#high voter turnout

[townpostin]

Jamshedpur Bar Association Elections See 83% Voter Turnout

60 candidates vie for 16 posts; results expected late night after 6 PM vote count Jamshedpur Bar Association elections concluded with 1,233 out of 1,520 eligible members casting their votes, representing an 83% turnout. JAMSHEDPUR – The Jamshedpur Bar Association elections saw a significant 83% voter turnout, with results anticipated to be announced late at night. The voting process commenced at…

[andromeda3116]

oh boy if the first day of early voting here is any indication, the turnout this year is going to be huge

[itmeblog]

Biden stepped down.

[mstopportunity]

I also need everyone in "safe" states to realize that they need to get out and vote anyways. Lack of participation from one party is how safe states become swing states. Also, if your district is gerrymandered (which it likely is), it's STILL important that you vote. Because gerrymandering relies on having Just Enough voters of one party to outperform the other party consistently, while sequestering as many voters for the other party in as small a number of districts as possible. This means that with sufficient turnout you can flip a gerrymandered district, while the safe districts are pretty solidly safe.

Even if you're not in one of the "7 battleground states" you still need to get out and vote, because you never know if this might be the year that there's so much voter turnout Texas swings blue.

there are enough tumblr users who can vote in US battleground states to literally swing the election, do you realize that?? the election is going to come down to like 80’000 votes in those states — that could be your vote! so if you live in pennsylvania, georgia, arizona, nevada, north carolina, wisconsin, michigan, etccc your vote is going to make a huge, huge difference. please for the love of god vote (and if you live in a different state, you still need to vote too)

[brijendrasstuff]

"Chhattisgarh Assembly Election 2023: High Voter Turnout Defies Maoist Threats and Keeps Democracy Alive"

“Chhattisgarh Assembly Election 2023: High Voter Turnout Defies Maoist Threats and Keeps Democracy Alive” Find live updates on the Assembly Elections 2023 in Chhattisgarh amidst Maoist encounters and an IED blast. Over 70% voter turnout showcases the resilience of the people. Chhattisgarh Assembly Election 2023: High Voter Turnout Defies Maoist Threats and Keeps Democracy Alive (image PTI) The…

[drdemonprince]

It’s true that America has one of the lowest voter turnout rates in the industrialized world, with only 62% of eligible adults turning up to the polls on a good year, and about 50% on a typical one. But if we really dive into the social science data, we can see that non-voters aren’t a bunch of nihilistic commie layabouts who’d prefer to die in a bridge collapse or of an untreated listeria infection than vote for someone who isn’t Vladimir Lenin. No, if we really study it carefully, we can see that the American electoral system has a series of unique features that easily account for why we find voting more cumbersome, confusing, and unrewarding than almost any other voters in the world.

Let’s take a look at the many reasons why Americans don’t vote:

1. We Have the Most Frequent Elections of Any Country

Most other democratic countries only hold major elections once every four or five years, with the occasional local election in between. This is in sharp contrast with the U.S., where we have some smattering of primaries, regional elections, state elections, ballot measures, midterm elections, and national elections basically every single year, often multiple times per year. We have elections more frequently than any other nation in the world — but just as swallowing mountains of vitamin C tablets doesn’t guarantee better health, voting more and harder hasn’t given us more democracy.

2. We Don’t Make Election Day a Holiday

The United States also does far less than most other democracies to facilitate its voters getting to the polls. In 22 countries, voting is legally mandated, and turnout is consequently very high; most countries instead make election day a national holiday, or hold elections on weekends. The United States, in contrast, typically holds elections on weekdays, during work hours, with minimal legal protections for employees whose only option to vote is on the clock.

3. We Make Registration as Hard as Possible

From Denmark, to Sweden, to Iceland, Belgium, and Iraq, all eligible voters in most democracies are automatically registered to vote upon reaching legal adulthood. Voting is typically regarded as a rite of passage one takes part in alongside their classmates and neighbors, made part of the natural flow of the country’s bureaucratic processes.

