2020 Presidential Election -- Biden v Trump: Sleepy Joe vs Dopey Don [Results begin on page 409]

[thepop 4418]

Hillary outperformed her Texas polls by 2.7%

 

 

Edited September 29, 2020 by thepop

[NIUHuskies 505]

THE SIGN FRONT UPDATE:

Was in Port A over the weekend for a mini-vacay. Saw 3 Biden properties versus 5 Trump in the cul-de-sac. Not sure voting patterns of Aransas County. 

[NIUHuskies 505]

A friend posted this:



The last time Kendall County went Democratic was 1932.

[BradInATX 9208]

I was giving more thought to this new "Biden is on drugs" line of attack, because it's just so ridiculous and out there, I'm having a hard time processing it. Then it sorta hit me..

This time in 2016 the world was talking about Hillary's emails, that weird "stroke" thing she supposedly had, the shady uranium deal, "basket of deplorables" and her attacking Bill Clinton's victims. Throw in Comey's report in a couple of weeks, and the entire home stretch turned into an election about Hillary. He was getting traction keeping the spotlight and keeping his Trumpian attacks on her.

He can't find any traction at all with Biden in that regard. Nothing he's throwing at him is sticking. Partly because he, like Trump, is a charismatic old white man, and partly because Biden is just pretty relatable and clean. He knows that he needs to make the next month about Biden and not him, but no matter what he tries it doesn't work. The spotlight remains on him and it is bright and glaring. The longer it stays on him the more fucked he is. He's doing the only thing a carnival barker knows how to do once his old tricks have worn thin. Yell louder and be more ridiculous. 

The only strategy Trump knows how to use in conflict is escalation. So here we are. Hunter Biden, "sleepy Joe", the claim that he's a puppet for AOC and her socialists. None of those punches are getting home. So he's doing the only thing he knows how to do... escalating and being more ridiculous and over-the-top with the "Biden is on drugs!!" thing. Anything to get the attention off of him. Because the bright hot light of the spotlight is melting him, both figuratively and literally.

[Pancho 46309]

 

[Queen Bitch 1692]

Someone smarter than me: why is NE-2 such a big deal? Isn’t it just one electoral vote?

[BradInATX 9208]

3 minutes ago, Queen Bitch said:

Someone smarter than me: why is NE-2 such a big deal? Isn’t it just one electoral vote?

It would mean Biden has a very plausible path to victory without having to win historically finnicky Pennsylvania. He can win with the rock-solid blue states, plus NE2 plus MI/WI (which he looks pretty good in right now) plus AZ.

Edited September 29, 2020 by BradInATX

[Mrs Whiggins 13050]

Besides, greed is good. Greed with electoral votes is better. Fight fire with fire.

[heso 2863]

So I’m trying my best to vote in this election in a somewhat important battleground state. I attempted to register in February so I could vote for Yang in the primary. By the time the actual primary rolled around in June I had other things to worry about as it was already determined that Biden got the nod. 

Come August I submit my application for a mail in ballot. A month later I get an email that my ballot application was declined because I’m not registered. Bullshit. I go online and check and sure enough the website tells my I’m not registered. I don’t know what the fuck happened. I was fairly certain that I submitted the application but I had no record of receiving confirmation of it. So I re-register and this time I can request a mail in ballot at the same time. Done. 

I immediately get 2 emails that both applications have been received. 5 minutes later I get an email that my mail in ballot application has been declined because I am not registered to vote.

It’s now 3 weeks later and my voter registration application status hasn’t changed: Received, Not Processed. 

Ive called the Allegheny county election office 3 times. I go through the menu. It connects my to registration, rings 3-4 times and then disconnects me. 

Looking for any news about a delay I saw an article from 2017 saying that something like 22,000 applications were not processed and added to the voter rolls until October 31st and those people weren’t notified that their registration was processed until after the election. 

