2020 Election Results

[lpetrich]

DCCC Chair Maloney produces report on why Democrats lost seats in 2020 - The Washington Post

Maloney laid out how Democrats simply underestimated the number of hardcore Trump voters and, with more Trump voters in the voting booths, the Republican attacks against the “defund the police” movement proved more potent than Democrats ever anticipated.

“The lies and distortions about defund and socialism carried a punch, but the Republicans think it got them over a 10-foot wall, when Trump’s turnout gave them a seven-foot ladder,” Maloney said in 45-minute interview, exclusively outlining what he calls the “Deep Dive” into the election.

"Polling missed the Trump surge at the very end." -- seems like there were a lot of shy Trumpies, much like shy Tories in the UK.

In one of 3 very competitive races of IA, infrequent voters as pcts of the total electorate:

• Polled: D 5%, R 4%
• Actual: D 4.7% R 5.9%

The R's narrowly won.

In a South Florida district,

• Polled: D 38% R 33%
• Actual: D 34% R 36%

The R's narrowly won there also.

Maloney said his side has to get better at understanding how Trump’s voters do not respond to pollsters at the same rate as other voters.

“That creates what we call a systemic nonresponse bias, which is a mouthful. That’s a fancy way of saying the real Trump supporters don’t like talking to pollsters,” he said.

In other words, shy Trumpies.

"Maloney says the biggest strategic mistake was devoting so much money to trying to win GOP-held seats, believing their first-term incumbents who delivered the majority in 2018 were safe."

As a result, 6 D's of 2018 lost by less than 1.5%

“This is about acknowledging Democrats have work to do when it comes to communicating with communities of color, especially as we learn to better differentiate between the needs and concerns of the diversity that exists within our communities,” said Williams, who won the seat of the late Rep. John Lewis (D) in November.

Though Democrats raised a lot of money, more than the Republicans, they found that much of it went into TV ads late in the campaign, with little benefit.

That played out in Texas, Florida and California, where Democrats flamed out as their campaigns did not connect with key voter constituencies such as Latino and Asian American voters.

“We are still overweighted on old media, and we need to invest more in organizing and in digital. I would rather invest in the next Stacey Abrams or a real organizing strategy for the Rio Grande Valley,” Maloney said, referring to the Georgia political figure.

What AOC said some months back - lack of digital outreach, the sort of campaigning that she herself has done.

 

[Treedbear]

Top Arizona elections official expresses 'grave concerns' voting equipment compromised by Cyber Ninjas, tells Maricopa County to toss voting machines used in GOP 'audit'

After consulting with the US Department of Homeland Security, Hobbs wrote, she was recommending they "not be reused in future elections." "Rather, decommissioning and replacing those devices is the safest option as no methods exist to adequately ensure those machines are safe to use,"

Apparently this is just one other source of the stink that surrounds Maricopa County:

Smelly invader takes root in Pima County, threatens local ecology

A smelly plant has taken root in the community, and the stench isn’t the only thing that’s worrisome.

Stinknet (Oncosiphon piluliferum), also called Globe Chamomile, is a noxious and invasive weed species that has rapidly spread throughout Arizona over the last decade, ...

Maricopa residents hope for relief from crematorium smoke as COVID deaths decrease

Some condo owners in east Scottsdale have taken notice of unexpected wafts of smoke and a lingering odor coming from the nearby Paradise Memorial Crematory near 93rd Street and Shea Boulevard.

“The smell was so unbearable that everybody needs to run into their houses,” said retiree Marlene Dove, who moved there in September. “If you have guests, they have to come in or they put things over their heads and their faces to keep the smell out.”

Sheriff candidate Jerry Sheridan wants to use 'skunk water' on protesters

Jerry Sheridan, the Republican candidate for Maricopa County sheriff, hosted around 40 people at his Fort McDowell home on Sunday to watch a demonstration of what he said could be used in crowd control: "skunk water."
...
"It's like foul, foul garbage that has been sitting in the sun rotting, decaying in a closed tight space and the door has been opened and that smell just comes out. It really overpowering and disgusting," said Kathryn Butler, who volunteered to be sprayed.