In the United States, in contrast, voter registration is a process that the individual must seek out — or more recently, be goaded into by their doctor. Here voting is not a communal event, it’s a personal choice, and failing to make the correct choice at the correct time can be penalized. In most other countries, there are no restrictions on when a voter can register, but in much of the United States, registering too early can mean you get stricken from the voter rolls by the time the election rolls around, and registering too late means you’re barred from voting at all.

4. We Make Voters Re-Register Far Too Often

In countries like Canada, Germany, and the Netherlands, voter registration updates automatically when a person moves. In the United State, any time a person changes addresses they must go out of their way to register to vote all over again. This policy disadvantages poorer and younger voters, who move frequently because of job and schooling changes, or landlords who have decided to farm black mold colonies in their kitchens.

Even if a voter does not change their address, in the United States it’s quite common for their registrations to be removed anyway— due to name changes, marriages, data breaches, or simply because the voter rolls from the previous election year have been purged to “prevent fraud” (read: eliminate Black, brown, poor, and left-leaning members from the electorate).

5. We Limit Access to Polling Places & Mail-in Ballots

In many countries, voters can show up to any number of polling places on election day, and showing identification is not always necessary. Here in the United States, the ability to vote is typically restricted to a single polling place. Voter ID laws have been used since before the Jim Crow era to make political participation more difficult for Black, brown, and impoverished voters, as well as for those for whom English is not their first language. Early and absentee voting options are also pretty firmly restricted. About a quarter of democracies worldwide rely on mail-in ballots to make voting more accessible for everyone; here, a mail-in ballot must be requested in advance.

All of these structural barriers help explain why just over 50% of non-voters in the United States are people of color, and a majority of non-voters have been repeatedly found to be impoverished and otherwise marginalized. But these populations don’t only feel excluded from the political process on a practical level: they also report feeling completely unrepresented by the available political options.

6. We Have the Longest, Most Expensive Campaign Seasons

Americans have some of the longest campaign seasons in the world, with Presidential elections lasting about 565 days on average. For reference, the UK’s campaign season is 139 days, Mexico’s is 147, and Canada’s is just 50. We also do not have publicly funded campaigns: our politicians rely upon donors almost entirely.

Because our elections are so frequent and our campaigns are so long and expensive, many American elected officials are in a nearly constant state of fundraising and campaigning. When you take into account the time devoted to organizing rallies, meeting with donors, courting lobbyists, knocking on doors, recording advertisements, and traveling the campaign trail, most federally elected politicians spend more time trying to win their seat than actually doing their jobs.

Imagine how much work you’d get done if you had to interview for your job every day. And now imagine that the person actually paying your wage didn’t want you to do that job at all:

7. Our Elected Officials Do Very Little

Elected officials who spend the majority of their hours campaigning and courting donors don’t have much time to get work done. Nor do they have much incentive to — in practice, their role is to represent the large corporations, weapons manufacturers, Silicon Valley start-ups, and investors who pay their bills, and serve as a stopgap when the public’s demands run afoul of those groups’ interests.

Perhaps that is why, as campaign seasons have gotten longer and more expensive and income inequality has grown more stark, our elected officials have become lean-out quiet quitters of historic proportions. The 118th Congress has so far been the least productive session on record, with only 82 laws having been passed in last two years out of the over 11,000 brought to the floor.

The Biden Administration has moved at a similarly glacial pace; aside from leaping for the phone when Israel calls requesting checking account transfers every two or three weeks, the executive-in-chief has done little but fumble at student loan relief and abortion protections, and bandied about banning TikTok.

The average age of American elected officials has been on a steady rise for some time now, with the obvious senility of figures like Biden, Mitch McConnell, and the late Diane Feinstein serving as the most obvious markers of the government’s stagnancy. Carting around a confused, ailing elderly person’s body around the halls of power like a decommissioned animatronic requires a depth of indifference to human suffering that few of us outside Washington can fathom. But more than that, it reflects a desperation for both parties to cling to what sources of influence and wealth they have. These aged figures are/were reliable simps for Blackstone, General Dynamics, Disney, and AIPAC, and their loyalty is worth far more than their cognitive capacity, or legislative productivity. Their job, in a very real sense, is to not do their job, and a beating-heart cadaver can do that just fine.

