Presidential Election Aftermath: What Now / What Next?

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POLITICS
Bernie Sanders Has a Lot More Delegates Than the Media Is Telling You
Zach Cartwright | April 18, 2016FacebookTwitter

After recent come-from-behind wins in three states, Bernie Sanders is now within striking distance of Hillary Clinton’s pledged delegate lead. At this time, Sanders needs less than 56% of the remaining pledged delegates to secure a majority of pledged delegates.

Sanders is within 200 pledged delegates in the wake of new boosts from Colorado, Missouri, and Nevada. With over 1,600 pledged delegates still to be allocated throughout the remainder of the Democratic primary, and with several major states with triple-digit delegate counts on the horizon, Sanders has plenty of room to catch up to Clinton before the Democratic National Convention in July.

So why is the media insisting on the tired narrative of inevitability? Partly because they haven’t paid attention to the latest developments.

In early April, Sen. Sanders flipped Clark County, by far Nevada’s largest county, at the Clark County Democratic Party Convention, ending up with 2,964 county delegates to Hillary Clinton’s 2,386. Clinton had previously won Clark County 4,774 to 3,928 during the February caucus. However, more of Sanders’ delegates showed up at the convention than Clinton’s, meaning unelected alternate delegates could take the place of Clinton’s absent delegates, who ultimately went for Sanders.

Several days after flipping Clark County, Sanders ended up beating Clinton in county delegates at the Missouri Democratic Party’s mass meetings on April 7. Should Sanders’ delegates show up at the Congressional District meetings in May, Sanders will have won 37 of Missouri’s pledged delegates to Hillary Clinton’s 34.



To further pad his delegate total, Sanders won Colorado by an even larger margin at this weekend’s state convention than he did on March 1. According to the Denver Post, Sanders walked away with 41 of the 66 pledged delegates, while Hillary Clinton won just 25. When Sanders won on Super Tuesday, the split was only 38-28.

That Sanders managed to cut the former First Lady and Secretary of State’s lead by 24 pledged delegates in the last two weeks is a testament to how the senator and his supporters work tirelessly at securing the Democratic nomination — even when the mainstream media isn’t paying attention.

Before this week’s new shifts in pledged delegate totals, Vox’s delegate tracker had 1,310 pledged delegates for Hillary Clinton and 1,094 for Bernie Sanders. But as of Saturday night, Sanders has 1,105 pledged delegates to Clinton’s 1,299, a difference of only 194 — hardly an “insurmountable” lead for the “presumptive nominee.” Furthermore, Sanders is likely to pick up even more when other caucus states have their statewide Democratic conventions over the next month.

Meanwhile, the mainstream media continues to grossly inflate the delegate gap, either by including superdelegates (despite direct instruction from Debbie Wasserman Schultz and the DNC not to do so), by discounting Washington’s tentative delegate count, or by simply not staying on top of the recent state-level shifts detailed above. The reported gap in delegate totals between Sanders and Clinton from even the most non-partisan media outlets are misleading (FiveThirtyEight: 206, New York Times: 220), while others are downright deceitful (NBC: 664, CBS: 695).

While Clinton still maintains a considerable lead when superdelegates are factored in, there are still roughly three months to go before those superdelegates cast their ballots at the Democratic National Convention. Should Bernie Sanders win the New York primary, even if just by a slim margin, and if he manages to win at least three of the five states voting on April 26, many of Clinton’s superdelegates may start to reconsider their positions.
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http://usuncut.com/politics/bernie-delegates-accurate-count/

 

Lol, thanks to @John3:16 for providing this fake fake Hillary moment

 

Lol, and it's already started. The DNC changing the status of registered Democrats and dropping them from the party so they can't vote for Bernie.

"BREAKING: ELECTION JUSTICE USA Files Emergency Lawsuit in New York


By deltadoc
Monday Apr 18, 2016 · 2:50 PM EDT



NEW YORK, April 18, 2016 - Election Justice USA, a national voting rights organization, is filing an emergency lawsuit in New York Federal District Court today, a day before the New York Primary.

