Democrats Get CRUSHED in 2018 Midterms!

[Ten oz]

13 hours ago, iNow said:

You raise good points. Game theory suggests that the cheaters will keep winning against the side that keeps playing fair. 

Heres a super cool interactive about exactly this issue called The Evolution of Trust:  https://ncase.me/trust/

Interesting visualization. Copycat beats Cheat in the long run but to do so Copycat needs to be willing to cheat when cheated.

[StringJunky]

16 hours ago, iNow said:

You raise good points. Game theory suggests that the cheaters will keep winning against the side that keeps playing fair. 

Heres a super cool interactive about exactly this issue called The Evolution of Trust:  https://ncase.me/trust/

This ignores the real world external influences that can bias which strategy is better, as in Evolution. Although the article title weighs against co-operation, if you read it, it''s much more nuanced.

https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/game-theory-calls-cooperation-into-question1/

 

 

Edited November 10, 2018 by StringJunky

[Ten oz]

2 minutes ago, StringJunky said:

This ignores the real world external influences that can bias which strategy is better, as in Evolution.

 

 

The basic principles still stand though. If one fails to respond when being taken advantage of they are sure to continue losing. 

[dimreepr]

3 hours ago, Ten oz said:

Interesting visualization. Copycat beats Cheat in the long run but to do so Copycat needs to be willing to cheat when cheated.

 

Cheat is beaten by fair because the cheat never provides... 

Edited November 10, 2018 by dimreepr

[Ten oz]

FL consistently has problems every election. Since the results for national offices (house, Senate, POTUS) impact everyone and not only Floridians I think it is time the federal government steps in. There should be intensive criminal investigations into the way FL manages their elections and demands placed on them to ensure fair elections ahead of 2020. 

Quote

 

The county played a key role in the famous 2000 presidential election, when the close race between George W. Bush and Al Gore went all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court in part because of reports that “hanging chads” on some paper ballots meant that votes may have been incorrectly disqualified. The Court ultimately stopped the recount of ballots in Broward and three other counties, making Bush president.

Since then, Broward also saw issues when it lost some absentee ballots during the 2004 presidential election, according to the Washington Post. More recently, the office of Broward County Elections Supervisor Brenda Snipes destroyed physical ballots after the 2016 election while saving digital copies — a move that a court ruled violated Florida law.

http://time.com/5450501/florida-recount-2018/

 

 

[iNow]

 

On 11/9/2018 at 3:25 PM, Ten oz said:

As the dust begins to settle and it looks like Democrats will have won nearly 40 house seats,  millions of more votes in every type of race (House, Senate, Governor), and there is a chance depending of the outcome in AZ and FL that there is no change in the Senate are you feeling anymore encouraged?

The battle in Florida continues (where the GOP wants to seize then impound voting machines and stop vote counting more broadly through their many lawsuits), but the strength of the night Democrats had seems to continue growing.

 

https://www.nytimes.com/2018/11/13/us/politics/midterm-results-democratic-gains.html

Quote

What looked at first like a modest Democratic majority in the House has grown into a stronger one: The party has gained 32 seats so far and appears on track to gain between 35 and 40 once all the counting is complete.

And Democratic losses in the Senate look less serious than they did a week ago, after Kyrsten Sinema was declared the winner in Arizona on Monday. It now looks like the party is likely to lose a net of one or two seats, rather than three or four as they feared last Tuesday.

 

[Phi for All]

9 minutes ago, iNow said:

The battle in Florida continues (where the GOP wants to seize then impound voting machines and stop vote counting more broadly through their many lawsuits), but the strength of the night Democrats had seems to continue growing.

https://www.vox.com/2018/11/12/18087224/trump-conspiracy-theory-florida-recount

This is one of the most disheartening aspects of the Trump presidency. His outrageousness and the sorry state of our media allows him to lie about fraudulent voting, while law enforcement officials shake their heads and try to reassure the People that they've been doing their jobs, and there's nothing to investigate. There's zero accountability from the WH, and people are dying from the conspiracies he spreads. Truly one of the saddest points in our democratic history.

