#vote counting

Jim Saksa at Democracy Docket:

The U.S. Supreme Court blessed grace periods for ballots mailed by Election Day Monday, rejecting a GOP bid to restrict mail voting and preserving pro-voter laws in 14 states.  In a 5-4 decision, the Supreme Court upheld a 2020 Mississippi law that let mail ballots postmarked by Election Day still count if they arrived within five days later.  Writing for the majority in Watson v. Republican National Committee (RNC), Justice Amy Coney Barrett rejected the GOP’s argument that federal laws setting a date for elections preempted states from accepting ballots after that day.* “[E]lection-day statutes do not set a deadline for ballot receipt, so they do not prevent Mississippi from counting ballots postmarked after election day yet received afterward,” Barrett wrote.

“The Framers recognized the difficulty of crafting election laws ‘applicable to every probable change in the situation of the country.’ So instead of constitutionalizing election law, they decided that ‘a discretionary power over elections’ needed to be lodged ‘somewhere,’” Barrett wrote. “Suffice it to say, that power was not lodged in this Court. The election-day statutes say nothing about ballot receipt, and we cannot add to the words Congress chose.”

Barrett was joined by Chief Justice John Roberts and Justices Sonia Sotomayor, Elena Kagan and Ketanji Brown Jackson.

In addition to protecting similar laws in 13 other states and Washington D.C., the ruling will make it harder for the GOP to mount a legal assault on early voting, which legal experts said would be likely if the court ruled for the RNC. It also spares laws in 17 states that specifically provide ballot receipt grace periods for military and overseas voters.

Good news for fair elections and accurate vote counting: SCOTUS ruled 5-4 in Watson v. RNC that ballots postmarked before election day but arriving after election day are allowed to be counted. Justice Amy Coney Barrett wrote the opinion in Watson, and joining her were the 3 Liberals (Sonia Sotomayor, Elena Kagan, and Ketanji Brown Jackson) + Chief Justice John Roberts.

See Also:

The president has no authority to nationalize elections. But we should be cautious about what his scattered MAGA minions may try to do. But there are limits even to what they can do.

Elections are run at the precinct level. In Illinois, for example, each precinct has 5 poll workers called election judges who run the election in that precinct. By law, there must be both Democratic and Republican election judges in each precinct. At early voting centers there is a larger setup but the bipartisan requirement also applies. So if there are any irregularities, somebody from the opposite party can bring them to the attention of the authorities and the public.

Voting by mail, which is comparatively new, has become contentious because some Republicans claim that this is a source of fraud because of the "blue shift".

In the video, David French explains...

This is something that in the MAGA public they believe is proof of fraud, and it’s called the blue shift. Because before Trump, mail-in balloting didn’t cut one way or the other. But then Trump comes along and says, “Mail-in balloting — corrupt, fraud, et cetera.” And then the Democrats got this big mail-in balloting edge, and what that means is, in a lot of locations, the mail-in ballots are counted a little bit later. So you have the initial red move, followed by the blue shift. They use this as proof to this day. To this day, you will hear Republican members talking about this as the Democrats see how many votes they need to manufacture, and then in comes the blue shift and they magically win.

I am not a fan of mail-in voting. I tried it once in a primary in 2020. My ballot arrived just before Election Day and it may not have gotten to the election office in time if I mailed it back. So I ended up taking it to my regular precinct polling place on Election Day – as was permitted then.

We've all experienced stuff getting lost in the mail. My ballot is too valuable to risk ending up at the wrong address or disappearing altogether. And with Trump running the postal service, there's the temptation for him to slow things down around elections.

I now always vote early and in person. With 10 days of early voting in addition to Election Day, there are few excuses not to vote in person. Your vote is counted on Election Day itself and you don't have to worry about MAGA trying to invalidate your late arriving mail-in ballot.

Back to the video. Jamelle Bouie is somewhat reassuring about Trump's attempt to mess with elections...

If you’re worried about ICE, states can just make clear that federal agents cannot conduct immigration enforcement acts near polling places. That’s a straightforward thing that you can do, and federal immigration agents do have to follow state law. You can work on further modernization of ballot counting, making sure that there is a process for ballots to be counted as quickly as possible, to preclude any conspiracizing about a blue shift or whatnot. The Times ran this really interesting piece about the president’s calls for nationalizing elections, and it quoted Republican election administrators who themselves were affronted at the suggestion that they were running shoddy elections.

