Voting

Bumping this thread because I've just been to a Bernie rally, and it was fucking awesome, and everyone who supports him who has a chance to get to one should totally do it. Just get there early as hell and be prepared for a lot of waiting.

I'd also like to express my disgust with Hillary Clinton. The more I hear from her, or about her, the more I can't stand her. Her (and her minions') dismissive attitude towards Sanders' supporters is offensive, and honestly, the more I follow up on her, the more I'm convinced she's a freaking criminal. Can we just blast both her and Trump into the sun already?

 

^ I know I sure as hell won't vote for her. If Bernie's not on the ballot in November, I'll vote Green party or Libertarian before I vote for either Trump or Hillary, though I'll be sadistically hoping to see Hillary lose to him. In just a few months, so much has happened to turn me completely against her. And I don't think a Trump presidency is as scary as Hillary and her supporters want me to think. I think he's already starting to pivot away from some of the craziest things he's said, and there's no way a lot of that shit will make it through Congress anyhow, particularly if we go vote and get some progressives like Bernie in there. Plus, he's been pretty open about his ideas, idiotic as many of them might be. Hillary's evil is the evil of deals made behind closed doors, bribery and money in politics, and war and regime change we have no business being a part of. You can look at her record and see how often she flip flops on the issues. Then there's her whole attitude that "it's her turn" and she's somehow entitled to be president. It's off-putting, to say the least.

The biggest thing giving me pause is the empty Supreme Court seat, but honestly, a lot of these justices are old as fuck, and the justices appointed are always going to be old, because they need to gain experience to be considered for the job. So there's always going to be an empty seat, or a seat that could be emptied. Before Scalia died, the court was 5-4 in favor of conservatives, and I think we can probably survive a little longer if Obama's pick isn't appointed and Trump ends up filling the spot. I don't want to vote out of fear; I want to vote for who represents me, and for someone I respect and trust. In this election, that's only Bernie.

My state of Kentucky is up to bat tomorrow, and I sincerely hope that we don't fuck this up. Given their track record, especially with the last governor's race, I have no doubt that tons of Kentuckians are willing to vote against their best interests, but I'm hoping most of the idiots are voting Republican. Anecdotally, I haven't talked to many people I know about politics, because it usually ends up in me thinking poorly of them, honestly, but I have yet to see a Hillary yard sign or bumper sticker, and I've seen some Bernie swag around. I've also seen more people in my Facebook feed who seem to be Berning than the alternative. So I'm thinking we'll end up eking out a win, but it won't be a blow out like some might be hoping for.

But who knows, maybe Kentucky will make me proud.

 

KY is statistically a tie, the results are not finalized yet (hell, I don't think it's even been called yet), and I'm hoping there will be a recount, as the voting machines they use in Louisville (Jefferson County) are of the brand that are easy to tamper with, and our secretary of state is a huge Clinton supporter. Still, for a closed primary, where independents had to switch to democrat by December 31, 2015 to be able to vote at all, I think he did very well. Clinton won in 2008 with something like 65% of the vote (although, she was running against a black man, and southern racism), so there's been a pretty big loss of support over these eight years. If it is in fact a win for her, .5% (less than 2000 votes) is nothing to brag about, especially this late in the race from the "presumptive nominee." A problem I noticed in KY, and particularly in my dumbass county, which went Hillary by 14 votes, despite every surrounding county voting Bernie, is that a huge number of voters here refused to choose at all and voted uncommitted (something like 24,000), and a smaller, but equally idiotic number (about 5000, last I looked) wasted a vote on O' Malley who dropped out in like February. If just 2000 of those 29,000 voters had gone Bernie instead, he would have won. But I'm still actually impressed that KY held at a tie and didn't give that witch a real victory.

Oregon, another closed primary, had a good showing, and they are still counting ballots, although websites like the NY Times and the Guardian that track the results have apparently stopped updating. Based on the Oregon election websites, the race is 59-41 Sanders, and is still increasing. So he did well there.

