US Midterm Elections Megathread III: Hitting The Wall

[Mystic Warriors]

Isn’t it interesting, how Trump wants to stop counting in Florida, where the Republican is winning, and recount in Arizona, where the Republican is losing? Hmm...

Well yeah, he just wants seats and us willing to commit fraud to get them.

[Vassenor]

Friend: "there's alleged evidence of voter fraud in two states!"
Me: "let me guess, Florida and Arizona"
Him: "how'd you know?"
Me: "Florida's Florida, and Arizona's a race with stellar candidates and both parties playing dirty"

Seriously Florida. Just. Stop. Snipes fucked up in 2016, what the fuck is she still doing in office? And don't give me that bullshit about her doing it because she's a Democrat, Rick Scott should've taken steps to have her fired right after the 2016 bullshit.

Florida Sauce: https://www.yahoo.com/news/scott-prevai ... 57528.html



Arizona sauce: https://www.azcentral.com/story/news/po ... 942637002/

Those votes weren't found out of the wilderness, they were always there. The GOP is just playing games. What about Georgia were the GOP threw away thousands of votes? This reeks of rampant voter fraud. The UN needs to come in and protect our elections from the GOP.

We are talking about someone who thinks the fact he didn't win a majority in the popular vote in 2016 is proof of fraud in and of itself.

[Cannot think of a name]

Idk how true it is but I saw this link on the topic earlier.

Dailywire has a pretty big bias if I recall.

Let's take a look, see if there's anything that would make this not reliable other than our recall.

Over 100 provisional ballots were rejected in Miami-Dade County on Thursday after election officials said that those people showed up to vote a second time in the same election, according to a local media reporter.

Well, we're on paragraph in and we're not off to a good start. What local media reporter? No link, no citation. Not even the medium they are a reporter for. Is it a newspaper? A local news affiliate? A blogger? Some dude with a youtube channel? Why haven't they called the Miami-Dade County elections officers for a comment? Literally just taking their word for it that this is a thing. Why do I say that? Well, because instead of expanding on the story, they go into this:

The news comes as Sen. Marco Rubio (R-FL) claimed earlier in the day that the Democrats and Florida election officials with questionable records were trying to "steal" the election in Broward County, which is just north of Miami-Dade County.

Now, it doesn't translate in the copy/paste, but it's worth noting that this claim by a given source is also linked. to another Daily Caller article on Marco Rubio's speculation that because it's taking a minute it's a Democratic plot.

We do finally get a source, it's a tweet from Doug Hanks who covers the county for the Miami Herald. here that is. Now, I'm not going to play the 'all twitter bad' game, but it's also worth noting that Doug Hanks did not appear to think that this was story worthy, because he doesn't appear to have filed a story on it

This comes after this bit of context, by the way:

Miami-Dade County is one of the bluest counties in the state of Florida, as nearly two-thirds of the county voted for Hillary Clinton in the 2016 presidential election.

So, to recap, the source and meat of the story took a second seat to Marco Rubio's complaints and the political leanings of the county.

We are being asked to feel a certain way about the story.

One more Tweet from Doug:

Hanks added in a subsequent tweet: "Miami-Dade lawyer tells me provisional ballots from people who tried to vote twice do get referred to prosecutors. But voter has to be shown with criminal intent to face charges.

And then we're back to Rubio:

The news comes after Rubio cast serious doubts about actions by election officials in Broward County on Thursday, noting the questionable past of Elections Supervisor Brenda Snipes.

We go in depth with Rubio's issues with snipes. Well, by 'in depth' I mean we hear Rubio's complaints.

"#Broward election supervisors ongoing violation of #Florida law requiring timely reporting isn’t just annoying incompetence," Rubio wrote on Twitter on Thursday. "It has opened the door for lawyers to come here & try to steal a seat in the U.S. Senate & Florida Cabinet."

Verbatim. Just...repeats what he said. Is Brenda Snipes contacted? Surely her response or her refusal to respond would be next...

