Lockdown Update Day 238

[elisi]

This is the MOST accurate meme:



Impish Girl was saying how the feel of politics in American it is just so completely different... I the UK all votes are paper votes (the machine thing is WEIRD) and when the polls close you have church/school/sports halls up and down the country full of grandmas and other volunteers poll workers (with thanks to juliet to the correction) counting votes at ridiculous speed - and when the winner is announced there's Lord Buckethead in the background looking like he fell out of Monty Python & the Holy Grail...

I AM NOT JOKING. Photos under cut.

From 2017, when he stood against Theresa May:



From 2019, when Lord Buckethead had obviously had an upgrade, and had been joined by Elmo in standing against Boris Johnson:



Meaning that Boris officially acknowledged them: “I thank my fellow candidates in all their glory, Lord Buckethead, Elmo ... forgive me if I don’t identify them all,” Johnson said. <- THIS. You don't get this in America. OTOH our politicans aren't inspirational.

OK, so googling to find these pictures I also looked up Count Binface, and... it's all rather complicated. A breakdown here. As far as I can tell there was a copyright issue with the name 'Lord Buckethead' so he rebranded to 'Count Binface', but another one rose to replace him and took the name (and officially joined The Official Monster Raving Loony Party).

WHY COULDN'T THEY HAVE WON INSTEAD?? :( Either would have been a million times better than Johnson.

*sigh* And it because of people like this that I love this country. Despite everything.

Some more US stuff that I've been meaning to post, but... *hands* SO MUCH STUFF.

The Funniest Tweets From Election Night

Via... someone on my flist, an article from The Atlantic: She Did It (Despite the barriers, despite the pain, Kamala Harris becomes the first woman, the first Asian American, and the first Black American to be elected vice president.)

NBC News: Photos: Celebrations spread with news of Biden victory

The Daily Mash: Why counting votes is undemocratic, by a MAGA twat

US Guardian: Trump backers tricked into joining ‘Gay Communists for Socialism’ on Facebook



ANYWAY. There seems to be a vaccine on the horizon, yay, and did you know that not only did Stacey Abrams save the election, she is also a Buffy fan with excellent opinions?

To be fair, Angel was the right boyfriend for Buffy coming into her power. Spike was the right man to be with as she became the power.

— Stacey Abrams (@staceyabrams) November 9, 2020

Comments

[shadowkat]

US politics is very different than UK and European politics on multiple levels. We vote for candidates not party platforms for example. I remember when I visited the UK in the 1980s, attempting to explain this and getting nowhere. They didn't understand not having party platforms. It's very candidate oriented here. So for example? You can be a Republican but vote for Biden, and all Republicans for House and Senate.

Also we have paper - I voted by paper. I had a mail-in ballot. And now, people vote by filling in a computerized form - which can be scanned and read and counted by computers.
So, they receive your ballot, scan it, and the vote is electronically tabulated.

Although in some cases they do it by hand. Philadelphia actually live-streamed their voting process to the world.

Each state - however determines its own voting process. And some states have roughly the half the population of the UK or a third.

Here's the top four populated states:

California 39,512,223
2 Texas 28,995,881
3 Florida 21,477,737
4 New York 19,453,561

UK = 66.6 million.

It's a confusing process.

Add to this - every state has a different process in place regarding counting votes, and when a recount is permitted. In Nevada? The candidate has to pay for it. In Georgia it's automatic if within a certain percentage point, same with Pennsylvania, but it has to be within that percentage point.

The US has never done mail-in voting on this scale before, however. My vote hasn't been counted by NY yet - nor have 700,000 votes. NY had to wait until today to count the mail-in ballots or absentee ballots. In order for the ballots to count they had to be postmarked by November 3, and received by November 7 in NY State. Most people sent them in by October 27, but it doesn't matter - not counted until today. The reason? They wanted to wait until they received them all, and had them all validated. Then they'd count them at the same time. As a result only 85% of the vote has been counted in NY State.

In 1918 - with the Spanish Flu - barely anyone voted. In 2020 - more people voted than ever before - because of early voting and mail-voting. Few people actually turned out on election day - all the voting was done prior to it. BUT, prior to 2020, most states, including NY, did not permit mail in voting (for anyone who couldn't prove absolute necessity) or early voting. The 2016-2019 elections, the primaries, and COVID changed that.

Add to all of the above? The electoral college exists - which can result in a different result than the election or the popular vote. The electoral college representatives/delegates could potentially vote the opposite of what they've promised. State Legislators and Governors could potentially intervene. And The House of Representatives does the final tally, if there''s no winner, each state gets one vote.

