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| Pic courtesy CNBC |
I've always believed that watching what is going on across the Pacific is a pretty reliable way of predicting the future of this country.
This rule of thumb has held historically for a wide range of cultural phenomena, including media trends, music and changes in lifestyle. Note I wrote "changes", not "improvements".
Recently in the USA, we've seen the election in 2016 of a populist one-term POTUS, who effectively destroyed whatever remained of his country's unity in his term, and then refused to accept that he was defeated at the election of November 2020. His break with the democratic tradition has plunged his country further into the pit of division that he exploited to get elected in the first place.
As part of the exploitation of this division, the Republicans (or at least some of them) instituted an audit of the presidential vote in Maricopa county in Arizona, the state which, when called by Fox News for Biden, broke the news that Trump was a one-term president.
The goal of the audit was to prove fraud in order to get Biden elected. It was not an objective exercise.The results of that audit have finally been released, but without the blaze of publicity that was associated with the announcement of the audit in the first place. The report can be found here.
What has been found is both encouraging and revealing. On the positive side there were no substantial differences between the hand count of the ballots provided and the official election canvass results for Maricopa County.
Remember, that is a summary of the major findings of the Trump-inspired exercise carried out by his supporters - exactly the opposite of what it was intended to find. So the official results stand. In fact, the audit found that Biden actually won by 360 more votes than the official results, winning the state by a margin of 45,469 ballots. You get the best reporting by reading the local non-aligned media.
So in the washup, the audit was an exercise in maintaining the rage and frustration felt by Trump supporters with the goal of keeping his run in 2024 in the news, and maintaining a fund-raising base. It had absolutely nothing to do with election integrity.
In other words, it's now OK across the Pacific, that if you lose an election, to simply deny the fact, put it down to fraud, and throughly weaken your country's confidence in the democratic process as you go along. That is obviously extremely dangerous, and throughly immoral, and reminds me of Abe Lincoln's speech in which he quoted Matthew 12:22-28 -
A house divided against itself cannot stand.
So we should look across the Pacific, note the mess the USA is in, and use it as a reminder not to follow down that road. There are so many examples of this in terms of firearms legislation, a largely non-existent health system and the USA's dysfunctional electoral process itself.
The Americans could do with our independent Electoral Commissions, both state and federal, and our system of compulsory voting. They could also do with our NFA, our public health system, and our largely non-partisan judiciary.
Never take your own country for granted.
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9 comments:
Did you actually read the report or any of the recommendations made?
The report simply reinforces the suggestions I have made because it reveals what a clumsy and primitive electoral system the Americans have to put up with.
It also shows that Trump lost, (by a slightly greater margin than indicated in the original count). In the light of Trump's behaviour since, it reveals the depth of political malfeasance that is his stock in trade.
The bulk of the recommendations made would be covered by the creation of an independent electoral commission, which has existed here for a very long time.
There are other serious problems of course, ranging from a gerrymandered setting of boundaries (indulged in by both parties) and the barriers presented to marginalised communities by the fact that the ballots are held on Tuesday, a working day.
For the vast majority of the working poor, who have to hold down two jobs to make ends meet, there is simply no opportunity to vote.
Check to see why the presidential poll is held on a Tuesday.
The answer lies in anachronistic practices followed in the first ten years of the republic.
Their second amendment is similarly anachronistic.
"It also shows that Trump lost, (by a slightly greater margin than indicated in the original count)" The physical count of the votes indicate that the numbers are what they are.
There seem to be a number of challenges to overcome in relation to how those physical votes came about and the legalities of the votes.
Nobody expects an old leopard like you to change their spots, but after all these years you could expect your eyes to open a little as the muscles relax in your face, giving you clearer vision. Any wonder you were tail end Charlie and not a forward scout. 🙄😁
There seem to be a number of challenges to overcome in relation to how those physical votes came about and the legalities of the votes.
Given that the discrepancies would have made no difference to the outcome, the only challenge to overcome is understanding how Trump and his supporters continue to repeat the big lie that the election was stolen.
It wasn't - and the results of this alleged "audit" prove that for Maricopa County. You could run a similar "audit" across every county in the country and it would show the same result. It also showed that the Democrat candidate for Arizona won the senate by a bigger margin than initially understood. Kelly became the first Democrat to win the Class 3 Senate seat since 1962. This also marked the first time since the 82nd Congress preceding the 1952 election that Democrats held both Senate seats in Arizona. The audit wasn't supposed to confirm that either. Quelle embarrassment!
This report outlines the whole chaotic process - https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2021/09/arizona-election-audit-still-unraveling-chaos/620115/
You do of course realise that the recommendations made and the thousands of votes involved will more than likely be the subject of further investigation. It isn't over Bobby.
Couldn’t care less, actually.
The point of my post is to warn against the white-anting of our democracy in the same way as the spivs and snake oil merchants have weakened it in the US.
Australians, as a rule, are far less gullible.
There are a few exceptions, as demonstrated by your responses.
There you go...red flag up. Uni induced answer to not having a reply of value...attack the messenger. I expect no less, Bobby boy.
You still do not reply in relation to my well wishes for your wife...sad, really sad.
Uni induced answer to not having a reply of value.
You'll need to translate that. It makes no sense.
You still do not reply in relation to my well wishes for your wife...sad, really sad.
You have a very short concentration span. Remember this comment (for example) on 26 September 2021 at 17:02? - I commiserate with the loss of your beloved wife
You know exactly what "Uni induced answer to not having a reply of value...attack the messenger" means.
"You still do not reply in relation to my well wishes for your wife" is a reference to YOUR WIFE, bobby. On a number of occasions I have indicated that I wished YOUR wife was well and you do not even acknowledge, leaving me to believe that perhaps things are not going well. If that is correct, my thoughts are with you.
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