Elections

There are 45 posts filed in Elections (this is page 1 of 5).

The sentencing of Donald Trump

Today, Donald Trump was sentenced for his conviction on 34 counts of falsifying business records to interfere with the 2016 US presidential election.

Coverage: (CNN – Takeaways) (CNN – live blog) (CNN – audio of hearing) (MSNBC – audio of hearing) (USA Today – article and downloadble audio) (CBS – audio excerpts from hearing).

I listened to the USA Today audio (download), it was a little clearer than the audio file provided by the NY State Unified Court System (download). I am providing the USA Today audio download in a player at the end of this post.

Here are my notes of the hearing:

  • Counsel introductions (People and Defense)
  • Both sides are reviewing the probation report, neither side had anything to add to the record
  • Clerk informed People and Defense that they could make statements before sentencing
  • People/Josh Steinglass
    • People recommend unconditional discharge
    • Reviewed how Trump showed no remorse and threatened to retaliate against prosecutors in this case
    • Jury reached a unanimous verdict
    • Probation report says defendant sees himself as “above the law”
    • Must be mindful of the office of the presidency
  • Todd Blanche
    • Disagrees with what the government just said
    • Case should not have been brought
    • We will seek an appeal
  • Donald Trump
    • Very terrible experience
    • Political witch hunt
    • Lots of complaints
    • DOJ is very involved
    • I won the election
    • This is a weaponization of government
    • I was treated very unfairly
  • Juan Merchan
    • Wishes to explain reasoning for sentencing decision
    • A judge must decide what is correct sentence
    • Court must consider the facts of the case and any other mitigating circumstances
    • Extraordinary circumstances involved in this case
    • One power that the presidency does not provide is the power to erase a jury verdict
    • Pronounced sentence of unconditional discharge

Court Documents

The certification of the 2024 US presidential election

Today, a joint session of the US Congress, chaired by Vice President Kamala Harris, certified the results of the 2024 US presidential election, declaring Donald Trump the winner.

This was not the result I wanted, but it is a result which honored the votes of the American people, via the system of voting in the US called the Electoral College. The length of the proceeding was less than 30 minutes, as there were no objections by any Representative or Senator. It was amazing how quickly it went, as opposed to 2021 where numerous objections were raised by Republican (see my liveblog from the 2021 certification).

Kamala Harris released a video today stating that she would fulfill her constitutional duty to preside over the electoral count today:

The House and Senate Congressional leaders held a brief ceremony to remember the events of January 6, 2021:

In CNN’s liveblog coverage for today, Jamie Raskin shared part of a conversation with fellow representative Bennie Thompson:

“I was reflecting on the fact that we can feel proud of standing up for the constitutional order and the election process as it is supposed to work, but it’s also a very tough pill to swallow” Raskin told CNN of his private conversation with Thompson.

Previously on this weblog:

Other coverage:

How to volunteer to help process election data

Now that the 2024 US election results have been certified by the states, those results have been made available to the public through the state election offices, usually part of the Secretary of State for each state.   A non-profit, Open Elections, has been working for over a decade to collect and make US election data publicly available for academic and political analysis. 

I am helping again with my home state of Oregon. For many counties throughout the US, the county election office releases a PDF file of results for each precinct. Open Elections depends on volunteers to process these files and create files in Comma Separated Value (CSV) format. The files are reviewed and then committed to a GitHub repository organized by state. Some counties also make results available directly in CSV format, but not many. Fortunately, there are several tools that can be used to capture data from PDFs in a table format (Tabula, a Java application, and Microsoft Excel). I have been using Excel this time, and it is working well for me (Tabula would not run on my Windows 11 laptop).

For more information on how to help, check out their documentation site (a little dated, still refers to 2020 election, but there is work going on for 2024 results). I feel like I am doing something positive as opposed to just feeling bad about the 2024 presidential election results. Take a look!

In the US today, the Electoral College is meeting to cast electoral votes for Kamala Harris and Donald Trump. Per CNN, Donald Trump has already received enough votes to win the presidency. I tried to find where the Oregon Electoral College meeting is, but did not find anything. Quite a difference from four years ago, when almost all of the electoral college meetings were televised.

What a difference 161 votes makes

There is a saying that ” your vote makes a difference” or “every vote is important”. In a Oregon House race that just concluded, every vote was, indeed, important.

This happened to be Oregon House District 22, in which I reside. The incumbent, Republican Tracy Cramer, was being challenged by Democrat Lesly Munoz. On November 5th, initial results showed Cramer leading by over 500 votes. However, as votes continued to be processed, Cramer’s lead narrowed. On November 14th, Munoz took the lead by a single vote.

Oregon is a vote-by-mail state, and in addition, Oregon counts votes mailed that are postmarked by Election Day and received within 8 days after Election Day. As a result, my county (Marion County, Oregon) was still receiving valid votes through November 12, and then was continuing to process ballots after that point. so vote totals kept changing.

After all valid ballots had been counted, there were still over 800 ballots for this House district that needed to be “cured” to be considered valid ballots. In general, this meant that there was a signature verification issue, and the ballots were set aside. Marion County then sent letters to all of those registered voters informing them of the problem and told them they had to go to the county elections office to “cure” their vote by 5pm on November 26th. The campaigns and parties also received lists of these voters, and worked to get these voters to cure their ballots. As of November 25th, there were still over 500 ballots not cured, and the last report from Marion County showed Munoz ahead by 149 votes. The final unofficial tally was released by Marion County around 6:00pm on November 26, with Munoz leading Cramer by 161 votes. Yes, in this race, every vote did make a difference.

Thoughts on the US 2024 election

I am feeling somewhat better now. Last week, I was suffering from “election depression. On the night of the election, we turned the TV off at 10pm. In the morning, neither my wife nor I wanted to turn the TV on, but we did, and the first words we see are “TRUMP WINS”. Ugh. As I thought about the the past four years, and why did the election end up with a Trump win, the phrase “necessary but not sufficient” came to mind. It was necessary to update the Electoral Count Act, and it was necessary to take actions to have hundreds of lawyers ready to fight frivolous election fraud claims, and it was necessary to build up the elections offices across the US to ensure a free and fair election. But, those things, in and of themselves, were not sufficient to guarantee victory for Kamala Harris. Another phrase that comes to mind is “preparing to fight the last war“. Again, preparations were made to avoid another violent takeover like January 6th, but preparations were not made (or actions taken) to help ensure that Donald Trump would lose the election (fair and square). I am not the person to say what should have been done, or how the Democratic Party should have approached the 2024 election, but the fact that Trump won the popular vote and the Electoral College vote shows that (1) more people wanted Trump than Harris, and (2) all of the weird things that Trump did, all the things he did, the civil and criminal cases against him, did not sway his supporters to vote for Harris.

Nine days after the election, Trump has picked up the rest of the swing states, and Republicans will be in control of the House and Senate – the trifecta. Trump’s cabinet picks so far look like a “clown car from the circus”. His strategy – selecting people who will be totally loyal to him.

For myself, I need a little rest from the election. My wife and I have cut way back on our news consumption. I think our short term plan will be “watch and listen” or “wait and see”.