You can read the rest of the list for free (or have it narrated to you on the Substack app) at drdevonprice.substack.com!

[johnbrand]

Silver Fox News

Out of breath, Richie shut the door behind him. The sun was already shining into his childhood home, the suburban frame one he had seen little of over the last four years. With his college a few states over, Richie was practically only home for the holidays, spending his summers at local internships that kept him away from where he grew up. He did not have anything against his town, or his dad for that matter; he had simply always been too busy. And now, freshly graduated and without a job quite yet, Richie had returned for the time being.

“Dad?” Richie called out, searching the kitchen. Typically, his father waited for him once he got back from his morning run, seated at the counter with a morning coffee and whatever protein-stuffed breakfast appeased him. But now, Richie could not find his dad anywhere.

“Scott?” Richie tried, but no response. Sweat dribbled down his lean, hairless frame. He liked to keep slim and clean-looking, knowing it was attractive for the men he usually slept with. While quite the flirt back in his college town, Richie had yet to hook up with anyone at home. He still had not had that talk with his father yet.

Richie scouted a bit longer, eventually finding his father in the master bedroom. Digging through his closet, Scott seemed to be tossing out all his blue clothing. Anything remotely near that shade even. After another “Dad?” Richie finally caught his father’s attention. Richie had only been home for a few days now, but he had never seen his father so invested in a task and yet, so out of it completely.

“Have you watched the news this morning, son?” Scott asked, to Richie's surprise.

“Uh, no…?”  The sweat had already dried against his exposed frame by that point, so without bothering to take a shower, Richie followed his father out into the living room. He just hoped whatever it was his father wanted him to see would be short, as he was practically naked besides his running shorts. Grabbing the remote, Richie did not expect the first channel to be a Fox News affiliate.

“Really, dad?” Richie questioned. He had never placed his father as the conservative type. He had typically been more independent, while Richie’s perspective was wholly liberal. It was a bit strange to see the network, but maybe Scott had changed while he had been away in college. Speaking of which, had his father always been so salt-and-peppered on top? Richie also took a moment to appreciate his father’s musculature, which he had somehow not noticed until now.

Richie returned his eyes to the screen. On top of the typical Fox News logo was the word “Silver” in an old fashioned font. And instead of the typical newscasters, stories, and lineup, there was just a slide displaying some text. 

“Thank you for tuning into Silver Fox News. Your program will begin shortly.”

“Did you buy some kind of premium subscription?” Richie openly questioned his father, who seemed to be absorbed by the television. “Okay, you got me in front of the news; what did you want to show me?”

Richie’s answer came quickly. The text disappeared, revealing a simple red spiral with flashing commands. It was not anything special, but it was enough.

“Pretty colors…swirling…” Richie slurred after a minute, his tongue becoming heavy in his mouth. “Soothing, silky…the spiral is so…hot…I love…the spiral…I love this feeling…I listen…to the spiral…”

When major research institutions began to announce their predictions of voter turnout for the upcoming election, alarms began to ring off within the Republican party. An assumed 41 million Gen Z voters would be hauling into polling stations, with numbers as high as 43% confirmed to be liberal. It was a staunch difference, one that many leaders could not accept. So instead of following the traditional tactics to sway voters like they had in the past, they decided to take a new route. Why sway voters, when you could make them?

Thanks to the research and funding of a certain well-known tech billionaire, the necessary resources were simple. Leaders believed that the easiest way to eliminate the problem was by creating the solution in the most efficient way possible. Social aspects would include basic background, education, and upbringing. Physical aspects would manage age, size, and demographic. Mental aspects would focus on tradition, individuality, and compliance. But the beauty of it all was that the programmers did very little of the work. Instead, they simply utilized the victim’s preconceived notions.