As far as his chances, as I understand it, North and South Dakota, Montana, and New Mexico are supposed to be favorable. I think the Virgin Islands and Puerto Rico could be wins depending on turnout (Virgin Islands is negligible with only 7 delegates, though a win would help, but Puerto Rico has more delegates than Kentucky does, so Bernie really does need to win it. I think it helped that he visited, plus Hillary has lost some endorsements from officials there in the last few days). DC is an almost guaranteed loss, but it's only 20 delegates, and I still think Bernie will get enough votes to get some of them. The really big concerns are California and New Jersey. NJ has a lot of delegates and polling (although the polls were not really very recent) is not in Bernie's favor. I think it's possible that the result will end up along the lines of the exit poll from NY (which was 52-48 Hillary before the results were (IMO) tinkered with). Compared to NY, NJ is a much more accommodating state for independents, who favor Bernie. If Bernie does manage a win there, I don't think it will be a big one, but any win helps cut into the delegate deficit.

It's basically going to come down to California, at least as far as the pledged delegate count goes. Neither campaign will have enough delegates to win the nomination outright before the convention, no matter what the media says. Superdelegates, whether they endorse someone currently or not, can change their minds at any time and don't vote until July, so their votes don't yet count. The gap between Hillary and Bernie is currently 274 (give or take a few delegates, because I can't remember the exact number and I'm too lazy to look it up). Wins in the smaller favorable states, ties, or keeping it as close as possible in the unfavorables, and a big win in California would put Bernie over the top in both pledged delegate count and popular vote. The latest poll I remember seeing was I think 6 points in favor of Hillary with 12% undecided. There has also been a big influx of new Dem and No Party Preference voters, who I'm guessing are registering to vote for Bernie because Hillary doesn't really inspire much excitement. California is also favorable in that No Party Preference can vote in the Dem primary but not the Republican. A problem in some states, like Ohio, was independents forgoing their vote for Bernie in order to take a Republican ballot to vote against Trump. That isn't an issue here.

And once we get to the convention in July, superdelegates will ultimately have to make the call. If Hillary's polling and favorability rating continue their current downward spiral, the FBI finishes their investigation and recommends indictment, or some other scandal breaks, well, SDs were created with the specific purpose to intervene if the popular vote goes to someone who is unelectable in a general election. Bernie will have to make that argument and see what happens.

As far as President Trump, 1) He's already starting to move center and mellow his rhetoric, 2) Face it, the craziest shit out of his mouth will never happen. The President is not a dictator and there are checks and balances in place. 3) If dems turn out and vote in down ballot races (and just refuse to vote for Hillary because she is so honestly awful), we can retake the Senate and gain seats in the House, and President Trump will be facing the sort of obstructionist government Obama has been dealing with. We'll just suffer for 4 more years with nothing getting done, and in the 2018 midterms, we might be able to gain even more seats. If we retake the Senate, that also eases the SCOTUS worry, because the newly Blue Senate will have to confirm any appointments of Trump to fill Scalia's spot (if they don't end up taking Obama's pick), so they won't let in anyone horribly conservative who will set the country back.

Sorry for the wall of text. I find this election cycle uncharacteristically (for me) fascinating and like talking about it.

 

I'm tired of the lesser evil argument, myself. I think our elections would be much better if people would just vote for who they actually feel represents them the best, rather than who they think will probably win, or against who they dislike the most. This kind of thinking would also help promote third parties, which I think needs to happen. Libertarian and Green would be good options for people if they bothered to look into their platforms, and would probably fit what people care about better than the Republican/Democratic parties. I like both (although I personally agree far more with Bernie's platform), and depending on what my ballot looks like in Nov, will probably end up voting for one of them.

Sort of. I have a rather low opinion of my state (I know that makes me sound snotty, but meh), and I was impressed that in such a Bible-thumping, conservative state, so many progressive voices turned out the vote. When compared to how Clinton swept the state in 2008, I am proud that KY kept it so close. I wish it had been a win, but I hadn't been expecting it. And I'm glad that it wasn't a blow out for Clinton- she doesn't need to add any more delegates to her count.

