Being a conservative means that if you vote, you must vote for a rapist, a liar, a violent offender, a person with anti-Christian values seeping out of their pores. Being a Christian means that you know you will go to hell if you support the smashing of half or more of the Ten Commandments. Being a conservative means you can’t vote for the empathetic, intelligent, humanistic Democrat. Being a Christian means you should vote for the progressive, liberal, or centrist candidate. But you are a conservative so you can’t.
So, there is only one thing you can do and save your soul: Sit out this election.
The extremist MAGA Trump Base has spoken. It is the tail that wags the Republican dog. The base has picked the candidate you get to support, or not, and the base has decided that power is more important than democracy, winning is more important than truth, hate is more fun than love, aggression and bullying is better than empathy and thoughtfulness.
And that is what you’ve got, that is all you’ve got. That is what you are voting for (or not).
Is this you? Are you that bad of a person? Or not????
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Out of some 500 Republican candidates in 2022, 299 still believe Trump’s Big Lie. Or they profess to believe it; they may just be toeing the line to get elected.
Dana Loesch is refreshingly candid: She has said she doesn’t care that Herschel Walker may have paid for his girl friend’s abortion, or whether he is qualified to be a Georgia senator. She just wants that Senate power.
It’s a safe bet that most of those GOP candidates want the same thing, and that their voting base is fine with it. Republicans want to rule America, not to govern it.
The H Walker situation led to a witty, if not interesting observation by a friend (possibly others as well, but this was a fellow faculty member).
When republicans say they are pro-life they’re lying [that’s obvious from their other positions], and when they say they don’t want any exceptions for abortion they’re also lying, because they will always make an exception for one of their one women or for a male friend who made an exception for one of his women.
Our qop candidates for governor, lt governor, sec of state, and legislators all say the election was stolen. Given the other things they say [the supply chain issue was invented by the “democrats” to damage the economy, covid vaccines and masks were both worthless, enough ‘natural immunity’ could have been reached to protect us, etc, and the winner statements: democrats back abortion because it is a form of child sacrifice to satan, the LGBTQ+ community is a sign of satan’s work to destroy human sexuality, and (my favorite) demons are real, and people who have demons inside them spread them to others through sex] I believe all of them are stupid enough to believe the voting system is not safe and that trump’s election was stolen
dean says “I believe all of them are stupid enough to believe the voting system is not safe and that trump’s election was stolen”. There you go – they are not lying. They just don’t believe the same things you do.
This is not a matter of belief, it is a matter of easily ascertained fact.
No, you dimwitted clown, they are lying. There is no evidence, zero, that trump’s election was stolen. Even the right-wing clowns who tried doing their own “audits” didn’t find anything. to keep repeating things that have been proven wrong is lying. The same for the “elections aren’t safe” crap you keep pushing: you have no proof, all the evidence is against you, yet you push it. Lies all the way down.
But, as we’ve constantly seen over the years, your only strength is your ability to deny reality.
Nope. Maybe they are wrong. But in order to be lying they have to know the election wasn’t stolen and be trying to intentionally deceive others. You yourself said they truly believed that the election was stolen (because they were stupid).
So – you can say they are wrong. But not that they are lying.
You seem to have a great deal of difficulty with the difference between being wrong and lying. As Trump would say – so sad! You should consult a dictionary. It might help.
Sorry ricka. Repeat something false after it’s been explained that it’s false – multiple times – you’re lying. I get that you want to muddy the water because you don’t care about facts, but tough shit.
The problem for you is that you’ve tossed in with the party of racism, white supremacy, nazi support misogyny, and more, but you don’t like those things being pointed out
Greg Laden is the guy who thinks male brains are female brains poisoned by testosterone. Just sayin’…
I would then say that if they still actually believe that the elections are stolen, it’s active denial of the truth, which is a form of lying.
In the case of the denying politicians they are using it to enact policies that will make it more difficult to vote as a target demographic that likely votes for Democrats.
The Republican candidate for the Secretary of State in Minnesota is one such politician.
Next door to Minnesota, in Wisconsin, there was an “Audit” that wasted time and money and produced zilch after nearly a year. In Maricopa County, a Republican audit spent a lot of money and time and found more votes for Biden than had been counted in 2020, but no sign of fraud despite their scrutiny for bamboo fibers in the ballot paper that would (I’m serious!) be proof that the Chinese had stuffed the ballot.
The Republicans don’t want to use government to function in a healthy society, they want to
drule.I would like to see much more robust post election audits done in Minnesota.
