US Election

Until recently I thought Trump was going to get a second term. I think Biden will win pretty narrowly now and as has been said, it will probably be really contentious and there'll be appeals from Trump and the Republicans and counter-appeals and it will drag on. Now that I've said that expect a landslide either way.

 

Yeah but the state votes are split into counties don’t forget. Whether he concedes or not is irrelevant, once one of them gets to 270 it’s done, and unless it’s incredibly close the outcome will be clear by early morning mate.

 

What I've learnt (I'm sure others probably know this) that Americans are actually voting for "electors". So if a State is worth 49 then that is 49 actual people. And as we know in other States they're worth different amounts. All of these are actual people. Hence the Electoral College. After the election is over all these folk get together for a meeting and officially hand over all their votes for either Biden or Trump.

The best bit is none of them are compelled to honour the vote.

 

I eventually got that. That's ****ed

Has any college went against their vote before?

 

Very rarely but it's happened and they're given a name when they do it, I just can't remember it

 

It does make you think though. If the electors are the ones who declare who to give the vote to and the votes haven't been fully counted, nobody can claim victory unless the other concedes, because the electors could withhold the declaration until they're absolutely sure. That is a check and balance I suppose?

 

So them 49 votes for a state, would they be like councillors from each town within that state? Sorry for the questions. Newbie here

 

Yeh their's are districts. Newbie too so I've looked it up again...

People call them “faithless electors.” In 2016, seven electors — 5 Democrats and 2 Republicans — broke their promises to vote for their party’s nominee, the most ever in history. They voted for a variety of candidates not on the ballot: Bernie Sanders, Colin Powell and Ron Paul, among others. It did not change the outcome tbf.

I've also read 33 States have them pledged to vote for the winning candidate so that's fcked that... but 17 States could still rebel

 

I think either side would be mad to go against the will of the people with the passion and tension over there, at the moment

 

I've just looked at the history of the Florida election and it's usually won by just about 100k votes. Madness. In 2000 Bush beat Gore by just 500 votes.

 

The will of the people is democracy mate but the Yanks leave to the few.

 

Not sure what this means ?

 

It's such a fcked up system.

California has 55 votes. But if only 50.1% vote in favour of either Biden or Trump then that person gets the whole 55 votes which covers all the districts

Imagine that's happening in every State for one candidate or the other. No wonder someone can win without the popular vote.

 

For anyone who’s interested here’s the closing polls and you can calculate who’s most likely to win. The error rate on polling was around 3-4% - either way - in the 2016 election and the pollsters have corrected some of the error points since 2016.

https://ig.ft.com/us-election-2020/

It also shows who won in the last 2 elections and the percentage they won by. When you click off the obvious you’ll see that Biden really only needs Florida to be relatively sure of winning.

 

This all makes my head hurt . Going to sleep , or try to .

 

First 2 projected results in Kentucky & Indiana won by Trump but by circa 10% less than in 2016.

 

Georgia could go to Democrats at a decent price, too. The opinion poll is in their favour. It's all pointing towards a Biden relatively comfortable win.

 

Democrats now 5/6 joint fav for Florida. I'm away to bed soon fully expecting to sweep up on both bets.