Edited September 29, 2020 by heso

[Biff Tannen 46166]

2 minutes ago, heso said:

So I’m trying my best to vote in this election in a somewhat important battleground state. I attempted to register in February so I could vote for Yang in the primary. By the time the actual primary rolled around in June I had other things to worry about as it was already determined that Biden got the nod. 

Come August I submit my application for a mail in ballot. A month later I get an email that my ballot application was declined because I’m not registered. Bullshit. I go online and check and sure enough the website tells my I’m not registered. I don’t know what the duck happened. I was fairly certain that I submitted the application but I had no record of receiving confirmation of it. So I re-register and this time I can request a mail in ballot at the same time. Done. 

I immediately get 2 emails that both applications have been received. 5 minutes later I get an email that my mail in ballot application has been declined because I am not registered to vote.

It’s now 3 weeks later and my voter registration application status hasn’t changed: Received, Not Processed. 

Ive called the Allegheny county election office 3 times. I go through the menu. It connects my to registration, rings 3-4 times and then disconnects me. 

Looking for any news about a delay I saw an article from 2017 saying that something like 22,000 applications were not processed and added to the voter rolls until October 31st and those people weren’t notified that their registration was processed until after the election. 

Call the fucking news. I’m not kidding. Even if not nefarious, it will expose the shit show. 

[thepop 4418]

You've only called 3 times? I'd be calling nonstop or going in person.

 

[Bookman 4763]

2 hours ago, Voldemort86 said:

, but I bet hardly any of us voted for Biden in the primary.

I voted for Biden simply because I thought he had the best chance at beating Trump.

[BradInATX 9208]

2 minutes ago, Bookman said:

I voted for Biden simply because I thought he had the best chance at beating Trump.

Ah hell now you've gone and done it

[The Dog 44861]

16 minutes ago, Queen Bitch said:

Someone smarter than me: why is NE-2 such a big deal? Isn’t it just one electoral vote?

Several reasons, but mostly because of what it represents. It's a highly educated, WHITE, and upper middle class district that is a Republican-leaning district historically. The Omaha metro area basically. Biden leading big is an indicator of what is happening nationwide - that white collar white voters are swinging to Biden (especially women). 

[Pancho 46309]

 

[Mrs Whiggins 13050]

11 minutes ago, Biff Tannen said:

Call the fucking news. I’m not kidding. Even if not nefarious, it will expose the shit show. 

PLEASE DO THIS. CALL YOUR CONGRESS PERSON, YOUR SENATOR, AND the US Election Commission, and whomever else. Ten minutes tops even if it's just to leave a voice mail or email.

[BehoId, The Underminer! 11669]

26 minutes ago, Queen Bitch said:

Someone smarter than me: why is NE-2 such a big deal? Isn’t it just one electoral vote?

I posted this the other day. It is the consensus Map with FL and PA going to Trump.  NE2 has a real chance of picking the winner. 
 

 

I also agree with the above that it is symbolic to have something blue in the center of the country. 

[Biff Tannen 46166]

If our hopes are pinned on Nebraska, god help us all. 

[Continental Op 3934]

Interesting things involving Nebraska can happen when there's one second electoral vote involved.

[Post Oak 20566]

23 minutes ago, Biff Tannen said:

Call the fucking news. I’m not kidding. Even if not nefarious, it will expose the shit show. 

Yep.  Raise a fuckin stink.  You're not the only one they're fucking with.  Someone else maybe in your position and just decided "oh well, guess I can't vote".  You can be a voice.

Do it for 'murica

[thepop 4418]

Outlier, but first good pollster to have it this close.

 

[Wulaw Horn 19595]

7 minutes ago, thepop said:

Outlier, but first good pollster to have it this close.

 

I’m not buying that. It doesn’t match any of the stage polls. If that’s true Trump gonna win in a walk (not really a walk- but he’s gonna win). If the national vote is 2 the. In Texas it’s 8, Iowa it’s 6, Ohio it’s 7, PA/wise/mi it’s tied. And we aren’t seeing any of that. Can’t imagine this is accurate. That would essentially invalidate every single other statewide poll. 