Reports of thousands of NY voters being erroneously purged from the rolls was the cause for this emergency action on the part of the newly-formed national group. The lawsuit calls for the immediate restoration of voting rights for the thousands of eligible New Yorkers who, upon verifying their voter registration status recently, discovered their status was listed as “not registered” or, having registered and previously voted as Democrats, are now listed as “unaffiliated with any party (independent)” or “Republican,” thereby disqualifying them from voting in the state’s closed Presidential Primary on Tuesday.

“Voters are frustrated, angry, and feel helpless,” EJUSA spokeswoman Shyla Nelson said. “We have heard hundreds of stories, with desperate pleas for help. This election season has excited and galvanized the voting public in unprecedented numbers. For these voters to be systematically and erroneously removed from the rolls or prevented from voting in their party of choice is devastating to them personally and has sent a wave of doubt and worry through the voting public.”

Citing statutes from both the National Voting Rights Act (NVRA) and New York Election law, the suit also seeks to shift the burden of proof of eligibility from the voters to the Board of Elections, the named defendant in the case. “The Board of Elections, not voters, holds the voting records and should be responsible to prove a voter’s ineligibility, rather than putting this burden on the voter,” says Blaire Fellows, one of the lead attorneys filing the suit. “As it is currently structured, the statute places an onerous and excessive burden on the voter to prove their eligibility. It requires securing a court order, which takes time that many New Yorkers simply don’t have, as it means loss of income over and above what they lose by simply taking time off to vote.”

New York is one of a growing number of states across the nation who are facing these issues amidst increasing public pressure to make the election process more transparent to the public, as well as to make state primaries open to all voters, regardless of party affiliation - another request outlined in the lawsuit. “The integrity of the election process is vital to democracy,” says Ohio attorney Cliff Arnebeck, one of Election Justice USA’s legal advisors. Arnebeck, who has litigated against election fraud since 2000, says he believes the New York lawsuit “ensures that eligible voters are able to vote in the New York Primary and raises the right questions of responsibility and accountability in how elections are conducted.”

Presidential candidates have weighed in on the issue of voter suppression during the 2016 primary season, and their positions reflect fundamental differences between the two parties. Texas Republican Ted Cruz called for the repeal of the Voting Rights Act pre-clearance provision in 2012, while John Kasich, as Governor of Ohio, passed legislation that made voter purges easier, provisional ballots less likely to be counted, and absentee ballots harder to attain.

In stark contrast to his Republican opponents, Democratic Presidential candidate Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders is one of 41 co-sponsors of the Voting Rights Advancement Act which would restore provisions of the Voting Rights Act that were invalidated by the Supreme Court. Sanders also addresses the racial justice implications of voter suppression and disenfranchisement in his support for measures to expand voting access, including automatic voter registration, increased early voting hours, and making Election Day a federal holiday. He advocates open primaries, citing the millions of independent and first-time voters who are prevented from voting under a closed primary. “We have a system here in New York where independents can’t get involved in the Democratic primary, where young people who have not previously registered and want to register today can’t do it,” Sanders said at a rally in Washington Square Park in Manhattan last Wednesday.

Democratic candidate, former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton has urged Congress to pass the Voting Rights Advancement Act and supports automatic voter registration for citizens when they turn 18, and at least 20 days of early voting in each state.

Election Justice USA’s lawsuit will be filed at the Eastern District of New York Federal District Court in Brooklyn this afternoon.

Election Justice USA is a national organization advancing election integrity, transparency, and the protection of voting rights for all Americans.
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http://www.dailykos.com/story/2016/...STICE-USA-Files-Emergency-Lawsuit-in-New-York

 

One last post lol

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Bernie Sanders Just Accused Hillary Clinton of Violating Campaign Finance Laws
Amanda Girard | April 18, 2016FacebookTwitter

The Bernie Sanders campaign issued a blistering statement accusing Hillary Clinton’s campaign of circumventing federal campaign finance regulations.