The price to close a sewer plant

After more than a decade petitioning against the smell coming from a wastewater treatment plant and finally succeeding to get the plant shut down, residents in Carefree and north Scottsdale will get an increase in their sewer bill.

Liberty Utilities, which owns Black Mountain Sewer, applied for the rate increase with the Arizona Corporation Commission in 2019 as a way to recover funds spent closing its wastewater treatment plant near the Boulders Resort & Spa in 2018.

The smell of money leaving Maricopa

Farmers have been known to say the unpleasant smell coming from cattle in a community is the smell of money. But in this case, some of the physical elements tied to that smell could end up costing the city of Maricopa millions of dollars.

I guess after awhile you kind of learn to live with it.

 

[Jimmy Higgins]

How can the chain of custody have been violated? They just handed the machines over without any oversight at all?

 

[Treedbear]

How can the chain of custody have been violated? They just handed the machines over without any oversight at all?

Apparently without legitimate oversight. I understand that the ballots themselves are now in question. I also understand that electronic voting machines need to be properly certified. But that's why paper ballots are so important. I'd never trust the machine. It has to be the actual paper ballots filled out by the actual voters.

Maricopa County will need new voting machines after GOP's audit, Arizona secretary of state says

Arizona Secretary of State Katie Hobbs said Thursday that the voting machines Republicans turned over to private companies as part of their audit of the 2020 election are no longer safe for use in future elections.

State Senate Republicans subpoenaed nearly 400 of Maricopa County's election machines, along with ballots cast by voters in November's election ...

Hobbs said in her letter Thursday that her office had consulted with election technology experts, including some at the Department of Homeland Security. The unanimous suggestion was to decommission and replace the election machines, she wrote.

In Arizona, the secretary of state can decertify machinery in consultation with the state's Election Equipment Certification Committee, a three-person panel appointed by Hobbs.
...
"Unfortunately, after a loss of physical custody and control, no comprehensive methods exist to fully rehabilitate the compromised equipment or provide adequate assurance that they remain safe to use," she wrote.

 

[bilby]

Voting machines are a dumb idea. Their sole benefit is to speed up the process, in an environment where speed is utterly irrelevant.

Wait until tomorrow, or next week, for the papers to be counted. What matters in a vote tally is security, confidence, and accuracy. Speed and cost are very much secondary concerns.

It's really not a big deal if the winners aren't known for a few days, particularly if they're not going to take office for a couple of months anyway.

 

[Treedbear]

In CT we fill in little dots with a pen and run them through a scanner. The paper ballots are saved. I don't trust the ones that have you enter choices electronically and then receive a printout. While the printout might reflect how you actually voted there's no way to know whether that's the way your vote was registered. Our old mechanical machines were no longer serviceable and probably more error prone. These are cheaper, faster to use and to count too. But I'd actually rather wait a day or a week to release the results. Election night is a media show that just gins up emotions and artificially influences whether people are motivated to go out and vote as the results come in. So the western states have different incentives than here on the east coast. Also, electronically tallying the votes probably makes it easier to go to a ranked-choice voting system, which is really the only truly democratic way to do it.

 

[bilby]

In CT we fill in little dots with a pen and run them through a scanner. The paper ballots are saved. I don't trust the ones that have you enter choices electronically and then receive a printout. While the printout might reflect how you actually voted there's no way to know whether that's the way your vote was registered. Our old mechanical machines were no longer serviceable and probably more error prone. These are cheaper, faster to use and to count too. But I'd actually rather wait a day or a week to release the results. Election night is a media show that just gins up emotions and artificially influences whether people are motivated to go out and vote as the results come in. So the western states have different incentives than here on the east coast. Also, electronically tallying the votes probably makes it easier to go to a ranked-choice voting system, which is really the only truly democratic way to do it.

We have two different systems of ranked choice voting here; IRV for representatives, and STV for senators.

This is what our voting "machines" look like:



Note the sheer size of the white senate paper (there's only one in the picture, it's been folded up to fit in the frame) - it's not uncommon for there to be thirty boxes 'above the line' and eighty 'below the line'.

The only machines used are pencils.

I have worked for the AEC issuing and counting these ballots. Counting is quite a bit of work, but it's the price we pay for democracy, and IMO well worth paying.