[Wulaw Horn 19595]

Online poll btw. 

[Royalfan5 2384]

I’ll also posit Nebraska-1 could be a wild card as well. Might not be as likely as NE-2, but if you can get Lincoln to turn out, and some of the more favorable Biden military numbers are accurate it could surprise. (NE-1 is Lincoln+SE Corner+Offutt Adjacent)

[Dahobbs 18321]

9 minutes ago, Wulaw Horn said:

Online poll btw. 

Ah, so trash. 

[The Dog 44861]

13 minutes ago, Wulaw Horn said:

I’m not buying that. It doesn’t match any of the stage polls. If that’s true Trump gonna win in a walk (not really a walk- but he’s gonna win). If the national vote is 2 the. In Texas it’s 8, Iowa it’s 6, Ohio it’s 7, PA/wise/mi it’s tied. And we aren’t seeing any of that. Can’t imagine this is accurate. That would essentially invalidate every single other statewide poll. 

Nate Silver said more or less the same thing last week. State polls are generally more accurate (and are what he relies on for his forecast) since they actually look at voter rolls/registrations when doing those. National polls are more of a random sample. 

[Wulaw Horn 19595]

8 minutes ago, Dahobbs said:

Ah, so trash. 

There’s probably a place for online polls but I’m not sure what it is. I suppose I prefer more information to less (and we should have outliers or it means everyone is herding and making the same assumptions so if those assumptions are wrong...) but I also don’t want one poll to cause gnashing of teeth and rubbing of vaginas for 4 pages, of warm brisket up for a 14,000 word diatribe about how America is...

it’s way most likely to be garbage in garbage out. 

[Wulaw Horn 19595]

19 minutes ago, Royalfan5 said:

I’ll also posit Nebraska-1 could be a wild card as well. Might not be as likely as NE-2, but if you can get Lincoln to turn out, and some of the more favorable Biden military numbers are accurate it could surprise. (NE-1 is Lincoln+SE Corner+Offutt Adjacent)

If that is in play Biden is getting 400 EV’s. 

[harold 81]

1 hour ago, heso said:

So I’m trying my best to vote in this election in a somewhat important battleground state. I attempted to register in February so I could vote for Yang in the primary. By the time the actual primary rolled around in June I had other things to worry about as it was already determined that Biden got the nod. 

Come August I submit my application for a mail in ballot. A month later I get an email that my ballot application was declined because I’m not registered. Bullshit. I go online and check and sure enough the website tells my I’m not registered. I don’t know what the fuck happened. I was fairly certain that I submitted the application but I had no record of receiving confirmation of it. So I re-register and this time I can request a mail in ballot at the same time. Done. 

I immediately get 2 emails that both applications have been received. 5 minutes later I get an email that my mail in ballot application has been declined because I am not registered to vote.

It’s now 3 weeks later and my voter registration application status hasn’t changed: Received, Not Processed. 

Ive called the Allegheny county election office 3 times. I go through the menu. It connects my to registration, rings 3-4 times and then disconnects me. 

Looking for any news about a delay I saw an article from 2017 saying that something like 22,000 applications were not processed and added to the voter rolls until October 31st and those people weren’t notified that their registration was processed until after the election. 

The county has an election office that it open to the public.  Go there and do not leave until your registration is processed.  It’s not a corporation that you cannot physically touch.  Go there and make them register you.

[Dahobbs 18321]

3 minutes ago, Wulaw Horn said:

There’s probably a place for online polls but I’m not sure what it is. I suppose I prefer more information to less (and we should have outliers or it means everyone is herding and making the same assumptions so if those assumptions are wrong...) but I also don’t want one poll to cause gnashing of teeth and rubbing of vaginas for 4 pages, of warm brisket up for a 14,000 word diatribe about how America is...

it’s way most likely to be garbage in garbage out. 

