Why the MI Electors Should Not Be Counted On Dec 18th
With recount efforts now underway in Michigan - election officials have discovered something strange going on in Wayne County, the home of Detroit, and the largest single county in the state.
In hundreds of precincts, there appear to be discrepancies between the number of ballots issued on election day and the number of ballots recorded in voting machine printouts, probably caused by electronic vote counting machines not working properly in poor neighborhoods on Election Day.
Such widespread problems with electronic machines is a big enough story on its own, but what makes this a bigger deal is a Michigan law that says precincts with discrepancies between issued ballots and recorded ballots are ineligible for a statewide recount.
As the Detroit News reports, this means that
"One-third of precincts in Wayne County could [now] be disqualified from an unprecedented statewide recount… Most of those are in heavily Democratic Detroit, where the number of ballots in precinct poll books did not match those of voting machine printout reports in 59 percent of precincts."
This is obviously terrible news for Democrats.
Any real hope they had of using the recount to flip Michigan from red to blue depended on discovering new votes in Wayne County, and that's just not going to happen if one third of Wayne County precincts are disqualified.
And even if new votes are discovered, they'll be nullified by the losses from the excluded precincts.
This is about more than just one party's electoral hopes, though.
It's about the integrity of the entire election process.
The courts already effectively said there was good reason to double check the legitimacy of Michigan's election results by allowing the recount to go forward.
So if wide swathes of Wayne County aren't included in the recount because the Republican-controlled state put old and defective vote-counting machines in mostly-Black neighborhoods, and therefore those votes won't be counted, what's the point of having a recount at all?
And why should anyone accept the results?
Luckily, there's an easy solution to this: we exclude Michigan's electors from casting their 16 electoral votes in the electoral college votes for Donald Trump.
At this point, that's the only fair thing to do.
Comments
I agree. Or get a federal judge to over rule state law.
Wondering if it was republicans involved in the writing of such an outlandish law. Seems when there is a distortion of truth, the GOP, is involved.
Man, ain't that the truth! Constantly lying and cheating and muddling the news cycle about almost everything that really matters -- from healthcare, taxes, debt, regulations, the economy, war, climate change, to you name it -- is the only way Republicans can "win" elections. Now their top dog is a narcissistic pathological liar with his grubby little hands on all the main levers of power. The rest of the human race should be very worried!
"Such widespread problems with electronic machines is a big enough story on its own, but what makes this a bigger deal is a Michigan law that says precincts with discrepancies between issued ballots and recorded ballots are ineligible for a statewide recount."
That's just contributing to having illegalities. When was that made a law in MI?
Thom, what a great idea you have!!! - then don't count any of the MI electoral votes!
If the judge already said the count should go forward, couldn't he make the provision in an addendum?
I have been receiving messages from Jill Stein on how it is going. Of course - she is trying to raise another $3.5M - as the total cost has risen to $9.5M. She cites getting help from 2 judges.
I am having much more faith in Jill Stein than I had before. She is taking the bull by the horns and doing something.
Isn't it interesting that Trump said that the election is rigged - and now when the chance of making sure that the voting was counted and conducted correctly - he is fighting it? How many times and ways can that man lie??
Is Pennsylvania out of the picture now, or is there still a chance the courts can give a go ahead before it's too late?
In Michigan (and USA): 1. Throw the voting machines in the garbage. 2. Go back to paper. 3. Exclude Michigan from Electorial Votes like you said.
Just read an AP blurb report: A U.S. District Judge stopped the recount in Michigan in its tracks; another District judge scheduled a hearing Friday for Pennsylvania only 4 days before the states have to file their election certifications; Wisconsin is 70 percent through their recount with only 82 new-found votes for Clinton. Corporate media are still ignoring all the evidence of "Crosscheck" purged voters, spoiled ballots, voter-machine shenanigans, and the history of massive election fraud, etc.
Fascism marches on...
Makes me sick. I am so sick of the republicans in michigan. Their lame duck legislation is trying to take away pensions an health care away from teachers, police officers and fire fighters. What they are trying to do is discourage democratic voters from even voting. Hell if your vote does not get couted why vote.
Crosscheck is being treated like it's just a concocted left-wing fairy tale. You don't hear a peep about it from the corpse media, which is kind of expected, but not a word from high ranking dems either.
If the dems would just constantly repeat these two truths...The republicans sent your jobs overseas, and the republicans want to end social security and medicare as we know it......the tide would turn. For god sakes it only took the republicans two propaganda words repeated over and over...Benghazi and emails to get close enough to pull off election fraud.
