Tomorrow is Election Day
In case you hadn’t noticed.
Elections always make me nervous, and tomorrow is no exception despite the optimistic predictions. I am at least cautiously optimistic, but I feel a lot like William Jacobson in this post:
I won’t believe it until I see it.
It occurs to me that I have a mild form of PTSD from the election of 2020. Maybe a lot of us do. It’s kind of funny (I don’t mean funny ha-ha); Democrats had PTSD from the 2016 election, and in 2020 it was our turn.
It remains to be seen whether there will be any substantial chicanery from the Democrats and how many races will be successfully decided in a timely manner (Robert Epstein, the data scientist and not a Trump-supporter, has been warning for some time about the manipulation of algorithms and search results from Goolag), but it seems nearly certain, that, should the election be “free and fair” without numerical irregularities or statistical anomalies, there will indeed be a “red tsunami”. In the event of such a fine outcome, the first priorities of the Republicans, in the new term, ought to be beginning the process of impeachment against Garland and Mayorkas, ceasing any and all funding to the most corrupt nation in Europe, and doing whatever is possible about our porous southern border, although one should not be overly sanguine.
I worry about vote fraud. The Democrats had a successful trial run in 2020. Pennsylvania seems to be ground zero for fraud and that will probably win the day there. Arizona has a Soros Secretary of State running for Governor and she refuses to recuse herself from the vote count. Still, I am hopeful that the results will be honest. We should wind up with 1994 majorities and I hope they do better than that 1994 class.
Fortunately for me, I will be working inside the polls all day, so I won’t have time to worry until returns begin to be reported. And, North Carolina having all paper ballots and no internet-connected tabulating machines, by state law, our opportunities for fraud are fewer than in some other places.
I’m cautiously optimistic, I think most of the races will end up being beyond the margin of fraud. I’m most concerned about the Oz-Fetterman race, which seems to be hovering on the border of stealability. But I think by the time they finish counting ballots in that race, the Senate majority will be out of reach for the Dems.
Sean Davis with some clarifications:
“Biden’s corrupt Department of Justice just released the list of cities and counties in which it is going to try and rig elections for Democrats.”—
https://twitter.com/seanmdav/status/1589714061121720321?cxt=HHwWgsDUuYKh5o8sAAAA
…which links to this elegant “We’re from the govt. and we’re here to help” boilerplate:
https://www.justice.gov/opa/pr/justice-department-monitor-polls-24-states-compliance-federal-voting-rights-laws
“The Justice Department announced today its plans to monitor compliance with federal voting rights laws in 64 jurisdictions in 24 states for the Nov. 8, 2022 general election. Since the passage of the Voting Rights Act of 1965, the Civil Rights Division has regularly monitored elections in the field in jurisdictions around the country to protect the rights of voters. The Civil Rights Division will also take complaints from the public nationwide regarding possible violations of the federal voting rights laws through its call center. The Civil Rights Division enforces the federal voting rights laws that protect the rights of all citizens to access the ballot.
“For the general election, the Civil Rights Division will monitor for compliance with the federal voting rights laws on Election Day and/or in early voting in 64 jurisdictions:…. “
Tomorrow I shall do my bit, to vote the loathe some Tony Evers out of the Governorship of Wisconsin.
If you want some positive thoughts listen to Cut Jib Newsletter Speaks podcast with AoSHq Cob Dave in Florida doing the election analysis
https://cutjibnewsletter.com/podcast/cutjibnewsletter-speaks-season-2-episode-10/
I’m a natural pessimist. Also, after the 2020 election, I carry a heavy load of confirmation bias. I try to take this into account, but I can’t help but think that fraud will swing any close election to the Democrats.
Most of us think that the election is tomorrow, but for Democrats, that’s not quite true. According to the Census Bureau (https://tinyurl.com/427n8j7h), in 2020, almost 70% of ballots were either cast by mail or by in-person early voting. The COVID panic increased that percentage, but it was also part of a long-term trend. I think everybody now accepts that mail-in ballots are more susceptible to fraud. The Democrats argue that they are saints, and that no such fraud has ever happened. Only insurrectionists, terrorists, and fascists disagree.