“What does…being Republican…mean to me…?” Richie drawled, his voice having dropped an octave since the program began. Instead of installing a literal trigger into the victim, the channel exploited the stereotypical beliefs victims already held. “I must become…Republican…that means…middle-aged…suburban…uneducated…Christian…”

As Richie chanted his prejudices out like a spell, his body was subsequently altered. His age more than doubled, ripping away the hair from his head and leaving the beginnings of a horseshoe to splatter the rest across his body. Wrinkles and age lines began to form, but so did musculature as his body beefed up, becoming stronger in the way that most Conservative men naturally are. Daily maintenance of a large suburban home did that to a man after all. 

“Traditional…simple…heterosexual…” Richie continued as a beard formed around his lips. His past was rewritten to better fit the portrait he was painting. Sundays in church, dropping out of high school to later receive a GED, working hard to earn his privilege and not understanding why it was handed to others. Fear of God, fear of big government, fear of outsiders influencing how things were. Disgust for “progress,” disgust for pronouns, disgust for sexual interactions with other males. Pride in his country, pride in being a male, and pride in taking nothing from nobody.

“...handsome…masculine…arrogant…” Before this had all began, researchers already knew that many of their victims would end up the same, as the stereotype of the average Republican was firmly held. What they had not predicted however was the amount of people who held hidden desires for this “average Republican.” A hypothesis arose quickly: if the liberal holds stronger prejudices, then they will become a more attractive Republican. “...alpha…virile…superior…” The choice of naming their channel "Silver Fox News" had been an appropriate one.

Richie, or Dick as he would now be referred to, would certainly provide further evidence to support their theory. As the program finished, the new, Republican silver fox readjusted back into reality, finding his best bud Scott standing before him. Dick could not remember what had just happened, but he liked what Scott laid out as a plan for the rest of the day. Work in the garage for a few hours, run out and purchase the new Trump propaganda, and then end the night at a Hooters. Dick could not decide which part of the plan he would enjoy the most, but clutching his massive pouch, he knew which he was most excited for.

[corvidcall]

counterpoint: have you considered maybe saving the scolding until its not. yknow. a year away from the election?

i understand the logic here, and honestly i can't disagree with the idea that you have a moral obligation to vote for the less evil candidate.

but like... the election is 11 months away. OP made this post almost exactly a year before the election. isn't now, during an active genocide, the best possible time to announce that Bidens actions are making you not want to vote for him? If not now, when should I tell Biden that his support of genocide will result in him losing public support? 2025??

the way the system is supposed to work, in theory, is that we vote for a politician to represent our interests, and they are motivated to continue representing our interests instead of just their own because if they do things their constituents don't like, they risk losing their job. Why would they care what you want, if there's never going to be any consequences for ignoring what you want? Especially if, every time they do something you don't support, you loudly announce that you're not going to bring the only real consequence that's built into the system?

I would argue that, sure, maybe you have an obligation to vote for whever is least bad, even if all options are awful. Maybe we should always vote Democrat no matter what because the other option is even worse.

But I would also argue that you have an equally strong moral obligation to never tell them that. What good comes from telling them that they can ignore your wishes because you'll vote for them no matter what? You should be letting your candidates think your vote is entirely dependent on their behavior until the exact fucking second your ballot is in your hand.

Doing anything else is just telling them they can do whatever they want forever. And to announce that now, when the election is months away but a genocide is happening now, is kinda gross. You should keep that to yourself.

sorry but i want to hit every american talking about not wanting to vote democrat anymore with hammers. lol

[mugiwara-lucy]

Hello, everyone! While I am VERY proud of the Democrat voter turnout for Early and Mail In Ballots; here's ANOTHER thing to keep in mind.

Two of the Supreme Court's chairs will be up for grabs and the next president will be able to put in two new justices that are younger. Currently there's a 6-3 demographic in the Whitehouse with 6 being Republican and 3 being Democrat. SHould Kamala win, she can put two more Democrat court younger justices in and we'll be 5-3 (the five being Democrats!) and we'll have a less corrupt SCOTUS.