Sort of like meta analyses, online polls are good for identifying trends that might need more targeted research with a proper study. That is about it. And that's only if they are done properly and carefully. Otherwise, they are as good as those polls that says the aggies are the best team in football, ever. 

Edited September 29, 2020 by Dahobbs

[Wulaw Horn 19595]

2 minutes ago, Dahobbs said:

Sort of like meta analyses, online polls are good for identifying trends that might need more targeted research with a proper study. That is about it. And that's only if they are done properly and carefully. Otherwise, they are as good as those polls that says the aggies are the best team in football, ever. 

Does the fact that it’s tightening matter?  If methodology and assumptions are the same?  I’m agnostic, just asking...

[StassneyHorn 6773]

Go to your PA secretary of state website  for more options or go in person to county election board. Contact your state rep or state Senator as smaller offices will be more responsive if the county election board has a thumb in their ass.

[BehoId, The Underminer! 11669]

13 minutes ago, Wulaw Horn said:

If that is in play Biden is getting 400 EV’s. 

https://twitter.com/dandrezner/status/1310776147748229126?s=20
 

[Brisketexan 106898]

There’s probably a place for online polls but I’m not sure what it is. I suppose I prefer more information to less (and we should have outliers or it means everyone is herding and making the same assumptions so if those assumptions are wrong...) but I also don’t want one poll to cause gnashing of teeth and rubbing of vaginas for 4 pages, of warm brisket up for a 14,000 word diatribe about how America is...
it’s way most likely to be garbage in garbage out. 

I agree with you - online polls are almost always garbage.

And I hope and pray that you’re right - that Biden wins, and in blowout fashion. Because that’s what we desperately need. Just beating Trump by 1 EV ain’t gonna do it. The GOP needs a brutal and harsh rebuke. And then again in 2022. And 2024, when we might have a shot at actually turning Texas blue.

Right now, they’ve successfully set the stage for creating violence and unrest because they won’t even accept or acknowledge a blowout loss

[Wulaw Horn 19595]

5 minutes ago, BehoId, The Underminer! said:

https://twitter.com/dandrezner/status/1310776147748229126?s=20
 

I’m not ruling that out. Never have. 

[TexEx15 17948]

1 hour ago, BehoId, The Underminer! said:

I posted this the other day. It is the consensus Map with FL and PA going to Trump.  NE2 has a real chance of picking the winner. 
 

 

I also agree with the above that it is symbolic to have something blue in the center of the country. 

This is a nightmare scenario.  It needs to be convincing and hopefully on election night.

[BehoId, The Underminer! 11669]

26 minutes ago, Wulaw Horn said:

Does the fact that it’s tightening matter?  If methodology and assumptions are the same?  I’m agnostic, just asking...

that's sort of assuming a useful statistical sample, which i think is the beef of these.  these surveys that introduce a bunch of extraneous elements might as well have 15 point MOEs.

[tantric superman 4668]

2 hours ago, heso said:

So I’m trying my best to vote in this election in a somewhat important battleground state. I attempted to register in February so I could vote for Yang in the primary. By the time the actual primary rolled around in June I had other things to worry about as it was already determined that Biden got the nod. 

Come August I submit my application for a mail in ballot. A month later I get an email that my ballot application was declined because I’m not registered. Bullshit. I go online and check and sure enough the website tells my I’m not registered. I don’t know what the fuck happened. I was fairly certain that I submitted the application but I had no record of receiving confirmation of it. So I re-register and this time I can request a mail in ballot at the same time. Done. 

I immediately get 2 emails that both applications have been received. 5 minutes later I get an email that my mail in ballot application has been declined because I am not registered to vote.

It’s now 3 weeks later and my voter registration application status hasn’t changed: Received, Not Processed. 

Ive called the Allegheny county election office 3 times. I go through the menu. It connects my to registration, rings 3-4 times and then disconnects me. 

Looking for any news about a delay I saw an article from 2017 saying that something like 22,000 applications were not processed and added to the voter rolls until October 31st and those people weren’t notified that their registration was processed until after the election. 

