Arizona has never really been about fraud like other parts of the country
There are another approximate 10000 ballots from Maricopa that will be added
They started using a new machine which has been used incorrectly for ballots that have issues or torn, smudged etc.
Going to court today to get those added to the final figures.
Also Maricopa was the only place in Arizona that used dominion

Dominion is going to be a massive problem for the dems on top of all the other lawsuits that are going to hammer them

One or two of my posts have been deleted, and I presume this is because one or two of the posters on here, who have not read and understood Betfair's rules, have clicked Report and made accusations that I am misrepresenting what Betfair's rules say.

I am not misrepresenting what Betfair's rules say. The opposite is the case. It is those others who wilfully or through stupidity are misdescribing Betfair's rules and are then accusing me of doing what they are doing.

The first way to determine what the truth is is to ask, which of us was saying, before November 3rd, that it was likely Betfair would settle immediately (because of its rules), and which of us was saying Betfair would possibly/probably not settle immediately (because of its rules)?

The answer is that I was saying Betfair possibly/probably would not settle immediately. Whereas the others, such as politicspunter and dave1357, were asserting that Betfair would definitely pay immediately.

We're now nine days after the election and Betfair hasn't settled, so that's the first clue that I'm posting accurately and they're not.

They would probably say, ah, Betfair hasn't settled immediately because it's ignoring its rules. It is not ignoring its rules. Betfair is adhering to its rules.

The sticking point is that dave1357, in particular, has seized on the words "projected majority" in Betfair's rules and is intent on interpreting them in a simplistic and inaccurate way.

When reading Betfair's rules in their entirety, it is quite clear that they will not pay out on a "projected majority" that is not sufficently final, ie which is unaccompanied by a concession or, presumably, by the voting of a majority of uncontested electors on 14 December.

This is because a projected majority on or near election night which is disputed and litigated may not result in a candidate receiving the 270+ electoral college votes on 14 December.

Betfair will wait, correctly, for a concession or for 270+ uncontested electors after the first week of December.

There is one point I didn't quite address before. Which is what dave1357 said about the one case that he magnanimously regards as the only circumstance in which Betfair would settle the market in accordance with the Twelfth Amendment, as opposed to the electoral college votes, as its rules state.

This is the event where no candidate receives a majority. That is, the event where the networks' "projected majority" does not translate into securing 270+ uncontested electoral college votes on 14 December.

There are two ways to illustrate the possibility of no candidate receiving a majority, and therefore moving on to the Twelfth Amendment.

The first is that one or more states fail to select electors.

I did not consider this scenario much previously, because I assumed that if Trump were to dig up enough votes then there would not be a dearth of electors but a surfeit. In other words, "duelling electors", two sets, one backed by a Republican state legislature and the other by a Democrat Governor.

If any state refused to certify any electors at all, I think it would be Georgia, where all the public officials are Republican. But I don't think this will happen. They'll either dig up 15k+ plus of postal votes without proper matching/ postmarks, and award their electors to Trump, or they won't, and they'll award them to Biden.

Wisconsin and Pennsylvania have Republican legislatures and Democrat governors. If Trump does manage to generate enough litigation to throw their results into turmoil, my presumption has been that they will not all agree to be shy and do nothing, but rather that they will each endeavour to pick their own sets of electors. Even if they do, this might still fall into the category of "no picking electors at all", because to be valid, electors have to be picked by the legislature and certified by the governor. If each party is trying to do both, then neither may enjoy a settled presumption of being valid. So that's one way of understanding a situation on 14 December where neither candidate has 270. Where neither candidate has a fully valid 270.

Duelling electors are not a non-material blip like faithless electors, which Betfair's rules say it will ignore. "all subsequent events like faithless electors" = "all subsequent events [which are] like faithless electors". I know that dave1357 will not digest this correct point, but what can I do? I'm going to post what is accurate, even if he's insensible to reason.

The reason why duelling electors are unlike faithless electors, and why Betfair would regard them as material and relevant, is that unlike faithless electors, duelling electors would mean that no candidate receives a majority on 14 December. And this is the key point. In reality, nobody will actually receive a final majority on 14 December, under any circumstance. Because the official and final moment when a candidate actually does literally receive a majority will be on 6th January, in Congress, under the Electoral Count Act, when the votes are opened, counted and held to be 270+ in favour of one candidate who is thereupon elected President.