The whole thing is headache inducing. So, the gist? It may not be over until January 20th.

ETA: YAY! For Stacy Abrams. I love her.

[lynnenne]

Sounds like elections here in Canada, too.

[beccaelizabeth]

*nods*
presence of Lord Buckethead seems like a good sign somehow.

[kass]

The fact that Stacey Abrams is a Buffy fan and also apparently a romance novel writer makes me SO happy.

[juliet]

Just to note -- UK vote counters aren't usually volunteers, they're paid. (Temporary roles, though sometimes I believe council staff do it as a second-shift temporary job, like teachers marking GCSE papers for extra pay. I think some of the Sunderland team, eg the teenagers hurling ballot boxes around, might be volunteers, but that's a special case because they have T-shirts and might get on the telly ;) )

The Elections Officer doesn't really get paid (a token amount but nothing like the time it takes) but they're usually a council employee already, appointed by the local authority to that particular role.

[elisi]

Oooh I didn't know that. Although to be fair, I never checked.

I think some of the Sunderland team, eg the teenagers hurling ballot boxes around, might be volunteers, but that's a special case because they have T-shirts and might get on the telly ;)
... Sounds about right. ;)

Thank you!

[juliet]

It is one of the things I find weird about US elections, tbh, that it's all staffed by volunteers! Poll workers are paid here too (usually council employees because then you don't have to pay extra people, they just do a day's work + appropriate overtime). Like...shouldn't running elections be part of the literal job of the state?

On the other hand I can see advantages to the 'volunteer' option as well, for example if your local authority (or equivalent) roles are themselves heavily politicised. Here, AIUI from friends with such jobs, if you work for a council you're not supposed to have public political opinions. (You are allowed to canvass etc before an election & to be part of a political party, but not to say that you work for the council when doing that.)

[greensword]

US poll workers are paid, not volunteers.

[juliet]

Ah, thank you! I evidently misread US friends' comments about poll work as volunteering-as-in-free not volunteering-as-in-offering-to-do.

[elisi]

I am learning many things, I misread the same comments that Juliet did, I think. :)

[elisi]

I love her. <3

[elisi]

Even if the whole thing is going to hell in a hand basket, I'm happy that he is there.

[elisi]

Somehow I've never followed Canadian elections... Less drama than America I presume. Glad you have silly parties though. :)

[greensword]

It's pretty low wage work (though compensation varies by state & municipality) so for many people doing poll work is an act of altruism. But yeah, it's paid.

[greensword]

Always happy to share info. :) Anyway, I'm sure you know more about the US election system than I do about the UK system!

[elisi]

I think the whole world is pretty knowledgeable of the US election system... :)

[elisi]

US politics is very different than UK and European politics on multiple levels. We vote for candidates not party platforms for example.
I think that's part of why others follow it the way we do? Apart from American politics being hugely important worldwide, so the rest of the world needs to know, but it's... like a TV show. With all these characters candidates. It's like RPF?

So, they receive your ballot, scan it, and the vote is electronically tabulated.
Our ballots look like this and you just put an X in the box. None of this down ballot stuff and everything is hand counted. American elections seem a lot more complicated.

Add to this - every state has a different process in place regarding counting votes, and when a recount is permitted. In Nevada? The candidate has to pay for it. In Georgia it's automatic if within a certain percentage point, same with Pennsylvania, but it has to be within that percentage point.
I'm happy to watch from a distance.

The electoral college exists - which can result in a different result than the election or the popular vote.
Oh yes, we all know. I vividly remember 2016... after the Brexit vote I was hoping for the US election to be a light in the dark. Alas, it was not to be.

ETA: YAY! For Stacy Abrams. I love her.
Same here. ♥ ♥ ♥

[elisi]

Here, AIUI from friends with such jobs, if you work for a council you're not supposed to have public political opinions. (You are allowed to canvass etc before an election & to be part of a political party, but not to say that you work for the council when doing that.)
Uh-huh.

I'm learning all kinds of things from this post!

[shadowkat]

Oh, I thought I'd try to show you an example of the NY Ballot - I could take a picture of mine - but it is illegal in the State of New York to post any pictures of your ballot. I got two, because there was a printing error on the external envelope for the mail ins in Brooklyn. A bunch of folks got another persons ballot. I didn't. But I called them because they also forgot to put the hyphen between absentee and military, so it looked like absentee military as opposed to absentee/military.

