Chemosabe, you are one of the rarer phenomena on this forum: someone who posts something intelligent.

The whole projected majority payout thing only applies where Betfair makes a gamble of its own, a leap of faith that a projected majority, in tandem with a concession, makes subsequent events certain.

Betfair's rules also refer to the situation where no candidates receives a majority. You make the point, Chemosabe, that receiving a majority is something that occurs at the level, and time, of state legislators appointing electors on 14 December, and that action being certified by governors. Whereas the networks calling it at the end of the official count is just premature heat and noise if substantive legal action which might overturn that position remains to be completed.

I would go further, and say that receiving a majority is not even something that in principle could be said to be in the bag on 14 December when the electoral college meet.

The actual official point of receiving a majority is when the votes of the electoral college are opened in Congress on 6 January and tabulated in accordance with the Electoral Count Act. THAT is the point at which a candidate would officially and irrevocably be deemed to be in receipt of the 270 majority, and thereupon appointed President.

Ordinarily, a projected majority at this time, together with a concession, would allow everyone to assume that it is synonymous with eventually receiving that majority on 6 January. But we have no concession and, at least as of today, legal action ahead of us.

Ordinarily, if a candidate receives 270 electors on 14 December, that would also allow everyone to assume the same thing.

In this latter case, a 14 December 270, I would say, not just ordinarily, but in 99% of elections.

But there is a 1% (sic) of elections where even a 270 on 14 December will not be sufficient to be regarded safely as synonymous with receiving a majority on 6 January.

And that's the situation where there are duelling electors.

Duelling electors are not faithless electors. There is a big difference.

Betfair's rules, which say that subsequent events like faithless electors will not be taken into account, should be read in line with this one notion, which is the fundamental thing that dave and others have failed to grasp.


It doesn't mean that all or any subsequent events will not be taken into account. It means that all or any subsequent events WHICH ARE LIKE faithless electors, will not be taken into account.

Faithless electors are a transient blip which would not alter the result.

Duelling electors are not a transient blip which very well might affect the result.

That is why it is totally erroneous to listen to dave and his inaccurate non-understanding of what those rules said when they referred to subsequent events like faithless electors.

Duelling electors is a phenomenon where state authorities appoint more than one set of electors. In other words, Biden may get his 270 electors on 14 December, courtesy of the Democrat governor of Wisconsin, but Trump may get his 270 electors too, courtesy of the Republican legislature of Wisconsin.

I am not saying it will happen, or is likely to happen. But at least as of today, it's a possibility.

And if duelling electors ARE brought forth on 14 December when the electoral colleges meet, then nobody will safely be able to be regarded as having received a majority at that point either.

There will probably be litigation on it through the rest of December, and if that doesn't settle anything, then on 6 January it will be for the Congress to open all the submitted electoral votes, however out there they may be, and to debate for two hours which ones to accept.

The purpose of that debate will be to decide who, officially, is to be the person to get the majority to which Betfair's rules allude.

Betfair is totally correct in not paying out on a projected majority in the absence of a concession, in the light of prospective legal action, and in the position that the situation at the end of the official count may be affected by subsequent events which are not a transient blip like faithless electors, but things which might mean that the receiving of a majority as self-declared prematurely by frothing indignants at CNN is not reflected in the actual offical receiving of a majority on 6 January.

And, since the other thread was deleted yesterday, presumably because someone complained to Betfair that I was misinterpreting their rules, and the customer service person deciding it was easier to delete the thread rather than launch themselves into detailed analysis to determine whether I or the idiot unintelligent complainant was right, I'll finish the analysis again:

It may be, in theory, and possibly in practice, that no one ends up receiving a majority. Because after Congress has debated it, the two Houses have to agree on a result as to which electoral votes to count as valid.

If the Republicans remain in control of the Senate, there may be no agreement.

And THAT is how the electoral college system for electing the President would fail, and we would move on to the Twelfth Amendment as the way the Presidency is decided. The Twelfth Amendment process that, yes, is mentioned in Betfair's rules as how they would settle the market.

There would be a vote, in the Lower House, on who to choose as President.

It is a vote by delegation. In other words, fifty votes. Each state's vote would be derived from whichever of Republicans or Democrats are in the majority of Representatives from that state, assuming they remain loyal.

You need 26 votes. Not just a majority of whoever does vote. You need 26.

Biden does not have 26. Assuming loyalty, Trump does.

There is a question as to whether the Democrats could stymie the vote by denying it a quorum.

There is a second vote under the Twelfth Amendment. It is the vote to choose the Vice President.

This vote takes place in the Senate. You need a majority.

Harris will not have a majority. Pence may.