 

[Treedbear]

...
I have worked for the AEC issuing and counting these ballots. Counting is quite a bit of work, but it's the price we pay for democracy, and IMO well worth paying.

I imagine it would be mind-numbing work. And therefore prone to errors. I still like filling in little dots better than having to decide whether it's a 3 or a 5, or a 1 or a 7.

 

[Shadowy Man]

Voting machines are a dumb idea. Their sole benefit is to speed up the process, in an environment where speed is utterly irrelevant.

Wait until tomorrow, or next week, for the papers to be counted. What matters in a vote tally is security, confidence, and accuracy. Speed and cost are very much secondary concerns.

It's really not a big deal if the winners aren't known for a few days, particularly if they're not going to take office for a couple of months anyway.

But if machines can count them as accurately as hand counts, which is what they appear to do based on the hand recounts we have seen in states like Georgia and Arizona, why not use them? Is there any evidence, other than in the minds of the conspiracy theorists, that machine counting is providing a significant difference in results?

 

[ZiprHead]

In CT we fill in little dots with a pen and run them through a scanner. The paper ballots are saved. I don't trust the ones that have you enter choices electronically and then receive a printout. While the printout might reflect how you actually voted there's no way to know whether that's the way your vote was registered. Our old mechanical machines were no longer serviceable and probably more error prone. These are cheaper, faster to use and to count too. But I'd actually rather wait a day or a week to release the results. Election night is a media show that just gins up emotions and artificially influences whether people are motivated to go out and vote as the results come in. So the western states have different incentives than here on the east coast. Also, electronically tallying the votes probably makes it easier to go to a ranked-choice voting system, which is really the only truly democratic way to do it.

That's how we do it in Michigan. The machines are called tabulators.

 

[Treedbear]

In CT we fill in little dots with a pen and run them through a scanner. The paper ballots are saved. I don't trust the ones that have you enter choices electronically and then receive a printout. While the printout might reflect how you actually voted there's no way to know whether that's the way your vote was registered. Our old mechanical machines were no longer serviceable and probably more error prone. These are cheaper, faster to use and to count too. But I'd actually rather wait a day or a week to release the results. Election night is a media show that just gins up emotions and artificially influences whether people are motivated to go out and vote as the results come in. So the western states have different incentives than here on the east coast. Also, electronically tallying the votes probably makes it easier to go to a ranked-choice voting system, which is really the only truly democratic way to do it.

That's how we do it in Michigan. The machines are called tabulators.

That's what they're called in Arizona too. Interestingly Michigan's also already established a standard set of procedures to assure chain of custody.

Arizona audit ignores federal law on election records

...
Once the chain of custody is broken, the ballots are no longer genuine according to federal election law. Would it have been possible to conduct an audit as envisioned by the Arizona Senate and at the same time comply with federal records retention law? Yes, it is possible. Rather than breaking the official chain of custody, the Arizona election officials should have either made paper copies of the ballots or scanned the ballots for viewing electronically.

If viewing the original ballots was deemed critical to the Senate, arrangements could have been made with election officials to have their staff available, at a cost to the Senate, to handle the ballots, allowing Senate consultants to view each ballot and record the votes, but not to touch the ballots. Generally, any recount in the normal course of an election is conducted in this manner; candidates and their representatives are never allowed to handle any election documents or ballots.

Should the county refuse to participate, state courts may have to resolve the authority of the Senate’s subpoena with the federal requirement to maintain integrity of the ballots. The county may not have the choice to refuse inspection of the ballots.

Michigan has created such a process. When I was serving as Michigan’s director of elections in 2009, the Michigan Attorney General’s Office, in close consultation with the Department of Justice, issued an opinion setting parameters to make election ballots available for public inspection under Michigan’s Freedom of Information Act, consistent with the federal election records retention statute.

Michigan election officials now make ballots available without breaking the chain of custody, while still complying with open records transparency requirements. It can be done. Detailed procedures are provided to local election officials instructing them on how to allow public inspection of ballots without permitting any handling of ballots by third parties – in other words, maintaining the chain of custody.