Nope, more shade from someone else in the RNC:

Republican National Committee (RNC) Chairwoman Ronna McDaniel also weighed in on the developments coming out of Broward County, writing: "#Broward Elections Supervisor Brenda Snipes is no stranger to destroying ballots and violating Florida election laws. Snipes has shown herself to be trouble. Voters in Florida should be paying attention!"

Which, again, is just someone else's tweet.

Now we'll hear fr-

No, sorry. We're going to talk about other claims of fraud.

Multiple reports of Democratic voter fraud have surfaced in recent weeks.

In late October, court documents filed by Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton alleged that four women arrested by authorities had targeted elderly voters in a "voter fraud ring" during the 2016 elections which was funded by a then-Democratic Party leader.

They're source, and note this is not uncommon nor suspect, is themselves. That article has two sources. One is an NBC local affiliate and the other...is Brietbart Texas. Also worth noting, this is 2016. Context is appropriate but you'll have to make your determination how relevant this is.

Any more on the actual story? No. Something that happened in Bakersfield instead:

This week in California, Democratic Bakersfield City Council candidate Gilberto de la Torre was charged with election fraud.

This comes with a source, too. Which is good because this sentence is short on details. Here is that link for those interested. While the arrest was this week, it was in connection to the 2016 election:

In an unusual Election Day twist, de la Torre was among three in Kern County charged with voter fraud in connection with the 2016 election, according to the District Attorney's office. How is this relevant? It is, actually.

De La Torre and Byrne are charged under subsection (b) of Elections Code 18560, which states "being entitled to vote at an election, votes more than once, attempts to vote more than once, or knowingly hands in two or more ballots folded together at that election."

kinda-

In 2016, De La Torre was one of 25 candidates to run for mayor.

Did they include the context that this was in 2016 for a perenial candidate who was part of a 25 person race for Mayor? No. They leave you to conclude that this was for the current election in California.

Finally:

James O'Keefe's Project Veritas released an undercover sting on election day this week from a polling station in Texas that appeared to show an election official telling Project Veritas' undercover journalist that they had 'tons' of Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) recipients voting in the election.

The only reason that this isn't just spam of the rofl smiley is because it's been abused to have lost all meaning. Of course PV has on numerous occasions been shown to be dishonest.

More importantly, no one else is running this. Not even the reporter who tweeted it. Is Daily Wire biased? I mean, from the contextual clues here yes they seem to have a point of view and conclusion they are selling. Is this particular article a reliable piece of information? Not particularly. Did Doug lie about what he saw? No, probably not. But he also thought this was only exactly as news worthy as a tweet, which is the same criteria I use when I see a funny sign or car I like.

Based only on this article all I know is that something that may in fact be routine verification happened, Rubio is full of theories, four people did some shady shit with old voters last election, and a dude who refers to himself in the third person running for mayor of...Bakersfield, got accused of voting twice with three other people. In 2016. I'm not inclined to feel like the Daily Wire alone is reliable enough of a source for a story by itself.

[Luminesa]

Most news networks are biased because they’re products. Arguing whether or not a news source is biased is kinda a waste of time.

[Valrifell]

Most news networks are biased because they’re products. Arguing whether or not a news source is biased is kinda a waste of time.

The degree of slant matters. It can range from "reframing the narrative" to "holy shit you just made this up, didn't you?"

Learning the distinction and how to tell the difference are good media literacy skills to have.

[The Black Forrest]

Most news networks are biased because they’re products. Arguing whether or not a news source is biased is kinda a waste of time.

Bias is now a dismissal argument. They are biased so they are lying.

[Luminesa]

Most news networks are biased because they’re products. Arguing whether or not a news source is biased is kinda a waste of time.

The degree of slant matters. It can range from "reframing the narrative" to "holy shit you just made this up, didn't you?"

Learning the distinction and how to tell the difference are good media literacy skills to have.