At least there was no test.

From Introduction, Master of the Senate:

The room on the first floor of the Barbour County Courthouse in the little town of Eufaula, Alabama, was normally the County Clerk’s Office, but after it had closed for the day on August 2, 1957, it was being used by the county’s Board of Registrars, the body that registered citizens so they could vote in elections—not that the Board was going to register any of the three persons who were applying that day, for the skin of these applicants was black.

It was not a large room, and it was furnished very plainly. Its walls, white and in need of a fresh coat of paint, were adorned only by black-and-white photographs of former county officials. Against the rear wall stood a row of battered old filing cabinets that contained records of deeds and mortgages and applications for driver’s licenses, and in front of the cabinets were six small, utilitarian gray metal office desks, each with a small, worn chair. Then there was a waist-high wooden counter at which people doing business with the County Clerk’s Office usually stood. Today, the three registrars were standing behind the counter, and the applicants were standing in the bare space in front of it. No one offered them a chair, and the registrars didn’t bother to pull up chairs for themselves, because the hearing wasn’t going to take very long.

Trying to register to vote took courage for black people in Alabama in 1957, even when physical intimidation or violence wasn’t employed to discourage them—as it often was. Everyone knew about black men who had registered and who shortly thereafter had been told by their employers that they no longer had a job, or about black farmers who, the following spring, went to the bank as usual for their annual “crop loan”—the advance they needed to buy the seed for the crop they were planning to plant that year—only to be informed that this year there would be no loan, and who had therefore lost their farms, and had had to load their wives and children into their rundown cars and drive away, sometimes with no place to go. Indeed, David Frost, the husband of Margaret Frost, one of the three applicants that August day, would never forget how, after he himself had registered some years before, a white man had told him that “the white folks are the nigger’s friend as long as the nigger stays in his place,” but that “I had got out of my place if I was going to vote along with the white man,” and how, for months thereafter, instead of calling him “David” or “Boy” as they usually did, white people called him by the word he “just hated, hated”: “Nigger”—pronounced in Alabama dialect, “Nigra”—and how, when they learned he was planning to actually vote, a car filled with men had stopped in front of his house one night and shot out the porch lights, and how, cowering inside, he had thought of calling the police, until, as the car drove away, he saw it was a police car.

And of course there was the humiliation of the registration hearings themselves. Many county Boards of Registrars required black applicants to pass an oral test before they would be given the certificate of registration that would make them eligible to vote, and the questions were often on the hard side—name all of Alabama’s sixty-seven county judges; what was the date Oklahoma was admitted to the Union?—and sometimes very hard indeed: How many bubbles in a bar of soap?

The Barbour County registrars used a less sophisticated technique. They asked more reasonable questions—the names of local, state, and national officials—but if an applicant missed even one question, he would not be given the application that had to be filled out before he could receive a certificate, and somehow, even if a black applicant felt sure he had answered every question correctly, often the registrars would say there was one he had missed, although they would refuse to tell him which it was. Margaret Frost had already experienced this technique, for she had tried to register before—in January of 1957—and forty years later, when she was an elderly woman, she could still remember how, after she had answered several questions, the Board’s chairman, William (Beel) Stokes, had told her she had missed one, adding, “You all go home and study a little more,” and she could still remember how carefully blank the faces of Stokes and his two colleagues had been, the amusement showing only in their eyes.

Nonetheless, despite the humiliation of her earlier hearing in the County Clerk’s Office, Mrs. Frost—a soft-spoken woman of thirty-eight—had returned to that dingy room to stand in front of that counter again. “I was scared I would do something wrong,” she recalls. “I was nervous. Shaky. Scared that the white people would do something to me.” But, she says, “I wanted to be a citizen,” truly a part of her country, and she felt that voting was part of being a citizen. “I figure all citizens, you know, should be able to vote.” In the months since January, she had, with her husband asking her questions, studied, over and over, all the questions she felt the Board might ask, until she thought she would be able to answer every one. And on August 2, she put on her best clothes and went down to the courthouse again.