For example – I would like to see the State keep track (for statewide races and Federal races) of the total number of ballots created, how many went to each precinct, how many were mailed out, how many where cast in person, how many left over, how many mailed back and so forth. If more votes were cast than created, that would indicate a problem – which should be further investigated.
I would like to keep track of the votes mailed in late. Take a statistically significant sample and interview the person who mailed in that vote. Did they know there ballot was received late? Find out when they mailed it, how they mailed it and did they mail it themselves or give it to a third party. The goal here is to identify ballot harvesting (which is illegal) especially the type where ballots are gathered, but sorted and mailed in late on purpose. Or bad postpeople. I don’t know if this is a problem – but it should be checked for.
I would like the election roles to be cleaned up before each election. There should be a published process which is followed and people should be aware of the process so they can ensure they are properly on the role (or not). Death should be tied to the election system somehow (maybe it already is) – but nobody who is dead should be able to vote. Moving out of state should be tied to the election system somehow. Nobody should be able to vote once they no longer reside in the state.
Finally – I would like to see a national system set up to identify and prosecute people who vote in more than one state for the same election (obviously for Federal offices). Nobody should be able to vote in New York, then board a plane, fly to their vacation home in Florida and also vote – without getting caught and prosecuted. I am not aware of any system for catching this type of voter fraud.
I should be able to go to the state website and see the number of votes cast versus the number capable of being cast (i.e. printed, mailed out or delivered to a precinct, then reconciled by precinct. Maybe this is available now – I hope so. The audit spreadsheets I have looked at don’t have the numbers of potential votes (how many votes given to the precinct or mailed out to that precinct – versus how many votes cast).
Do you have a problem with better post election audits – to identify fraud and identify problem areas for further investigation?
There is an audit available for each precinct, and the process is open, that compares the number of paper ballots entered and cast to the number that are recorded by machine and sent in to the Secretary of State. We also count the number of spoiled and unused ballots. You are welcome along with the entire public to remain in the precinct while we carry out the process. I’ll be in St. Paul’s Ward 6, Precinct 10.
The question on dead people’s absentee ballots is an interesting one, and I am not sure how that is corrected for. (Edit – see added link at bottom of comment.) If you attempt to vote in person after your absentee ballot is received, then you are not allowed to vote again.
There are recounts automatically triggered if the vote tally is within a specified percentage (or raw number if the number of total votes is below 400 in any locality.)
https://ballotpedia.org/Recount_laws_in_Minnesota
Every election is audited, and the results are available. I am not opposed to it, but what I am opposed to is the situations that we had as I described above in Wisconsin and Wisconsin, each of which followed audits and recounts. These were purely politically motivated for the purpose of casting doubt on elections that were fair.
If there is justification for adding on to the audits in the way that you suggest, keep in mind that the elections and audits are paid for by the taxpayers and so we need to consider how much we can afford to spend on diminishing returns.
If there was any indications that elections are being swayed by graveyard ballots, or people were hopping around the country casting votes for Biden, then there would be cause for buying bigger computers and hiring data scientists to trip and catch these fraudulent votes. I think added money should be used on finding ways to encourage people to vote since elections are swayed more in the negative by people who don’t vote than they are in the positive by someone who voted and kicked the bucket. There would be no fraud intended.
https://www.ncsl.org/blog/2020/10/20/what-if-an-absentee-voter-dies-before-election-day-.aspx and LOL they are technically absent.
Quantum computing may provide the security needed to vote by internet in the future.
Thank you for the information. That was very helpful (and hopeful). Thank you for your work in the election.
Are you aware of the total number of ballots printed in the state, and the total cast, spoiled and not used? Or is that just a per precinct thing? Just wondering about the big picture. It would be nice to know the numbers tied back statewide.
I bet blockchain would allow for safe voting on the internet. 256 hash is currently quantum computer proof (at least for six more years anyway). I would love to see that (personally). However, I see great potential for abuse with the elderly having their vote used by somebody else. Hopefully they can figure out a way to prevent that.
Experience shows that
a) there is little to no problem now, despite your continued whinging and non-substantiated whinging
b) what little problem has been found has been due to qop attempts at cheating — that history alone makes it unlikely that any serious investigation would be done in states led by modern right-wingers. They’d simply be interested in expanding the current work at taking voting access away from the poor, aged, and minorities in their states
(Wisconsin and Arizona.)
I am sure that the Secretary of State would be able to provide the audit information for the number printed but not used. The precincts send it to the county in a secured tub, but I haven’t looked into what the process is for printing those state totals.
If you ever want to volunteer to judge, the state attempts to balance the party participation and probably need more Republican elections judges in the cities.
