My Lightbulb Moment: It's less important to know how we lost; more important to learn how they won.

[ancianita]

Last edited Sun Nov 20, 2016, 04:26 AM - Edit history (1)

Not by realizing that we Democrats are right from all kinds of angles, which I call the culture wars; not by being on the right side of history, which we are; not by arguing the popular vote should now take precedence over the electoral college numbers, which we can now pursue.

I realize how they won. It came down to simple math and the software, Crosscheck. Thank you, Botany, for bringing this to DU's attention a few days ago. It simply can't be ignored.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/12512611017

A software system called Crosscheck, used by Republican governors and their Secretaries of Election, determined the margins of Republican losses across a bunch of red states.

Then, this is how the Crosscheck system helped Trump win.

Michigan Crosscheck purge list: 449,922
Trump victory margin in Michigan: 13,107

Arizona Crosscheck purge list: 270,824
Trump victory margin in Arizona: 85,257

North Carolina Crosscheck purge list: 589,393
Trump victory margin in North Carolina: 177,008

Of course, those three example states were not the only ones who used the software. Crosscheck noted the GOP presidential election loss numbers in Republican states, then beat those numbers by purging Democratic voter rolls in far greater numbers of minority vote purges between elections.

That strategy, above all others, won the necessary 270 electors. All the rest -- the PR, the crazy rhetoric, media 'normalizing', even Comey, emails and Russian hacks -- was window dressing. The GOP worriedly let the Democrats proceed with their Rube Goldberg-style complifications of all the campaigning, polling and media back and forth.

Because their number crunchers knew that the drama could bring out numbers above the ones they beat through Crosscheck.

That's what Democrats -- who thought that all manner of ground game, ads and polling would bring voters to the polls -- didn't see. Basic numbers that it took to win. Democrats put themselves in a bubble and never clearly saw what the Republican establishment and their governors had really done.

Democrats could have noticed, could have had court fights in those states, but the ACLU, or party lawyers in general, dropped the ball on their opponents' numbers strategy, whether they tried hard or not. One North Carolina case overruled the state's purgings and/or voter ID suppression; I can't remember them all, now.

But. An army of ACLU lawyers and the Democrats could have taken Crosscheck and their states bosses to court, and governors still could have kept mum about Crosscheck and their number goals.

More problematically for Democrats, paperwork that the purgings were based on were only about 50% accurate, anyway, so it would have taken massive man-hours to locate living, purged voters, restore them to polls. Then it might have taken a lot of data entry into state voting systems to be reflected at local precinct levels.

The battles were there. Democrats just couldn't see it, or if they did, they didn't pull a network of legal fight together to make it in time to roll out court decisions, get the rolls straight and get the access to greater numbers of vote machines. Democratic voter turnout failure -- whether it was Bernie Bros, Millennials, whoever else -- made up the rest of the numbers.

So the Republicans won by the slimmest, most elegant of methods. All the drama -- Hillary's evilness, media, bum rushed rallies, signal-to-noise commentary -- was cover. Or at least irrelevant to winning.

We Democrats need to learn from this. Seriously.

My Lightbulb Moment? It's less important to know how we lost. It's more important to learn how they won.

When the important thing is to win -- the party that does what's really necessary wins. And Republicans won the electoral votes.

We’re good at talking about how Democrats lost. It’s mostly because Democrats got more lost in culture wars than in the mechanics of winning. Whether the Kochs who bought it all know it, whether Republican governors know it, and whether this schlub of a president-elect knows it or his coterie of wangstas know it, the important thing is that WE have to know it.

Now we have to regain control of the numbers. The Kochs were “first to market,” therefore dominating the political state markets. So, we have to go in, take those markets away with gubernatorial wins. If Obama hadn’t dropped Howard Dean we’d have had that part handled years ago.

Now, who in the Democratic party is going to do the hard 50-state slog. Who is going to clarify the brand as a winning brand. Bernie's campaign people can help with this and Schumer can certainly get behind it.

Man, Botany woke me the hell up. Thanks, Botany. I love you, man.



Here's the Greg Palast article from back in August.

http://www.gregpalast.com/election-stolen-heres/

And the Rolling Stone's article on the same issue:

http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/features/the-gops-stealth-war-against-voters-w435890

And a good thought from Hillary:

[R B Garr]

1. This explains a lot. I hate to see everything blamed on the electorate as if

Donald was such a superior candidate when there are many new and extenuating circumstances like those referenced here. edit: there was also a swath of protest voters which was an organized effort to undermine a Clinton victory. It was called Bern it down, or something like that.

Thanks for this great info. I'm glad to see that these abnormalities are being examined.

[ancianita]

2. There was some hard headed thinking by GOP vote getters we need to learn from.

[TDale313]

3. Really really good points.

We need to fight this stuff, and figure out how to speak about voter suppression. Election integrity and fighting for everyone who is qualified to vote to be able to is really important.