[Raider5678]

18 minutes ago, Phi for All said:

Truly one of the saddest points in our democratic history.

Seriously, it's not that bad. I mean, it's bad, but let's be realistic. I could name at least 100 times that have been far worse than this.

 

 

Also, an update, I've reviewed several of the different areas that Democrats and Republicans are claiming voter suppression/fraud, and I've basically ruled out every state except 2 for MAJOR effects that could change who actually won: Florida and Georgia. Both of them appear to be leaning towards the fraud/suppression benefiting Republicans overall, however, that's not to say that there weren't definitely attempts on both sides to do those things, particularly in Florida.

Meaning I've ruled off since last time:

North Dakoda, which had Voter Suppression from the Democrats, but probably not enough to have significantly changed the election.

Texas, which had Voter Suppression from Republicans, however nowhere near enough to change the election. There were issues with the voting machines saying the votes were cast towards the wrong candidate, however for multiple reasons I'm saying that's just because the state government is too lazy to update them, not that they're leaning one way or another. The media reported mainly on the fact that those who voted for the Democratic Senator had their ballots show up as Republican, however, when you look into it ballots cast for Ted Cruz also showed up as cast for the Democratic Senator. Additionally, because the screen at the end told them very straightforward "Congratulations on supporting candidate X", it was very obvious when there was an error and those were simply accounted for when the votes were counted.

Edited November 13, 2018 by Raider5678

[dimreepr]

24 minutes ago, Raider5678 said:

Seriously, it's not that bad. I mean, it's bad, but let's be realistic. I could name at least 100 times that have been far worse than this.

 

It's been worse, but then war's a bitch...

Edited November 13, 2018 by dimreepr

[Raider5678]

1 minute ago, dimreepr said:

It's been worse, but then war's a bitch...

Fair enough.

Ironically, a study held found that only 38% of Americans think we're better off today than 50 years ago.

50 years ago we were fighting the Vietnam war, LGBTQ+ had absolutely no rights, there were race riots, racism was much worse, we didn't have computers, medical science was nowhere near as advanced, the standard of living was much lower, and the ability for us to learn anything we needed to at any moment(the internet) didn't exist. 

People are so pessimistic.

[Ten oz]

31 minutes ago, Phi for All said:

https://www.vox.com/2018/11/12/18087224/trump-conspiracy-theory-florida-recount

This is one of the most disheartening aspects of the Trump presidency. His outrageousness and the sorry state of our media allows him to lie about fraudulent voting, while law enforcement officials shake their heads and try to reassure the People that they've been doing their jobs, and there's nothing to investigate. There's zero accountability from the WH, and people are dying from the conspiracies he spreads. Truly one of the saddest points in our democratic history.

More disheartening to me is the fact that as Governor Scott spent years directly influencing who could and couldn't viote which directly favored him yet is now crying foul. It disgusts me. Trump talking sh*# is just him trying to whip up support for himself. Control the spin. Trump does it in a irresponsible way but  general terms such rhetoric is common  Scott gamed the system and may very well be rewarded for it. Scott and Kemp's situations are unique in that both were able to administratively manipulate the voter pools they used in their own elections. Very bad stuff. 

Quote

During his nearly eight years as governor, Scott restored the voting rights of twice as many whites as blacks and three times as many white men as black men.Scott restored rights to a higher percentage of Republicans and a lower percentage of Democrats than any of his predecessors since 1971. Here

 

 

[StringJunky]

44 minutes ago, Phi for All said:

https://www.vox.com/2018/11/12/18087224/trump-conspiracy-theory-florida-recount

This is one of the most disheartening aspects of the Trump presidency. His outrageousness and the sorry state of our media allows him to lie about fraudulent voting, while law enforcement officials shake their heads and try to reassure the People that they've been doing their jobs, and there's nothing to investigate. There's zero accountability from the WH, and people are dying from the conspiracies he spreads. Truly one of the saddest points in our democratic history.

