[Cog]

Not so quick on the Wisconsin recount. Republican PACS have filed suit in federal court to stop the recount that is already underway. I don't really agree with stopping this one. The election officials say they will be done by the 12th and that will work for Wisconsin electors to meet on the 13th. Plus, Stein did comply with the law.


http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/poli ... um=twitter

MADISON, Wis. — Using a famous legal precedent, supporters of Donald Trump filed a federal lawsuit Friday to stop a recount of the presidential vote in Wisconsin and safeguard the president-elect's Nov. 8 victory here.

The lawsuit contends, in part, that the state's recount process is unconstitutional because ballots aren't treated equally in all cases — a standard established in the 2000 U.S. Supreme Court case that halted a recount in Florida and left George W. Bush as the winner of that year's presidential race with Al Gore.

The challenge was brought in federal court in Madison on Friday by the Great America PAC and Stop Hillary PAC, which also argue that the recount runs the risk of preventing Wisconsin's 10 electoral votes from being counted. State elections officials have said they're committed to finishing the recount by a federal Dec. 13 deadline to ensure that doesn't happen.

[Cog]

The federal judge has ruled that the recount in Wisconsin will continue until at least the 9th, since the Trump lawyers have not shown how a recount hurts Trump. In this I agree with the judge. As of day two of the recount, the numbers have not changed appreciably from what they were. In Milwaukee, they are using high volume machines to do the recount and they are 1/4 done already.

http://www.jsonline.com/story/news/poli ... /94798548/

Day 2 Excel Spreadsheet

http://elections.wi.gov/publications/st ... preadsheet

[Plantagenet]

So far no evidence of a hack carried out by Russian secret agents.

Looks like that nutty conspiracy theory is a joke and the so called computer scientists pushing it are frauds and crackpots.

Cheers!

[Cog]

Lets pretend that recounts go ahead on all three states. As it stands right now, Trump has 306 EV's to Clinton's 232 or 538 total. Now lets say the recounts do not get finished so that none of the electors from those three states can cast their votes. That would bring Trump's EV total down to 260. Clinton would not get those EV's so her number remains at 232.

Trump still wins the election since according to the 12th Amendment Trump would still have a majority with 52% of the available EV's.

12th Amendment.

The person having the greatest number of votes for President, shall be the President, if such number be a majority of the whole number of Electors appointed.

Wisconsin has said they will finish their recount on the 12th and they seem to be making good progress on that. I do not think PA and MI could finish in time because they have not started yet. There is a federal court that is supposed to rule today on a Michigan recount.

December 13, 2016
States must make final decisions in any controversies over the appointment of their electors at least six days before the meeting of the Electors. This is so their electoral votes will be presumed valid when presented to Congress.
Decisions by states’ courts are conclusive, if decided under laws enacted before Election Day.


So they need the results by December 13th not December 19th when the electors cast their votes.

[vtsnowedin]

Vermont did it's usual audit of the election, picked six towns at random and rechecked every vote in every race. No significant change. I wonder if every state does some random checking looking for irregularities?

[Tanada]

Vermont did it's usual audit of the election, picked six towns at random and rechecked every vote in every race. No significant change. I wonder if every state does some random checking looking for irregularities?

I know Michigan does a very careful job auditing the vote count, that is why they were the last state to post their official totals, which is what makes a recount request for Michigan such a huge waste of time and money. They go above and beyond to make sure the count is right before they make it official and certify it. In most years there is a pretty broad gap, like 2016 with over a 10,000 difference between the leading candidates. Why do a full recount to change perhaps as few as 20-30 votes when they have already done such a careful count? Those levels of change only matter in local issues and elections which don't even get recounted in this situation.

[Cog]

By waiting until the last possible moment to file for a recount, Jill Stein hopes to accomplish one of two things:

1) Cast doubt on the fact that Trump actually won the election
2) Screw with the electoral process in such a way so that the three states that gave Trump the election are punished because their electors won't be represented at the elector vote on the 19th. It won't change the outcome of the election, for the reasons I discussed above, but people will feel their votes in MI, WI, and PA didn't matter.

The stench of Soros and Hillary Clinton are all over this recount.

[dissident]

So the US Green Party is a fraud. That is a shame, America needs a real third party.

[Plantagenet]

Now Stein is claiming she can't afford to post a bond in Pennsylvania required under state law before the recount is authorized.

Stein has taken in 6 million dollars for this foolishness, and she says she can't afford to post a bond?

Of course she should have to post a bond---she has to pay for the whole frigging recount since no sane person believes she's is going to win. Does she think the state is going to do the recount without her paying for it?

Sheeeeeesh! What is going on here? I'm so embarrassed for my Green Party---this is a complete farce.

[Newfie]

The logic I here for Stein demanding the recount has nothing to do with this election what so ever.

What I've read is that she has a very small and I funded method of finding donors. The Ds are accusing her of using this tactic to find disaffected D voters that she can tap in future elections. It's all about building a party for the next election.

Some Ds are pretty pissed at her.

[Cog]

Federal judge has ruled that the Michigan recount must begin today at 12:00. I will give you one guess as to who appointed this judge.

The cost to the taxpayers of Michigan is likely to exceed 4 million dollars. The judge said that mattered not since Jill Stein would be irreparably harmed if the recount did not begin.

http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2016/12 ... onday.html

[Cog]

With regards to the Wisconsin recount, Trump has gained votes. Not many, about 39.

