I’ve never done an intentional “liveblog” before, but since I’ll be glued to it all anyway, I’ve decided hey, why not. This is the liveblog root, and updates will be in the replies below, which are also Federated so you can follow along on Mastodon and other Federated social media.
I’m also going to experiment with reply threads grouped by topic.
How active will it be? That’s a dang good question, and we’ll find out. I’ve got a few items queued up already to start reply threads. Let’s gooooooooooooooooooo~~~
Comments
59 responses to “Election Liveblog”
Disinformation thread root!
Elon Musk, who bought Twitter to turn it into a fascist disinformation and propaganda machine, will be doing a sleepover tonight with his bestie Donald Trump, presumably so he can drive “X” (formerly Twitter) into whatever propaganda mission the fascist candidate wants at any given moment.
Musk is on record as saying spreading disinformation is fun and feels awesome, so that’s what you can expect to see, which is what makes this the top post of the disinformation thread.
US federal agencies are on high alert for foreign disinformation efforts, particularly Russian but by no means just. Here’s a joint statement from the FBI, ODNI, and CISA listing some of the major disinformation efforts they’ve seen so far – fake videos of a Haitian immigrant (an actor) claiming to vote in multiple counties, fake video of Harris accepting a bribe (again, actors and deepfakes), but there will be many more.
The primary vector, of course, is X (formerly Twitter), whose far-right owner is on record as saying it feels amazing to spread disinformation. However, it is not the sole vector.
Predictably, with polls still open and zero results reported other than the traditional release of Dixon’s Notch, New Hampshire midnight voting (Harris: 3, Trump: 3, from 4 registered Republicans and two independents), Trump is lying and claiming he already has “a very substantial lead.”
This is both a pathetic lie and part of the game plan to claim victory before all or even most votes have counted, and the base from which they will launch their effort to overturn the result if he does not win.
(I do not think he will win.)
Republicans – not just Trump – spent $134 on anti-trans hate ads for every trans person over the age of 13 in America this election cycle. $134 per person, for a total of over $210 million.
And that does not include cable or streaming, so the real number is much, much higher.
As I’ve been saying for literally years, Musk’s design was to turn Twitter into a fascist disinformation and propaganda fountain, and now other people are figuring it out, but goddamn, I wish people were figuring it out faster.
I am very much making a point of demanding better. But we’ll see what we get.
HA ha – people who signed Elon Musk’s petition for a shot at $1 million are suing, after his lawyers admit in court that the winners aren’t random and are handpicked as “representatives” for Musk’s fash politics.
@solarbird Bleed the bastard dry! 😈👍
Love t’see it!
HA ha – people who signed Elon Musk’s petition for a shot at $1 million are suing, after his lawyers admit in court that the winners aren’t random and are handpicked as “representatives” for Musk’s fash politics.
MSNBC and Steve Benen have a new story up on the Russian disinformation flood, and more importantly, on Republican officials actively working with them to do it.
“Russia, Russia, Russia” was never a “hoax.”
@solarbirdOne of the ones I would certainly suggest following!
Aw, thanks ^_^
Election disruption and voter suppression root!
This one’s for violence tracking and similar attempts to suppress turnout. I will be including bomb threats, attempts that fail, and any actual violence.
We’ll start it with the Russian bomb threats against polling places in Georgia. These have been designated NOT CREDIBLE, given that they come from, well… Russia. What’re they gonna do short of launching ICBMs? Fuck all, that’s what. It’s an attempt at voter suppression.
I hate linking to a right-wing rag like The Hill, but they are the ones with the story first: Capitol Police arrest man who ‘smelled like fuel’ and had torch and flare gun. Am I 100% sure this is election-related? No, but.
@solarbird I was wondering which thread you’d categorize it in.
Yeah, I wasn’t sure either. But, well, it’s election day and while it could be a coincidence… I kinda doubt it.
@solarbird agreed
Good news from Virginia: a court ruling telling local MAGAt officials that they do have to certify the election. They’d been threatening not to unless they could do a hand count, which would take bloody ages.
(Which is generally the point. Trump wants to drag everything out for election rejection reasons.)
PENNSYLVANIA: MAGA vote-suppressors have challenged 3,000 overseas ballots. Is yours one of them? Find out!
GEORGIA: More good news –
A federal judge in Georgia has thrown out the RNC’s claim that Georgia counties broke the law by accepting absentee ballots over the weekend. The judge’s commentary is appropriately dismissive, and pretty funny.
A fake video telling people to “vote remotely” due to a terrorism alert is circulating, supposedly from the FBI. It is, again, disinformation. There’s also a second fake/disinformation video involving the FBI and rigged prison voting in Pennsylvania, Georgia, and Arizona.
PENNSYLVANIA – Fayette County, via Laffy:
The election director for Fayette County, Pennsylvania, filed a new case claiming a township election judge is planning to hand-count ballots in violation of state law, even after being told he cannot do that.
GEORGIA –
We’ve got another wave of bomb threats. Voting in DeKalb County has been held, emergency injunctions to keep voting open longer have been filed.
Voting WILL be held open in affected precincts. MAGA groups were reportedly celebrating the bomb threats until they found out about the extension.
PENNSYLVANIA – Trump / MAGA voters harassing students at Lehigh University, insisting they’re not allowed to vote.
