Donald Trump and US politics

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Schmodderhengst wrote:

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Xavderion wrote:

He's just moving goalposts. First there were no illegal votes. Then there were a handful of solitary cases. Now there are a couple of thousand but they weren't all for Hillary. He'll get there :)

Or maybe you´ll be stuck here :-).

The idea that Clinton lost the popular vote due to illegal voting from illegal aliens assumes that said aliens vote at a roughly equal rate compared legitimate voters. Remember, only 42% of people who can legally vote do so, and if there are 11 million illegals in the US and 90% vote Clinton, you'd need at least 29% turnout for an illegal activity to swing the real result to Trump's favor.

It's a pipe dream. Clinton won the popular. Maybe not by as large as margin as reported, but still certainly won it. The College was a requirement for Trump's victory. Deal with it.

Actually, I take that back. I sought out data from Spain to determine the effect of illegality on voting. In 2006, Spain approved a refferrendum on Catalan independence that received 49% turnout. In 2016, Spain forbade a refferrendum that proceeded anyway with police making arrests and closing polling stations, and the result was... 42% turnout. Apparently, if someone is already motivated to vote, little things like threats of prosecution don't dissuade many. If the "Catalan effect" is applied to typical American voting, we can estimate a 36% attempted turnout among illegal immigrants, which means that about 4 million illegal votes were likely attempted. Unless about a million were prevented (voter ID laws) or intercepted, it's actually not as crazy as I assumed.

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ScrotieMcB wrote:

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Schmodderhengst wrote:

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Xavderion wrote:

He's just moving goalposts. First there were no illegal votes. Then there were a handful of solitary cases. Now there are a couple of thousand but they weren't all for Hillary. He'll get there :)

Or maybe you´ll be stuck here :-).

The idea that Clinton lost the popular vote due to illegal voting from illegal aliens assumes that said aliens vote at a roughly equal rate compared legitimate voters. Remember, only 42% of people who can legally vote do so, and if there are 11 million illegals in the US and 90% vote Clinton, you'd need at least 29% turnout for an illegal activity to swing the real result to Trump's favor.

It's a pipe dream. Clinton won the popular. Maybe not by as large as margin as reported, but still certainly won it. The College was a requirement for Trump's victory. Deal with it.

Actually, I take that back. I sought out data from Spain to determine the effect of illegality on voting. In 2006, Spain approved a refferrendum on Catalan independence that received 49% turnout. In 2016, Spain forbade a refferrendum that proceeded anyway with police making arrests and closing polling stations, and the result was... 42% turnout. Apparently, if someone is already motivated to vote, little things like threats of prosecution don't dissuade many. If the "Catalan effect" is applied to typical American voting, we can estimate a 36% attempted turnout among illegal immigrants, which means that about 4 million illegal votes were likely attempted. Unless about a million were prevented (voter ID laws) or intercepted, it's actually not as crazy as I assumed.

It's probably a lot lower than that.

There's a big difference between illegals voting and legal citizens voting in a vote deemed illegal.

I think his point is that if the consequences are similar, then Catalan represents a hypothetical model that can be applied as a matter of conjecture. I’d argue that the motivations are even similar—acting against a perceived existential threat.

At any rate, the point is not to show that something did happen, only that there is a working model that shows it is not impossible (again, conjecture).

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faerwin wrote:

There's a big difference between illegals voting and legal citizens voting in a vote deemed illegal.

Is there? I see the distinction but not the difference. If voting is forbidden, do you vote anyway or not?

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CanHasPants wrote:

the point is not to show that something did happen, only that there is a working model that shows it is not impossible (again, conjecture).

Correct. I now realize it's completely reasonable to suspect that multiple millions of noncitizens attempted to vote last year. Since one cannot prove a negative, the usual standard of technically innocent, despite suspicion, in the absence of evidence establishing guilt applies.

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ScrotieMcB wrote:

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faerwin wrote:

There's a big difference between illegals voting and legal citizens voting in a vote deemed illegal.

Is there? I see the distinction but not the difference. If voting is forbidden, do you vote anyway or not?

Better yet. If self determination is deemed as a natural right, why shouldn't everybody be allowed to vote? If it is restricted to the natural born, wouldn't that be privilege rather than a right?

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deathflower wrote:

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ScrotieMcB wrote:

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faerwin wrote:

There's a big difference between illegals voting and legal citizens voting in a vote deemed illegal.

Is there? I see the distinction but not the difference. If voting is forbidden, do you vote anyway or not?

Better yet. If self determination is deemed as a natural right, why shouldn't everybody be allowed to vote? If it is restricted to the natural born, wouldn't that be privilege rather than a right?

It's kind of both. As a canadian born person, I wouldn't expect to be allowed to vote in another country without having citizenship. In addition, you can lose your right to vote in some extreme circumstances.

