The GOP guy grabs the tie-breaking seat in the Virginia Assembly by getting his name pulled out of a bowl.
The Democrat is expected to challenge this in court, which means the seat will remain vacant for now, but because the GOP thus has a 50-49 edge, they’ll hold the speakership and all committee chairs from now till next election.
Larry Sabato puts this in context:
In other words: the GOP can’t win free and fair elections. So they do everything they can to ensure they never have to contest one.
They are enemies of democracy and we won’t have ours back until they are defeated, root and branch, their citadels and their walls pulled down, their fields salted and their names unspoken until not even the memory of their sins troubles our days. Every office, every seat, at every level of government needs to be contested.
GOP delenda est.
Image: William Hogarth, Humours of an Election: Chairing the Member, 1754-55
schrodingers_cat
Tyranny of the minority.
MisterForkbeard
The real news here is how slanted the entire process was against the Democratic candidate – it’s was openly partisan:
1) The recount went ahead and both campaigns agreed on all ballots to be counted.
2) The ballots ended with the Democrats one ballot ahead.
3) The three republican-appointed election judges ALL agreed to take in another ballot that had previously been disqualified by both campaigns.
4) The republican election judges disregarded their own rules on how “unsure” ballots were to be counted, and awarded the ballot to the Republican against the clear rules.
5) The Democrat made a complaint that the Judges had decided to include a previously removed ballot that both sides thought was invalid, and then award the vote against their own rules to the Republican – an action that broke TWO election rules.
6) The judges responded that the rules were more like suggestions, and that the vote was definitely going to be for the republican.
7) As a literally tied vote, it went to a coin flip. Which went to the republican.
8) All of this happened despite rampant gerrymandering and voter suppression in favor of Republicans and against the Democrats.
So yes, this is how you steal an election.
SiubhanDuinne
Noon headlines on NPR characterized this as a “vindication” for the Republican.
Quinerly
Here’s a headline for you: http://thehill.com/blogs/in-the-know/367326-chelsea-clinton-denies-worshipping-satan
Adam L Silverman
@MisterForkbeard: And the deciding vote on the three judge panel was by a judge who was put into that position by the Republican incumbent. Which is why this will get kicked as a result of Simonds’ lawsuit. At which point the House of Delegates will have to enter into a power sharing agreement to divide the committee chairs and redo the vote for speaker. So is this annoying? Yes. Is it a good example of how outdated and screwed up a lot of our state and local election procedures are? Yes. Is this going to stand? Most likely no.
Tom Levenson
@Adam L Silverman: Apparently the power sharing agreement isn’t inevitable. The GOPsters plan to organize the house on the basis of their temporary 50-49 edge.
Belafon
Stay angry. Keep fighting.
Complacency over the years has cost us and the country. Fixing it was never going to be one and done.
germy
@MisterForkbeard:
Has anyone checked the coin? Just to make sure it wasn’t two-headed…
randy khan
While obviously I wanted a different result (and my wife and I contributed to the recount fund), and am not happy about this, I don’t want to obscure what a monumental achievement it was to go from 66-34 to where the House of Delegates is today. That was an incredible big deal.
MJS
@Tom Levenson: And hopefully they will be sent a message by the Democratic Governor that whatever legislation they think they will pass based on that organization won’t go anywhere.
randy khan
@germy:
For what it’s worth, the two names were put on pieces of paper in opaque metal canisters. One was chosen and opened, then the other was opened, so you could see that there were different names in each canister. I happened to catch the 30 seconds when it actually happened on streaming video while I was looking for the results.
Adam L Silverman
@Tom Levenson: I’m tracking on that. If Simonds’ suit is successful and she prevails and is seated, they will then have to redo that organization.
mai naem mobile
How did VA get so fucked up? I thought McDonnell was the only GOP governor in a while? Must be a weak governorship.
Quinerly
@mai naem mobile: How can you forget “macaca?”?
AnotherBruce
Question, if the Democrats take the house in 2018. Can they immediately reapportion the congressional districts? Or are they required to wait until the 2020 census year to do this?
Peale
@randy khan: Which was better than the old method of sacrificing a goat then watching the flights of ravens.