[ancianita]

13. We need more lawyers and money spent in the right places -- states.

[Botany]

4. I'm pretty damn special

BTW Crosscheck was used to keep people from voting twice and that is something that
doesn't happen. In N.C., MI, PA, and Wisconsin the exit polls did not match the vote
and those states used crosscheck.

Crosscheck was used in many states too.

[ancianita]

5. Yep, you latched onto the right map outlines. It explains a lot I had to think through before the

Last edited Sun Nov 20, 2016, 10:14 AM - Edit history (1)

whole drama finally began to make sense. Your post on this was crucial to everything else we here go back and forth about. Then I could finally get a larger picture sense of the mechanism behind why all the stuff we thought should matter really didn't matter. Oh, it still does, but not for winning.

One other thing I've learned. It's not always about hearts and minds. It's about winning first and, as their thinking goes -- not mine by a long shot -- hearts and minds eventually come around.

We Dems thought we could lose by sheer moral or idea force, but we found out different.

I'd rather be a learner than a fussing loser.

You da man, Botany!

[Botany]

6. We need a foresic audit of the election

* 88,000 people in michigan voted in the election but not for President?

* Luzerne County, PA which has voted Clinton, Clinton, Gore, Kerry, Obama,
& Obama went for Trump by 20 points?

* Blacks who voted for HRC in the Primary did not turn out to vote in the general election?

[ancianita]

7. Just how does that get started? I doubt petitions are the real way, just the PR way.

We also need to audit our selves and take a harder look at how winning is done. Audits are crucial, but almost impossible with digital hard drives being owned and controlled by Republican-bought companies.

Seriously, that's why I've griped about returning to the numbered paper ballot method.

Winning controls economies and militaries. Now Democrats, through the culture war belief in winning hearts and minds, have won nothing but learning. If that.

[Botany]

8. Contact the D o J, if you have a D senator or Congress Criiter, President Obama, and most ....

important tell your friends and family about how strange the election was. The media will
not cover this story until we build a bonfire for the world to see.

BTW Trump having Ken Blackwell on his team all but tells me this was a dirty election.

[ancianita]

9. Okay. I'm good at calling. But when vote counts are at 1% of total, the whole count should be

Last edited Sun Nov 20, 2016, 10:15 AM - Edit history (1)

automatically thrown to outside, international audit.

I mean this. The mechanisms for vote counting will just be only one leg of this uphill slog the Democrats have ahead, IF they're serious about not being a minority party.

[Botany]

10. What we need to do is demand a look at all states that were running "Crosscheck."

Were the people's Constitutionally protected right to vote and have that
vote counted blocked?

The DNC is all but useless.

[ancianita]

11. TOTALLY. I'm sure you say that with all the historical affection one can have for them right now.

I'd better reread the Constitution. I'm not sure that voting is protected.

The word "elected" appears, but I'm pretty sure that if that's open to interpretation, it's why we've seen shenanigans building for decades, and it's going to be why we've also got a Constitutional leg to run in this Sisyphean uphill thing.

[Ligyron]

12. Yep, pretty much the way it seems to me

[Snarkoleptic]

14. "'Crosscheck was used to keep people from voting twice and that is something that doesn't happen"

In the rare instance where someone DOES try to vote twice, the penalties are stiff and they DO get caught.

http://www.bnd.com/news/local/article115496693.html

Audrey R. Cook, 88, of Alton, is accused of sending in an absentee ballot in her late husband’s name. Cook was a Republican election judge in Madison County. She was charged a few days before the election with two felony counts of election fraud.

Cook and her husband, Vic Cook, served as election judges for many years. She said she knew how he wanted to vote, and after he died, she filled out and sent in his absentee ballot.

Cook pleaded not guilty before Madison County Circuit Judge Kyle Napp on Thursday, represented by attorney Don Weber. She was allowed to turn herself in and is free on a recognizance bond. Weber requested that Cook be permitted to travel outside the state as she waits for trial, and prosecutor Jennifer Mudge said she had no objection.

Cook faces two Class 3 felony charges, one relating to sending in a false ballot, and one for violation of the absentee ballot statute. Each count carries a maximum sentence of five years in prison.

http://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/trumps-warning-of-voter-fraud-prompts-iowa-supporters-attempt-to-vote-twice/ar-AAjALjK?li=BBnbfcL&ocid=iehp
Trump's warning of voter fraud prompts Iowa supporter's attempt to vote twice

A Des Moines woman charged with committing voter fraud has said she voted twice because she was afraid her vote for Donald Trump would be changed to a vote for Hillary Clinton.

Participating in early voting in Iowa, registered Republican Terri Rote allegedly cast two ballots for the Republican presidential nominee. Arrested and charged with election misconduct, she was released from jail on Friday on a $5,000 bond.

“I wasn’t planning on doing it twice. It was spur of the moment,” Rote told Iowa Public Radio.