Speak simple and carry a big stick!..otherwise we alienate those we need to reach most.
What makes me so angry about this is that it's the Michigan Legislature pissing on the citizens of a black Majority city again. First it was Flint, which cried out for 18 months before anyone seriously paid attention, and even then our screwed up Congress couldn't decide for several more months whether or not to authorize some spending to fix all those lead pipes. Now it's Detroit, and a possibly an entire city disenfranchised if the Electors don't act and refuse to cast Michigan's votes. Detroit needs to revote with the best machines available, and THEN count the vote.
I agree that Jill Stein is really making her mark with this voting controversy, but where is Hillary, who wanted to be President so badly? Will she stand up for the black voters of Detroit? Bubba was so 'in' with African Americans when he was President, and now the Clintons sit in silence.
Thom says in this blog that because MI has this law that any voting irregularities discovered will disqualify that county for any recount, that this crushes any Democratic hopes of changing the outcome of the election.
Where did Thom get this notion that this recount was about changing the outcome of the election? This is a Right-wing talking point that is causing A LOT of angst and abusive division on the internet.
There is a video on YT where one of the heads of the committee tasked with doing the recount clearly states that the purpose of the recount is NOT to change the outcome of the election, but rather to identify (1) if there were any irregularities, (2) to identify how the irregularities were accomplished, and (3) to take corrective measures in an effort to ensure that future elections in that area/precinct are clean, fair, and honest. Go here:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rMEOcuAyHZM&t=11s
Why is Thom giving out this Right-wing TV rhetoric as gospel truth when a key member of the recount team has gone onto YT to tell people what they were doing and why they were doing it?
Instead of making assumed, unfounded and incorrect allegations, Thom needs to do a better job of researching the subject, and if that is not possible, to refrain from making assertions as if they are valid and accurate.
No wonder people on the internet think this is about changing the Trump win. It wouldn't have mattered anyway. The Electoral College put Trump into office over and beyond the populace vote.
Then judge's ruling that the recount shouldn't continue because Jill doesn't have standing, as a candidate who couldn't possibly be "aggrieved" because she couldn't possibly win, shows another flaw in the way we activists have to go about verifying our elections (it's sadistic and deliberately imposed.) It should be we, the voters, who have standing as the aggrieved parties! Our votes are being mashed, stolen, eaten, robbed, flipped, fractionalized - OUR votes! We are the aggrieved! But for US to bring suit? That was never offered as an option; it was always, legally, "Well a candidate has to come forward." Talk about goalpost movement! Thank you, Thom, for covering the slow train wreck of this election for years and interviewing the many people who saw it coming. The mainstream media has to do the same. Their crisis coverage finally made it forward from page 17 or so. But crisis coverage is not enough. We are being gaslighted, every election, and the nation is going insane because of it!!!!!
Now the orange fruitcake is blaming the president of the United Steelworkers 1999 union in Indiana for United Technologies' decision to move jobs to Mexico. Yup, kick down at the unions and kiss up to the corporations. Anyone who voted for this demented pervert, thinking he's on the side of working people, deserves to lose their job.
I clicked on a link about voter fraud and got connected with a page with a picture of Hillary Clinton that zoomed and stuck there with a little box at the top containing a guy claiming that the recount in Pennsylvania was showing that Hillary lost by an even larger margin than we thought. Meanwhile, a little arrow was bouncing all over my screen as the computer refused to respond.
So ... to the hacker who resembles someone in my own world who would have an investment in serving and preserving corrupt status quo in that state ( all the way to the top of the Temple ) ... wake up, bud, your truth is a lie. That landslide you are claiming is about to erupt into an avalanche of all those lies crumbling to dust.
... are you sure that is where you want to stand?
...?
"An updated count Monday by state election officials showed Trump’s lead shrinking to 47,750 over Clinton, out of 6 million votes cast, as more counties finished counting overseas ballots and settled provisional ballot challenges. That is still shy of Pennsylvania’s 0.5 percent trigger for an automatic statewide recount. Final counts are outstanding in some counties, but there are not enough uncounted votes to change the outcome, officials say."http://www.cbsnews.com/news/recount-latest-wisconsin-michigan-pennsylvan...
It is so obvious that the electoral system in this country is too full of holes to really hold water. (( Add to that, the willingness to lie, cheat. steal, torture, rape, murder, suppress and exploit others is what sours the broth ... any chance we get past that one, this time around ...? I'm not taking any bets. ))
It is the heights of irony that this country insists on observing elections in other nations to insure fairness and accuracy when, here at home, ...