Calouste
@randy khan: It isn’t particularly hard to cheat with canisters like that. Just hold one in your hand for a while so it gets a bit warm and sweaty. The evidence disappears in a few minutes.
SiubhanDuinne
@Quinerly:
OFFS. I started reading that story without checking the source, and was 100% certain it was from The Onion.
dnfree
@germy: It wasn’t a literal coin flip. The names of the two candidates were put in film canisters (yes! film canisters!) and put into an artistic bowl and then drawn by….one of the Republican judges. Was there any mark to distinguish the two canisters? Inquiring minds wonder. Why not have a nonpartisan child do the drawing? Or someone else who has never seen the canisters?
mai naem mobile
@Quinerly: I thought Maccaca was a long long time ago. Pre-Warner and Kaine??
schrodingers_cat
@SiubhanDuinne: NPR == Nasty but Polite Republicans, there is nothing nice about Rs, some are just less shouty than others.
Tom Levenson
@Adam L Silverman: Ah. Thanks. Here’s hoping.
Sophie Montane
I’m in Virginia and the district Shelly won (which she did win, goddamnit) is next door. This is sickening.
Ksmiami
They must be obliterated
Adam L Silverman
@Tom Levenson: If she’s successful and it’s a 50-50 chamber the GOP caucus won’t have a choice. The Democratic caucus can just shut everything down before it starts. Combine that with the governor’s veto power and that’s a lot of leverage to revisit the chamber’s organization as a result of the outcome. Is this currently not optimal? Yes. Is it a good indicator of the anti-democratic and minoritarian impulses currently jiggered into the system at the Federal and state levels through a variety of foundational and statutory artifacts, as well as modern attempts to maintain control despite actual support? Yes. Will Simonds get her day in court? Yes. Do I expect, based on how Virginia’s election law procedures are actually written, that Simonds will prevail? Yes. Is that a 100% guarantee? No.
MisterForkbeard
@Adam L Silverman: “This likely won’t stand” doesn’t make this any better. I get that we’ll probably be able to fix this, but at some point it would be good for the country if literal election stealing was called what it was… when it happened, not 8 months later in a small 3rd page article when this travesty is overturned.
The election judges should be tossed out on their ass for obvious partisanship. They’ve violated whatever oaths they took, and they don’t even have a believable defense.
ETA: And yes, I’m being overly emotional about this. I understand that their reasoning is ‘defensible’ enough to possibly survive a court challenge. I just don’t see how anyone can look at their behavior and not conclude they were putting their thumbs on the scale.
Quinerly
@mai naem mobile: It was.I think that is the election that Webb won in 2006. Just saying VA has had its ups and downs.? George Allen was both a governor and senator from VA. He originally won LBJ’s SIL’s senate seat, if memory serves.
Quinerly
@SiubhanDuinne: The Hill gives good headline.?
Adam L Silverman
@MisterForkbeard: I’m not arguing with you. I agree with what you’ve written. I’m just point out that while this is unpleasant and unfortunate right now, it likely isn’t going to last for long before it is rectified.
MisterForkbeard
@Adam L Silverman: Well, here’s hoping.
Sophie Montane
My concern with the lawsuit is that so far we don’t have a real good track record with judges interpreting the election laws honestly. There are a whole hell of a lot of white Republicans on the bench in Virginia.
Yarrow
For local VA insight, it’s worth perusing Ben Tribbett’s Twitter feed. You can click through from here.
Barbara
@mai naem mobile: Macaca is post-Warner, during the period when Kaine was governor. Allen had a good shot just because he was a well-liked incumbent. When he flushed his likability down the toilet, out he went. Still the most shocking outcome that I can recall, at least before 2016.
MisterForkbeard
@Sophie Montane: This is what has me worried. You can’t rely on the judges (or congress) to regulate republicans when they’ve been completely captured by partisan republicans. They just do what’s best for the party rather than what the law actually says they should do… but because they’re ‘legally’ impartial, that’s treated as the end of the matter.
But sometimes you get surprised. So here’s hoping this all shakes out well over time.
feebog
So these were election judges, not a panel of judges from a state court. Yes, Simmonds should sue in court immediately. If the election judges ignored their own rules, the ballot should be tosssed.