On the Reuters website, very frequently, one reads: " Trump raged/moaned on Twitter that... blah, blah, blah... with no evidence". 

[Raider5678]

2 minutes ago, Ten oz said:

More disheartening to me is the fact that as Governor Scott spent years directly influencing who could and couldn't viote which directly favored him yet is now crying foul. It disgusts me. Trump talking sh*# is just him trying to whip up support for himself. Control the spin. Trump does it in a irresponsible way but  general terms such rhetoric is common  Scott gamed the system and may very well be rewarded for it. Scott and Kemp's situations are unique in that both were able to administratively manipulate the voter pools they used in their own elections. Very bad stuff. 

3

Still, he did play a large part in restoring voting rights to 1.4 million felons in Florida by getting it onto the ballot, something you massively complained about earlier.

I see that as at least one good thing that he did.

1 minute ago, StringJunky said:

On the Reuters website, very frequently, one reads: " Trump raged/moaned on Twitter that... blah, blah, blah... with no evidence". 

I agree largely with Ben Shapiro on Trump. Which is basically this.

[CharonY]

33 minutes ago, Raider5678 said:

Still, he did play a large part in restoring voting rights to 1.4 million felons in Florida by getting it onto the ballot, something you massively complained about earlier.

I see that as at least one good thing that he did

You make it sound as if it was something done by Rick Scott. In fact Scott, and DeSantis have maintained that an restoring their rights would treat felons too leniently (check some Floridian newspapers for that). From what I understand it was put on a ballot backed by a grass root movement which collected sufficient petitions. There was bipartisan support from the ACLU and some Koch-backed organization, though.

[Ten oz]

8 minutes ago, Raider5678 said:

Still, he did play a large part in restoring voting rights to 1.4 million felons in Florida by getting it onto the ballot, something you massively complained about earlier.

I see that as at least one good thing that he did.

 

I have no idea where you got your information from.

https://www.tampabay.com/florida-politics/buzz/2018/04/18/rick-scott-has-made-enemies-over-voting-rights-during-the-last-eight-years/

2 minutes ago, CharonY said:

You make it sound as if it was something done by Rick Scott. In fact Scott, and DeSantis have maintained that an restoring their rights would treat felons too leniently (check some Floridian newspapers for that). From what I understand it was put on a ballot backed by a grass root movement collected sufficient petitions. There was bipartisan support from the ACLU and some Koch-backed organization, though.

Scott's use of the law was determined to be unconstitutional in federal court. He was instructed  to return rights to people and he refused. Scott has been fighting for the practice. 

[CharonY]

1 hour ago, Raider5678 said:

Also, an update, I've reviewed several of the different areas that Democrats and Republicans are claiming voter suppression/fraud, and I've basically ruled out every state

Without detailed demographic info to identify trends and irregularities it is impossible to even guess at the state of suppression, much less rule anything out.

 

1 hour ago, Raider5678 said:

North Dakoda, which had Voter Suppression from the Democrats, but probably not enough to have significantly changed the election.

What are you referring to? The only high-profile cases I have heard of in ND where Republican changes so that a full street address is required for voting. That, in turn disproportionately affected Native American voters. Or are you including misleading facebook ads? Those seem to be quite a recent trend, often from unknown sources, but bad as they are, they do not implement rules to alter ones ability to vote.

Voter suppression in Texas is also centered around ID laws and restricting early voting. 

13 minutes ago, Ten oz said:

Scott's use of the law was determined to be unconstitutional in federal court. He was instructed  to return rights to people and he refused. Scott has been fighting for the practice. 

Yes indeed. Also in cases where he allowed restitution, it benefited a disproportionate amount of white felons. 

[Phi for All]

1 hour ago, Raider5678 said:

Seriously, it's not that bad. I mean, it's bad, but let's be realistic. I could name at least 100 times that have been far worse than this.

