2024 US Presidential Elections Megathread

[Admiral Yi]

From our dear friends at the Lincoln Project.

[grumbler]

From our dear friends at the Lincoln Project.

I like it.  One of their best.

[PDH]

Do you find many common expressions passive aggressive?

A few.

Bless your heart.

[Solmyr]

An interesting article in The Globe and Mail, behind a paywall, Interviewing a number of pollsters, who indicate that there's a concern that the reason the race looks so close is because a lot of effort has gone into correcting for past years when Trump support was under reported in the polls. 

The upshot, according to one of the people that was interviewed,  is that all the surprises on election day will be in favour of Harris.  That person said it's very difficult to judge how much the polls might be over corrected but estimated it could range from getting it exactly right to 9 points off in Harris' favour.

That's a tempting theory to accept. We'll soon see.

[celedhring]

I laughed at this one:

https://x.com/NickKnudsenUS/status/1852025474228113904

And yes, it hits straight to your existential dread when you're under 30

[Caliga]

I've seen many ads on Reddit reminding Texas women that it's a secret ballot and your husband does not need to know.

My mom confessed to me recently she used to do this.  She's a registered Republican but has been openly a hardcore Democrat for decades now.  My dad is, and has always been, a frothing at the mouth Republican.  When they were first married she was afraid of making him angry so voted Democrat secretly.  Now, they pretty much openly hate each other so she doesn't bother lying anymore.

[grumbler]

I voted yesterday, and it was so easy that I'm going to vote early every time in the future.

I am grateful to the Republican Party of Virginia for running such a slate of right wing morons that deciding who to vote for (beyond the need to cripple the MAGA Party) was a no-brainer.  Trump would have gotten creamed in Virginia anyway, but he didn't need the "help" the Republican Party here gave him.

[PJL]

From our dear friends at the Lincoln Project.

I like it.  One of their best.

And also another reason why I think polls may be understating Harris in polls. Some women may not be as forthcoming as saying they'll vote for her in them.

[Crazy_Ivan80]

those booths don't look very secrety though. At least as opposed to our taller-than-a-human-3-walls-out-of-four-panneled-and-the-entrance-is-a-curtain booths.
But I guess the form and shape of the booths is different by county or state?

[Caliga]

They look like that in Kentucky also.

I just got back from early voting and it was jam-packed, so I'm glad I didn't wait until next Tuesday to vote.

[Barrister]

I always like going to vote on election day itself - just something about your entire community coming together in one place for this one civic act.

[Tamas]

those booths don't look very secrety though. At least as opposed to our taller-than-a-human-3-walls-out-of-four-panneled-and-the-entrance-is-a-curtain booths.
But I guess the form and shape of the booths is different by county or state?

It's similar to what I voted in in the UK. In Hungary they had the proper booth-sized booths, though like you described.

[crazy canuck]

Back on the topic of money in US politics, the Globe and Mail has an excellent lengthy piece on the impact of the Billionares forming their own superpacs and effectively taking on the role of running elections - rather than just funding them.

There is a fairly deep dive into how effective (read inept) Musk has been.  Unfortunately, it is behind a paywall and I have run out of gifted links, but here is something I think most fill find amusing:

The PAC's presence is not perceptible in rural Georgia, according to three Republican strategists who are closely monitoring the ground game in the battleground state. For example, America PAC has shown little evidence of leaving literature behind on doorsteps, as is common when a voter is not home, especially in remote places, the three people said.

There are also indicators Musk, a tech innovator, has been taken advantage of at his own game. In Nevada, three other people familiar with America PAC's efforts said hired canvassers paid tech-savvy operatives to digitally manipulate an app used to track their progress – appearing to falsify their data so they could get paid for work that they did not do. Canvassers are typically paid by the number of doors that they knock on.

There are signs the practice wasn't limited to Nevada. One person warned America PAC leadership weeks ago that canvasing data from multiple states showed signs that it had been falsified, but their concerns were not acted on, according to two people with knowledge of the matter.

[Admiral Yi]

I've seen a bunch of clips of this guy talking about his time in the CIA.

First I'm surprised he can talk about all this stuff without criminal prosecution.  On the other hand he says he can talk about anything that has been declassified, and I suppose 9/11 and Iraq are long enough ago that contemporaneous stuff has been declassified.

Also in another clip he mentions in passing that he went to prison.  Didn't say for what.  Which raises the possibility he's a disgruntled kook.

[Admiral Yi]

Fuck, that was supposed to go in the youtube thread.