So by that definition, I'd say it's a privilege rather than a right.

As for Scrotie, The difference is that non-citizens know they aren't allowed to vote due to their status. For Catalans, those that are normally allowed to vote were not allowed to vote because the government deemed the voting as anti-constitutional, which essentially means that they aren't allowed to voice their opinions despite being citizens.

Catalans expressed their right (or privilege) to vote despite being forbidden by the government. US non-citizens do not have a right (privilege) to defend because they aren't citizens and as such, haven't earned it.


There is similarities but it's fundamentally different and as such, you can't really compare the two other than for giving a very vague idea of the turn over.

As for the total amount of non-citizens that attempted to vote, I'd say that it's likely under 1 milion, with even fewer that succeeded. I could be wrong.

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Schmodderhengst wrote:

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DalaiLama wrote:

the flaw was in the DNC's steadfast determination to run a completely untrustworthy scandal ridden robot like candidate.

I would have preferred to see Sanders. I bet he would be president now. That was stupid indeed, even if I would not choose such harsh words.

Sanders was cheated, and treated like a second class citizen by the DNC. Had he won the primaries, there's a good chance he would be president.

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DalaiLama wrote:

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Schmodderhengst wrote:

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DalaiLama wrote:

the flaw was in the DNC's steadfast determination to run a completely untrustworthy scandal ridden robot like candidate.

I would have preferred to see Sanders. I bet he would be president now. That was stupid indeed, even if I would not choose such harsh words.

Sanders was cheated, and treated like a second class citizen by the DNC. Had he won the primaries, there's a good chance he would be president.

Morally wrong but not legally wrong. DNC don't need to be fair. He is an independent not a Democrats. They could go into a back room smoke cigar and pick anyone they wanted. And that isn't illegal.

And the Republican can block Trump from being the nominee. They just didn't try it then.

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Schmodderhengst wrote:

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DalaiLama wrote:

http://m.washingtontimes.com/news/2017/jul/23/just-facts-defends-research-finding-illegal-voting/

Who knows, maybe some, but unlikely several million and unlikely all for Clinton.

Until the federal government actually gets voter records from the states, it is difficult to say what happened. That we have fraud and incompetence in just about every sector of government, but not in the election process is something I find difficult to accept. In one state election a few years back, out of millions of votes, they were down to recounting (for a second time) the votes (less than a hundred separated the two candidates, and iirc it was something like 17 votes). Lo and behold, a mysterious bag with thousands of uncounted votes was "discovered" in the middle of the night. Instead of being almost 50/50 voting like all the others in the district, this particular bag was almost all for the Democrat candidate.

The same state govt was found to be selling fraudulent drivers' licenses and even giving bulk discounts. You sent in whatever information and photo you wanted and they would make official documents. It was part of the reason, the US decided to require more stringent documents for flying and reentering the US.

From the perspective of someone who is in the country illegally for many years, working, paying taxes, kids in school, it may feel as if they really aren't doing anything wrong, and it may feel to them like they should be allowed to vote. I don't think it would be a matter of willingness to break the law (otherwise they wouldn't be here) as it would be a matter of getting caught.

One other aspect, is that whether legal residents or not, the total population in a US state determines how many electoral votes it will have. So, California with ~39 million people, and 3 million plus who are not here legally, gets 4 extra electoral college votes because of that.

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Schmodderhengst wrote:

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DalaiLama wrote:

If I'm reading the article correctly, it seems as if Germany has an even more 'degressive' allocation of seats than the US electoral college.

That is NOT the Bundestag, our parliament. The government is formed within the Bundestag.
Laws from the parliament have to pass the Bundesrat(representation of the single states) though.

The representation of the states has nothing to do with the election of a chancellor, which is the most powerful position here. That happens via the Bundestag, actually a chancellor needs to find a majority of members within the Bundestag (usually) - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bundestag, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mixed-member_proportional_representation

Thanks for clarifying that. Do the members within the Bundestag have to vote in bloc (from their region) for a chancellor, or can members vote individually?

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deathflower wrote:

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ScrotieMcB wrote:

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faerwin wrote:

There's a big difference between illegals voting and legal citizens voting in a vote deemed illegal.

Is there? I see the distinction but not the difference. If voting is forbidden, do you vote anyway or not?

Better yet. If self determination is deemed as a natural right, why shouldn't everybody be allowed to vote? If it is restricted to the natural born, wouldn't that be privilege rather than a right?

If I'm reading your argument correctly, (the people that live in an area should be allowed to vote in that area) the principle is sound, and I agree it should be a right. However, the laws need to be followed as well, to prevent exploitation, manipulation and ensure that people are citizens (whether naturalized or born) so that they have a vested interest in seeing the place they live in improve.

Otherwise, the DNC could bus in 100,00 people to a small state, completely flip the vote and take control.