory timelines for impaneling them and holding those votes.
That’s precisely what will happen. It’s going to be a nightmare.
We’ve already seen counting like this, both AZ and CA give a daily count as they process ballots. It’s very clear what is going on, how many ballots remain, and so on. That didn’t stop Republicans from freaking out when they slowly lost ground in 2018 in several House races in CA or the Senate race in AZ, but people largely accepted the process despite their protestations. So, the precedent is there, as long as the process is open and the election administrators communicate the state of the counts then the vast majority of Americans will be fine with the result.
And, no, Trump and his minions will never be fine with any result, even if he wins they will declare the election was rigged against him but they were able to overcome because of “the silent majority” or whatever BS they come up with. I have no doubt that they will file lawsuits on the 4th to try to stop all counting across the nation if he is leading at the end of the night on the 3rd…those lawsuits will fail, even Trump judges won’t step in before the first count of the ballots is completed. Recounts are an entirely different matter, so Biden really needs to win strongly enough that no measure of recounting can challenge it…the same probably goes for the Senate races.
Whatever happens, you can bet Trump and the Republicans will make it worse…honestly, it wouldn’t surprise me if there was a white supremacist riot at several vote counting centers trying to stop the count of mail in ballots.
Federal law mandates the Electoral College hold its vote on December 14th (the first Monday after the second Wednesday). Judges in State and inferior courts may rule against Trump, but I suppose he has the right to appeal those rulings all the way up the court ladder to SCOTUS. Are you presuming a series of summary judgments, shutting down his efforts at every level, up to and including SCOTUS? What if he wins court rulings in one or more States? Now it’s Biden that has to appeal Trump’s victory. It’s 41 days from 11/4 to 12/14. Sounds like a lot of litigating and suing and appealing and counter suing and appealing of appeals and remands back to lower courts, etc, to get sorted out in 41 days.
I think the difference is between votes trickling in after polls close vs having several days after election day with no updated results and then suddenly having an election flipper.
For those interested Don Blevins began posting and answering questions on reddit shortly after the primary. His account is: https://old.reddit.com/user/DonBlevins
We don’t need him to concede. Where do people get this notion that an election can be won by refusing to concede? It’s just a formality that means absolutely nothing.
I guess I can see that. Still not sure what it’s going to change, though. Trump will be screaming whether he’s behind and jumps ahead, ahead and falls behind, behind and stays behind, ahead and stays ahead…
Florida 2000.
Of course. But he can’t very well litigate the results having previously conceded. My point is it won’t be until Biden’s hand is on the Bible we’ll be rid of the bastard.
I understand that some judges like Rao will rule any way they want, but I would think some judges would be asking why DT didn’t sue over these processes before election day where they’re being announced.
It’s a given that he and his supporters will scream no matter what. It’s a question of whether the non-cultists fall for it.