 

[James Brown]

 

[Treedbear]

voting_software.png

Computerized voting systems are at about the same stage as self-driving cars. I don't trust anything that relies on catastrophic failure to find out there's a problem, especially when trust in the outcome is the raison d'état.

 

[Ford]

voting_software.png

Computerized voting systems are at about the same stage as self-driving cars. I don't trust anything that relies on catastrophic failure to find out there's a problem, especially when trust in the outcome is the raison d'état.

I am an autonomous vehicle test operator, so I'm not sure if that's an apt comparison. I can't give out specific numbers, but you'd be surprised at how competent they are. Of course, the biggest difference is that we're not facing a massive concerted and deeply cynical propaganda campaign designed to not just sow distrust in autonomous vehicles, but driving in general. The ultimate goal of what the right wing is doing is (IMO) to get to the point where they can simply dismiss election results which don't go their way and have it stick.

Right now legislation is being pushed at the state level to grant legislatures (Republican-run, of course) to ignore the votes that might put them out of office and overrule the will of the electorate. On the national level, they're bitterly opposed to an investigation into the most devastating attack on our capitol building in over 200 years.

I've never felt as safe in a vehicle as I do testing these self-driving cars. What worries me is not the autonomous vehicle, but the idiots on the road around us who think they're good drivers. They're not malicious...just incompetent.

I've never felt as worried as I do now about the state of our democracy. One political party is hell-bent on tearing it down piece by piece, and if it takes violence, they're cool with that. They are filled with malice.

 

[bilby]

voting_software.png

Computerized voting systems are at about the same stage as self-driving cars. I don't trust anything that relies on catastrophic failure to find out there's a problem, especially when trust in the outcome is the raison d'état.

I am an autonomous vehicle test operator, so I'm not sure if that's an apt comparison. I can't give out specific numbers, but you'd be surprised at how competent they are. Of course, the biggest difference is that we're not facing a massive concerted and deeply cynical propaganda campaign designed to not just sow distrust in autonomous vehicles, but driving in general. The ultimate goal of what the right wing is doing is (IMO) to get to the point where they can simply dismiss election results which don't go their way and have it stick.

Right now legislation is being pushed at the state level to grant legislatures (Republican-run, of course) to ignore the votes that might put them out of office and overrule the will of the electorate. On the national level, they're bitterly opposed to an investigation into the most devastating attack on our capitol building in over 200 years.

I've never felt as safe in a vehicle as I do testing these self-driving cars. What worries me is not the autonomous vehicle, but the idiots on the road around us who think they're good drivers. They're not malicious...just incompetent.

I've never felt as worried as I do now about the state of our democracy. One political party is hell-bent on tearing it down piece by piece, and if it takes violence, they're cool with that. They are filled with malice.

Yeah, as a professional driver I am confident that current automation systems would be safer than me - they don't get tired, they're less likely to concentrate on a major hazard to the exclusion of minor or emerging hazards, and they're able to "see" better in almost every way, and even communicate far more effectively with other vehicles.

The problems with them are those we always see in beta software - not catastrophic failures, but failures that are nevertheless unacceptable to the users. Your car won't run down a pedestrian, but it might decide to only go at 5mph on an empty road, or not to budge at all, because it's overestimated the significance of an input, or is overwhelmed, or has suffered a software specific issue like a memory leak.

In fact, one of the biggest hurdles to autonomous vehicles taking my job is that they refuse to fudge the rules. There are places that I need to exit via an 'entry only' driveway, for example, because the lot was designed for car sized vehicles, and doesn't have sufficient clearance or turning space for a large truck. This stuff probably needs a solution in parking lot design rather than autonomous vehicle software (simply a sign under 'No Exit' that reads 'Vehicles over 3.8m high excepted' might suffice).

A ZX81 could do a better job of driving than the worst 20% of motorists, so even if autonomous vehicles weren't very good, they'd still be safer than letting humans drive. Every day I see two or three human drivers do something insanely dangerous, and hundreds of drivers taking serious risks, such as driving while distracted (by their phones, or their passengers, or their incorrectly secured cargo).

 

[Ford]

Yeah, as a professional driver I am confident that current automation systems would be safer than me - they don't get tired, they're less likely to concentrate on a major hazard to the exclusion of minor or emerging hazards, and they're able to "see" better in almost every way, and even communicate far more effectively with other vehicles.