MomSense
Any juicers in the Naples, Fl area? I just booked my ticket and will be there the second half of March.
MisterForkbeard
@feebog: The sad thing is that the ‘rules’ really are guidelines in a sense. Everyone agreed to them, but they don’t have the force of law. In this case, the ballot acceptance criteria is “if you mark two choices for a single candidate, that vote isn’t counted for either candidate.”
In this case, the judges tossed out that rule for this ballot saying that one of the ballot choices (the democrat) had a line through the filled-in bubble, and therefore shouldn’t be counted. However, the same ballot also had similar marks on OTHER voting selections in which only one bubble had been filled in. So was the voter trying to negate all of those other ballot choices and not choose a candidate for those races too?
The other complication is that most of the other choices on this ballot were for Republicans, so they’re also trying to use that as “common sense” reasoning to indicate that the vote should go to their preferred candidate. But you’re not actually allowed to do that – they’re trying to infer voter intent on what is pretty clearly an invalid ballot.
Quinerly
Truly weird. Trump is on video right now at Huckabee Sanders’ press briefing.
Another Scott
I wouldn’t be at all sure that the result of this drawing is somehow effectively reversed in the near future.
Ben Tribbet/NotLarrySabato knows VA politics very well, and he says the HoD Democratic leader threw away all potential leverage weeks ago:
Is he right? Dunno. But I wouldn’t dismiss his take out-of-hand. Virginia politics is messy and infuriating and counter-intuitive. It often seems like the state Democratic leadership has no idea how to play the game. :-(
We’ll have to see what happens.
Fingers crossed, but no matter what we have to fight the Teabaggers every single day.
Cheers,
Scott.
jacy
@Quinerly:
I get the feeling you’re going to see a lot more him on video. Pretty soon they’re not going to be able to let him be seen in person for more than a few minutes at a time. He’s really decompensating rapidly.
Quinerly
@Barbara: I guess I could look it up. Wasn’t the maccacca moment 2006? Webb vs Allen senate race? Allen was running for re election.
? ?? Goku (aka The Hope of the Universe) ? ?
@Quinerly:
That Wolfe (sp?) book really must have got under his skin I’m guessing. What’s he doing?
Quinerly
@jacy: This was truly weird. She did her 5 min cheerleading like she always does. Then smiled and said something like “we have a special guest.” Then Trump came on two video screens.
? ?? Goku (aka The Hope of the Universe) ? ?
@MisterForkbeard:
Could this be used to overturn the judges’ decision. I heard the Democratic candidate was going to file for a second recount.
Citizen_X
QFT.
Quinerly
Trump and Bannon never close according to SHS.
mai naem mobile
@Quinerly: @Barbara: I just figured the state court judges would have been more evenly distribites between Dems and the GOP. Macaca as a Senator wouldn’t have affected the State courts. Is Macaca even around or did he pass away?
Completely OT I saw Gary Condit on twitter the other day. Jeezus, he’s turned into a total nutjob. Like a Bernie Bros/Alex Jones amalgam. There must be something in the air that just eats your brain cells up.
MisterForkbeard
@? ?? Goku (aka The Hope of the Universe) ? ?: Because they’re the election judges and their job is to interpret which votes are valid. So that’s what they’re doing, in defiance of how it’s supposed to work. But it’s legally gray.
MisterForkbeard
@Quinerly: …is this a live feed or pre-recorded? Because if it’s a live feed, why wouldn’t Trump come out himself to say something? And if it’s pre-recorded, that just suggests that the various allegations of mental incompetence are true.
mai naem mobile
@Quinerly: he looks crazy. Like, literally crazy. I feel like I am watching some Coen Bros movie or soemthing. They didn’t even have the camera angles right. Maybe Quentin Tarantino and not the Coen Bros???
Mike J
Quinerly
@MisterForkbeard: She’s live. I don’t know if the statement he read into a camera (plus the camera angle was off)was prerecorded or not. Statement was basically how great he is doing, how great the country is doing. It had a feel of propaganda. Not sure how to describe it. He’s very squinty, face red, swollen.
mai naem mobile
So when’s Dolt’s physical? How’s he going to do the SOTU? I wonder if they’re going to come up with some illness so that he can skip the SOTU and have Dead Eye Dense do it.
