Trump's HBO Interview

[Wickerman]

Thankyou Gentlemen.
I just have not seen an American ballot ticket.
I thought the names of the presidential candidates were on the ticket, but I'm led to believe you vote for a local representative, and it is who they vote for that elects a President, or is it?
When does the Electoral College vote, is it on Nov. 3rd with everyone else?

[Simon Wood]

"Would you want LA and NYC city deciding who the president is every year?"

No.

But I sure wouldn't mind them deciding every four years.

[c.d.]

Thankyou Gentlemen.
I just have not seen an American ballot ticket.
I thought the names of the presidential candidates were on the ticket, but I'm led to believe you vote for a local representative, and it is who they vote for that elects a President, or is it?
When does the Electoral College vote, is it on Nov. 3rd with everyone else?

Hello Wick,

The names of the presidential candidates are on the ballot. Not the names of the Electoral College. If a presidential candidate wins the popular vote in a state then the state's representative in the Electoral College is REQUIRED to cast the number of electoral votes that that state has for that candidate. The electoral college votes after the election but it is a mere formality since they cannot change the results of the vote. The Federal Election Commission certifies the vote before congress in January.

Hope that helps.

c.d.

[Wickerman]

PS. As more and more people gravitate to big cities and coastal areas, it will become even more extreme. If the U.S. survives another 100 years with the same system, which is doubtful, you'd see a situation were empty rural areas will wield enormous influence over the Senate and over national elections. Indeed, that's what we are already seeing.

Thankyou RJ, and yes the Senate is another issue.
When one party controls any house, nothing can get done by a President of the opposing party. This should never be allowed.
The whole system seems to work against the concept of Democracy.
I've never looked closely at it before, I don't fully understand how it ended up the way it is.
Why any President should be allowed to appoint his own people into key positions, like Trump has, to control the CDC, the FDA, the Justice System, etc. it's borderline criminal. It's so open to abuse.

[Wickerman]

Hello Wick,

The names of the presidential candidates are on the ballot. Not the names of the Electoral College. If a presidential candidate wins the popular vote in a state then the state's representative in the Electoral College is REQUIRED to cast the number of electoral votes that that state has for that candidate. The electoral college votes after the election but it is a mere formality since they cannot change the results of the vote. The Federal Election Commission certifies the vote before congress in January.

Hope that helps.

c.d.

Ah, thankyou c.d.
So, how can the Electoral vote end up different to the Popular vote, when the first is the result of the second?

[c.d.]

When one party controls any house, nothing can get done by a President of the opposing party.

Not exactly so, Simon. Bipartisan legislation can be passed it is simply more difficult to do so and the president has the power to veto any legislation passed by congress. That veto can only be overridden by a two-thirds vote in both the Senate and the House.

c.d.

[jason_c]

well the problem though is that he does on this occasion as he does pretty much all the time. Of course, there is no evidence that mail-in voting is ripe with fraud. There is no logic in this (several states have been doing this for years but only now does the Russian Ambassador in the White House suggest that this is all fraud). So am I talking out of my hat on this subject? No I'm not because I have facts to back me up:

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-53353404:
But the rate of voting fraud overall in the US is between 0.00004% and 0.0009%, according to a 2017 study by the Brennan Center for Justice.

A Washington Post review of the 2016 election found one proven case of postal voting fraud.

And a voter fraud database collated by Arizona State University between 2000 and 2012, found 491 cases of postal ballot fraud out of hundreds of millions of votes.

Oregon has held postal elections since 2000 and has only reported 14 fraudulent votes attempted by mail.

https://www.brennancenter.org/our-wo...ter-fraud-myth:
"The president has continued to claim voter fraud was a problem in the 2016 election. A look at the facts makes clear fraud is rare, and does not happen on a scale even close to necessary to “rig” an election."

If Trump really thinks that there is fraud in mail-in voting then he should provide the evidence that this is happening and then work with the states to implement processes that would fix these issues. But he does not provide such evidence because that's not really his goal, is it? His goal is to stop people from voting which is his only path to re-election.

Back on subject, the interview with the Aussie was just another car-crash and complete humiliation by any objective standard like so many of his interviews that show that he is without a doubt the dumbest person on the planet ever to have put on a tie and jacket. And we don;t even have to go back that far. The Chris Wallace interview was a horror-show where he suggested that the Montreal Cognitive Assessment so difficult that Even Chris Wallace would not be able to pass it. He then follows it up and demonstrates his awesome powers that he can remember Man, Woman, TV, Camera and one other word that I can;t remember one month later. He basically grouped the words so he could repeat them on live TV. A third-grader would have realised that the words were not random.