Well of course. But the media doesn’t count on most people to have literary skills enough to do research. If people did research on what they read in the news, Fox, CNN, and others would be out of business.

[Cannot think of a name]

Anyone interested in how a social media disinformation campaign could possibly swing an election, look no further. When someone actually examines a source people who consider themselves savvy don’t go, “yeah, that doesn’t seem terribly reliable and lacks key details and verification,” they go “lala all bias critical reading is stupid bias is meaningless.”

So someone shares a story, on social media or let’s say a politically themed message board. The story doesn’t matter, the headline does. The idea. Maybe someone actually reads it and says, “hey, wait a minute...” but that doesn’t matter, there’ll be enough people to tell that poindexter that the situation is intractable.

Later on, something happens or someone needs to score some points, they remember the headline and say, “oh yeah? What about all those democrats who voted twice in Miami?” That’s not even what the article said, and there was literally nothing else on it, so legitimately, what about it? Doesn’t matter. That’s now a thing. Will this one thing work? Maybe not. Will lots and lots and lots not only increase the odds that some will AND exhaust anyone trying to illustrate the difference? Oh my yes.

Cynicism isn’t opting out of the source and misinformation game. It’s a vital part.

[Chan Island]

Just want to bring attention this again from a few pages ago.

A Florida judge has ordered Broward County Board of Elections supervisor Brenda Snipes to turn over all records requested by Republican Senate candidate Rick Scott no later than 7 p.m. Friday. Scott filed suit against Broward County on Thursday, demanding that Snipes comply with public-records law by revealing the number of mail-in absentee ballots her office has received, as well as how many of those have been counted thus far.

Snipes, who has a history of running afoul of election law, has refused to disclose the number of mail-in absentee ballots her office has received, choosing instead to gradually report vote counts over the three days since the election. In that time, Scott’s initial lead over Democratic incumbent senator Bill Nelson has narrowed from more than 50,000 votes to just over 15,000. Snipes’s attorneys told the judge during Friday’s emergency court hearing that their client would gladly release all records once the counting process concluded, and argued that forcing her to do so immediately would interfere with her ability to finalize the count in a timely manner.

Snipes’s lack of transparency regarding the vote count has led a number of prominent Republicans, including Senator Marco Rubio of Florida and President Trump, to suggest that Democrats are resorting to fraud to overturn Scott’s victory. Critics of the Broward vote-count operation have cited Snipes’s record of engaging in dubious, and occasionally illegal, conduct at her job. A judge ruled in 2016 that Snipes violated Florida election law by prematurely destroying mail-in ballots that would have otherwise been examined as part of a lawsuit against her office. Snipes was again found guilty of violating election law in February, when a Florida judge found that she prematurely opened a number of mail-in absentee ballots. Scott indicated Thursday that he was calling for an investigation into the Broward County Board of Elections, but the Florida Department of Law Enforcement told National Review on Friday that the governor has not formally ordered an investigation.

And just ask a simple question.

Why the fuck would you allow anybody with even a tenth of those sorts of suspicions anywhere nears your election machinery?!

[Senkaku]

Just want to bring attention this again from a few pages ago.

A Florida judge has ordered Broward County Board of Elections supervisor Brenda Snipes to turn over all records requested by Republican Senate candidate Rick Scott no later than 7 p.m. Friday. Scott filed suit against Broward County on Thursday, demanding that Snipes comply with public-records law by revealing the number of mail-in absentee ballots her office has received, as well as how many of those have been counted thus far.

Snipes, who has a history of running afoul of election law, has refused to disclose the number of mail-in absentee ballots her office has received, choosing instead to gradually report vote counts over the three days since the election. In that time, Scott’s initial lead over Democratic incumbent senator Bill Nelson has narrowed from more than 50,000 votes to just over 15,000. Snipes’s attorneys told the judge during Friday’s emergency court hearing that their client would gladly release all records once the counting process concluded, and argued that forcing her to do so immediately would interfere with her ability to finalize the count in a timely manner.