More at link:

http://heavy.com/news/2016/12/wisconsin ... ules-laws/

[Plantagenet]

With regards to the Wisconsin recount, Trump has gained votes. Not many, about 39.

More at link:

http://heavy.com/news/2016/12/wisconsin ... ules-laws/

Looks like the fantasy that secret Russian agents hacked the voting machine was some kind of mass delusion that afflicted only the Ds.

This is amazingly clear example of what sheeple many people are. When Hillary said claims the election were rigged were ridiculous, the sheeple all bleated their agreement. Then, just days when later when two self-appointed experts said the elections were rigged, Jill Stein, Hillary, the donor class, millions of Ds, and several of our more active posters here all flipped their views 180 degrees to the new "PC" groupthink position.

This is a good lesson in how conspiracy theories get started. You need a population that is disconnected from reality and WANTS TO BELIEVE the conspiracy theory. Thats all it takes for reason and logic to get thrown out the window.

Cheers!

[Newfie]

To be fair I haven't heard the Hillary campaign make any such statements. They did join the suit but only belatedly and half heartedly.

Your other points I agree with.

I remember back when we had the Florida recount. I was one of those upset. When you swallow the blue pill then all that alt-reality seems so true, so meaningful.

While a bit embarrassed by some of my past Exuberance I have now aged and gained some needed much distance, perspective.

[dissident]

To be fair I haven't heard the Hillary campaign make any such statements. They did join the suit but only belatedly and half heartedly.

If they did not support the position then why did they join the suits. "Half heartedly" is like a "little bit pregnant" in this context.

[ROCKMAN]

Cog - "Now lets say the recounts do not get finished so that none of the electors from those three states can cast their votes.". First, recounting, finished or not, doesn't change the timing of the EC voting. More important the vote isn't the hard date: federal law requires all states to deliver their results by 14 December.

And the Russian hack story has become verty funny since I heard the experts point out that none of the voting machines were online. And the data transfer is physical...not electronic. Which is why recounts are so expensive and slow: they have to be done by real people using their real physical hands.

Difficult to hack a voting machine if it isn't connected to the Internet.

[Cog]

Uh-oh. You mean the ballot numbers are wonky in a heavily Democrat county? How could this possibly happen?



http://www.detroitnews.com/story/news/p ... /95007392/

One-third of precincts in Wayne County could be disqualified from an unprecedented statewide recount of presidential election results because of problems with ballots.
Michigan’s largest county voted overwhelmingly for Democratic candidate Hillary Clinton, but officials couldn’t reconcile vote totals for 610 of 1,680 precincts during a countywide canvass of vote results late last month.
Most of those are in heavily Democratic Detroit, where the number of ballots in precinct poll books did not match those of voting machine printout reports in 59 percent of precincts, 392 of 662.

Here is something else a bit wonky. Precincts with over 100% turnout. WTF? Maybe the Democrats really don't want to recount these areas. Might show fraud alright but not the fraud they would be interested in talking about

http://results.enr.clarityelections.com ... _data.html

Precinct Ballots Cast Registered Voters Voter Turnout
Oxford 1 3,637 2,561 142.01 %
Southfield Twp 8 2,366 1,397 169.36 %
Southfield Twp 9 1,892 1,154 163.95 %

[vtsnowedin]

Uh-oh. You mean the ballot numbers are wonky in a heavily Democrat county? How could this possibly happen?



http://www.detroitnews.com/story/news/p ... /95007392/

One-third of precincts in Wayne County could be disqualified from an unprecedented statewide recount of presidential election results because of problems with ballots.
Michigan’s largest county voted overwhelmingly for Democratic candidate Hillary Clinton, but officials couldn’t reconcile vote totals for 610 of 1,680 precincts during a countywide canvass of vote results late last month.
Most of those are in heavily Democratic Detroit, where the number of ballots in precinct poll books did not match those of voting machine printout reports in 59 percent of precincts, 392 of 662.

Here is something else a bit wonky. Precincts with over 100% turnout. WTF? Maybe the Democrats really don't want to recount these areas. Might show fraud alright but not the fraud they would be interested in talking about

http://results.enr.clarityelections.com ... _data.html

Precinct Ballots Cast Registered Voters Voter Turnout
Oxford 1 3,637 2,561 142.01 %
Southfield Twp 8 2,366 1,397 169.36 %
Southfield Twp 9 1,892 1,154 163.95 %

I'm not a bit surprised by that.
Isn't it stupid to let the original count stand if you find they have more ballots then voters? Why would you not throw throw out those compromised counts?

[Plantagenet]

A state court ruled that the recount in Michigan should stop because Stein has no legal standing to request a recount because there is no chance she actually won. A federal judge just concurred, effectively stopping the nutty recount as of now.

Jeez what a waste of time. This ridiculous grandstanding by the Green Party has thoroughly discredited them. The Greens were a good facsimile of rational third party back when Nader was running the show, but now that Julie Stein is in charge the Green Party has gone downhill. This crazy recount shows clearly Stein isn't connected to reality.

Cheers!

[Cog]

The Democrat party needs to be thankful that the recount didn't happen in Michigan. In Detroit, the tabulated results weren't matching the amount of paper ballots in the machine. In other words, there was no paper ballot to match what those heavily Democrat precincts were reporting.

In Detroit precinct 152, only 50 ballots were found to be in the box but that precinct reported 300 cast in this heavily Democrat area. In other cases, ballot box containers were found to be duct taped instead of having the required security seals or the seal numbers didn't match what was in the poll book.