This is whataboutism. The GOP has learned to mimic Putin's tactics in using it against democracy. Another blow to our information process, and one that's hard to forgive. 

[Raider5678]

1 hour ago, CharonY said:

You make it sound as if it was something done by Rick Scott. In fact Scott, and DeSantis have maintained that an restoring their rights would treat felons too leniently (check some Floridian newspapers for that). From what I understand it was put on a ballot backed by a grass root movement which collected sufficient petitions. There was bipartisan support from the ACLU and some Koch-backed organization, though.

It was not done by Rick Scott, however, if Rick Scott had even slightly wanted to prevent this, he could have. Hence, he definitely played a part in it being on the ballot. Governors have quite a bit of power, as well as often being the head of the political party in that state. 

1 hour ago, Ten oz said:

I have no idea where you got your information from.

Rick Scott approved it being on the ballot. If he as Governor, which he had the power to do, had decided to fight it, I highly doubt it would have been on the ballot, considering Republicans Controlled the Legislature and the Governor seat. Your link didn't even touch into the Amendment, and I see absolutely no reason it even pertains to what I said.

I did not say Rick Scott approved more people to vote than others. I simply said that he played a part in restoring the voting rights to Felons. Unless you have evidence that Rick Scott opposed this, other than your own personal beliefs creating facts, I don't believe that Rick Scott fought the Amendment.

1 hour ago, CharonY said:

What are you referring to? The only high-profile cases I have heard of in ND where Republican changes so that a full street address is required for voting. That, in turn disproportionately affected Native American voters. Or are you including misleading facebook ads? Those seem to be quite a recent trend, often from unknown sources, but bad as they are, they do not implement rules to alter ones ability to vote.

I'm including several things. First of all, while there was the major outcry that Republicans were preventing Native Americans from voting, it was simply not true.

Even Heitkamp, the Democratic Senator, pointed out that "while there have been some changes in North Dakota's voting laws, I want everyone to know that voting is still easy here."

The media freaked out, claiming that Native Americans wouldn't be able to vote because they don't have a street address, they left out the fact that Native Americans can simply show a tribal letter and they'd be allowed to vote. Basically, the Democrats lied to everyone saying that Native Americans wouldn't be able to vote when they'd be able to vote the same way they were able to vote before. 

If anything, Democrats hurt the Native American voters more then Republicans because Democrats complained how they wouldn't be able to vote, while Republicans spent money to notify the Native Americans that they would, in fact, be able to vote. In both legal code, and actions, the Republicans are not preventing Native Americans from voting in North Dakota. In fact, the Supreme court even refused to overturn it, not because it was a Republican Majority, but because it did not, in fact, prevent Native Americans from Voting.

Additionally, there were disinformation campaigns on facebook trying to discourage voters in North Dakota from voting if they owned an out of state hunting license, something that's an outright lie. Why would someone run a campaign like that? To keep people from voting by making them think they weren't allowed to. Additionally, unsurprisingly, a majority of hunters are Republican, so it would disproportionately affect Republicans. Now, as for the people who funded the add, it was the North Dakota Democratic NPL.

Hence, this is why I ruled out North Dakota.

1 hour ago, Phi for All said:

This is whataboutism. The GOP has learned to mimic Putin's tactics in using it against democracy. Another blow to our information process, and one that's hard to forgive. 

You may continue to believe that but it doesn't make it true. This is not one of the darkest times in American history, far from it. 

Edited November 13, 2018 by Raider5678

[CharonY]

43 minutes ago, Raider5678 said:

It was not done by Rick Scott, however, if Rick Scott had even slightly wanted to prevent this, he could have.

Since you seem to be familiar with the process (and I am not) could you point out how the rules in Florida are and what the powers of the governor are and how he could prevented it? As a side note, assuming it is as you say, it is still clear that Rick Scott was against the measure. That fact at least is well documented.