The problems with them are those we always see in beta software - not catastrophic failures, but failures that are nevertheless unacceptable to the users. Your car won't run down a pedestrian, but it might decide to only go at 5mph on an empty road, or not to budge at all, because it's overestimated the significance of an input, or is overwhelmed, or has suffered a software specific issue like a memory leak.

In fact, one of the biggest hurdles to autonomous vehicles taking my job is that they refuse to fudge the rules. There are places that I need to exit via an 'entry only' driveway, for example, because the lot was designed for car sized vehicles, and doesn't have sufficient clearance or turning space for a large truck. This stuff probably needs a solution in parking lot design rather than autonomous vehicle software (simply a sign under 'No Exit' that reads 'Vehicles over 3.8m high excepted' might suffice).

A ZX81 could do a better job of driving than the worst 20% of motorists, so even if autonomous vehicles weren't very good, they'd still be safer than letting humans drive. Every day I see two or three human drivers do something insanely dangerous, and hundreds of drivers taking serious risks, such as driving while distracted (by their phones, or their passengers, or their incorrectly secured cargo).

That last point...oh yeah. Part of the job is being hyper-vigilant, and when you're the passenger, your role is to be very aware of everything around you. I see so much idiocy now that I'm concentrating on spotting it. Back when I was doing traffic reports, it was often the case during rush hour that there were simply too many accidents to put in the allotted time, so we'd only report the newest or most serious ones. With any luck, eventually autonomous vehicles will make a dent in that in the near future. The software problems are more frustrating than dangerous, and since I've been with the company there's only been one minor accident that happened in another city while the car was being driven manually.

 

[Treedbear]

...

...

From what I've been hearing the recent accidents involving autonomous Tesla's has been "the fault" of the human driver. As if human beings can be counted on to function perfectly. The operating instructions state that the driver needs to have both hands on the wheel, from what I've seen reported. Well when you give the driver nothing to do their attention will drift to other things out of boredom. Something that doesn't afflict computers. And (like with computerized voting systems) until the software is perfected and not until roads and pedestrian awareness get "driver updates" the concept is not ready for primetime.

 

[bilby]

...

...

From what I've been hearing the recent accidents involving autonomous Tesla's has been "the fault" of the human driver. As if human beings can be counted on to function perfectly. The operating instructions state that the driver needs to have both hands on the wheel, from what I've seen reported. Well when you give the driver nothing to do their attention will drift to other things out of boredom. Something that doesn't afflict computers. And (like with computerized voting systems) until the software is perfected and not until roads and pedestrian awareness get "driver updates" the concept is not ready for primetime.

There are no autonomous Teslas in the hands of private motorists.

And you are absolutely correct that taking away most of the work from the driver is a recipe for disaster. The driver needs to be replaced completely; Or required to keep his mind on the job. Splitting the difference (as with Tesla's dreadfully named 'autopilot') is a very bad idea, not least because it gives genuinely autonomous vehicles an undeserved poor reputation.

 

[Treedbear]

From what I've been hearing the recent accidents involving autonomous Tesla's has been "the fault" of the human driver. As if human beings can be counted on to function perfectly. The operating instructions state that the driver needs to have both hands on the wheel, from what I've seen reported. Well when you give the driver nothing to do their attention will drift to other things out of boredom. Something that doesn't afflict computers. And (like with computerized voting systems) until the software is perfected and not until roads and pedestrian awareness get "driver updates" the concept is not ready for primetime.

There are no autonomous Teslas in the hands of private motorists.

And you are absolutely correct that taking away most of the work from the driver is a recipe for disaster. The driver needs to be replaced completely; Or required to keep his mind on the job. Splitting the difference (as with Tesla's dreadfully named 'autopilot') is a very bad idea, not least because it gives genuinely autonomous vehicles an undeserved poor reputation.

You are correct as well. I only brought it up as example of why overly automated voting machine software is as yet untrustworthy.

 

[fromderinside]

Because if we made them totally automated as bilby recommends for driving systems we'd not ever be able to actually register our vote.

I don't think we actually want that.