Should Trump win......he'll stack the Supreme Court with younger justices and the Supreme Court will be locked HARD RIGHT for AT LEAST 30 years.......do we REALLY want that??

And keep in mind, one of the justices (Clarence Thomas) was talking about giving a look at gay marriage if he comes back into office.

And I bet one of the Supreme Court justices that Trump will put will be Aileen Cannon, the person who threw out Trump's stolen documents case. We ALL KNOW he stole those documents for nefarious reasons......do we REALLY want someone like that in office??

Here is the link below to register to vote along with the deadlines varying by state! Also, your own vote isn’t enough! Get as many people as you can to vote for Kamala be it your friends, cousins, parents, grandparents, old friends from high school and college, coworkers, boyfriends, girlfriends, husbands, wives, stepchildren (if they’re 18 and over) and the list goes on and on but every vote counts! ALSO PLEASE check your registration DAILY because MAGA WILL purge your voter registration!!!

And early voting has started! And if you don’t wanna vote on November 5th, Early Voting is another option! Like I said get as many people as you know and try early voting that way you can avoid MAGA fuckery on November 5th! Down below is a list of dates by state:

And Mail in Ballots are ANOTHER option I highly recommend!! And like I said get as many people as you can to take advantage of this option! BUT if you decide to go with Mail In/Absentee Ballots; PLEASE mail your ballots at the ACTUAL USPS office!! That way MAGAts won't fuck with it.

And if you’re an American who lives overseas; PLEASE use the option of voting overseas since I know every country other than North Korea, Russia and China do NOT want to see Trump’s stinky ass back in the Oval Office! Here’s a link below:

Like I said last night....because of Trump's first term, we had Roe v Wade, Affirmative Action and Chevron overturned. I bet all the money in my savings and checking accounts that Interracial Relationships, Women’s right to vote and Gay Rights will be done away with should he be back in office. BET MONEY.

We're doing well....let's NOT get complacent like 2016.

THANK YOU.

[nv-alexander]

About the election:

There was record voter turnout and record numbers of first time voters. This includes early voting.

It can take weeks to count all the ballots including mail-ins and absentees. There is no way the ballots were done being counted enough to call

AP called the race 8 hours after polls closed on the east coast. At the time the race was called, several states had only counted 40-85% of their ESTIMATED votes. AP says right under the election map that their results are based on demographic and statistical analysis of voting patterns in a district, not actual counts.

At the time the race was called, trump had only actually secured about 181 electoral votes. Kamala had secured 224. AP projected trump to win nearly 100 electoral votes he did not actually have at the time the race was called.

Thousands of ballots were thrown out for "signature verification" and over the past year, states have had court cases surrounding where polling places can be (my county shut refused to put in polling places for an entire town). Court cases surrounding legitimacy of absentee votes.

Polling places were shut down for hours at a time because of bomb threats or "technical issues" and the ones in PA opened back up after buses stopped running.

Several states refused federal oversight. Federal oversight of elections is standard practice. There was tampering with ballot boxes.

People have set fire to ballot drop boxes over the past few weeks.

AP called the election while results from many states--swing states specifically--were well within the margin of error, showing a less than 3% lead.

PA voters are currently getting emails saying their ballots were not counted.

Kamala would be the first democratic candidate this century to lose the popular vote. And by 6 million? High voter turnout generally goes in democrats favor. 3rd party votes were not enough to significantly split the vote.

Trump has said in no uncertain terms that he is a dictator and planned to take the election. He said it would be the last election the USA would have.

The Harris campaign rallies were absolutely packed. People were walking out of trumps rallies.

Tens of thousands of white men held phone banks for the harris campaign multiple times. Harris had strong social and political support. Fox News anchors even came to her defense multiple times.

There was confirmed Russian interference in the last 2 presidential elections.

Elon musk was buying votes.

Please, tell me how this whole thing is not suspicious as fuck.