Snipes’s lack of transparency regarding the vote count has led a number of prominent Republicans, including Senator Marco Rubio of Florida and President Trump, to suggest that Democrats are resorting to fraud to overturn Scott’s victory. Critics of the Broward vote-count operation have cited Snipes’s record of engaging in dubious, and occasionally illegal, conduct at her job. A judge ruled in 2016 that Snipes violated Florida election law by prematurely destroying mail-in ballots that would have otherwise been examined as part of a lawsuit against her office. Snipes was again found guilty of violating election law in February, when a Florida judge found that she prematurely opened a number of mail-in absentee ballots. Scott indicated Thursday that he was calling for an investigation into the Broward County Board of Elections, but the Florida Department of Law Enforcement told National Review on Friday that the governor has not formally ordered an investigation.

And just ask a simple question.

Why the fuck would you allow anybody with even a tenth of those sorts of suspicions anywhere nears your election machinery?!

Because the US is fucked up. Look at what we let Brian Kemp get away with in Georgia, this kind of ridiculous bullshit happens all the time in American elections.

Also it's Florida. So.

[Shofercia]

Those votes weren't found out of the wilderness, they were always there. The GOP is just playing games. What about Georgia were the GOP threw away thousands of votes? This reeks of rampant voter fraud. The UN needs to come in and protect our elections from the GOP.

Do you really want the UN and Florida to combine their forces of ineptitude when it comes to elections? Think before you ask

Just want to bring attention this again from a few pages ago.

A Florida judge has ordered Broward County Board of Elections supervisor Brenda Snipes to turn over all records requested by Republican Senate candidate Rick Scott no later than 7 p.m. Friday. Scott filed suit against Broward County on Thursday, demanding that Snipes comply with public-records law by revealing the number of mail-in absentee ballots her office has received, as well as how many of those have been counted thus far.

Snipes, who has a history of running afoul of election law, has refused to disclose the number of mail-in absentee ballots her office has received, choosing instead to gradually report vote counts over the three days since the election. In that time, Scott’s initial lead over Democratic incumbent senator Bill Nelson has narrowed from more than 50,000 votes to just over 15,000. Snipes’s attorneys told the judge during Friday’s emergency court hearing that their client would gladly release all records once the counting process concluded, and argued that forcing her to do so immediately would interfere with her ability to finalize the count in a timely manner.

Snipes’s lack of transparency regarding the vote count has led a number of prominent Republicans, including Senator Marco Rubio of Florida and President Trump, to suggest that Democrats are resorting to fraud to overturn Scott’s victory. Critics of the Broward vote-count operation have cited Snipes’s record of engaging in dubious, and occasionally illegal, conduct at her job. A judge ruled in 2016 that Snipes violated Florida election law by prematurely destroying mail-in ballots that would have otherwise been examined as part of a lawsuit against her office. Snipes was again found guilty of violating election law in February, when a Florida judge found that she prematurely opened a number of mail-in absentee ballots. Scott indicated Thursday that he was calling for an investigation into the Broward County Board of Elections, but the Florida Department of Law Enforcement told National Review on Friday that the governor has not formally ordered an investigation.

And just ask a simple question.

Why the fuck would you allow anybody with even a tenth of those sorts of suspicions anywhere nears your election machinery?!

You haven't been following Florida's election skills, have you? Normally NSGers accuse each other of political bias, but when it comes to Florida and something going wrong with elections, we all collectively sigh. If this happened in any other state, I'd be asking the same question. But it's Florida. The Republicans and Democrats are working jointly, in the spirit of bipartisanship, to fuck up the elections. Who said that the parties cannot get along?

[Rio Cana]

While some here are going on about Florida this and Arizona that, it seems the following has been overlooked by some news outlets. Has most of us know, the house of rep. is made up of 435 voting members. After this election the house will now have 42 Hispanics. This is a big increase and means 9.6% of the lower house of congress is Hispanic. That number is expected to increase over time.