Elections are run at the precinct level. If you want to be sure that elections are free and fair in your, consider volunteering to be a poll worker. Poll workers usually get a modest remuneration for their services. And some states permit high school students over 16 with a B average to be poll workers.

Become a Poll Worker

^^^ Scroll down at the above link to Sign up with the Lookup Tool below!

Currently TDs are in the process of being elected as the votes are counted. Not evey constituency had had TDs elected however.

So far seats have been confirmed for

•Sinn Féin candidate Louise O’Reilly from Dublin Fingal West

•Sinn Féin Candidate Eoin Ó Broin from Dublin Mid West

•Fine Gael Candidate Neale Richmond from Dublin rathdown

•Sinn Féins Paul Donnelly in Dublin West

•Fine Gaels Emer Currie in Dublin West

•Fine Gaels William Aird in Laois

•Fine Gaels Patrick O’Donovan in Limerick City

•Sinn Fein Candidate Johnny Guirke in Meath West

•Michael Fitzmaurice from Independant Ireland elected in Roscommon Galway

•Sinn Féin David Cullinane elected in Waterford

•Independant Verona Murphy elected in Wexford

And for some frontline politicians as well, such as:

•Fianna Fáil leader Micheál Martin from Corm South Central

•Sinn Féin leader Mary Lou Mcdonald from Dublin Central

•Fianna Fáils Former Finance Minister Jack Chambers from Dublin West

•Aontú Leader Peadar Tóibín from Meath West

•Fine Gael Party Leader and Taoiseach Simon Harris from Wicklow

And finally,

•Fine Gael minister Jennifer Carrol McNeill, the first TD elected in the country from Dún Laoghaire

And

•Fianna Fáils Seán Ó Fearghaíl elected automatically to Kildaire South due to position as Ceann Comhairle

Aditionally, this election has seen support for the green party drop dramatically, with even Green Party Leader Roderick O' Gorman fighting for his seat, and Hazel Chu struggling to win Past Leader Eamon Ryan's seat in Dublin Bay South.

Currently, the green party is projected to win one (1) seat, a massive loss considering their recent place in government.

We can also see Independant Hutch Gang Member Gerry "The Monk" Hutch fighting Labours Marie Sherlock for a seat in Dublin Central.

First off I’m picking Aether.

1: he has the highest stats so far, which I think is interesting. I’m actually surprised, while I didn’t think he was easy going like bennett, I thought he would be more tolerant in terms of surprises, I guess I was proven wrong.

2: BECAUSE his stats are so far high, I’m genuinely worried what’s gonna happen since we’ve almost reached 25% for the insanity stat, and have reached past 15% for both envy and insanity, and that also has consequences…. In fact, his stats are literally higher than Childe AND Xiao. Like, his first scene was the ignored phonecall and THAT rose his stats 15% or at least made it TO 15%. He also seems to be also have a harder affection bar, since his leveled by 3 instead of 5 (or maybe it’s just because there were other people there…)

I’m going to make guesses on the four traits, purely off of previous scenes, and the highlighted text:

Kaeya’s trait is scheming related, since his insanity literally decreases when he scoped out the competition. Someone that wants to be on top of what’s happening, and has a need to know EVERYTHING. So… perceptive??? (Sorry, I don’t know a better word at the moment 😭)

Diluc’s trait, from what I can tell when I looked back is that he’s either protective or a provider. Since his insanity stat decreased when we drank the…. Love…. Mix (I wasn’t here since the beginning, but oh my gooood, did he mixed his 😟 in there???) He also didn’t exactly seem to be TOO jealous that senpai is literally sitting Aether’s lap

Bennett is a bit harder, and I don’t exactly have a word for it. But I bet that if we start scolding him for anything, mostly about his bad luck, I think it’ll start raising his stats, so maybe someone that seeks approval, since he likes it when everyone gets along (edit: I went and looked at Bennett’s profile, and yep, approval-seeking to the tee)

Aether…. Hmm. Clingy and attention seeking for senpai. He hates being ignored and HATES when you breach a promise. “Neglecting” him causes his stat to increase quite drastically. Which makes me think he doesn’t exactly…. Have a stable personal relationship (*cough* Lumine *cough*). Perhaps he uses senpai to fill a hole in his heart….

Anyways this is all, I wrote this down on my notes app at 6:30 am so…. This is what my exhausted brain have come up with 😭

-🍋