I googled and discovered that every single state in the US has a different ballot. New York's is relatively simple. It's two sided. The candidates are listed beneath each party. There are about five different parties (believe it or not) and each party has their candidates, also you have the option to write in a candidate in some states. Part of the reason Hillary lost in 2016 - is the third party candidates go about 10%-20% of the vote in various states. My Aunt and Uncle in Michigan voted 3rd Party in 2016 - they learned their lesson, and switched to Democrat in 2020 and voted for Biden in the primary - so they could have someone who they could vote for against Trump. (They are moderate conservatives or fiscal conservatives, or Bush/Regan Republicans).

The other parties often have the same candidates. Independent Party for example may have Biden, along with Working Families, and Democrat. While Republican and Conservative may have Trump, and the Libertarian may have another candidate (Linda Jorgenson, I think), and Green Party has its own candidate.

You don't know about these other parties - because they never get anywhere. I think Ross Perot possibly came the closest - and Ralph Nader on a 3rd Party ticket. What they usually just do is split the vote. A lot of people think that Ross Perot cost Gore the election in 2000. I think it was that one. Can't remember.

American politics is headache inducing.

Anyhow..I found your example interesting and nice and simple. Ours you have to fill in a bubble, and there's all these rules. Simple - it's note. I fretted over it. We used to just have machines - where we'd push a bunch of levers. then pull a big lever - in a curtained little box. We'd leave the curtained box - and someone outside would pull the lever again, so the next person could enter their vote. It took forever. They finally jumped away from that to the computer forms which we fill out, then stand in line to scan - it also took forever, but not as long as the lever approach apparently.

I like the mail-in ballot version best. Much faster and least head-ache inducing.

Here's links to different American ballots..

1. https://nj1015.com/convoluted-ballots-give-some-candidates-a-leg-up-lawsuit-says/

(The above is New Jersey's Primary Ballot which is rather similar to NY's.)

2. Here's Mississippi's : https://mississippitoday.org/2020/11/02/heres-what-the-november-ballot-will-look-like-in-mississippi/

I can't show you New York's - because apparently it's illegal and so, not posted. LOL!

[elisi]

Late reply is late, sorry!

I googled and discovered that every single state in the US has a different ballot.
Sounds difficult. :(

Part of the reason Hillary lost in 2016 - is the third party candidates go about 10%-20% of the vote in various states.
I remember. *sigh* Happens here too, guess it's the eternal problem of a two-party system.

American politics is headache inducing.
Uh-huh. (Ours are too, just different flavours.)

I like the mail-in ballot version best. Much faster and least head-ache inducing.
Sounds like it. And no machines. I find the machine thing really odd. Although I guess since there are so many options on each ballot they're necessary. Otherwise there would be way too many pieces of paper.

I can't show you New York's - because apparently it's illegal and so, not posted. LOL!
Well that is a good reason not to post it! :)

[geekslave.livejournal.com]

LOL at the saga of Lord Buckethead and his name change.

Ah, my fellow Stacey and I disagree about Buffy. 😆

Stacey

[gillo]

Someone as terrific as Stacey Abrams would have to be a Spuffy supporter. Yet another reason to adore her.

I so wish we could get rid of Johnson and his deeply corrupt crew, but it does feel like we may have seen a glimmer of light now.

[sea_thoughts]

I find Jess Phillips and Layla Moran inspiring, mainly because they're still here despite everything.

Angel was the right boyfriend for Buffy coming into her power. Spike was the right man to be with as she became the power.

That's a really interesting way of putting it.

[elisi]

LOL at the saga of Lord Buckethead and his name change.
It's nice to remember that SOME politics is fun.

Ah, my fellow Stacey and I disagree about Buffy. 😆
!!! :O

[elisi]

Someone as terrific as Stacey Abrams would have to be a Spuffy supporter. Yet another reason to adore her.
Indeed.

I so wish we could get rid of Johnson and his deeply corrupt crew, but it does feel like we may have seen a glimmer of light now.
I think they just have to collapse completely before we can start getting back to something...

[elisi]

I find Jess Phillips and Layla Moran inspiring, mainly because they're still here despite everything.
I'm not fond of Jess Phillips, but I agree she's got stamina.

That's a really interesting way of putting it.
Isn't it just? I like her a lot.

[gillo]

I can't help but feel that showy exit through the front door with a cardboard box was a veiled threat. Dominic Goings knows where all the bodies are buried.

[elisi]

It was so ridiculously staged. Like politics is now just a really badly written TV show. :(