@Christopher Winter –
The NYTimes published a story yesterday revealing that they have found statements from 370 candidates that support the Big Lie.
(no paywall, it’s a gift article due to my subscription)
“I don’t have enough information” is the same dodge that politicians use when asked about climate change. They know how to get the information, and have staff to do the research. But, he’s walking a tightrope to win an election without losing the insane votes and at the same time win independent voters who just want to have someone who knows how government runs.
Thanks for posting the link to that NYT article. The Washington Post mentioned it today, and I read the whole thing. It’s great reporting, and the graphics are impressively alarming.
I am an old man with a beard.
Now I find it is worse than I feared.
370 candidates,
The NYT relates,
Are of TFG very skeered.
People who state “I bet the blockchain would…” really have no idea.
https://www.technologyreview.com/2018/04/25/143246/how-secure-is-blockchain-really/
They can be secure, but are not foolproof.
Interesting paper:
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2405896322008862
Only 1/2 of the warming comes from CO2.
This is an old story. If the feedback from water vapor and clouds is folded in, the net rise in temperature approximately doubles.
Look on page 4 of the paper (page 427 in the Elsevier document.) In the last paragraph before the conclusion, the authors state the same thing: “If NASA’s latest
estimate for the feedback factor, i.e. more than double the warming by increasing CO2 alone (Buis, 2022), is applied, ??? > 1.3 °C is obtained, which is near the aforementioned value.”
I did see the CO2 only was about .64C and adding in the feedbacks doubled it to about 1.3C. That is still far below 3.0C and even below 1.8C (the Lewis and Curry ECS figure). So I thought it newsworthy.
This is probably not going to happen locally, but this is why we need more people to volunteer to be election judges. Harassment.
Election deniers insert themselves into vote count
As we now know, the trump supporting right is the single most active threat to rights and democracy in existence.
Yes dean. The trump supporting right is so dangerous they should not be allowed to volunteer as election workers. We don’t want them anywhere near the actual vote counting. In fact they shouldn’t be allowed to vote, or even speak. Their dangerous ideas are to dangerous to even hear. Probably to dangerous to own guns also. Yes – I am being sarcastic. You are a fear monger.
Well, Rick, they certainly are making a good show of “defending freedom” by squelching democracy wherever they can.
Well, for the ignorati who think the 2020 election was stolen, that huge number of vote were flipped after polls closed, that voting machines without the means to connect to the internet somehow “called home” to China and corrupted votes, the losers of the Georgia type who think the QR codes are stealing votes and are illegal any of the current qop politicians who say they would not certify an election if a republican lost — no, we don’t want them counting votes.
Of course, if people meeting those descriptions were ruled out I doubt there would be any trump-humpers left to do counting (you certainly wouldn’t be eligible) : that’s how bad your party is.
Here’s another example, and the timing of it sure looks like voter intimidation. The state agency gave them the indication that once their felonies had been served and cleared, they were able to vote. Now, in August, they are charged with fraudulently voting. Even though the cases will be thrown out, other people will see the arrests and even if they are eligible decide not to risk it. DeSantis is a son-of-a-bitch who wants to be president, and it’s stunts like this and the bus rides that will get him there:
The cops know it’s phony.
Two thoughts.
1. Why didn’t their conviction pop up when they registered to vote? They should fix that. People who are not eligible to vote shouldn’t blithely be able to register without cleaning that up first.
2. Why have these charges not being pursued all along? Fraudulent voting should be pursued in all cases.
Jeff rickA, what party’s president courted white supremacists, neonazis, and general scum of the earth to support him, then urged them to storm the Capitol because they believed his lies about the election being stolen?
Which party is routinely working to close voting access in minority and poor areas of their cities and states? Which party has a good number of candidates for office who still push the “stolen election” bullshit and vow to have “volunteers” monitor voting sites?
I get that you lie to defend your beliefs and the vision you have for the country (rights for women and minorities should be rolled back, etc), but it is really getting old to hear the same completely unsupported by any semblance of fact BS from you.
The practice in Florida was to fill out a voter registration card, and if you were eligible to vote, you got registered, if not, you were notified.
The details of who could vote vs not were esoteric and hard to get good information on, so this was a good faith effort to help fix that.
But suddenly the rules changed, and following this standard practice gets you popped.
I guarantee there will be legal recourse, and there will be law suits, and the state of Florida will be paying out restitution to people who’s right to vote was taken away, or who were unlawfully arrested.
Two more thoughts:
They weren’t fraudulently voting since they had been registered by the state to vote, so there was no intent to defraud.
The charges haven’t been pursued all along because they are trumped up, and the fraud being committed is by the state, not by the voters.