Whitehouse.gov/contact/

Send an email to the president about election security, point out fishy shit, and demand an investigation

[mostlysignssomeportents]

Working class Dems who campaign on economics beat Trumpists in elections

I'm on tour with my new, nationally bestselling novel The Bezzle! Catch me FRIDAY NIGHT (Mar 22) in TORONTO, then SUNDAY (Mar 24) with LAURA POITRAS in NYC, then Anaheim, and more!

The Democratic Party Pizzaburger Theory of Electioneering is: half the electorate wants a pizza, the other half wants a burger, so we'll give them all a pizzaburger and make them all equally dissatisfied, thus winning the election:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/06/16/that-boy-aint-right/#dinos-rinos-and-dunnos

But no one wants a pizzaburger. The Biden administration's approach of letting the Warren/Sanders wing pick the antitrust enforcers while keeping judicial appointments in the Manchin-Synematic universe is a catastrophe in which progressive Dem regulators (who serve one term) are thwarted by corporatist Dem judges (who serve for life):

https://pluralistic.net/2023/07/14/making-good-trouble/#the-peoples-champion

The Democrats – like all parties in two-party systems – are a coalition; in this case, a "progressive" liberal-left coalition with liberals serving as senior partners, steering the party and setting its policies. These corporate dems like to color themselves as "neutral" technocrats with "realistic, apolitical" policies that represent what's best for the country:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/09/05/not-that-naomi/#if-the-naomi-be-klein-youre-doing-just-fine

This sets up the left wing of the party as the starry-eyed, unrealistic radicals whose policies are unpopular and will lose elections. But for a decade, grassroots-funded primary challenges have made it possible to test this theory, by putting leftist politicians on the ballot in front of voters, especially in tight races with far-right Republicans (that is, exactly the kinds of races that the corporate wing of the party says we can't afford to take chances on).

The 2022 midterms included enough races to start testing these theories – and, unlike traditional midterms, these races enjoyed high voter turnout, thanks to the unpopularity of GOP positions like abortion bans, book bans and anti-trans laws. Jacobin teamed up with the Center for Working-Class Politics, Yougov and the Center for Work and Democracy at ASU and analyzed those races:

https://images.jacobinmag.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/03/11134429/CWCP-Report-2024.pdf

Their conclusion: candidates from working-class backgrounds who campaigned on economic policies like high-quality jobs, higher minimum wages, a jobs guarantee, ending offshoring and outsourcing, building infrastructure and bringing manufacturing back to the US won with a 50% share of the vote in rural and working-class districts. Dems who didn't lost with a 35% share of the vote:

https://prospect.org/politics/2024-03-18-how-actually-existing-democrats-run-for-office/

In other words, in the kinds of districts where Trumpist politicians are beating Democrats, running on "left populist" policies beats Trumpist politicians.

That's the good news: if Dems recruit leftist, working class politicians and put them up for office on policies that address the material reality of voters' lives, they can beat fascist GOP candidates.

Now for the bad news: the Democratic establishment has no interest in getting these candidates onto the ballot. Working-class candidates, by definition, lack the networks of deep-pocketed cronies who can fund their primary campaigns. Only 2.3% of Dem candidates come from blue-collar backgrounds (if you include "pink-collar" professions like nursing and teaching, the number goes up to 5.9%):

https://jacobin.com/2024/03/left-populists-working-class-voters

All of this confirms the findings of Trump's Kryoptonite, an earlier Jacobin/CWCP research project that polled working-class voters on preferences for hypothetical candidates, finding that working-class candidates with economically progressive policies handily beat out Republicans, including MAGA Republicans:

https://images.jacobinmag.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/06/08125102/TrumpsKryptonite_Final_June2023.pdf

Since the Clinton-Blair years, "progressives" have abandoned economic populism ("It's not a burning ambition for me to make sure that David Beckham earns less money" -T. Blair) and pursued a "third way" that seeks to replace half the world's of supply white, male oligarchs with diverse oligarchs from a variety of backgrounds and genders. We were told that this was done in the name of winning elections with "modern" policies that replaced old-fashioned ideas about decent pay, decent jobs, and worker power.