Quinerly
@mai naem mobile: So glad someone watched it as it just went down. Jarring, wasn’t it? Orwellian?
Adam L Silverman
@Quinerly: @jacy: That’s one of the things he learned to do, and likes, from both WWE and The Apprentice. Show up on the jumbotron for a few minutes as the Chairman of the Board, make a statement, sign off.
oldster
“…they are defeated, root and branch, their citadels and their walls pulled down, their fields salted and their names unspoken until not even the memory of their sins troubles our days.”
Tom, I am with you in principle, but I cannot agree with these anemic, half-hearted measures.
Quinerly
Reporter just asked SHS if there would be a mentally acuity test next week. She dodged it.
Quinerly
@Adam L Silverman:Has he done this before during the presidency? I don’t remember seeing this before.
Quinerly
@Adam L Silverman:Katy Tur just said it was “weird” and was taped. It was a reporter from Playboy who asked about the mental acuity test. I’m chuckling….Playboy Mag asking the questions that the NYT won’t ask.
Another Scott
@mai naem mobile: Physical is January 12. SOTU is January 30.
HTH.
Cheers,
Scott.
Adam L Silverman
@Quinerly: Not yet that I’m aware of. He did it at the convention several times. And a lot of his stagecraft, so to speak, is adapted from both how WWE does its visuals and reality TV.
SiubhanDuinne
@Quinerly:
???
tobie
@MisterForkbeard: I thought all three judges on the panel were Circuit Court judges in Newport News. They were not just election judges.
Quinerly
@Adam L Silverman:Been almost a year since a press conference. He backed out of a 60 Mins interview and opted for a Hannity interview where he got the questions beforehand. Supposedly Hope Hicks was worried about Trump’s repeating himself and wanted a situation where he got the questions ahead of time….according to THE BOOK.?
Quinerly
@SiubhanDuinne: ??? ?
Yutsano
@Quinerly:
Smartest things Uncle Hugh ever did was to give Playboy journalistic integrity. I mean the T & A is nice (for some) but yeah the articles really are worth reading, especially national/international news.
MisterForkbeard
@tobie: I could be wrong about that, it’s true.
@Quinerly: I was thinking that they’d avoid pre-recorded statements in order to refute the book’s allegations, but now I’m agreeing with you: They’re much more worried about Trump repeating himself or performing any of the actions described in the book, because that really reinforces it. Even a ‘normal’ person engages in some of those behaviors sometimes, but when Trump does it it will look like he’s in cognitive decline. Which he is, but they have zero room for error on this.
SiubhanDuinne
@jacy:
What a thought. The entire Trump presidency* as a result of post-production CGI, technological magic, savvy engineering, and plenty of cutting-room editing.
Sophie Montane
@tobie: All three judges were circuit court judges, impaneled for the recount. The lead judge is from Newport News (the district with the recount); the other two judges are from nearby counties and were appointed to the panel by the VA Supreme Court.
A problem in Virginia is that judges are selected by legislative election — meaning the General Assembly, which is dominated by Republicans. Republican legislators appointing Republican judges. The rot is deep.
Sophie Montane
Vomit. Okay, I’m outta here. Someday I’ll find a blog without sexist creeps. My tolerance for that shit is down to zero.
Another Scott
@Sophie Montane: I’m sorry to see you go. Contribution of facts is always welcome here.
:-(
BTW, this blog has a very useful feature – the “pie filter” – that lets you change offensive (to you) posts to discussions about pie. It’s very handy for allowing you to not see comments you find annoying or uninteresting or offensive.
Cheers,
Scott.
Steve in the ATL
@MisterForkbeard:
That standard would have been helpful in Palm Beach County with all those ballots that were straight ticket D except for Pat Buchanan as President.
ruemara
@Quinerly: It looks like big brother appearing at a brainwashing event.
