Saturday, February 6, 2021

US Elections

 At my age, I figured I would have seen it all. Instead, I ain't seen none of what we're seeing these days.

US elections are complicated. Every state does things differently, but the national elections generally suffer the exact same complications year after year. But then came 2016 and 2020.

When the 13 Colonies were Colonies, communication with the UK took months, so there had to be a local government subordinate to the UK, where (back then) the monarch was Head of State, and so the ultimate ruler of the Colonies, but the 13 local governments ran most things. And after those who wanted Independence forced those who wanted to remain British subjects up to Canada and forced the Brits out, the 13 Colonies had some problems with a union. The agricultural colonies hated being mercantile colonies, forced to sell all their raw materials to the UK at below world market prices and forced to buy all manufactured goods from the UK at above world market prices, and they could see the large, industrial states making them mercantile colonies of the US industrial states, so the agricultural states, all of which had tiny populations with respect to the industrial states, wanted a veto, and they got two.

Every state got representatives in the House in proportion to its population, but every state got 2 Senators, no matter how small its population. So the House always voted with the industrial states, and the Senate with the agricultural states.

Every white landowner could vote, but the large industrialists and plantation owners didn't trust the yeomen farmers, so they set up the presidential election so the yeomen had to elect members of the elite, who would then vote for President. And each state was to send one member of its elite for every Representative and every Senator to vote for President. The elections in November elect Electors, not the president. I knew this, but not the grimy details. The Electors vote on 14 December. But that vote is not necessarily final, it must be certified by the new Congress on 6 January. Once certified, the person elected president is President-Elect, and nothing and nobody can change that. The Congress can only decertify the 14 December vote by a 2/3 majority in both houses, which has never happened.

Now, most adult American citizens are allowed to vote for Electors (but most do not bother), and the Electors all run on a platform of, 'If elected, I will vote for Candidate <whomever>!' Most Americans figure they're voting for the President, even though they are not, exactly, but close.

Every election, there are Election Commissions at every polling place, in every County (not all states have Counties, some have Parishes, and some have other divisions, but whatever they're called, all have Election Commissions). And every State has an Election Commission. The Commission decisions on vote count is final, that is the legal vote count. So, before 2020, no presidential candidate ever challenged the election result from November, because they knew they could not.

But every election, we snickered. The Election Commissions, by law, must be exactly ½ Democrat and ½ Republican, so if the majority agrees on the eligible and ineligible voters, that must be correct. Neither Republicans nor Democrats would accept ineligible voters from the other party, or reject eligible voters from their own party, so if all agree, it must be accurate. But in some (no idea how many) solid Republican states, the 'Democrats' on the Committees were really Republicans who agreed to block Democrats and let in Republicans whose signatures didn't match their signatures from when they Registered to Vote, and in solid Democrat states, the opposite, and we were sure that some of the Commissions were crooked, but their final vote counts were still final. We had jokes about dead people voting, people allowed to vote early and often. Always. Every election. But everyone knew there was no way to challenge the Election Commission final vote counts, so we accepted the result announced the night of the November election, or early the next morning.

But then, before 2016, the Democrat National Committee (DNC) and the Republican National Committee (RNC) picked who could run in the primaries. When I was a boy, they picked the candidate, but now we have primaries, but the DNC and RNC decide who can run, and usually it is someone who started as a teenager trying to become president, meeting and greeting the Party Leaders, learning how the US government works.

But then in 2016, a Reality TV star was allowed to buy his way in to the primaries, and then he started winning the plurality of the votes, since he had much better name recognition than any of the other primary candidates. And he became the Candidate, even as the RNC was aghast, and the DNC was cheering since he couldn't possibly win.

And then he won all the flyover states, 30 states, most with very small populations, so the DNC candidate had far more votes, but Trump had far more Electors.

Trump was the most incompetent president I had ever seen. He knew absolutely nothing about the job and how to do it. He gave orders that were seldom followed, and he had no idea how to get anything done. And he was vehemently hated by every Democrat plus the establishment Republicans. Shortly after the 6 Jan deadline, Obama announced that the Russians had hacked 21 states. Later, they said they didn't know if the Russians had changed the votes, but 'hacked' means they changed the votes (they changed the definition of 'hacked' to mean read-only access to the publicly available data of who won, but getting read-only access to public data is not what the word 'hacked' is supposed to mean). So Obama's statement meant Trump did not win 30 states, but only 9 (a statement later watered down to, 'We don't know what the Russian did, we only know they hacked 21 states, and maybe they never changed a single vote, or maybe they single-handedly stole the election, but all proof is Top Secret, so no patriotic American would ever want to see any of it).

For four years, the DNC said the Russians stole the election from St Hillary.

Then, in 2020, Trump lost, but he had no idea how these things work. No candidate had ever challenged an election result before, because they knew it could not be done. Members of the Commissions often challenged the result, because only members of the commissions are allowed to challenge the vote (and when Democrats on the Florida Election Commission challenged the vote, the case went to the Supreme Court, where the 5 Republicans said Bush, Jr won and the 4 Democrats said Gore won.)

But Trump did not understand, and tried to get the states to change Electors, tried to get the Electors to change their votes, and tried to get the Congress to decertify the election on 6 January.

And the US establishment media said it was irrefutably proven that the 2020 election was the very first election where the result was 100% accurate, the final vote count was exactly correct, it was absolutely certain that the count was not off by even 1 vote. The US media claim was ridiculous. The counts are always off, but, if no one on any Election Commission raises a challenge, we have absolutely no idea how many of the Commissions are corrupt or incompetent.

So I had never before seen the press saying the final vote count was perfect,  nor had I ever seen a presidential candidate who had no idea how things work and who tried to challenge the election result.

But in any case, we now have Biden and Harris as president and vice-president, and Trump is facing his 2nd impeachment trial  this week, with the Democrats hoping for a conviction (which takes a 2/3 majority) followed by prosecution and gaol for Life without Parole. Trump represents 2 of the 4 Presidential impeachments and trials the US has ever had. The first, the Senate were 1 vote short of a 2/3 majority. The 2nd and 3rd, a large majority of the Senate voted to acquit.

This month, for the 2nd time, a majority of the Senate will vote for conviction, but not a 2/3 majority, so Trump will be acquitted. Before, the Republicans were running the trial, and found Trump innocent very quickly. This time, Democrats are running the trial, and they have a lot of terrible things to say about Trump, so it might go on for a loooooooooooooong time before Trump is acquitted, and the Democrats denounce as Deplorable every Senator who voted against conviction.

1 comment:

Bill the Butcher said...

As long as it increases enmity and tensions among Amerikastanis, I'm all for it.

It will be even more entertaining when Bidet is replaced by the Camel as soon as he's too senile to read his prepared homilies.