These policies have delivered a genocide-riven world on the brink of several kinds of existential catastrophe. They're a failure. The pizzaburger party didn't deliver safety, nor prosperity – and it also can't deliver elections.

Name your price for 18 of my DRM-free ebooks and support the Electronic Frontier Foundation with the Humble Cory Doctorow Bundle.

If you'd like an essay-formatted version of this post to read or share, here's a link to it on pluralistic.net, my surveillance-free, ad-free, tracker-free blog:

https://pluralistic.net/2024/03/20/actual-material-conditions/#bread-and-butter

[rosymaraschino]

I have to reblog this because this take is insane. I have been thinking about it for days. Also it actually makes sense?

Didn’t even think about it but when you do it’s kinda crazy. She’s the goddess of closure, hates people, only cares about herself, is bitter, has a red theme, and her retainer also hates people and wears eyeliner (you rock the eyeliner so much better Elm but this comparison had to be made I’m so sorry)

Anyway, do the Askr and vote blue💙

(Just reblogging a silly but politically relevant take please don’t get angry guys)

I headcanon Embla and Askr divorced because she’s voting for Trump and Askr’s voting for Harris

SHE WOULD NEVER

[andromeda3116]

doing math on voter turnout is making me twitch with fervent hopeless hope bc like

there are now 2.7 million registered voters in harris county, which had a turnout of 66% and went to biden by 56% in 2020

if kamala matches those percentages now, that will account for just shy of a million votes -- more than 300k raw votes more than in 2020

...when trump won texas by around 600k votes

and that's matching those figures -- if turnout is higher, if her margin is higher, that eats sharply away at that margin even more

i'm just... there's a reason she came to houston less than ten days before election day and it wasn't to see the astros

[theonion]

With Americans experiencing long lines in many precincts across the country, an Election Day report has confirmed that high turnout this year can be primarily attributed to large numbers of people mistakenly voting on vending machines. “Projections show that by the time polls close, approximately two-thirds of the U.S. electorate will have turned out and, in their attempt to vote, selected chips, candy, or a soda,” the report issued Tuesday read in part, explaining that millions of registered voters had visited the community centers and church basements where their polling sites were located, automatically proceeded to the nearest vending machine, and, in an effort to fulfill their civic duty, used the keypad to make their choice. Full Story

[reality-detective]

Significant ballot discrepancies have been uncovered in Orange County, California, raising doubts about the integrity of multiple U.S. House races.

In the 2024 election, the number of ballots counted exceeded those returned by an alarming 309,116.

While there were 1,861,450 registered voters, a staggering 1,417,397 ballots were tallied in the presidential race, leading to an unusually high 76.1% voter turnout.

The situation worsened when it was revealed that over 325,000 more ballots were sent out than there are registered voters in the county.

Gavin Newsom in this clip bashed Republican claims of voter fraud in 2021. 🤔

[seannessy]

⚠️POLITICS⚠️

haha bet you forgot through the shitposts that i have a bachelor's degree in political science

here's a bunch of reasons why Kamala Harris is going to win the presidency because i can never find the effort to edit this into a video:👇

1. The current polls are VERY biased towards republicans. Most large polls just take the averages of other smaller polls, and right now the GOP has been dumping LOTS OF MONEY into publishing a lot of fluff polls in swing states to make themselves look better and to get more donations. Democrats don't usually publish their polls publicly. Odds are it's another red mirage.

2. The majority of people who Trump is catering to just don't vote. A lot of the latest pushes in the Aiden Ross Gamerbro communities are not reliable voters, even as loud as they are online. You cannot convince me that the twitter edgelord crowd has ever even seen a ballot in their lives.

3. In elections canvassing matters by about 300% more than advertising (my own ballpark estimate, not a specific datapoint, but still very true having worked in both canvassing and campaign marketing). The only people signing up to canvass for Trump are just stealing Elon's money, meanwhile people are flying out from all 50 states to swing states to canvass for Kamala.

