Well, when Reagan won in a walk a couple of the networks declared for him before the west coast polls closed and way too many people figured, “Why bother?” and stayed home. It affected quite a few races in California from the US House on down to city representatives.
I could see if the media breathlessly giving a running total up to election day it could either galvanize or take the wind out of either side. Maricopa county did it the right way:
Votes received up to the Sunday before election day were verified and counted, but no totals were announced until after the polls closed on Tuesday.
An instant after the polls did close those totals, about 60% of the final vote, were announced. The election day vote totals were announced in dribs and drabs throughout the evening as they were processed.
Mail or drop-off votes received on Monday or Tuesday were not even looked at until Wednesday. Verifying and counting them lasted until Thursday night and only a couple announcements on their count were made each day.
Votes not in the registrar’s hands by the close of the polls on Tuesday were discarded. The ballots were mailed out the first week of October. With all of the Post Office shenanigans I don’t know if that allowed enough time for overseas voters to get their ballots back. Procrastinators residing in the county could hand in their ballot – in the envelope – at any polling location or the registrar, or drop it in the mail on Monday and hope.
CNN is reporting the Steve Bannon will likely receive a pardon. Seeing how Bannon is being charged with “defrauding donors of more than a million dollars as part of a fundraising campaign purportedly aimed at supporting Trump’s border wall.” I am actually somewhat OK with this.
Whilst I read more than I post nowadays, it still strains my credulity that I’ve spent just on four of my sixty years reading and participating in this thread ALONE. The stuff I’ve read, the rolled eyes, the gasps of shock and horror, the cackling laughter…every day for the last four years, watching the Travesty of Trump unfold. At last it’s at an end, and what an ignominious finale it has been.
Fuck off Trump, and take your fawning family and sleazy sycophants with you.
Has anyone made an argument based on a strict reading of Article II, Section 2?
That last bit–Trump is, as of the issuance of these pardons, under an active impeachment, and it certainly makes legal sense to deny the power of the pardon to someone who may use it to sway an ongoing case against themselves (let alone one who may try to pardon themselves for the issue(s) for which they are being impeached). In terms of intent, it seems unlikely that the power was meant to be used by an impeached President to pardon those who aided and abetted in his offenses.
The language is not terribly precise. Could we make the argument that it means pardons issued while the issuer is under impeachment carry no force? At least long enough to make the scumbags sweat?
That is a tad problematic, though. If he pardons someone that might give testimony in an impeachment setting, that person has no opportunity to take the fifth (rye notwithstanding) and so may be forced to say things that Individual-ONE did not want said. That was the crux of the hundred-year-old case that originally established that accepting a pardon is an admission of guilt.
Talking to the FoxNews-brainwashed in-laws in Florida yesterday, who were telling us they had been approved to get the vaccine just as soon as Florida got its shipment from the federal reserve. We had to break the news to them that there ain’t no reserve. They insisted that there was, because “Trump said there is!”. We sent them the articles. “Oh - that must be new,” they said.
If they’d found out two days later, they’d have blamed it on Biden. Can’t hammer reality into some people.
Sitting in a hotel lobby waiting for my ride. Near an airport so air crews stay here. A couple of pilots walked by and I heard this exchange:
“How are you this morning?”
“It’s the best day of my life!”
“Mine too!”
I mean, I’m all in favor of a Supreme Court ruling that it’s legal for an administration to put into place laws and agreements that are irrevocable, that are effectively binding on all future administrations. And for this legal principle to be established now.
I wouldn’t take much comfort in the fact that Trump hasn’t pardoned his family or himself, yet. He can still do so and, perhaps, already has with the announcement to be made after he has departed on AF One for the last time. He probably wouldn’t want to take the chance that his farewell “crowd” might be diminished by such an announcement.
Would it require a constitutional amendment to restrict the president’s pardoning powers so that pardons and whatnot had to be issued before election day? Or could that be done through standard legislation?
This would eliminate these shameful pardons (which prior presidents of both parties have also issued) that have no political accountability.