Echoing Trump’s repeated remarks about widespread voter fraud, disputed by Republicans and Democrats and made without evidence, Rote added: “The polls are rigged.”

[ancianita]

15. So what are you trying to point out here. We know that was their official purpose. What do you

mean with these seven examples? It's important to sort this out.

[Snarkoleptic]

17. The point is that the notion that there is widespread voter fraud is a falsehood

being used by Kris Kobach and the rest of the fascists to retain power.

[ancianita]

18. We really don't know that without an audit of Crosscheck, as Botany points out above. The numbers

are conveniently spread across red states;thus, all these seven examples are not indicative of what could have really gone on.

Another thing to find out, as well, is whether blue states used any software to check for Republican voter irregularities. I haven't read anything to that effect.

So, your claim still has to be proven.

[ancianita]

16. There are other things to learn if we're ever going to return to majority party status:

We need to address the 49% of those who didn't vote. To that end, we have to tell non-voters that Americans disengaged by this country's political process have to remember a couple of things:

1. There is no giving up. Millennials and everyone else will have to learn that control of politics is control of whole economies and militaries.

2. If we give up we will never have majority political control again of anything that matters for the betterment of people. Nor will our politics control any other economic sectors. California has known that. This is about future generations controlling their landbase resources or the future inhabitants' landbase controlled by global forces.

3. We now face what every third world nation is facing. Only on a larger scale and varied political/historical context. We didn't see how voting mechanisms and money beat out hearts and minds politics. But now we have to.

4. We're down but we're not out. Every single Democratic 'interest group' -- women, Millennials, LGBTQ, minorities, the elderly, kids -- can join with others and can focus our money and expertise at state levels enough to beat them at their own game. We can do this!

[Botany]

19. But with crosscheck people could have voted but their votes would not count and they ...

... might hve been then put into the 49% of Americans who did not vote.

In the primaries HRC got put over the top in a number of southern states
by the African American vote but those same people did not show up to vote
during the general election?

[ancianita]

20. Yes. But as you say, without an audit we won't know the truth of the numbers.

Totally with your logic here.

We need that audit if we're going to beat them at their own game.

[ucrdem]

23. One point: the low turnout numbers reported by CNN were wrong.

Shocking isn't it. The updated figure as of Nov. 15 was 58.1% of eligible voters counted so fa, which is really not bad when you consider the ferocious GOP assaults on voting rights fought on all fronts, legal and otherwise. Here's a 538 account:

http://fivethirtyeight.com/features/no-voter-turnout-wasnt-way-down-from-2012/

Also early voting reported before election day was breaking records and comprised a huge proportion of voters, breaking for Hillary too, but then it was Trump time and a whole new narrative making no mention of early voting, just like in 2004. Hmm..

[ancianita]

24. Point taken. Encouraging numbers, if they could only tell the whole numbers game story, right?

Along with the "whole new narrative making no mention of early voting," there's been no real audit of the millions of provisional ballot laws that's truthfully reported on their alleged destruction, either.

There are so many numbers we just don't have. That's all been by design, no doubt.

We're not running our elections. Operatives, governors, Secretaries of Elections are, and they're not held to account for numbers. There probably has to be both a lawyer-monitor for each of them, and international observers of each state's digital software programming, accounting, ballot shipments and later aggregate counting for anything to get better.

[Fast Walker 52]

21. so what does it take for the MSM to take this seriously?

[ancianita]

22. I don't have the answer, just an idea or two. But then, why would they want to?

If media make money for their owners with current presentations of pseudo information, drama, false equivalencies and making every election a horse race ("thank you for staying with us" and "stay tuned!&quot , and making people tear their hair out trying to get at the truth, why would telling the American public the truth help them profit?

Do we see people on TV or paper media who would risk their jobs for stirring a consciousness in the American people?

Even if MSM did, wouldn't it likely be because the truth is now too late for any body politic groundswell (without big money by conscious billionaires) to do anything about?

We put the news of Greg Palast and The Rolling Stone together too late. Our lawyers who love democracy have been as fried as we have with the trappings of moral culture wars and he said/she said outrages, along with the belief that enough people would GOTV to get a win that could better life for most Americans. We were shocked at the mention of global influences that defy all we ever thought or were taught about the civics of nation state politics and public agency.

All of what we've wanted MSM to do has mistakenly presupposed a morality like Bernie's, a classical ethical responsibility to the American people. That's what we were taught back in the day. It disappeared before we even realized it in 2007. With the mix of bullshit and small factoid/no context reporting, we took years to figure out the betrayals of media we thought we could trust.

But media was only part of theater that hid what really was happening.

What it might take, if we can pull together a united collective will, is to boycott all TV and print media until their profits are so low they do something drastic to show they've changed. We'll likely not see that. But we could just walk away from those that have teased us with political theater long enough.

We have to have an alternative for veracity for the body politic, if it's going to keep itself alive as an agent of democracy. If the Internet is all we have, we'd better make better use of it than paying for infotainment.