If both candidates were to get 270+ on 14 December, that doesn't mean both candidates have received a majority, which is what I think dave1357 was previously suggesting. It would mean neither had. Because just as a "projected majority" only has any weight to the extent that it indicates with certainty what will happen on 6 January, in exactly the same way, a "received majority" on 14 December where the other candidate also has a "received majority", will similarly mean that there is no certainty to be had as to who will be treated on 6 January as having received a majority of the recognised votes.

A projected majority on election night, with a concession, simply means that we can be 99% sure that 270+ uncontested electors will pop up on 14 December, and 270+ uncontested electors popping up on 14 December simply means that we can be 99% sure that when Congress opens the votes on 6 January and decides who has received a majority, it's going to be the guy who received the votes in December.

In other words, "receiving a majority" is something that, yes, happens on 14 December, but it's something that also happens on 6 January, and it's what happens on 6th January that's determinative.

If the "received majority" on 14 December is, just like now, under a cloud, confused, contested (materially contested, not subject to a faithless elector blip), then that would mean the counting and allocation of the majority on 6th January is equally as non-assured. And what Betfair is looking for, in its rules, with reference to a "projected majority" and "receiving a majority", is this: who, exactly is going to be appointed as President on 6 January when Congress meets, opens the votes, counts them and decides which ones are valid?

If Trump concedes, this week, next week, then Betfair will settle the market at that point.

If we get past the first week of December and it's settled that the electoral college is going to meet and it's going to pick 270+ electors for Biden and at least 270 of them are going to be uncontested, ie not subject to parallel electors purporting to wield the same vote, then at that point I believe Betfair will settle the market. There might be some outraged Harris backers if Biden then keels over at Christmas, and it will be a little bit of a pickle for Betfair, but they'll probably do it. It will accord with their rules. Which give them the leeway to settle early if a suficiently certain "projected majority" or "received majority" arises.

But if we get past the first week of December and Trump is still going, and he's managed to flip Georgia in the audit and whip up enough successful litigation in Wisconsin and Pennsylvania to mobilise their Republican legislatures to back him, then Biden will not have 270+ uncontested electors on 14 December.

I'll just repeat this, because you can bet dave1357 is going to indignantly repeat that Betfair's rules say "all subsequent events like faithless electors will be ignored." That rule does not mean that all subsequent events will be ignored. It means that all subsequent blips like faithless electors, ie all subsequent non-material events.

And it's also possible - dave1357's hypothesised one scenario in which he would grant Betfair the right to consider the Twelfth Amendment - that a state such as Wisconsin may indeed not select electors.

Why wouldn't they?

If they were to look at issues such as this: bit.ly/3kqBGo4 and decide that their election was unsafe and compromised, then I don't believe it's beyond the realm of possibility, although certainly without modern precedent, that the legislature, whose job it is to pick the electors, would refuse to do so. The governor would probably then step in and not just certify but also pick some, which raises the question, if the only way Biden can get to 270 on 14 December is with electors who were not properly selected then, again, there would be continuing uncertainty as to how the matter would be decided on 6 January. For the purposes of 6 January, he wouldn't have a sure and certain 270 majority.

"Receiving a majority" on 14 December is just as much as chimera as a "projected majority" on or near election night, if those things do not happen in such a way as to be a sure thing that when the votes are opened on 6 January, we know what's going to happen.

On 6 January, they open the votes, and if there are no issues, as usually there aren't, they just wave through the guy with the unproblematic 270. They appoint him President. Done.

But if they open the votes on 6 January and Trump has 270+ and Biden has 270+, or if they open the votes on 6 January and Biden has less than 270 votes from electors who were properly appointed by their state legislatures, then that could provide a pretext for Republicans in the Lower House of Congress and the Senate to dispute the result and refuse to agree that Biden has 270.

As far as I understand from my reading, the two Houses must agree with each other as to what the result is, ie who, if anyone, has 270.

The Lower House is certain to hold that Biden has 270 if some of his 270 were appointed without the participation of their state legislatures.

This is because the majority in the Lower House is Democrat-controlled.

But the Senate, the Upper House, is controlled by the Republicans.