... well, I guess the question now would be what to do about it ....
Monday Dec 19th is the day the electorial college certifies the election results. Objections have to be signed by House members and counter signed by a member of the Senate. Whether we like it or not the country is stuck with Donald Trump. It is like George Carlin once said, "The fix is in the game is rigged, it's a big club and you ain't in it! You and I are not in the big club!"
Not having the MI electors vote this month looks like the only valid solution to the electronic votes problem discovered in Wayne County. The frustrating thing is I don't see that happening. We've had problems with electronic voting from the very beginning, but no one seems to be trying to fix it before the next election. I would have thought, with the vote hacking of 2000, that states would have switched to paper ballots everywhere. Electronic voting guarantees the rigging of elections. I didn't think I could feel so hopeless.
Assume you are correct and you are able to randomly disenfranchise all those poor underprivileged MI voters.
That leaves the original 270 needed to elect minus the 16 votes from MI equals 254 needed to become POTUS.
Trump got 306-16 from MI=290 needed to win.
Trump wins election by 58 votes.
A landslide.
Good luck with your pitiful efforts.
Clearly, you are correct on michigan. Further, all electors should have the power to vote for Clinton if Trump insists on violating the Emolument clause of the constitution in his Dec. 15 announcement. The president and\or his family should not be in the position to threaten, defend or accept benefit from a foreign government.
Political Broad:
Michigan votes entirely using paper ballots.
Chris Thomas, the longtime director of Michigan's Bureau of Elections, said Michigan doesn't use the electronic voting machines identified in the report as being the sources of potential hacking.
"We are an entire paper and optical scan state," Thomas told the Free Press Wednesday. "Nothing is connected to the Internet."
http://www.freep.com/story/news/politics/2016/11/23/michigan-elections-director-casts-doubt-hacking-claim/94327842/
Also if you need more proof see the link below.
http://heavy.com/news/2016/11/wisconsin-recount-filed-results-election-2...
The primary issue is that Republican elected officials and their armies of slimy operatives, from Secretaries of State, state legislatures, and even city councils, all the way up to a wink and nod from the U.S. Congress itself, are deliberately corrupting the voting process in every possible way to favor their side of the aisle, and they have been doing so for a long, long time.
Coupled to a compliant corporate media and Democratic strategists too timid to stick their political necks out for fear it will reduce voter turnout even more, the Republics are winning time after time, especially at the state level. In effect, for all intents and purposes, we're fast devolving into a one-party system, which is yet another critical hallmark in the slide to fascism.
Thank you, Thom for this important information. My friend was helping with the MI recount in Wayne County and witnessed this very situation! I was making arrangements to go to Detroit when the recount was stopped. We are trying to get out a NYT and HuffPo story about an elector who will not vote for trump; this article is thoughtful and well-written (however, isn't clear who will get his vote). But his rationale is excellent especially from a Constitutionality standpoint. We are sending these links to news outlets, Congress, friends; also posting on FB and Twitter. Please post the links prominently at your website and mention on air. Again, thanks for all you do - you are the voice of sanity during these crazy scary times!
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/elector-christopher-suprun-vote-against-trump_us_5845f542e4b028b32338ff97 http://www.nytimes.com/2016/12/05/opinion/why-i-will-not-cast-my-electoral-vote-for-donald-trump.html?mwrsm=Email
MI electors?? The entire election is now invalid! See: http://www.bostonglobe.com/news/world/2016/12/09/cia-says-russia-favored...
Pass it on! The 2016 Presidential Election was thrown. The results MUST NOT STAND!
You people are gonna have a really tough eight years. Suck it up, organize, or take a lot of prescription drugs purchased in Canada.
The 2024 election is just 8 years away.
...Always so full of not-so-clever, sneering advice for those who must endure the consequences of your truly ignorant vote and contemptible support of the biggest buffoon with the lowest IQ in the history of politics ever to be installed as "President," against the explicit will of the People. Nice.
Your preferred candidate says more about you than him. It is you, dear, who should ask your therapist to either increase your medications or reduce them; clearly, the current dosages are not working for you.
Wisconsin recount ends. Trump GAINS 162 votes.
(AP) Republican Donald Trump’s victory in Wisconsin was reaffirmed Monday following a recount that showed him defeating Democrat Hillary Clinton by more than 22,000 votes.
http://www.breitbart.com/2016-presidential-race/2016/12/12/wisconsin-rec...
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I don't suppose there's anything in the Constitution to allow delaying the inauguration until Michigan can re-vote, under close supervision. It seems to me, that would be the only fair thing to do.