Today – one day after the 2024 U.S. presidential election – it’s unlikely that Americans yet have a clear and reliable idea of just which candidate won the balloting between Democrat Vice President Kamala Harris and Republican former president Donald Trump. In 2020, it was four days after election day before the TV and news media organizations projected a winner.
Why does it take so long to declare a winner in this age of voting machines and networked digital wizardry? In 1960, Democrat John F. Kennedy was declared the winner over Republican Richard Nixon in the wee hours on Nov. 9, 1960, after the election on Nov. 8. The dynamics were familiar in that Kennedy ultimately claimed 303 electoral votes to Nixon’s 219, yet Kennedy won only a razor-thin popular vote margin of victory that gave him a 0.2 % win out of 68 million votes cast. On Nov. 9, Nixon conceded the election to Kennedy and told a journalist that “our country cannot afford the agony of a constitutional crisis.” By contrast in 2020, the battle over declaring a winner and concluding the formal proceedings of the Electoral College went on for weeks. The Federal Election Commission gave Democrat Joe Biden 81.2 million votes to Trump’s 74.2 million, a popular vote win of more some 7 million votes and an Electoral College win of 306 to 232. In the days following the 2020 election, the Trump campaign and the GOP waged an unprecedented procedural, legal and political campaign to overturn the results of the election, alleging widespread voter fraud. The effort culminated in the Jan. 6 storming of the U.S. Capitol by Trump supporters in an effort to stop certification of the Electoral College count – and the rest is history. Fast forward to today and the fact that in all likelihood, the outcome of the election remains uncertain. The process of counting and reporting of votes from the 50 states varies widely. Allegations of fraud and irregularities began well before election day and are likely to increase. One positive result of the Jan. 6 riots was that two years later, a bipartisan effort to close many of the loopholes that made the Jan. 6 conflicts possible and attempt to ensure that the process of the certification of the electoral vote count was protected. Congress passed the Electoral Vote Reform and Presidential Transition Improvement Act of 2022 which offered several substantive changes, including: 1) Removing the possibility of a “failed election” by limiting state legislative efforts to choose electors after an election to cases of force majeure, like a natural disaster. Claims of fraud are no longer solely sufficient to require legislative action. 2) The President of the Senate’s (the U.S. Vice President) role in the process is now “ministerial duties” and leaves the sitting vice president “no power to solely determine, accept, reject, or otherwise adjudicate or resolve disputes over the proper list of electors, the validity of electors, or the votes of electors.” 3) The law provides judicial relief for candidates in elector claims from the federal courts. Cases would be heard in district courts by three judges, one from the federal district and two from the corresponding Circuit Court of Appeals. Decisions could then be appealed directly to the U.S. Supreme Court. 4) Congress can still object to electors and sustain those objections with a majority vote from each chamber, but now a vote of one-fifth of the members of each house is needed to trigger the process. Regardless of the outcome of the election, expect legal challenges to slow the process in the courts and expect both major parties to battle in the halls of Congress and the court of public opinion. The fact that the Harris-Trump showdown has been exceedingly close makes the likelihood of a protracted post-election battle almost a foregone conclusion. Sid Salter is a syndicated columnist. Contact him at sidsalter@sidsalter.com.Kingfish note: Well, this column didn't age well, hell, it didn't even age. It was subjected to, dare we say it?, an abortion last night.
21 comments:
Didn't age well.....hahahahaha. Thanks for the giggle Kingfish.
Not hardly. If Trump loses the election will be contested to no end. Just like the last time. He did not lose so come Wednesday morning the world will know he's the uncontested President. I voted for him but I know that his first love is himself.
That was fast. Sid had to have had two columns in the can and pulled out for publication the one that was the least wrong and loony.
The result of this election indicates that America saw through all the charges, lawsuits, and impeachments thrown at Trump.
Nope. He usually sends out his columns on Sunday.
No, we won't have rioting in the streets and a storming of the capitol, and three years of "election fraud" litigation Why not? Trump Won.
They are still counting the popular vote and it is still possible for Trump to get over 90 million votes. Even with all the democrats illegal ballot stuffing for Kamala. Trump has won in a landslide.
Sid must have turned in early last night-
It actually shows that humans vote their self- interests and beliefs.
It shows that those who think that democracy is weak, too chaotic and vulnerable compared to that of a strong central government ruled economically and legally with swift punishment when rules and laws are not obey and thus ruled by one man/one party like is more manageable. It is also a victory for isolationism and male supremacy. The Rubicon was crossed and the Greeks defeated again. The people have spoken.
Sidney was in his swami mode, predicting 2020 as a redux reference for 2024, anticipating a tight conclusion. Worthless waste of time to read his wet dream which resulted in completely false prediction. His next column will take deeper, stinkier BS to assign blame for Sidney's and Leftists' volcanic loss. Viva Trump.
Sid Salter is a political hack. Kingfish, whenever your contract to post his columns comes up for renewal, you need to politely decline.
One of my MS State friends thinks Ole Miss has a monopoly on leftist professor indoctrinators. So, I remind him of Sid.
Sid mentions the Jan 6th riots. Has he ever mentioned the 25+ people that died during his Democrat Party riots including 8-year old Secoriea Turner shot/murdered during the “Atlanta protests?”
Salter mentions Jan. 6, but he's not in the same vicinity as the Associated Press. I could feel the anger of their loss through their words.
So, Sid with a November 6 stamp mark, and ever anxious to hit the 'send' key, claims the election is not yet decided. He makes that call, he says, one day after the election. He must have posted at 10 p.m. Tuesday. And Kingfish stands up for him.
Do some spell check before sending.
What a Kamalamity.
This morning, the results clear, many Trump supporters are threatening violence on January 6 if "the Demorats try to pull any shit and inaugurate our Messiah" and many Harris supporters are attacking Greek restaurants and calling the owners and patrons supporters of genocide...and Sidney tells himself that sooner or later, he's gonna be right about SOMETHING, dammit!
(For those unfamiliar, https://nypost.com/2024/10/16/us-news/dimwitted-tiktokker-tore-down-greek-flags-at-nj-restaurant-thinking-they-were-israeli-oh-s-t-my-bad/).
So now I am lying? Want to see the time stamp, dumbass, I mean troll?
Geez, Sid must have forgotten that Kamala Harris said the BLM riots (far, Far, FAR more deadly and expensive than January 6) should continue, and continue until election day. I guess Sid forgot that Kamala Harris then fund raised bail money for the violent arsonists, attackers, etc. among the BLM rioters.
Sid only remembers that which advances his narrative.
Bring back James Tulp so we can have honest analysis.
SIDs true color is blue liberal just tries to hide it
People here miss that un-prescient Sidney decided to write and sell a post-election story on the Sunday before the election, but in it says the election was over. So it was a stupid gamble. His next week's story will be thick with the miasma of excuses.
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