Quote

One of the amendments that has gotten the attention of the Florida governor is Amendment Four, known as the voter restoration amendment. It gives convicted felons who served their time, except felons of sex crimes and homicides voting rights. Gov. Rick Scott has made statements opposing the measure saying, “If you are a convicted felon part of what you did is you lose your rights and there ought to be a process to get those rights back. I think it is fair to the rest of the citizens of the state.”

That and his record dismantling a previous process and systematically denying restitution makes it pretty clear, even from a cursory reading, that this is far beyond just my "own personal beliefs creating facts". Rather it is what is called "context". And as Ten Oz already mentioned, Rick Scott appealed a federal Judge's ruling that they had to overhaul  the system as the process was arbitrary and basically prevented from folks getting their rights back. Any such background info would make the assumption that he was instrumental in the process suspect. More likely scenarios is either he could not prevent it, or preventing it would have caused too much political backlash. Crediting him for it is odd, to say the least. Again, context.

 

48 minutes ago, Raider5678 said:

I'm including several things. First of all, while there was the major outcry that Republicans were preventing Native Americans from voting, it was simply not true.

You are asserting this. However, it seems that Native American communities to take actions in order to get their votes out. This measures include handing out free Ids, putting educational forces on the ground to help folks navigate the requirements and so on. 

 

1 hour ago, Raider5678 said:

The media freaked out, claiming that Native Americans wouldn't be able to vote because they don't have a street address, they left out the fact that Native Americans can simply show a tribal letter and they'd be allowed to vote.

The fact that they had to go through additional hurdles is what suppression is all about. Also the media clearly did not left that part out.

Quote

"Bret Healy, a consultant for Four Directions, which is led by members of South Dakota's Rosebud Sioux Tribe, said the organization believes it has a common-sense solution.

"The group is working with tribal leaders in North Dakota to have a tribal government official available at every polling place on reservations to issue a tribal voting letter that includes the eligible voter's name, date of birth and residential address."

Again, contextual reading into what voter suppression is clearly indicates a system where certain groups are systematically disadvantaged when they try to exert their right to vote. This can include things like having polling stations far away from their place, restriction mail-in and early votes (if those are used differently by different demographics), as well as requirement of additional ID which certain folks may have a harder access getting (even if it is something like fees). Looking at how things went it is clear that Native Americans had to clear an additional hurdle to get their votes in. And that is classic voter suppression.

Misinformation is also an issue, but it is not state or federally mandated and hence in a entirely different league. However, there were many, many robo-calls and facebook ads with blatant lies around and at least in the presidential election it came out that quite a few were thrown in from foreign operatives. While this is clearly an attack of democracy, it is not the same mechanisms or issue as state mandated rules that makes it harder for folks to vote (under the guise of fraud prevention for which there is still no evidence). I hope you can see the difference here.

As a side note it should be noted that there was a District Court blocking the implementation of the Id laws, but that was overthrown but that was blocked in Appeals Court. The request for the Supreme Court was to throw out the stay, but the court denied without explanation (thought there was a dissent from Ginsburg and Kagan). So far, however, I have not seen evidence that Native Americans were not disporportionately targeted by these measures. 

[Phi for All]

1 hour ago, Raider5678 said:

It was not done by Rick Scott, however, if Rick Scott had even slightly wanted to prevent this, he could have. Hence, he definitely played a part in it being on the ballot. Governors have quite a bit of power, as well as often being the head of the political party in that state. 

So those who don't oppose something definitely play a part in making it happen? 

[Ten oz]

16 hours ago, Raider5678 said:

Rick Scott approved it being on the ballot. If he as Governor, which he had the power to do, had decided to fight it, I highly doubt it would have been on the ballot, considering Republicans Controlled the Legislature and the Governor seat. Your link didn't even touch into the Amendment, and I see absolutely no reason it even pertains to what I said.