As it turned out, however, the diligence with which Margaret Frost had studied turned out to be irrelevant, because the Board examined her and the two other applicants as a group, and one of them wasn’t as well prepared as she.

When she asked Stokes for an application, he said, “There’s twelve questions you have to answer before we give you an application.” He asked just two. Mrs. Frost answered them both correctly, as did one of the other applicants. But the third applicant answered the second question incorrectly, and Stokes told them that therefore they had all failed. “You all go home and study a little more,” he said.


Margaret Frost left the room quietly, and she never sued or took any other legal action to try to force the Board to register her. Doing so, however, would almost certainly not have helped. In August, 1957, black Americans in the South who were denied the right to vote, and who asked a lawyer (if they could find a lawyer who would take their case) what law would assist them to do so, were informed that there was no such law—and that information was accurate. Summarizing the situation, a study made that same year by the United States Department of Justice concluded that “There is no adequate legal remedy” for a person who had been denied a registration certificate by a county Board of Registrars.

The scene that had occurred in the Eufaula courthouse was not an unusual one in the American South in 1957. After the Civil War almost a century before, there had been an attempt to make black Americans more a part of their country, to give them the basic rights of citizens—which included, of course, a citizen’s right to vote—and in 1870, the Fifteenth Amendment to the Constitution had supposedly guaranteed that right, forbidding any state to “deny or abridge” the “right of citizens . . . to vote” because of their race or color. But the amendment proved to be an insufficient guarantee in the eleven southern states that had seceded from the Union and formed the rebel Confederacy; specific laws to give the amendment force and make it meaningful—federal laws, since there was no realistic possibility that any southern state would pass an effective statute—were going to be necessary. During the eighty-seven years since the Fifteenth Amendment had been ratified, scores, indeed hundreds, of proposed federal laws had been introduced in the Congress of the United States to ensure that black Americans would have in fact as well as theory the right to vote. Not one of these bills had passed. And in Barbour County, in which there were approximately equal numbers of black Americans and white Americans, out of 7,158 blacks of voting age in 1957, exactly 200—one out of thirty-five—had the right to vote, while 6,521 whites had that right. In Alabama as a whole, out of 516,336 blacks who were eligible to vote, only 52,336—little more than one out of ten—had managed to register. For the eleven southern states as a whole, out of more than six million blacks eligible to vote, only 1,200,000—one out of five—had registered. And of course, even those blacks who had registered to vote often didn’t dare go to the polls to cast ballots, because of fear of violence or economic retaliation. In 1957, there were scores of counties in the South which had tens of thousands of black residents, but in which, in some elections, not a single vote had been cast by a black.

[immamac 44346]

They don't release early voter numbers until election day/night do they? 

[Brisketexan 106898]

At least there was no test.
From Introduction, Master of the Senate:
The room on the first floor of the Barbour County Courthouse in the little town of Eufaula, Alabama, was normally the County Clerk’s Office, but after it had closed for the day on August 2, 1957, it was being used by the county’s Board of Registrars, the body that registered citizens so they could vote in elections—not that the Board was going to register any of the three persons who were applying that day, for the skin of these applicants was black.

It was not a large room, and it was furnished very plainly. Its walls, white and in need of a fresh coat of paint, were adorned only by black-and-white photographs of former county officials. Against the rear wall stood a row of battered old filing cabinets that contained records of deeds and mortgages and applications for driver’s licenses, and in front of the cabinets were six small, utilitarian gray metal office desks, each with a small, worn chair. Then there was a waist-high wooden counter at which people doing business with the County Clerk’s Office usually stood. Today, the three registrars were standing behind the counter, and the applicants were standing in the bare space in front of it. No one offered them a chair, and the registrars didn’t bother to pull up chairs for themselves, because the hearing wasn’t going to take very long.