SiubhanDuinne
@mai naem mobile:
The physical is scheduled for next Friday — a week from tomorrow (the 12th? I think) — and it will be conducted by Navy doctors, not that weirdo Dr Feelgood in NYC who wrote those “healthiest President in history” assessments during the campaign. Supposedly a summary of findings will be released to the public, although I assume the Prez*, like any citizen, enjoys certain medical privacy rights.
I believe the SOTU is fixed for January 30.
Yutsano
@Another Scott: To mildly defend myself here: I stated a fact. Granted I have no control about how others react to what I say, but I don’t see anything to be apologetic for here. Simply mentioning the publication doesn’t seem sexist to me. But as always YMMV.
Miss Bianca
@Sophie Montane: well, goodbye then, Terribly Offended Commenter Whose Name I’ve Never Seen Before. Wish I could say “sorry to see you go”, but…
Stan
@germy:
Yep, fair and square, it was a Confederate half-dollar.
SiubhanDuinne
@Quinerly:
That escalated quickly.
Steve in the ATL
@Yutsano: you did nothing wrong. That was either a troll or someone whose sensibilities are far too delicate for the internet. Hopefully her bridge club and junior league friends are more genteel.
Another Scott
@Yutsano: I took your comment that way, myself. Her reaction surprised me, but we’re all different and have different buttons.
:-(
Cheers,
Scott.
Yutsano
@Miss Bianca: Probably why I don’t feel too terrible here. Still, even a new voice deserves to be heard.
Having said that, I did feel giving myself a defense here was important, if for no other reason than if I DID do something wrong that I’m not seeing I would like the chance to learn and grow here. But just doing a GBCW on the first day of commenting is…weird.
Sophie Montane
@Miss Bianca: I’ve been here several times, and you have addressed me before. The last time I was here I believe you were agreeing with me about something.
@Yutsano: You did not merely “mention the publication.” Uncle Hugh hurr-durr nice T&A hurr-durr journalistic integrity hurr-durr.
@Steve in the ATL: “That” was not a troll. I have been here several times before. No bridge club, no junior league. I’d tell you to go fuck yourself but I’m trying to be nice. I’m a lifelong feminist who works in global development/women’s health and empowerment and I am fed the fuck up with casual hurr-durring like what’s his name above. Fed. the. fuck. up.
I came back to apologize for perhaps giving the inadvertent impression that I think you’re all sexist creeps, when in fact I was just singling out the one Uncle Hugh guy.
But obviously none of you remember me anyway, so I guess it doesn’t matter.
Sophie Montane
@Yutsano: Don’t know what you did wrong? Okay. For a lot of women–not all, but a lot of feminists–Hugh Hefner isn’t cuddly “Uncle Hugh” and Playboy isn’t “nice T&A.” Hefner was a raging misogynist who did more than anyone to make the pornified commodification of women mainstream. Here’s a reference: http://www.independent.co.uk/voices/hugh-hefner-dead-death-playboy-mansion-bunny-women-misogynist-predatory-enemy-a7972046.html
Gin & Tonic
@Sophie Montane: Which doesn’t alter the fact that his magazine occasionally committed serious journalism, as I think was Yutsano’s primary point. And if you did come around more often, you’d know that Yuts is not exactly a “T&A” kind of guy.
Uncle Cosmo
@randy khan:
Big deal? BULLSHIT. It’s still A LOSS & it doesn’t matter ONE FUCKING BIT by how or how much. The fucking Thugs are gonna run the HoD as if that random draw was a landslide, obstructing everything they can & screaming their lying arses off that it’s the fault of the Democrats.
Close only counts in horseshoes & H-bombs. Win or get fucked
againstill. Now all VA Dems can hope for is one of the Thug Delegates vacates his/her/its seat & they can win the replacement election.Mnemosyne
@Sophie Montane:
And to reiterate what G&T said — Yutsy is in that 10 percent of the male population who really is only interested in Playboy’s articles, IFYKWIM. Pictures of naked ladies do not interest him.
SiubhanDuinne
@Uncle Cosmo:
Which would allow Dems to take control of the HoS prefuckingcisely because they came within one vote during the last election round. If the balance had remained at 66-34, taking that one vacated seat later on wouldn’t mean squat.