Setting aside fraud for the moment, lets ask who casts mail-in ballots. In 2020, 59% of Democrats cast mail-in ballots, but only 30% of Republicans voted by mail (https://tinyurl.com/bdcv6rw9).
Why do these numbers drive my pessimistic take on tomorrow’s election? With so many mail-in Democratic ballots, it’s easy to hide massive fraud. That’s already been done. For the most part, the election is already over, and Democrats have won that part. With a much smaller number of ballots cast in-person, on election day, a much smaller number of fraudulent ballots can tip a close election. Consequently, almost all close elections will be won by Democrats.
Having said all that, I thought Hillary was going to beat Trump in a landslide, and I thought I had good reasons. Maybe my reasons aren’t so good this time either.
news from two weeks ago,
https://tinyurl.com/2p96tp2s
After 2020 it is very hard to be confident. I think in many ways this election portends the future of the country. If there are serious doubts about its legitimacy, we are in serious trouble.
Biden’s comment that it may take days to know the results is not encouraging.
Still, I am cautiously optimistic; but then again, in defiance of recent history that describes my attitude every time i go fishing.
I just placed a small bet on the stock market in hopes of a euphoric rally on Wednesday. I hope that I did not jinx the GOP.
Cornflour:
As I said, I’m also nervous and guarded.
But you might want to take a look at this.
Also, see this. Also, except for Utah, all of the all-mail ballot states are deep blue; see this. In other states such as Texas, it’s not the easiest thing in the world to vote by mail and there are various safeguards in place; see this.
By October 22, 5.5 million voters had already voted. The article says that by the same point in 2020 over 17 million had already voted. So I see that as an indication that a lot fewer people have voted early, anyway. Also, there are fewer requests for absentee ballots compared to 2020, although it’s more than in 2018. Unfortunately, in Georgia there have been a lot of early votes, prior to Fetterman’s disastrous debate.
Being in Pennsylvania, I am pretty pessimistic. I still think that Mehmet Oz will prevail in a close vote, but Doug Mastriano will lose by a large margin, possibly costing some congressional seats that could have been close with a better governor candidate, and possibly even the state Senate could change to a Democratic majority.
Tom Wolf vetoed an election security bill that would have fixed a lot of the worst abuses of early voting and mail ballots, and the corrupt courts have helped create what is an unstable and outdated election system.
Mastriano is a bit of a nutcase, refused to debate Josh Shapiro, makes clumsy statements, accuses even the local press of being too unfair to even talk to, and holds rallies with only his most fervent supporters while he plays out his Trump fantasies. Unbelievably bad politician, he even refused to visit large fairs and agricultural events that candidates never miss, taking even his own supporters for granted.
So between spillover from his failures and the broken voting system, Pennsylvania will be a mess this election. Trump’s endorsement of Oz prevented nominating a stronger Senate candidate, David McCormick, so the Senate race is in question when it really shouldn’t be. Weak candidates can fail even in a wave year.
Me too. There is too much uncertainty in the polling, and the questions they ask, and human behavior, to trust any of the reports.
I’ll wake up early on Wednesday and read the reports and either be satisfied or not.
