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Biden wins White House, vowing new direction for divided U.S.

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Re: Biden wins White House, vowing new direction for divided U.S.

#281

Post by dodobirdlord »

charliemil4 wrote: post #217

We should trust but verify the results. The basis of facts should be settled in the following: 1. Select all ballots that were sent to the same address - or sent to the same Post Office (grouping all PO Boxes by post office). ^ Here you are trying to see if there is systemic voting behaviors out of the ordinary -- i.e. did 10+ ballots go to one address. 2. Select all ballots that were sent to an alternate address tha…

Voting fraud on the scale required to influence a US election is not possible due to voting registration requirements. Registering any significant amount of fake people is not feasible, and if you are trying to cast the votes of any significant number of real people you will quickly have a collision with someone who actually does intend on voting, leading to an investigation and the whole scheme unraveling.

Voter registration + signature checks + investigating duplicate ballots is a robust system for ensuring that systematic voting fraud can only achieve a small result without being overwhelmingly likely to be caught. If the election had actually come down to a margin of a few thousand votes in a single state it might have been worth the resources to do a deep-dive, but with the margins that occurred we can be certain that voting fraud did not influence the result.

Re: Biden wins White House, vowing new direction for divided U.S.

#283

Post by otabdeveloper4 »

drocer88 wrote: post #86

Shouldn't we wait for the states to go through , in some cases, mandatory recounts and certification of the results and then the actual electoral college vote after any legal appeals?

No, Orange Man Bad. This is different, you should know.

Re: Biden wins White House, vowing new direction for divided U.S.

#285

Post by wesnerm2 »

softwaredoug wrote: post #81

On the data nerd side I continue to be shocked at how people misinterpret the certainty of polls/forecasts. Forecasts give us probability distributions based on historical polling error data. Not infallible predictions the expected value will 100% happen. It’s fairly revealing of society’s general innumeracy, just as it was 4 years ago when Trump won.

To be fair, we still don't know the loss of votes through mail-in voting. Mail-in voting is more convenient which would likely increase participation, but missing signatures, naked ballots, late or undelivered mail, etc can prevent those ballots from being counted.

When there is a major difference in voting patterns between the two political parties, then polls may not actually be inaccurate. In this case, Democrats chose mail-in voting and Republicans, by and large, chose in-person after being directed by the president.

Also, some percentage of mail-in ballots may not have reached their destination because of possible election interference through reduced post office efficiency--in particular, fewer mail sorting machines, lower hours, deprioritized mails, etc.

In short, the polls don't take into account election interference in the post office or unsuccessful delivery. If most people from both parties were voting in-person, maybe we might have had more parity between the polls and election results.

Re: Biden wins White House, vowing new direction for divided U.S.

#286

Post by justinzollars »

Biden will be the First Democrat since Grover Cleveland to take office without a Democratic Senate. The House majority is smaller. So his mandate is effectively toast. Another interesting historical fact. America has never elected 4 consecutive 2 term presidents. If Trump would have been elected it would have been the first time in US history that this has happened. This election wasn't a blue wave by any means, Trump underperformed House Republicans in many swing states implying this was more of a personal decision rather than political.

What do I see changing? Not much:

  - foreign policy: policy changes with Syria and Iran

  - China: An end to tariffs

  - local changes: No more federal opposition to safe injection sites in San Francisco

  - federal taxes could still go up, the Senate has two liberal Republicans who could deliver tax increases to Joe
  
  - expanded federal regulations that do not require changes to the law
What will likely not happen:

  - PR and DC becoming states is no longer plausible

  - packing the Supreme Court is no longer plausible

  - a green new deal or expansions to entitlements are no longer plausible

  - state bailouts are now in question, which could force major structural reforms

Re: Biden wins White House, vowing new direction for divided U.S.

#287

Post by jfim »

bfieidhbrjr wrote: post #224

It's amazing. My friends on the left think the only reason for voting trump is racism, and friends on the right think the only reason for voting biden is socialism. Where did all the intellect go? The social dilemma documentary I think is very useful. It feels like social media bubbles are a large component, although of course there have been many contentious elections in the past. Being centrist I can relate to part…

I'm not sure that has changed that much. There's always been a component of politics that's tribal in nature, and it takes a lot to overcome that inertia. It's not unlike sports, where people will root for the local team, even though there's not much that's local about the team other than the name.

You can see that behavior for example around the ACA. It's obviously inspired by Mitt Romney's Massachusetts health care reform, so you'd think the Republicans would be all in favor of it. Yet at the federal level, since it was pitched by the Democrats, the Republicans are against it.

Re: Biden wins White House, vowing new direction for divided U.S.

#288

Post by einpoklum »

Biden has vowed to a group of his donor that, if he is elected, "Nothing would fundamentally change":

https://www.salon.com/2019/06/19/joe-biden-to-rich-donors-no...

so the title should be amended to: "Biden wins White House, effectively vowing no new direction for US".

Re: Biden wins White House, vowing new direction for divided U.S.

#289

Post by Fuzzwah »

softwaredoug wrote: post #81

On the data nerd side I continue to be shocked at how people misinterpret the certainty of polls/forecasts. Forecasts give us probability distributions based on historical polling error data. Not infallible predictions the expected value will 100% happen. It’s fairly revealing of society’s general innumeracy, just as it was 4 years ago when Trump won.

As an outsider all I can think is that this is an issue with the US media. The easy story is talking about the latest poll. The more difficult, but actually useful story, is focusing on the policies being put forward by each side.
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