Who knows who he would actually end up choosing if he actually gets the opportunity. I think he's done a lot of pandering so far in the election, and what he says now might not be what he does if elected. If democrats take back the Senate, I would hope that they would vote down the nuttiest Trump may pick, and force him to put up someone more moderate and then vote that person in. Regardless of how petty some of the dems might be, surely they couldn't possibly stall on this pick for four years.

I wish we could just pick justices based on if they could use their damn brains and base their decisions on actual law and common sense. I don't know why it should always be a right vs left thing. But I guess we can't raise our justices in a vacuum.

Ha, yes. Every day it's like, what hilarious and/or awful thing will I learn next? For someone who never gave a damn about politics before (yeah, I was part of the problem), this has been eye-opening.

 

I was actually hoping for this, too. There's the danger of no one reaching 270 electoral votes and having the House decide the winner, but I was thinking that with four running, left and right both splitting the votes, that Bernie had a good chance of winning enough states. Plus, I just wanted to send a screw you to both main parties. But then the republicans screwed that idea by actually uniting behind Trump, something I thought the party leaders would try to obstruct as much as possible. I don't quite understand why the republican base has bucked the system, but the democrats still can't seem to let go of it. I still hope if it's Trump vs Hillary that we can get enough people to vote third party to get at least one group up to 15% of the vote, so that they can get on the debate stage in the next general election. Or at least the 5% mark, so they can get federal funding.

I'm sure they'll stall some. I can't imagine them voting through the first person Trump puts up. But for four years?

Well, I'm hoping if there is someone awful in the oval office, that some of the oldest justices hang on for four more years. I don't know. I don't know that I think Hillary's picks would be a whole lot better than Trump's. She's practically a republican anyhow. She might pick someone slightly left on women's health issues (which, honestly, wouldn't really be as important if schools taught proper sex ed and contraceptives were easily available for everyone, so unwanted pregnancies could be avoided), but I seriously doubt she'd actually choose someone who was serious about, say, getting money out of politics, with all her super PACs and shady as fuck Clinton Foundation dealings, or strongly pro-environment, given that she takes money from fossil fuel industries and went off like a nutcase on a green peace activist who wanted her to sign a pledge about not continuing to do so. And I really resent being placed in the position of picking between two such unqualified candidates in the general if Bernie doesn't make it through, with this Supreme Court spot being held over my head. I don't want to vote for someone who I think will be awful in all other respects just because she might make a tolerable choice here.

This election just sucks, really.

 

That's what I understand. The House has to choose between the top three vote-getters for president, and then there's a separate vote among the top two VP choices. I'm not sure if it is supposed to be the incoming House or the current one, but regardless, the House is so gerrymandered it'll be republican either way. I assume this is all somewhere in the Constitution. I've just seen the info pop up here and there online during discussions about hypothetical independent runs.

I think because of the fuss they've made about the republicans not confirming Obama's choice, that they'd have to save face and vote on the next president's pick. But then, that assumes that they care what the public thinks, and also assumes that the public actually pays attention and cares about the issue in the first place.

Yeah, I've been super disappointed with how scummy the democratic party has been this election. And they really are practically identical to the republicans. They might differ slightly on some social issues, but the party leaders of both sides are just in it to serve their corporate masters and take home their paychecks/bribes.

RE: the birth control comment I made, quickly since I don't want to derail the thread, I think it's much more the education part, although poor women with no health insurance would likely have a difficult time getting the pill, depending on their area and their access to clinics. It was kind of a pointless aside, anyhow.

I don't think she has the judgement to do anything right, really, but I would think her justice would be fairly right-leaning, especially compared to Bernie's. Obviously, as someone fairly far to the left on most issues, that's not what I'd prefer to see. I actually sort of think no one would be happy with her choice. It wouldn't be far enough to the right for conservatives, and too far right for progressives. She's just awful in every way. I honestly can't believe she's winning. Too many people voting for a woman because she's a woman instead of looking at that woman's (horrible) record, if you ask me. *Sigh*

I admire their platform for the most part, especially as far as social issues go. I kind of feel like this is the party that the republicans should be, if they truly believed what they preach. I'm not sure how I feel about some of their economic ideas and I feel like maybe they want to take a little too much power away from the federal government. And they're pretty much the exact opposite of where I stand on health care. However, I do like that the libertarian nominee has executive branch experience. That's an issue I have with the Green party. I lean more towards them on the issues, but their front runner has barely any experience in government, and the presidency is a big job. For anyone else interested Gary Johnson is the libertarian nominee, and you can find his stances on some of the issues if you follow the link.