ARIZONA – Bomb threats in Navajo County polling stations.
NEVADA – Large-scale GOP challenges to ballots in Clark and Washoe county. IF YOU GET A PHONE CALL, ANSWER IT – it might be about those ballots, workers seeking to cure them.
Something Else Please Gods thread root
This is the top of the “please gods anything but this” thread, which we’ll start with Distractodon, a Monsterdon-like group watch but of Unsolved Mysteries tonight, run by Taweret, who heads up the Monsterdon crew. Need a break? Consider going over there.
Okay, this made me laugh.
@solarbird I had to have it explained to me (i.e. I read the alt-text). NT is a long time ago…
[crumbles into dust.gif] xD
Not gettin’ through this without some choco brownies so let’s bake
Here, have an emotional support cow.
Election Day Actions thread root
Let’s start this one with ARE YOU A WASHINGTON STATE VOTER? There are 28,000 ballots which need “curing,” e.g. technical correction/fixes, before they can be counted. Is one of them yours? Find out!
SEATTLE VOTERS! NOT ENOUGH OF YOU HAVE VOTED!
If any of you know anyone who hasn’t, get on them, make it happen – particularly for Proposition 1.
Results and Exit Polling thread root
Holy shit the Latino – meaning in this case mostly Puerto Rican – exit polling in Philadelphia. Massive turnout, 90% Harris.
I’m not sure if this really qualifies as an “exit poll,” but people are mass-exiting ownership of Trump Media stock, as in, Truth Social stock.
The only value Truth Social has is as a bribery conduit for giving Trump money, so if he isn’t in power, it’s literally valueless. So it’s not a bad proxy for how the billionaires in particular feel he’s doing today.
A good reminder: Pennsylvania processes mail-in votes last. This was specifically engineered by Republicans in 2020 to give a “red wave” illusion of Trump support, since most people voting by mail in Pennsylvania vote Democratic, and this was part of Trump’s overturn-the-loss plan last time. It’s pretty likely we’ll see something similar again.
Turnout is universally being described as massive, with huge lines everywhere. If you’re reading this, you probably already know that as long as you’re still in line, you can still vote, even if you’re still queued up at poll closing time – they have to keep voting open for you. Don’t leave the queue!
This insanity right here is why I kept hammering on how Elon Musk thinks Trump’s plans will crash the economy, but he thinks that’s good and wants it to happen, and why I kept begging everyone else to talk about it too.
But the media ignored it, so a majority of voters still trust Trump with the economy over Harris. Batshit insane.
@solarbird It's like the cargo cult thing where they've seen him next to the visible markers of money and think that will make more money happen or something.
That, but mostly, The Apprentice. Honest to fuck, “reality television” is going to be the death of us all.
This isn’t an exit poll but it is some goddamn dedication: Woman whose absentee ballot was returned to her in Berlin FLIES HOME AT FULL FARE to vote for Harris.
I am NOT going to post results from the quick-decision races which are incumbents holding their seats. DecisionDesk, NBC, whoever – all those are better for that than I would or need to be.
..but that said, I will post the Democratic pickup of the North Carolina governorship.
…and I’ll note that Andy Kim won in New Jersey, which is important.
Meta-not-as-in-Facebook-or-Insta and miscellaneous thread root.
What this election looks like from Canada.
This liveblogging thing is pretty fun but also more work than it looks like – partly because of the way I’m doing it, of course.
There’s a known bug which means most of these comments show up on the blog page twice, once as I hit post, once delayed a minute or two, and I have to manually delete the duplicate. I didn’t think it’d be that big a deal in part because I thought it was only root-level comments but SURPRISE IT’S NOT
Altering the way I’m doing threads a little. I’ve been sending them out as single-line threads, but that’s already turning into a problem. I’m going to have to make subthreads.
Meanwhile here’s Taylor Swift telling you to get out and vote (for Harris, who she endorsed).
First polls close at 7pm Eastern, 4pm Cascadian. Around 3pm Cascadian, I’m gonna go out and touch some grass – and run an errand. I should be back well before things go nuts.
@solarbird I feel you may have missed that deadline by a few … decades. But yeah.
[mutters something about local minima and flees on her bicycle]
META: It is 3pm Cascadian/Pacific time, and I’m taking a brief break to run some errands and also touch some grass. I should be back by the time the first polls close.
I’m back, let’s goooooooooo
You and me both, Captain.
Election Contesting/Overturning thread root.
Laffy beat me to this – I saw it but hadn’t got to it yet. As of a couple of minutes ago, Trump has apparently decided he’s going to lose, so he’s shifted to ‘stolen election’ disinformation and his plans to contest the results.
Well, this has been interesting and a bit of an adventure, but at this point everything mostly seems to be about waiting for numbers to roll in, and I have no more insight about that than anyone else.
I’ll likely come back to this once Washington State polls close, or if anything surprising comes up.
I’ve learned some things from this experiment; I hope it’s been worthwhile for everyone else. Thanks for reading along.
Well, this has been interesting and a bit of an adventure, but at this point everything mostly seems to be about waiting for numbers to roll in, and I have no more insight about that than anyone else.I’ll likely come back to this once Washington State polls close, or if anything surprising comes up.I’ve learned some things from this experiment; I hope it’s been worthwhile for everyone else. Thanks for reading along.