Trying to register to vote took courage for black people in Alabama in 1957, even when physical intimidation or violence wasn’t employed to discourage them—as it often was. Everyone knew about black men who had registered and who shortly thereafter had been told by their employers that they no longer had a job, or about black farmers who, the following spring, went to the bank as usual for their annual “crop loan”—the advance they needed to buy the seed for the crop they were planning to plant that year—only to be informed that this year there would be no loan, and who had therefore lost their farms, and had had to load their wives and children into their rundown cars and drive away, sometimes with no place to go. Indeed, David Frost, the husband of Margaret Frost, one of the three applicants that August day, would never forget how, after he himself had registered some years before, a white man had told him that “the white folks are the nigger’s friend as long as the nigger stays in his place,” but that “I had got out of my place if I was going to vote along with the white man,” and how, for months thereafter, instead of calling him “David” or “Boy” as they usually did, white people called him by the word he “just hated, hated”: “Nigger”—pronounced in Alabama dialect, “Nigra”—and how, when they learned he was planning to actually vote, a car filled with men had stopped in front of his house one night and shot out the porch lights, and how, cowering inside, he had thought of calling the police, until, as the car drove away, he saw it was a police car.

And of course there was the humiliation of the registration hearings themselves. Many county Boards of Registrars required black applicants to pass an oral test before they would be given the certificate of registration that would make them eligible to vote, and the questions were often on the hard side—name all of Alabama’s sixty-seven county judges; what was the date Oklahoma was admitted to the Union?—and sometimes very hard indeed: How many bubbles in a bar of soap?

The Barbour County registrars used a less sophisticated technique. They asked more reasonable questions—the names of local, state, and national officials—but if an applicant missed even one question, he would not be given the application that had to be filled out before he could receive a certificate, and somehow, even if a black applicant felt sure he had answered every question correctly, often the registrars would say there was one he had missed, although they would refuse to tell him which it was. Margaret Frost had already experienced this technique, for she had tried to register before—in January of 1957—and forty years later, when she was an elderly woman, she could still remember how, after she had answered several questions, the Board’s chairman, William (Beel) Stokes, had told her she had missed one, adding, “You all go home and study a little more,” and she could still remember how carefully blank the faces of Stokes and his two colleagues had been, the amusement showing only in their eyes.

Nonetheless, despite the humiliation of her earlier hearing in the County Clerk’s Office, Mrs. Frost—a soft-spoken woman of thirty-eight—had returned to that dingy room to stand in front of that counter again. “I was scared I would do something wrong,” she recalls. “I was nervous. Shaky. Scared that the white people would do something to me.” But, she says, “I wanted to be a citizen,” truly a part of her country, and she felt that voting was part of being a citizen. “I figure all citizens, you know, should be able to vote.” In the months since January, she had, with her husband asking her questions, studied, over and over, all the questions she felt the Board might ask, until she thought she would be able to answer every one. And on August 2, she put on her best clothes and went down to the courthouse again.

As it turned out, however, the diligence with which Margaret Frost had studied turned out to be irrelevant, because the Board examined her and the two other applicants as a group, and one of them wasn’t as well prepared as she.

When she asked Stokes for an application, he said, “There’s twelve questions you have to answer before we give you an application.” He asked just two. Mrs. Frost answered them both correctly, as did one of the other applicants. But the third applicant answered the second question incorrectly, and Stokes told them that therefore they had all failed. “You all go home and study a little more,” he said.


Margaret Frost left the room quietly, and she never sued or took any other legal action to try to force the Board to register her. Doing so, however, would almost certainly not have helped. In August, 1957, black Americans in the South who were denied the right to vote, and who asked a lawyer (if they could find a lawyer who would take their case) what law would assist them to do so, were informed that there was no such law—and that information was accurate. Summarizing the situation, a study made that same year by the United States Department of Justice concluded that “There is no adequate legal remedy” for a person who had been denied a registration certificate by a county Board of Registrars.