In all likelihood, Johnson will probably end up with my general election vote, because I can't bring myself to vote for Trump or Hillary, and last I checked, Greens aren't on the ballot in KY yet.

That's what I've heard. I guess it's part of the FEC's regulations; honestly I've never felt like looking it up and finding where the info came from, but I've seen it many times, so I assume it is true. Seems like the dems and repubs got together and set some arbitrary bullshit in stone to make it harder for any other party to unseat them. But I feel like with a Trump vs Hillary election, there's a good shot that enough people would be so turned off that they vote third party and get them more legitimacy next election. I'd kind of like to see both dems and repubs go the way of the whigs, and I say that as a currently registered dem.

Edit:

Ha, I've been thinking this for months now. Either that, or Trump was drunk with some buddies who dared him to run for president and see how long it took to drive people away by being as awful as possible and it backfired when people flocked to him, and now his ego won't let him quit.

 

Yeah, I don't care for that, either. My guess was that in the event that the issue came up, the House would probably end up voting for the person with the most popular votes, assuming there was a clear winner, but I'm probably having too much faith in people doing the right thing. In any case, it doesn't seem like this will end up being an issue this election.

I can understand where people are coming from, and I think with Hillary, probably quite a bit of her older women supporters are with her because they're hoping to see a woman president before they die. But I've always felt that the most qualified person for the job should be the one who gets it, period. And I feel like with the internet so easily available, there's no excuse for people not to look into candidates' records and stances on the issues. It takes practically no time to visit the campaign website and do a little reading. If you're going to bother to vote, you should be informed. There will be a woman president some day. But let's wait until we get a woman running who we won't be ashamed of, please.

I think that there's a lot of red tape and bullshit in the government that could be safely done away with, but the libertarians seem to want to deregulate everything, and I am not sure that's wise. I need to do more research to better understand what their goals are, I suppose.

The libertarians have their own party website as well, that explains a bit more about the party's platform on areas not covered on Johnson's website, for anyone who hasn't stumbled across it, yet. Link.

And for the hell of it, here's links for any undecideds or the curious to the other campaign websites:

Bernie

Hillary

Trump

Jill Stein (Green Party)

I know there are some other even less well known candidates still running, but I think this is the main group we'll be choosing from.

 

Lol. Hard to see how anyone with two current FBI investigations would be considered qualified. But yes, I concede that there are people out there who somehow think this way.

I disagree, obviously, seeing as I'm a supporter. I don't think any candidate's policies are best for every American (the rich (and business owners, including myself) would have higher taxes under Bernie, for one example) but I feel that Bernie's policies would end up benefiting many more people than they hurt. But more than that, I trust that he actually wants to help people. I don't believe that Hillary or Trump are in this for anyone but themselves.

I think it's still possible, though highly unlikely. I think it depends on polling closer to the convention and how the FBI investigations are coming along. Hillary is already one of the most unpopular nominees in history, so if it seems like people will turn against her even more, then the supers might feel compelled to act. The poor turnout on Tuesday makes this all a much harder sell. I was hoping that Bernie would gain enough delegates to pull pretty much equal with Hillary, but obviously that didn't happen.

I've seen that there is a lawsuit being filed in Ohio concerning election fraud and racketeering throughout the Dem primary. It will be interesting to see if that goes anywhere and if it ends up having any effect on the results. Personally, I do believe that some of the primaries have had some shadiness going on. Enough to change the outcome of the election, I don't know. I think it was always going to be a hard win for Bernie, and I'm not sure that he even expected to do half as well as he has, really.