Dan D:
Sounds like Mastriano has even worse political instincts than Hochul. I haven’t really followed him much, but it sounds like a mess.
shapiro enabled the steal, and was accomplice to the deaths of tens of thousands, what exactly did mastriano do wrong by comparison,
https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/the-colonel-e2-80-99s-brigade-if-doug-mastriano-wins-this-election-he-e2-80-99ll-have-a-grassroots-army-to-thank/ar-AA13MeXH
Miguel cervantes, what Doug Mastriano did was fail to effectively make his case to be elected instead of Josh Shapiro. Every successful local politician knows that to be elected you have to ask voters for their vote. Mastriano himself and his campaign or grassroots army consistently fails to do that, and his grassroots army is limited in size and by its network effects unable to make his case to the larger electorate. Some outside groups are running negative ads about Josh Shapiro, but Mastriano has virtually no advertisements statewide. Most general voters only see the negative ads against Mastriano, that is their only impression of the guy and his platform. It’s crazy, he’s infatuated with the Trump grassroots movement and rallies. but apparently doesn’t understand the math of reaching a majority of the vote.
Cornflour (5:50 pm) said:
“I can’t help but think that fraud will swing any close election to the Democrats.”
It’s a given for anyone whose eyes are open. That’s why there’s this meme making the rounds that depicts whether a particular poll/canvassing result favoring Republicans falls within the margin of cheating.
}}} Democrats had PTSD from the 2016 election, and in 2020 it was our turn.
Bit of a difference in how we handled it, huh?
One side went nuts and had a 4y temper tantrum, the other got pissed off, and made a scene for a day and then went home and got on with their lives.
One behaved like 3yos denied what they want, the other acted as adults.
“…early voting…”
Early voting, yeah, wow! great!…
Hold on. Can someone help me out here:
HOW can one KNOW if a ballot cast in “early voting” is legitimate?
(Oh, RIGHT—all those “SAFEGUARDS” in place….)
“Early voting increased in battleground states for midterm elections;
“Georgia had a total of 2,504,956 voters cast their ballots before Election Day.”—
https://justthenews.com/politics-policy/elections/early-voting-increased-battleground-states-midterm-elections
Agree with Dan D. that Mastriano is a terrible candidate. I’ll be voting for him, but unenthusiastically. I spent the weekend on a short PA road trip with my Democrat mom, Dem sister and Dem niece. We generally avoid talking politics because it leads to family strife (and we were all having a nice time). But my elderly mom kept bringing it up, and I learned that both my sister and niece had really soured on Fetterman, even mocking his hoodie! So maybe there is some hope that sanity will prevail and Oz will carry the day.
Count me in for the Red Tsunami!
I am a bit cynical to see most of the polls making hard Red turns upward at the last moment. Could that many voters have put off making their choices until now? I do wonder if the polls haven’t been deliberately suppressing Red movement all this time to discourage Red voters.
I’m sure there will be Dem vote fraud, but, fingers crossed, I doubt their machine can dial in enough votes to reverse more than a few races.
We shall see.
I’ve always been fascinated by the way that the Democrats depend on the ignorance and stupidity of the voters. Take election fraud as one small example of timely relevance.
The history is there. Anyone familiar with even a tiny bit of it knows that election fraud is a constant and is quite often egregious. Yet, we have politicians, esteemed academics (sic), news media, neverTrump pukes, and the rest of the usual suspects in high dudgeon claiming that it doesn’t happen.
How hard would it be to inform the public that we have the worst election integrity in the world? That there is zero evidence to support the attacks on Voter ID and that blacks think the claims they can’t get an ID are ridiculous.
I realize that there is a real conspiracy to keep the voters stupid and ignorant. What I don’t understand is why no one seems willing to pull back the curtain on the fraudulent Oz.
Trump complains a lot. He’d be smarter to educate. And we would all be better served.
Maybe if Ted Cruz, Rand Paul, and Tom Cotton decided to make some educational videos. And went on talk radio and social media to publicize the website. And announced their willingness to go on tv shows like 60 Minutes, The View, etc to defend their facts.
I like Mastriano, thought DrOz would be easy due to his tv days that women at least had some knowledge of him( he wasn’t my first choice).
But as bad as anyone thinks Mastriano is, Shapiro will be Emperor Wolf 2.0.
He will rig any future elections he can, as sure as God made green apples will be holden to teachers unions and against school choice.
Fetterman has to be the worse Senate candidate ever in the country