Predictions… about the future…

A thought occurred to me. They do, sometimes. Occasionally they are even interesting.

You may have heard we have a national election coming up. The pundits and pollsters are saying it’s too close to call, or that it’s Hilliary’s to lose. But one thing we know is that there are some states where elections are typically close enough that before the votes are cast it could swing either way with new news. Hence they are called “swing states”. Current polling (as of the time of this posting, anyway) says that there are 188 (solid/likely/leans) Electoral College votes for for Clinton, 185 EC votes in the “too close to call” column, and 165 (solid/likely/leans) EC votes for Trump. In the “leans Clinton” column are Illinois and Oregon, and in the tossup are FL, OH, IA, GA, PA.

Shortly before the election, the final word on the ACA (ObamaCare) rate increases will be announced. And I’m sure it will not be a small announcement. My quick preliminary search indicates that the *average* increase among those states listed above is over 24%. And it’s a tich over 23% nationwide.

Huh. How about that.

Wait a minute... New Mexico and Oregon and New Jersey are only in the “Leans Clinton” column? NM, with 5 D votes for president in the last six elections, and OR with the last seven election all went D, with ever-increasing margins of victory, and NJ with 6/6 D with an average margin of victory of 15%? And we should expect they’ll hear about O-care’s increase of 23% in the fourth largest single item of the typical household budget just days before they cast their votes?

Hmmmmm. It’s possible that this election will incur enough MSM and SJA tears to make us all contemplate Noah’s shop project. At the very least, have earplugs handy for the wailing and gnashing of teeth.

Then again, people are not always rational.

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17 thoughts on “Predictions… about the future…

  1. I live in southern NJ and other than one extremely liberal friend from college everyone I know is solidly Trump. The lib was a bernie supporter, and still hates Hillary, because she met her while working on Bill’s campaign.

  2. The calculation omits the additional votes that will be found for Hillary immediately after the polls close. I recall that in the election wherein we got Senator Franken, the extra votes were kept in boxes in the trunk of a car, and were produced one box at a time as needed until his vote total just barely exceeded his opponent’s total.

    Now imagine this on a larger scale in a few Democrat-controlled precincts in your “swing” states and the only thing that can stop Hillary from becoming President is a landslide for Trump so outrageously large that it is presently unimaginable.

    Hillary Clinton will be our next President.

    • And yet I have friends, reasonably smart people, who are convinced the only voter fraud is on the R side, and it tiny, and it never changes anything. Yes, that is a particularly egregious case. Yes, everyone involved in it should be strung up – literally – to deter others. But the day will come soon that the overreach and fraud will be obvious the other side will stop bending over for it.

      That day, and the ones that follow, won’t be pretty.

      • I’m always astonished at the people that argue “Voter fraud has never proven to be a problem” when there’s never been a mechanism to detect voter fraud.

        Is bank robbery suddenly not a problem if everyone decides to never pursue bank robbers? Not hardly…

        • If it isn’t measurable, how can one tell if it’s a problem, or improving or worsening, or even exists?

          • Circumstantial evidence can tell you if it exists, or at least have a reasonable and strong suspicion of it. When you get someone registered in multiple places who admits it. When you have politicians actively seeking to block measures that would likely reveal or limit voter fraud, it’s a reasonable supposition that they are benefiting from it.

          • While I understand the necessity of closed balllots — they prevent individual voters from being intimidated to vote a certain way — I don’t think that we realize that closed ballots come at a cost: namely, that it’s a lot more difficult to verify whether or not your vote is being counted correctly, or whether a given ballot actually matches up with a living voter.

            Perhaps there will be times when the interest to make sure the votes are accurate will override the desire to make sure that no one will be intimidated; or, alternatively, that both identifiability and privacy can both be preserved by some cryptographic system. (The latter is probably not likely, though, considering that the two goals are somewhat contradictory…although if it *is* possible, I’m sure someone else has already come up with a scheme for it…or, alternatively, someone has already mathematically proven that it is impossible…)

  3. A couple of weeks ago I wrote a letter to the editor to WSJ, denouncing electronic voting machines on the grounds that it’s impossible for any voter to be confident that the machine is recording his vote accurately (or at all).
    A few minutes after I emailed the letter, I got a reply from the letters editor (first time that ever happened) saying that he has no faith whatsoever in the electronic machines he’s forced to use as a NJ voter. Hm.
    We know that the Democratic party favors election fraud. They consistently and intensely oppose any attempt to strengthen the safeguards, and equally consistently push for any change that makes it easier to “vote early and often”. The proliferation of electronic voting machines is undoubtedly part of this strategy.

    • Agreed. I no longer trust the vote-counting system/people, and the “margin of fraud” keeps expanding. WA is all mail-in ballot, so at least in theory there is a paper trail that could be audited.
      I’m in favor of making voting day a holiday, and require in-person voting with good ID, and purple dye on your finger when you cast you ballot. Any sort of provisional, absentee, or any “exceptional” ballot would include a photo and finger-print of the voter. Even if we only did that once, I think it would be fascinating to analyze the change in election results if it were certain it was 99.99% fraud-free.

      • Interesting that the argument against requiring ID is usually that it’s burdensome for the poor to arrange to have state ID. Here’s a thought. What if state ID was free, so it wouldn’t be a burden to anyone? Not that any state is willing to stop hosing us for the cost of a Driver’s License every 5 years, but it’s a thought.

      • A number of states have free ID. That doesn’t stop the lawsuits.
        With mail-in ballot, you can see a collection of ballots that exist at the polling office. Whether those have any connection with what was mailed in is something you have to take on faith. It really is just a paper form of the electronic machines, no more trustworthy, no more auditable. About the only benefit is that it’s probably not as easily hacked over the Internet.
        A real ballot, on paper, filled in and deposited in a ballot box, with poll watchers observing. That is the only credible method. It is the only way for a voter to have some reason to believe that his vote is actually counted, and that the votes counted are the ones cast by real voters.

  4. IL only ‘leans Clinton’ in pretend numbers. It will go solidly for Clinton as my dead grandma and cat will vote early and often until it happens.

  5. ” we should expect they’ll hear about O-care’s increase of 23% in the fourth largest single item of the typical household budget just days before they cast their votes?”
    Many voters no longer cast votes on the quaint non-Monday Federal holiday known as Election day. Is why I think mail-in ballots by default are a Bad Idea.

    • I’m opposed to all forms of voting other than paper ballots cast in person at a polling place. Not for the reason you mentioned, but because all other schemes are far too easy targets for fraud. Which explains why Democrats have been pushing them.

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