[Kowani]

Those votes weren't found out of the wilderness, they were always there. The GOP is just playing games. What about Georgia were the GOP threw away thousands of votes? This reeks of rampant voter fraud. The UN needs to come in and protect our elections from the GOP.

Do you really want the UN and Florida to combine their forces of ineptitude when it comes to elections? Think before you ask

Just want to bring attention this again from a few pages ago.



And just ask a simple question.

Why the fuck would you allow anybody with even a tenth of those sorts of suspicions anywhere nears your election machinery?!

You haven't been following Florida's election skills, have you? Normally NSGers accuse each other of political bias, but when it comes to Florida and something going wrong with elections, we all collectively sigh. If this happened in any other state, I'd be asking the same question. But it's Florida. The Republicans and Democrats are working jointly, in the spirit of bipartisanship, to fuck up the elections. Who said that the parties cannot get along?

It’s a race to the bottom, and both parties are betting on Florida.

[Seangoli]

Those votes weren't found out of the wilderness, they were always there. The GOP is just playing games. What about Georgia were the GOP threw away thousands of votes? This reeks of rampant voter fraud. The UN needs to come in and protect our elections from the GOP.

Do you really want the UN and Florida to combine their forces of ineptitude when it comes to elections? Think before you ask

Just want to bring attention this again from a few pages ago.



And just ask a simple question.

Why the fuck would you allow anybody with even a tenth of those sorts of suspicions anywhere nears your election machinery?!

You haven't been following Florida's election skills, have you? Normally NSGers accuse each other of political bias, but when it comes to Florida and something going wrong with elections, we all collectively sigh. If this happened in any other state, I'd be asking the same question. But it's Florida. The Republicans and Democrats are working jointly, in the spirit of bipartisanship, to fuck up the elections. Who said that the parties cannot get along?

The truly sad part is that I am not even convinced it is mostly intentional in Florida. So much of it is just pure unadulterated incompetence left and right. Its as though the stars aligned over Florida to create a celestial vortex of idiocy that has consumed the state's election boards.


With Snipes, I am willing to bet that the reason they didn't turn over the ballot info is because they had no damn clue how many ballots, provisional or otherwise, they had.

[Myrensis]

Both Nelson and Scott have filed lawsuits, Trump is crying. Just let all the votes be counted, can the GOP stop trying to suppress votes for once? They act like the Democrats are making up fake ballots. Jeez.

That is literally what Trump and Pals are claiming, that there are illegals voting.

Republicans claim that every election, it's part of their usual projection/deflection/justification for their ongoing voter suppression activities.

Apparently Democrats have an amazing talent that allows us to run a nationwide fraudulent voting conspiracy involving millions of people at every level of government, and not only maintain absolutely iron discipline over every single one of them, but to successfully bury every single shred of evidence beyond the most determined Republican attempts to uncover it.

But somehow what we can't do is turn that all-powerful conspiracy into the kind of election victories we need.

[Petrasylvania]

That is literally what Trump and Pals are claiming, that there are illegals voting.

Republicans claim that every election, it's part of their usual projection/deflection/justification for their ongoing voter suppression activities.

Apparently Democrats have an amazing talent that allows us to run a nationwide fraudulent voting conspiracy involving millions of people at every level of government, and not only maintain absolutely iron discipline over every single one of them, but to successfully bury every single shred of evidence beyond the most determined Republican attempts to uncover it.

But somehow what we can't do is turn that all-powerful conspiracy into the kind of election victories we need.

Hillary Clinton colluded with Russia to lose the 2016 Presidential election!

[Cannot think of a name]

That is literally what Trump and Pals are claiming, that there are illegals voting.

Republicans claim that every election, it's part of their usual projection/deflection/justification for their ongoing voter suppression activities.