In an official letter to Debbie Wasserman Schultz, chair of the Democratic National Committee (DNC), Sanders’ campaign attorney Brad C. Deutsch accused the Hillary Clinton campaign of using a joint fundraising committee to skirt campaign finance regulations. As Politico reported this weekend, the Hillary Victory Fund (HVF), which was designed to be a joint fundraising effort between the Clinton campaign and the DNC to help Democrats win down-ticket races, is unloading unusually large amounts of cash to Hillary for America (HFA) — Hillary Clinton’s official campaign account.

Deutsch pointed out that the money disbursed by the Hillary Victory Fund is disproportionately benefiting the Clinton campaign, rather than the Democratic Party as a whole:

The Hillary Victory Fund has reported receiving several individual contributions in amounts as high as $353,400 or more, which is over 130 times the $2,700 limit that applies for contributions to Secretary Clinton’s campaign. Bernie 2016 is particularly concerned that these extremely large-dollar individual contributions have been used by the Hillary Victory Fund to pay for more than $7.8 million in direct mail efforts and over $8.6 million in online advertising, both of which appear to benefit only HFA by generating low-dollar contributions that flow only to HFA, rather than to the DNC or any of the participating state party committees.

The press release from the Sanders campaign also mentions the “unusual arrangement” in how Hillary Clinton’s campaign staffers are reimbursed for time spent helping the Hillary Victory Fund, allowing the joint committee to unload large sums of cash directly into the Clinton campaign’s coffers:

The joint committee has paid the Clinton campaign committee $2.6 million ostensibly to “reimburse” the Clinton presidential campaign staff for time spent running the joint committee. The unusual arrangement, Deutsch said, “raises equally serious concerns that joint committee funds, which are meant to be allocated proportionally among the participating committees, are being used to impermissibly subsidize HFA through an over-reimbursement for campaign staffers and resources.”

On the Hillary Victory Fund’s official FEC report, the joint fundraising committee disbursed $9.5 million in funds to HFA, while only allocating just over $2 million for the DNC and even less money for state Democratic parties. The Sanders campaign called this a “serious apparent violation” of existing campaign finance laws, which limit the maximum amount an individual can contribute to $2,700 for each candidate in a campaign cycle. Because the Hillary Victory Fund is classified as a joint fundraising committee rather than a campaign, it can solicit contributions of up to a third of a million dollars from one individual, as Walmart heir Alice Walton contributed.

The $2,700 individual limit was seen as a trying obstacle for the Clinton campaign in early 2016, as the LA Times reported in February that the former Secretary of State was already panicking over its well of maximum donors drying out with nearly half a year to go before the nominating contest was over.

As of this writing, the DNC has yet to respond to the Sanders campaign’s inquiry.
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http://usuncut.com/politics/bernie-hillary-campaign-finance/

 

Trump and Hillary take NY.

 

After Kasich, I'm out of options.

 

It sucks, but it ain't close to over




Like I said before, this will go to the convention no matter what.

Neither Clinton or Sanders can get the number of delegates needed to claim the nomination without it going to convention.

There's just so much voter suppression and fraud on the Dem side that I really wonder how long this goes before a legal ruling changes the game. Hopefully before the Convention.

 

Barns I appreciate your faith.

Meanwhile, I am convinced this is bull****. I can't imagine there's that many people in the world still supporting either Trump or Clinton.

While Cruz and Sanders both have massive problems with me, I think it's telling that their parties hate those guys. They're doing things that their parties don't like which to me is a good thing.

When the dust settles and we have to vote between Trump and Clinton, I hope we as voters revolt against this system.

 

I have a vast group of friends with differing views, but none of them, that I know of are voting for Hillary or Trump. Not one. Is that weird?

 

Same here. All ages, all demographics and I don't know many public supporter of Trump or Clinton. Now maybe they vote for those two behind the scenes and show a different side, but I have maybe 3 extremely feminist friends that think voting for Clinton means Girl Power. That's it though. No fans of Trump that I know of at all.

So strange...

 

Oh, it's absolute bull****. The tactics they're using this election are incredible in their boldness. They are rigging things very obviously, and hoping the election get's called before the voter suppression is investigated. I however will not give up hope till it's over.

 

1,674 delegates to go. Don't freak out