4. "This is Hillary Clinton all over again." No it isn't. Hundreds of papers have been published that all agree that the reason Hillary lost (besides the Michigan debacle) was that largely a lot of people already assumed she was going to win, and so they didn't go out to vote. Sean Westwood did a really good paper on this in 2018, the more likely you are expected to win, the less of your supporters turn out. The entire narrative is that Kamala is either tied or behind, so anyone who supports her will NOT be sitting this one out.

5. Kamala just did a MASSIVE rally event in Texas. Texas. In this part of the campaign, any sane strategist would tell you to do ALL campaigning in the swing states, so this makes no sense... unless internal democrat polls are saying that Texas is now winnable for democrats. I will remind you that Texas is not NEARLY as red as the stereotype says, and Greg Abbot has himself previously said that Texas would have gone blue if not for all of the voter suppression he did. I'm not joking. This is real. The only reason Texas is still Lean Red instead of Moderate Blue is because of insane levels of voter suppression by Texas GOP.

6. When turnout is low, republicans win. When turnout is high, democrats win. Turnout is already STUPIDLY high in the early voting metrics. Even higher than 2020 (which i will remind you, we won) in some cases.

7. Voter demographics just aren't on Trump's side here. Lots of republicans have bled out of Trumpism, and in a close enough race as this one looks to be even a few thousand republicans deciding to stay home could make or break it in a lot of states. Additionally, while Trump has made a lot of progress in minority voters (daily reminder that the median voter is stupid enough for "median voter" to be used as a slur in political science communities), Kamala has the white woman vote locked down. And oh no! Look at that! Which voter demographic is orders of magnitudes both larger and more active voters than all of the minority demographics that Trump has been gaining in? Yep! Kamala's lead in the white woman demographic has entirely erased Trump's gains in other communities. Abortion was the final nail in the coffin of republican chances, they took the mask off too early. The dog caught the car and didn't know what to do with it.

8. Voter demographics are STILL not on Trump's side even ignoring all that other stuff, because keep in mind, Trump voters have largely been older people, and the waves of people who elected him previously have... well they've kind of died. Covid really didn't help with that. I mean obviously not everyone, but like, this is a close race, and a very large chunk of those voters have been reincarnated as plants or whatever now.

9. "The X Factor" is 100% on Kamala's side. By that I mean just the force of raw charisma, the Kamala campaign is just more appealing and less unnerving to the general population. I really hate to keep hammering this but oh my god dude have you SEEN JD Vance????? Even after the debate where he performed as best as he possibly could and Walz performed as bad as he possibly could, samples STILL said they supported Walz over Vance by a factor of 85 PERCENT.

10. "The Shy Trump Effect." There's a myth a lot of people believe that Trump underperforms in polls and overperforms in elections because voters are shy to admit they're fans of him. A few things. #1: This was disproved so many times, including in Sean Westwood's previously mentioned paper. #2: Even after it's disproved, many polls already factor it into their calculations, which is actually INFLATING his odds in the polls. #3: Anyone who would have been a Shy Trump Supporter either just isn't going to vote this election cycle or is going to follow the Cheney's lead and vote for Kamala instead. This is probably the one election in our entire lives where Democrats have appealed to the right and it actually fucking worked.

11. Polymarket. A lot of people point to the new Polymarket as evidence that Trump has a lot of support among the average joe crowd. These people have no idea how the Polymarket works. American citizens legally can't bet in it, and the only way to get around that is by using Crypto. How many tech illiterate boomers do you think are going to know how to use both Crypto and a VPN? All of Trump's support there is coming from techbro whales or people in other countries. Infact, I think the number was that about a whopping 30% of all bets made on the side of Trump were sourced back to this one French Billionaire.

That being said, it's not a predetermined victory. Currently I'd put the odds at anywhere between 60-40 and 70-30 in favor of Kamala, but that still leaves Trump plenty of room.

The moral of the story is that things aren't hopeless! We have a very good shot at winning--as long as we all keep pushing like hell!

Oh also, if they try another Jan 6th, reminder that Biden is now the one in control of the military and national guard at the capital. Lol, Lmao, even.