If the vote to choose the President is stymied, and the vote to choose Pence goes ahead, and he is chosen, under the Twelfth Amendment, to be VP, then in accordance with provisions in the Twentieth Amendment which were originally to be found in the Twelfth and ought to be read in concert with them, Pence would be sworn in as President on 20 January.

If the vote to choose the President is stymied, for lack of a quorum, and the same thing happens in the Vice Presidential vote - I am not 100% sure of how feasible or likely this would be - then both offices would be vacant on 20 January in accordance with the activation and operation of the Twelfth Amendment, and the Speaker of the House would be inaugurated as President, I think - would need to double-check - in line with the Presidential Succession Act.

That's Pelosi.

Query whether, given that blocking both Twelfth Amendment votes would be a Constitution-desecrating shenanigan, they might not seek to desecrate the Presidential Succession Act as well, by having Pelosi step aside and Biden or Harris or God knows who else appointed, momentarily, as Speaker, so as to be sworn in.

You can delete this as well if you want. But to the best of my understanding, it is accurate, and complete.

Dave, if you've spent any time reading the FSMA then no wonder you are incapable of thinking straight.

Your analysis is rubbish. It is just wrong.

I would not expect anyone reading this thread blithely to assume that I am correct, or that you are correct.

Anyone reading this thread ought to do their own thinking, do their own research, go through all of it step by step and make their own decisions as to what is what.

But I am confident of my analysis, and I'm confident that you post total drivel.

Fxdux, the fact that you have had to write an essay length post covering the rules, to the extent that you are engaging in semantic analysis, while simultaneously claiming that the rules are clear is hilarious.

Yeah the top firms are pretty good at getting people that don't cut it to "resign as they've had enough".

You must accept that if you're having to drill down into the definition and interpretation of individual words that this in itself is a tacit admission that the rules are flawed? Rules are specifically meant to avoid this sort of ambiguity.

"This market will be settled on the first candidate projected to have gained 270 Electoral College votes by the Associated Press. Any subsequent changes to these projections will not affect the settlement of this market."

That's pretty clear, isn't it? Obviously there is the issue with changes to projections possibly leading to the 'losing' candidate eventually becoming President but that's not the point here, it's about creating a level playing field where people know where they stand. If you want to avoid these issues you settle either on who is sworn in or the official result, but you make that clear at the start.

It doesn't mean that all or any subsequent events will not be taken into account. It means that all or any subsequent events WHICH ARE LIKE faithless electors, will not be taken into account.

This one sentence shows the desperate straw grabbing of FXDUX. He maintains that "like X" means that literally, while ignoring that the actual rule wording is "such as a "faithless elector"" - singular not plural. So in his world multiple events "like" faithless electors are not ignored, but one is.

To anyone not straw grabbing this is the sentence of primary importance:

This market will be settled according to the candidate that has the most projected Electoral College votes won at the 2020 presidential election

Debate the meaning of that as much as you want, but anything other than a settlement on that basis will be incorrect.

I bet there are some worried people in the betfair legal department

As has been stated many times the primary settlement rule was written to facilitate quick settlement. The ironclad rule would be to settle the market on the inaugurated president.

Half a billion on overnight I dare say would add up to a few shekels. Not surprised BetFAIR do not wish to settle the market according to their own rules!

He has and that should go up a bit more as well. Will still be a recount but hard to imagine it will have any impact on the result.

Yeah that's right. There have been plenty of recounts in the past, some of which have changed results, but as you say they rarely make more than a couple of hundred votes difference. Trump needs to win three, all of which will probably be at least 10000 votes.

Yes, I don't think that stands up to any scrutiny. I think a judge said that in Pennsylvania these votes that arrived after the election date could be counted but had to be kept to one side. Given Biden is already ahead, hard to see how these make a difference.

The ludicrous thing is they have poll canvassers in every counting room and not a single one has found any evidence of impropriety. I think it's all a show just to create the narrative that the election has been stolen, which is a pretty transparent effort to undermine the result/Biden and to run again next time.

So Monday? You don't need a full count to declare a winner.

Trump is coming up with evidence, msm are not reporting it, this ain't ending anytime soon.

Says the Harris ramper

What is the scenario where Biden loses the popular vote?

Biden is currently leading by 4 million votes and with plenty of CA votes still to be counted.

Biden can be backed @ 1.02 appears to be a 2% return on your money, even if it takes three months to settle, a 2% return is better than putting your money in the bank?

llama This market will be settled upon popular vote percentage figures as published by CNN.

It should actually be settled now as there is no chance trump can win

as far as the popular vote is concerned, she's been singing so long ppl have told her to stfu,

bbc too.  it's not for the media to 'project' this result though....

betfair pay out when sleepy joe sworn in .in january