I did not say Rick Scott approved more people to vote than others. I simply said that he played a part in restoring the voting rights to Felons. Unless you have evidence that Rick Scott opposed this, other than your own personal beliefs creating facts, I don't believe that Rick Scott fought the Amendment

You were provided an opportunity to clarify your position. Instead you repeated the same false information. As Gov. Scott didn't play a role in Amendment 4. An advocacy group collected the needed signatures under state law to get it placed on the ballot, Here. As CharonY already pointed out. The link I provided showed Rick Scott Pushing back in court to continue to block restoration of voting rights after a federal judge ruled Florida's process unconstitutional. That ruling and Scott's response happened after Amendment 4 had won approval to be on the ballot. So Scott clearly opposed Amendment 4. 

[CharonY]

18 hours ago, Phi for All said:

So those who don't oppose something definitely play a part in making it happen? 

Also, it does not seem that the governor in Florida actually has veto powers in these instances which would make the claim even more ridiculous.

[swansont]

23 hours ago, Raider5678 said:

 Meaning I've ruled off since last time:

North Dakoda, which had Voter Suppression from the Democrats, but probably not enough to have significantly changed the election.

What?

 

ND currently has a republican trifecta of control. What suppression is in place, and how did the democrats allegedly pull it off?

20 hours ago, Raider5678 said:

I'm including several things. First of all, while there was the major outcry that Republicans were preventing Native Americans from voting, it was simply not true.

Except it was true. 

20 hours ago, Raider5678 said:

Even Heitkamp, the Democratic Senator, pointed out that "while there have been some changes in North Dakota's voting laws, I want everyone to know that voting is still easy here."

The media freaked out, claiming that Native Americans wouldn't be able to vote because they don't have a street address, they left out the fact that Native Americans can simply show a tribal letter and they'd be allowed to vote. Basically, the Democrats lied to everyone saying that Native Americans wouldn't be able to vote when they'd be able to vote the same way they were able to vote before. 

Not the same way as before, since they had to obtain that documentation. The outcry I saw was that this happened late in the election cycle, making it difficult to comply. Fortunately, a significant amount of money was raised to make it happen. 

Here's a story from Oct 19 about that effort. Funny thing — they clearly mention the bit about the tribal letter.

 

20 hours ago, Raider5678 said:

If anything, Democrats hurt the Native American voters more then Republicans because Democrats complained how they wouldn't be able to vote, while Republicans spent money to notify the Native Americans that they would, in fact, be able to vote. In both legal code, and actions, the Republicans are not preventing Native Americans from voting in North Dakota. In fact, the Supreme court even refused to overturn it, not because it was a Republican Majority, but because it did not, in fact, prevent Native Americans from Voting.

I don't see how you can sell this as not preventing people from voting if you require them to get a new ID. All new voter ID laws will disenfranchise people, because not everyone can run out and get the new ID that's required, for a variety of reasons.

20 hours ago, Raider5678 said:

Additionally, there were disinformation campaigns on facebook trying to discourage voters in North Dakota from voting if they owned an out of state hunting license, something that's an outright lie. Why would someone run a campaign like that? To keep people from voting by making them think they weren't allowed to. Additionally, unsurprisingly, a majority of hunters are Republican, so it would disproportionately affect Republicans. Now, as for the people who funded the add, it was the North Dakota Democratic NPL.

It's be nice if you would give some citations for any of these claims you make.

 

[CharonY]

On 11/6/2018 at 8:08 PM, iNow said:

It’s early, but the democrats have to be disappointed in the current results. 

It appears Trumps strategy to combat the blue wave may be working. 

Lots of races Dems should’ve won? They didn’t. 

 

So eight days in it looks like Dems picked up 34 seats (with  eight to go) , gained six governor seats (two being in recount) . In the senate race after picking up AZ, they will probably lose two seats. From there, I am curious, do you still consider it overall disappointing as whole?  Or does it feel disappointing because high-profile races were lost?

[iNow]

My disappointment is primarily with the state level races here in Iowa. Would've been nice to take the Senate, but I knew that was a long shot (1 in 7 chance IIRC from 538)