The scene that had occurred in the Eufaula courthouse was not an unusual one in the American South in 1957. After the Civil War almost a century before, there had been an attempt to make black Americans more a part of their country, to give them the basic rights of citizens—which included, of course, a citizen’s right to vote—and in 1870, the Fifteenth Amendment to the Constitution had supposedly guaranteed that right, forbidding any state to “deny or abridge” the “right of citizens . . . to vote” because of their race or color. But the amendment proved to be an insufficient guarantee in the eleven southern states that had seceded from the Union and formed the rebel Confederacy; specific laws to give the amendment force and make it meaningful—federal laws, since there was no realistic possibility that any southern state would pass an effective statute—were going to be necessary. During the eighty-seven years since the Fifteenth Amendment had been ratified, scores, indeed hundreds, of proposed federal laws had been introduced in the Congress of the United States to ensure that black Americans would have in fact as well as theory the right to vote. Not one of these bills had passed. And in Barbour County, in which there were approximately equal numbers of black Americans and white Americans, out of 7,158 blacks of voting age in 1957, exactly 200—one out of thirty-five—had the right to vote, while 6,521 whites had that right. In Alabama as a whole, out of 516,336 blacks who were eligible to vote, only 52,336—little more than one out of ten—had managed to register. For the eleven southern states as a whole, out of more than six million blacks eligible to vote, only 1,200,000—one out of five—had registered. And of course, even those blacks who had registered to vote often didn’t dare go to the polls to cast ballots, because of fear of violence or economic retaliation. In 1957, there were scores of counties in the South which had tens of thousands of black residents, but in which, in some elections, not a single vote had been cast by a black.

Jeff sessions: “awww, why are you making me long for the good ole days?”

[thepop 4418]

Boom

 

[BehoId, The Underminer! 11669]

3 minutes ago, thepop said:

Boom

 

538 has 78% chance of overall victory for Biden, pre-this poll.  I bet this one moves it.

[bolverk 30323]

18 minutes ago, immamac said:

They don't release early voter numbers until election day/night do they? 

Not the results, but I'm pretty sure they do the overall count of the total number.

[The Dog 44861]

Follow up:

 

https://mobile.twitter.com/NateSilver538/status/1310793209669390338

[Storm the Field 5366]

Both NYT and ABC polls have Biden wrecking shop in the Philly burbs. If you average the 2 together, he's up 67-32 in SE Pennsylvania. Those are Obama '08 numbers. 

[Horndog 2295]

6 minutes ago, Storm the Field said:

Both NYT and ABC polls have Biden wrecking shop in the Philly burbs. If you average the 2 together, he's up 67-32 in SE Pennsylvania. Those are Obama '08 numbers. 

Pennsylvania. It's the single biggest reason why Biden is the Dem with the best chance to beat Trump. 

[Horn Under a Bad Sign 20917]

5 hours ago, thepop said:

Hillary outperformed her Texas polls by 2.7%

 

 

 

There's almost nothing I wouldn't give to see Biden win Texas. Talk about a bitch smacking across the snout of the GOP.   I can easily see him winning PA or Wisconsin, but ... Texas?  I get the feeling that once Texas goes blue it's never going back.  And the GOP can't win a Presidential election without Texas.  

[Nice Guy Eddie 13730]

5 hours ago, immamac said:

They don't release early voter numbers until election day/night do they? 

 

4 hours ago, bolverk said:

Not the results, but I'm pretty sure they do the overall count of the total number.

Texas counties, or at least the largest ones, report daily early voting and received mail ballots numbers to the Texas SoS. There is a daily report on the Texas SoS website.  https://earlyvoting.texas-election.com/Elections/getElectionDetails.do

 

[Hugo Stiglitz 23367]

 

[Dahobbs 18321]

2 minutes ago, Hugo Stiglitz said:

 

Yeah, don't take medicine for your dementia, that would be wrong. I guess this is part of the GOP's campaign against healthcare.