And if they were not to agree, on the basis that, say, the Wisconsin and Pennsylvania electors were not just certified by their governor but appointed by him too, then that would result in the electoral college process for picking the President to be discarded.

And then, as per Betfair's rules, the procedures set down in the Twelfth Amendment would be activated.

I am trying not to suggest how likely or unlikely any of this is. Just describing what would happen under certain conditions.

And it's helped me, typing this out, because it's clarified my understanding.

Let's assume for argument's sake that Arizona is out of the picture. Georgia is fully controlled by Republicans, from the Secretary of State to the Governor to the legislature. They are going to give it every chance in Georgia to see if they can find 15k votes to strike out. And let's say for the sake of this paradigm that they do, which may or may not be likely. In a normal election, where standard recounts usually only change votes by a few hundred, you'd say not. But we have the covid and mass mail-in vote factor, with a variety of prextexts for striking out postal votes. So let's just assume for the argument that they find 15k.

Trump would then need Wisconsin and Pennsylvania. It seems to me that all he would need to do, or at least the bare minimum without which he fails, is to convince two Republican-majority legislatures, one in each of those states, that the election is unsafe, based on court rulings he is aiming to get in each of those states. I don't know about Pennsylvania, but his outward confidence where Wisconsin is concerned, if not total bullshit, sounds like it might be based on the contents of the link I included above.

It would be an awful lot easier for a state legislature to sit on its hands and say, we're highly disturbed by these findings and rulings, we're not minded to choose electors in this unsafe election and if our Democrat governor goes ahead and overreaches his authority by choosing as well as certifying electors, then we don't recognise them.

There's your one scenario, dave1357. I am not allocating probability to it. I'm just thinking about what could happen in one circumstance.

If Trump flipped Georgia in the audit, and both the Wisconsin and the Pennsylvania legislatures did this, then Biden may have 270 uncontested elector on 14 December, but just like this current "projected majority" is not conclusively indicative of what transpires on 6 January, neither would that provisional "received majority" on 14 December.

It might be that if Betfair sees Biden getting 270 on 14 December, it could settle. But I think that logically those 270 ought to be a 270 which are passed on to Congress on 6 January without a cloud of uncertainty. Because if not, then it's not particularly out there to imagine that in the Senate on 6 January, the Republican majority says, sorry, these thirty electors, from Wisconsin and Pennsylvania, they are invalid electors, they were not properly appointed, they do not count, and Biden does not have 270.

Whether that would happen would depend on one particular thing. On 5 January, in Georgia there will be two very close races for the Senate. If the Dems win those and get Biden into the White House, it's apocalypse times for the Republicans.

So they may face a fraught situation on the morning of 6 January when they're frantically trying to work out who's won the Senate races. It probably won't be established with finality by the time they come to count and debate the votes of the electoral college.

which means that if somehow Trump did pull this off - and again, disclaimer, I'm not allocating any kind of probability to it - by which I mean flipping Georgia in the audit and getting the Wisconsin and Pennsylvania legislatures to sit on their hands and force their Democrat governors to certify procedurally dubious electors,

then those Republican senators on 6 January are going to be faced with the very real and immediate scenario of Warnock and Ossoff teetering on the brink of replacing Loeffler and Perdue in the Senate and giving the Democrats, AOC et al, a clean sweep to smash the Constitution and Supreme Court to kingdom come.

I don't think that scenario is strongly undisposed to focusing minds in that Republican Senate to the temptation of refusing to agree that the electoral college process has come to a successful conclusion.

And that leads on to the Twelfth Amendment (see my other posts below).

Just a quick note. If you think that this post was posted in good faith, and was worth posting, if you enjoyed reading it or thought it was useful in any way, it might be worth hitting reply quickly and saying so, because I have little doubt that politicspunter and dave1357 in particular will immediately pile in with abuse and snide remarks and will be reporting this post to Betfair just as quickly as they can, claiming that it misrepresents anything and everything and ought to be deleted without further delay.

That was to Timber.

FXDUX
I have no intention of taking sides on this - your above arguments - because, for me, it's far too complicated.

As far as I can make out Trump has no chance of winning by normal means i.e. by EC. He has very little chance of overturning any of the votes in any state. His only chance is to drag this on past the 14th December when things could get messy.

Did you read my Atlantic post by the way?

I don't think I saw your Atlantic post, Charlie.