Apparently Democrats have an amazing talent that allows us to run a nationwide fraudulent voting conspiracy involving millions of people at every level of government, and not only maintain absolutely iron discipline over every single one of them, but to successfully bury every single shred of evidence beyond the most determined Republican attempts to uncover it.

But somehow what we can't do is turn that all-powerful conspiracy into the kind of election victories we need.

It just occurred to me reading this...they think the Democrats are Cobra--a sinister terrorist organization that never manages to succeed at anything yet somehow is still the number one threat and only they, GI JOE the Republicans can stand against them in battles where everyone shoots wild and no one actually hits anybody so all the same people can meet again tomorrow at 3:30 and do it all again.

It was staring me in the face the whole time.

[Petrasylvania]

Republicans claim that every election, it's part of their usual projection/deflection/justification for their ongoing voter suppression activities.

Apparently Democrats have an amazing talent that allows us to run a nationwide fraudulent voting conspiracy involving millions of people at every level of government, and not only maintain absolutely iron discipline over every single one of them, but to successfully bury every single shred of evidence beyond the most determined Republican attempts to uncover it.

But somehow what we can't do is turn that all-powerful conspiracy into the kind of election victories we need.

It just occurred to me reading this...they think the Democrats are Cobra--a sinister terrorist organization that never manages to succeed at anything yet somehow is still the number one threat and only they, GI JOE the Republicans can stand against them in battles where everyone shoots wild and no one actually hits anybody so all the same people can meet again tomorrow at 3:30 and do it all again.

It was staring me in the face the whole time.

Don't forget the daily morals afterwards.

"And Knowing, Is Half The Battle."

[Cannot think of a name]

It just occurred to me reading this...they think the Democrats are Cobra--a sinister terrorist organization that never manages to succeed at anything yet somehow is still the number one threat and only they, GI JOE the Republicans can stand against them in battles where everyone shoots wild and no one actually hits anybody so all the same people can meet again tomorrow at 3:30 and do it all again.

It was staring me in the face the whole time.

Don't forget the daily morals afterwarda.

"And Knowing, Is Half The Battle."

The other half is welding.

[Myrensis]

Republicans claim that every election, it's part of their usual projection/deflection/justification for their ongoing voter suppression activities.

Apparently Democrats have an amazing talent that allows us to run a nationwide fraudulent voting conspiracy involving millions of people at every level of government, and not only maintain absolutely iron discipline over every single one of them, but to successfully bury every single shred of evidence beyond the most determined Republican attempts to uncover it.

But somehow what we can't do is turn that all-powerful conspiracy into the kind of election victories we need.

It just occurred to me reading this...they think the Democrats are Cobra--a sinister terrorist organization that never manages to succeed at anything yet somehow is still the number one threat and only they, GI JOE the Republicans can stand against them in battles where everyone shoots wild and no one actually hits anybody so all the same people can meet again tomorrow at 3:30 and do it all again.

It was staring me in the face the whole time.

Essentially, yes. As with any good conspiracy theory Democrats are quantum villains, simultaneously an all powerful omnipresent threat to everything while also obviously too weak and incompetent to stand against the power of the TWUE PATWIOTS of the GOP.

[Big Jim P]

Republican keep the Senate, Dems get the House. Could have been better.

[The Empire of Pretantia]

Republican keep the Senate, Dems get the House. Could have been better.

Yellow wave?

[Big Jim P]

Republican keep the Senate, Dems get the House. Could have been better.

Yellow wave?

Would have preferred a red majority in both the house and senate. At least holding the senate will help keep leftist off the bench.

[Valgora]

Republican keep the Senate, Dems get the House. Could have been better.

Yellow wave?

When we start saying shit like "Yellow wave", we've taken this wave analogy way too far.

[The Empire of Pretantia]

Yellow wave?

When we start saying shit like "Yellow wave", we've taken this wave analogy way too far.

Imagine it. Independents taking Congress by storm, shifting the modern dynamic into directions never traveled in American history.