I agree with randy khan: it was indeed a monumental achievement and a big Biden deal to bring the balance of power in the VA HoD so close after having been so wildly asymmetrical. This “all-or-nothing” stance is politically stupid and incredibly off-putting to people who are hungry for signs of optimism.
Yutsano
@Gin & Tonic: @Mnemosyne: To be fair, I was just going to let it go since the other party is more interested in proving me wrong. But I was not defending Hefner. I am nowhere near that naïve about who he was and his treatment of women in his life. But having Playboy actually commit acts of journalism gave what would have otherwise been nothing more than a softcore porn magazine some actual heft. It’s a flawed premise and not one that can be repeated today. But the questioning from the Playboy reporter isn’t too much of a surprise.
WaterGirl
@Yutsano: Is it wrong for me to be laughing? Because I’m pretty sure you don’t read the articles for the T&A!
MarkK
So, your vote does NOT matter after all.
MarkK
@Sophie Montane: somebody needs a Wahhmbulance stat.
J R in WV
@Sophie Montane:
Sophie is just posturing. The sexist creep to normal people ratio here is better than in real life by far, just ask my wife. And, yes, the articles in Playboy have pretty much always been at least as good as the attractive women pictures. Notice who asked a question about Trump’s mental acuity!?!!
Also, I’m not sure there’s anything sexist about male humans being attracted to female humans. Sex (as opposed to sexism) is how we reproduce and show love for one another, after all.
Sophie Montane
@J R in WV: Posturing? Are you out of your mind?
Playboy is a dehumanizing porn rag that features (or used to feature) rape jokes in every goddamn issue. In addition to the main pictorials depicting women as objects for male consumption, the magazine’s pages were full of cartoons and “jokes” about rape, incest, forcing little girls, gang-raping women, assaulting women, abusing women, coercing women into sex, etc. etc. etc. — all manner of sexual violence. The little cartoons and jokes throughout the magazine were all along these lines. Sexy fun for men, to rape their daughters! Sexy fun to gang-rape a woman! Sexy fun to force the secretary to blow you or be fired! Sexy sexy fun!
The first time I saw a Playboy magazine I was so traumatized I nearly threw up. I didn’t yet know of Gloria Steinem’s famous quote, but my reaction was the same: “a woman reading Playboy is a little like a Jew reading a Nazi manual.” I was appalled that this was sexy for men. Appalled that this is how they thought of us. Cartoons and jokes about rape and assault and coercion and abuse and incest. Nubile girls, big-breasted women, all about to be raped by leering men.
The soft-porn side of Playboy had one overarching message, for both men and women: women are fuckable objects to be consumed. Playboy’s approach to the women of the world was: “show us yer tits!” That’s what all those pictorials were about, inviting famous actresses and atheletes and really anybody to strip and pose for the magazine. The message was that no matter who you are or what you’ve accomplished, if you’re a woman, all that really matters is: “show us yer tits!”
Women like me have spent decades biting our tongues when some asshole talks about the monster Hefner as if he were a good guy, and Playboy as if it were some innocent thing. This is the magazine, by the way, that mainstreamed pedophilia and child-rape as sexy-time jokes and tips, and a media empire that was, aside from Playboy proper, heavily invested in the most vicious kind of hard-core porn — torture porn, filmed rapes, etc. Lots of trafficked victims. Lots of destroyed lives. And even in the pages of Playboy itself, more than one model’s photos were stolen and published without her permission.
Hugh Hefner loathed feminism and wanted to destroy it. He hated women. He treated women like garbage. He created an empire built on reducing women to pieces of meat.
If you think any of that had anything to do with “love for one another,” then I don’t even know what to say to you.
Big Picture Pathologist
@Yutsano:
Playboy DOES do important journalism. One of the most important interviews EVAR was when they interviewed ex-CIA guy Phil Agee who told the interviewer about the awful stuff the U.S. was doing in South America.
Again,I need to emphasize that this was not Time or Newsweek…frickin’ PLAYBOY.
Benjamin Mays
@dnfree: The Chair of the State Board of Elections pulled the canister. He is a D. The Registrars and Local Electoral Boards are all majority D (controlled by Governor’s party. All State Judges are appointed and reappointed by General assembly (GOP since 2000.