I think you're probably right, as things stand, with Wisconsin and Pennsylvania. His play is going to be to get the Republican legislatures to refuse to appoint electors.

The only alternative is to rely on the courts to strike out a convenient number of votes. Even if they had grounds to do it, it would be an incendiary thing to do. Depends on how much Coney Barrett, Gorsuch et al like lighting matches.

It's just a lot easier, from their perspective, to ensure that Biden's electors have enough of a question mark over their validity in January to justify the Republican Senate refusing to recognise them.

In Georgia, despite what I posted below, thinking about it, because the Republicans are in total control of the process there, there is not going to be an issue with the appointed electors. Electors will be duly and validly appointed and certified in Georgia. In Georgia it's all about the audit. Find 15k and it's game on for Trump. Don't find 15k and it's over.

If he did manage to take it through to January, he's going to need all the Senators to play ball, including Romney and Collins. If it weren't for the Perdue and Loeffler situation, they might be inclined to split.

https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2020/11/what-if-trump-refuses-concede/616424/
It's quite lengthy but raises many of the points you did.

Charlie, I've just started reading that article in the Atlantic, and enjoying it, and agreeing with it, and all of a sudden it's veered off into a spittle-flecked foaming rant about Trump's psychological diseases!!

I'll resume it in a moment.

If only to provide some balance, that link I've posted twice now bit.ly/3kqBGo4 for the record! is some fairly substantive evidence that Trump's allegations of rigging and corruption is not necessarily wholly in his mind.

This election is not a battle between Trump, on the one hand, and the purer than pure on the other. Far from it.

BREAKING REPORT: Officials in Georgia have NOT BEEN ABLE TO PRODUCE ANY INVOICES OR WORK ORDERS related to a “burst pipe” at Atlanta’s State Farm Arena that was blamed for an ABRUPT PAUSE IN VOTE COUNTING on election night.

That was to FXDUX.

Someone has just placed a trade to try and BACK Trump to win the POPULAR VOTE @ a price of 23.0 for £1,000.

5.7 Million votes to be counted and Biden is winning by 5.2 Million.

Will any one own up to placing this trade and for what reason?

This just cannot be closing their position anymore......?

One day we might find out
if the manipulation of the markets
resulted in a profit or loss.

If people take his 23s he will just plonk it back at shorter odds. It's not difficult to do but does require timing.

I've now laid £228 of that llama, on the assumption that even if 2.7m Trump votes have been deleted, Biden will still win the Popular Vote. Now, it could be a problem if 2.7m + votes have been switched from Biden to Trump.

Of more realistic concern, I'm hoping that the market will be settled by 14 Dec (2020) - if's delayed significantly longer than that, I won't be very happy.

Politics / USA - Presidential Election 2020 / Popular Vote Winner
Donald Trump    Lay    216545723442    12-Nov-20 18:58    23    228.00        23    12-Nov-20 18:58

I'm not sure it would be the Supreme Court that makes the ruling to read the quorum rules differently. I think it could actually be Pence. If he's in charge of proceedings in the Senate, then I would think - correctible! - that he can make rulings on procedure there too.

And - thinking aloud - that is the decisive final factor in Pence's favour rather than Trump's. The vote for President takes place in the Lower House, Pelosi's domain, where she gets to decide what's what. So, tweaking the rules on a vote for President may not be a goer.

Whether they can hold a repeat vote in the Senate, on VP, where Pence is in charge, I'm not sure. If they're smart, they'll have worked this out and they'll do it all in one go. They're going to hold the vote, and if or as soon as the Democrats refuse a quorum, Pence will redesignate the meaning of a quorum there and then.

I've finished thinking out loud, and now I'm going to sidle away and recommend that nobody place any bets on Pence. Just leave that market where it is, thanks :-)

FXDUX,

What about what I said earlier about Pelosi? - that she can block the process and keep it in limbo, all while remaining acting-P, until Rs come around and stop playing games? Does she have that power?

Secondly, what procedure did she pass to prevent a vote on Trump?

Thanks.

Betfair settled 43 states so not many left now thankfully.

Assuming there's 15k in Georgia! (+ W + P)

If not, game over.

If you want to give me 10,000-1 odds on Pence, politicspunter, then I'll have a look at how smarkets works and maybe set up an account.