And all this non-sense just repeats every day, every week, every month. Day in day out.

Does he talk out of his hat whenever he opens his mouth? I mean, is this even up for serious discussion?

Cheers.

You can cite all the studies you wish. A recent NJ all in mail election has been rife with irregularities and fraud. 1 in 5 votes rejected.

https://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2020/06/26/1_in_5_ballots_rejected_as_fraud_is_charged_in_nj_mail-in_election_143551.html

[Simon Wood]

Here ya go, Wickie,



I'm English, living in America, and still trying to wrap my mind around the voting process.

Simon

[c.d.]

Hello Wick,

Because there are 50 states and each state has a different number of electoral votes based on population.

So let's say a candidate wins small states (population wise) like Rhode Island, Delaware and Montana by a huge margin in the popular vote and along with other small states this gives him a huge overall lead in the nationwide popular vote. But those small states (population wise) only deliver a small number of electoral college votes. So if a candidate wins the popular vote in big states (population wise) he gets all the electoral votes from those big states even if he only wins those big states by just a handful of popular votes.

Yes, confusing I know.

c.d.

[Wickerman]

You can cite all the studies you wish. A recent NJ all in mail election has been rife with irregularities and fraud. 1 in 5 votes rejected.

https://www.realclearpolitics.com/ar...on_143551.html

Our ruling: Missing context

We rate the claim that mail-in ballot fraud in New Jersey is a sign of bigger issues as MISSING CONTEXT, based on our research. It’s true that charges of corruption have been made in a local New Jersey election conducted by mail. But assertions by Judicial Watch about how that case shows a systematic problem with voting by mail are not supported by their evidence. The article fails to note that several states have voted entirely by mail for as many as 20 years with fraud cases being an extreme rarity, and that states have protections in place to ward against election fraud.

https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/factcheck/2020/08/15/fact-check-nj-ballot-fraud-case-doesnt-signal-national-trouble/5493078002/

[rjpalmer]

The electoral college was originally a concession to the slave states. In the Southern slave states, each slave was worth 2/5 citizenship when determining the amount of electoral votes that state received...even though the slaves weren't allowed to vote. So the slaves were the 'equalizers' between the North and the South voting populace, even though they were disenfranchised.

James Wilson proposed a straight democratic vote, but the plantation owners knew that if Pennsylvania, Massachusetts and New York controlled the national elections through a popular vote, slavery would have been abolished early on.

James Madison (President #4) shot the idea down, and prevailed. That's where we now are. It wasn't the 'wisdom' of our founding fathers; it is a remnant of slavery that is still with us.

[c.d.]

Hello Wick,

Let me see if I can make it a little clearer. Let's say it is late in the evening and 48 states along with the District of Columbia have reported their results. At this point both candidates are exactly tied in both the number of popular votes and electoral votes. The country looks to the West Coast states (different time zone than the East and Midwest states). Oregon has seven electoral votes and California has fifty five. Candidate A wins Oregon by 100,000 votes in the popular vote in that state and therefore wins Oregon's seven electoral votes. Candidate B wins the popular vote in California by 5,000 votes putting him behind Candidate A by 95,000 votes in the general popular vote. But by winning California he gets California's fifty five electoral votes and thus wins the election even though more people voted for Candidate B.

The key is that you have to win the Electoral College Vote to get elected.

c.d.

[rjpalmer]

P.S. to Post #41. My apologies. I underestimated the worth of a black male under the system. He was worth 3/5th of a white man when determining the state's electoral voting power. As for women...

[Wickerman]

Thankyou c.d.

Now I get it, and it doesn't seem all that Democratic to me.

Also, thankyou RJ.

[Ms Diddles]

The electoral college was originally a concession to the slave states. In the Southern slave states, each slave was worth 2/5 citizenship when determining the amount of electoral votes that state received...even though the slaves weren't allowed to vote. So the slaves were the 'equalizers' between the North and the South voting populace, even though they were disenfranchised.

James Wilson proposed a straight democratic vote, but the plantation owners knew that if Pennsylvania, Massachusetts and New York controlled the national elections through a popular vote, slavery would have been abolished early on.

James Madison (President #4) shot the idea down, and prevailed. That's where we now are. It wasn't the 'wisdom' of our founding fathers; it is a remnant of slavery that is still with us.

Wow!

I have never thought of it in these terms before.

Not much shocks me, but that genuinely caused a sharp intake of breath!

I'd like to say that we now live in far more enlightened times, but I'm not convinced that's true!