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The media industrial complex doesn’t declare the president. The electoral college does, and not for about a month. This simple fact seems to have been forgotten
by ceilingcorner 6y ago
The media industrial complex doesn’t declare the president. The electoral college does, and not for about a month. This simple fact seems to have been forgotten by the entire world.
- UncleMeat 6y agoBetfairs terms explicitly say projected winner of the ec. The definition of the bet is based on the media.
- Tokkemon 6y agoYes but one side is dragging this out because they are mad they lost.
- praestigiare 6y agoIt has not been forgotten by anyone. This election has gone much like every election in recent history: Once enough of the vote was counted to make the outcome clear, the media has projected a winner based on the results in each state and the laws of those states regarding the selection of electors.
- ceilingcorner 6y agoBut the outcome isn’t clear. A few states aren’t done counting votes, there will be recounts in others, and a few lawsuits alleging improprieties have been filed. These are all factual events that have nothing to do with Trump being a “sore loser” or whatever else nonsense. I fully expect to be downvoted into oblivion, as usual on HN, where pointing out facts contrary to the desired narrative are unwelcome. Even dispassionately describing the political process is apparently partisan now.
- jcranmer 6y ago> A few states aren’t done counting votes Enough have finished to give Biden 270 electoral votes. > there will be recounts in others, Those aren't going to change results. At a state presidential level, a recount might adjust a margin of victory by ~1,000 votes. The margins in those states that have been called are above that level. > a few lawsuits alleging improprieties have been filed And several of them have failed summary judgement because the Republicans couldn't build enough of a case to sustain them.
- ceilingcorner 6y agoThe election happened a week ago. I think we can afford to wait a month for a proper investigation. More importantly, a pretty sizable portion of the population thinks there is something strange about the results. Now, you can just stick your fingers in your ears and call 71 million people stupid, or you can recognize that for the health of the democratic system, it’s best to investigate any anomalies. This shouldn’t be a controversial opinion, but apparently in these hyper partisan times, it is.
- bena 6y ago71 million people aren't disputing the results. A very, very small percentage of those are disputing it. And those claims have no merit. Any valid claims of anomalies will be investigated. Claims without proof should be dismissed. This shouldn't be a controversial opinion, but apparently when one side is hyper partisan, it is.
- SpicyLemonZest 6y agoI don't think 71 million people are stupid. They're being lied to - being told that these kinds of anomalies, which happen every election year, are unprecedented and we can't be confident in the result until they're fully investigated. (There's no reason investigations into problems can't continue after everyone acknowledges the result!) If I were confident that a month of preemptive investigations would lead to greater confidence, I'd be all in favor. But this seems unlikely, because so many of the people pushing for investigations have already declared the only result they'll accept. What seems much more likely is a repeat of 2000, where trust in the electoral system is shattered, and a huge chunk of the losing party starts to argue that any election which didn't go their way was corruptly stolen from them.
- jcranmer 6y agoIn the past, the incidents of fraudulent voting occurs at roughly 1 vote per 10 million - 1 billion. (Vote-by-mail is at the high end of that range; in-person-vote is at the low end). In modern times--that is, since 2000--I'm not aware of a single election where fraud was sufficient to change the results of the election, and I'm including that 2018 North Carolina race in that list [1]. To allege that there was sufficient fraud to overturn the results of this election requires fraud to exist at over 1000× the rate it has normally existed. Consequently, the evidence needed to sustain this allegation should be 1000× as prevalent. However, the claimed evidence is no better than it usually is. You get the same, tired complaints about things like out-of-state mail ballots from people who forget that students and military (and indeed the sitting president!) are legal residents of states they do not presently physically reside in. [1] The number of allegedly fraudulent ballots in that race is close to the margin of victory for the Republican candidate, but my guesstimate is that if the fraud hadn't happened, then the Republican still would have won, just by a very close margin.
- evgen 6y agoThe outcome is quite clear. While there are still some votes left to count, there are not enough to shift the margin of victory for Joe Biden in the states that matter. The lawsuits are becoming an embarrassment and recounts never shift the totals significantly; given the fact that the morons on team Trump spent months telegraphing this move everyone was prepared for it and so I expect there was extra diligence in getting an accurate count -- a recount will not make major changes to the total. These are facts.
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- omgJustTest 6y agoNormally the losing side concedes in the hope to not sow division. But Trump only does things in his interest so... yet another norm lost.
- collyw 6y agoIf there is evidence of election fraud surely it is in more than Trump's interest to find out about it.
- pwinnski 6y agoThat's how "norms" work, though. It is almost certain that at least one candidate has been cheated out of the presidency, but he chose to not fight so soon after the civil war, to avoid enflaming tensions. Nothing is official-official until December 13, so he has the right to pursue whatever remedies he wishes in the meantime, but the lack of trust he is fomenting right now, today, is harmful to America, and that's running counter to long-established norms.
- bena 6y agoYeah, but the South got Reconstructed ended out of it. Basically, the United States turned a blind eye to Jim Crow to avoid getting close to another war.
- mcphage 6y ago> If there is evidence of election fraud surely it is in more than Trump's interest to find out about it The reason his cases keep getting dismissed is there isn't any evidence of election fraud.
- craig1f 6y agoNo one has produced any evidence. Allegations aren't evidence.
- bena 6y agoThe simple fact is that this has been the way for every other election in recent history. No, "the media industrial complex" doesn't determine the winner, but they are fully capable of declaring who is going to win based on the current vote totals. Expecting anything other than the counts as they are at the end of canvassing to be certified is basically declaring sedition at this point.
- TheHypnotist 6y agoI guess you're technically not wrong, but what is your point?
- jcranmer 6y agoThe electoral college is chosen by the voters in each state, and enough electoral votes have been clearly decided in the preliminary counts that we know who the president will be. It is possible that the preliminary counts will be changed before the official counts are declared, but ever since the mass adoption of optical scan ballots after the debacle of 2000, recounts just haven't moved the dial enough to affect the presidential election. The losing side this year is extremely butthurt about having lost the election, and is filing lawsuits to contest it. However, these lawsuits are so without merit that they aren't even surviving summary judgement, which is an amazingly low legal bar to clear. Saying you had video evidence of a poll worker brutally murdering anyone who voted for Trump would be sufficient justification to survive summary judgement, to give you an idea of just how low a bar it is.