If you don't like Bernie, I wouldn't think you'd like Jill, either. I don't agree with all of the green party's platform, myself, and I don't like her lack of experience, but I align more with Jill than anyone else besides Bernie. She's my next choice if she gets on the ballot in KY, but currently she's still trying to collect signatures, and I don't know if she'll end up getting enough or not. If she doesn't, I guess it'll be Gary Johnson. In reality it doesn't matter which one I vote for, since neither will win anyway. I might wait until closer to November and keep an eye on the polling, and then vote for whichever is polling higher. Help break this two party monopoly, possibly. I'd prefer to vote Jill, though, because as a registered democrat, I think it sends a better message, that if the party had embraced progressive values, it could have had my vote, but the party chose to continue being borderline republican instead. I'm really not happy with the dem establishment right now.

I Side With is a good tool for someone wanting a quick way to see which candidates agree with his/her beliefs, although it goes by what the candidates say their platform is, so there's no guarantee that the candidate isn't pandering for votes or flat-out lying.

Yeah. I see how the theory makes sense. In practice, I think businesses will just screw the workers and consumers (and probably the environment, too) without some protections in place. Maybe that's just me being cynical.

This sounds awful, but I don't think we're going to get anywhere until the Boomers all die out, or die out enough that millennials can be relied on to show up to the polls and overpower them. They're pretty much the reason we're stuck with this shit economy and all the rest of this shittiness, but want to call us lazy when we want the same things they were given (like affordable higher education, or a wage we can actually live on). If nothing else, I hope this primary so far has been a wake up call to young people that we need to get off our asses, get informed, and vote. In every election.

 

These types of voters are the absolute fucking worst. If everyone voted on their morals, there wouldn't be these shitty corrupt politicians to choose between, so there wouldn't be this constant discussion of who's the lesser evil.

I like how some people think that Trump will destroy the world, trample all minorities under his boot, send women back to their kitchens, and whatever else they're fearmongering about, yet a big argument for voting Hillary instead of Bernie is because "he'd never get anything done." How can Trump get all this crazy, unconstitutional bullshit through a congress and supreme court, if Bernie can't get a $15 minimum wage through? I'm just not afraid of Trump.

Going by how I feel right now, I am most definitely NeverHillary. I think she (and the shadowy figures backing her, as well as the sycophants kissing her ass constantly) are corrupt, and I don't want to reward their election fraud and scummy behavior towards Sanders and his supporters by voting for her. I hope she crashes and burns in the general. I don't care if that makes me privileged. I'd sleep better at night knowing I didn't vote directly for someone with such poor judgment, someone who will start wars for profit, someone who will pretend to be progressive but work against the lower and middle class any time it doesn't benefit her or her backers.

Fuck Biden. The idea of the DNC pushing someone through who people didn't even vote for is fucking ridiculous, and if they do that, I hope the whole dem party burns to the ground. Overlooking a candidate who ran in the primary and has about 45% of the vote would be, I think, a huge mistake. Even some Hillary supporters would be pissed about that, I think.

There was a lawsuit filed by Election Justice USA in NY after its primary, but I don't recall ever hearing what happened with it, or if it is still ongoing. As I understand it, this lawsuit is being filed in Ohio because they have the strongest RICO laws, but more states will be brought into it. New York and Arizona were some of the biggest screw ups this go around, so I imagine they'll be included. Illinois is another one- there's already a separate lawsuit in the works for there, too, because of voting machines changing votes from Bernie to Hillary in Chicago, and the people counting the ballots by hand during audits were caught on camera erasing votes to get them to match the machine tallies. I haven't had a chance to read too much on this lawsuit yet, but if I have time later, I'll try to find some more information about what all it entails and post it. I think it was supposed to be filed today.

I suppose it's an admirable goal to strive for. As unrealistic as it is, I'd prefer someone trying to do something about unemployment, and any little bit would help. I personally am not sold on their immigration policies (although this is something I'm also somewhat to the right of Bernie on, too), and I think some of the green platform's policies on things like nuclear power and GMOs are a little fearmongering. But I think every candidate is going to have at least something their supporters don't agree with them on.

I don't know. Millennials are already the biggest generation, they just don't turn out to vote as much or as reliably as the Boomers. I'm hopeful that this primary has changed that for at least some millennials. The more informed voters, the better for everyone.