You know what it takes to get a ballot certified in most states?
-5% of all election machines are randomly audited to make sure the paper ballots match the tape.
-They double check the math at the local level.
-Then at the country level
-Then at the state level...
Each of these steps is observed by both parties and paper ballots are kept in a vault.
To steal just a few thousand of votes would require a conspiracy of HUNDREDS OF THOUSANDS of librarians, Little League coaches, pastors, farmers and firemen. Your neighbors.
Here in Maricopa, teams of Dem and GOP observers sit together and examine each ballot unreadable by the machine.
A young GOP observer just had a minor medical emergency and after her Dem partner walked her to the ambulance in concern, she said "Guess I'm done for the night"...
...because they would never let just one side do the job alone.
The fact that it is taking so long to count the vote is A FEATURE NOT A BUG.
If you mistrust a vast, decentralized election system with a paper trail, would you really rather have everyone vote online into central server and watch for white smoke from the White House chimney?
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With Biden up around 20K, Wisconsin Elect. Commish says only 300 ballots or so remain to be counted then they start the triple-checking canvassing process at local, county and state levels.
Lawyers on both sides tell us they doubt there will be a legal challenge. This guy agrees
Trump’s campaign manager Bill Stepien says “The President is well within the threshold to request a recount and we will immediately do so.”
There is no "immediately." They can't legally request a recount until canvas is complete which could take until Nov 17 at latest.
...and thanks to Jill Stein, the Trump campaign would have to pay for the recount (which no one outside of the West Wing thinks will help them).
Never had the honor of meeting this man, but the more I learn, the more I admire.
His name is Konrad Steffen, son a Zurich tailor who fell in love with polar ice just as it began to disappear. On one research trip, an avalanche broke his leg and dislocated his jaw...
...but using an aluminum stake as a split and snowmobile for shelter, survived 24 hours.
He became one of the most beloved and respected glaciologists in the world, teaching at U. of Colorado but happiest in Greenland, working gloveless in -25° like an icy Indiana Jones.
He brought his findings before Congress, explaining how a piece of Antarctica the size of California could melt into the sea with such speed.
And each trip into the field became more dangerous as his famous Swiss Camp repeatedly came apart with the rest of the Arctic
A #Juneteenth shout-out to the memory of Matthew Henson.
Born to sharecroppers in Maryland and terrorized by the KKK, he attended a tribute to Lincoln at age 10 and heard a rousing call by Frederick Douglas to fight for education and equality.
At 12, he became a cabin boy and sailed the world with a captain who taught him to read and write.
Years later, while working in a Washington DC clothing store he mentioned his experience to a customer named Robert Peary, who invited him on his next adventure.
On a canal survey in Nicaragua, his seamanship and mettle was so impressive, Commander Peary made him first mate for 20 years of adventures in the Arctic.
He was the only member of the crew who bothered to learn the language, dog sled and survival skills of the Inuit...
Sometimes you have to climb down your own family tree to confront the kind of policing that is turning so many stomachs tonight.
That's me in a lovely christening gown and that is my Grandpa Frank between shifts as the leader of Milwaukee PD's notorious Tactical Squad in 1968.
As a kid I knew him as a scary-gruff-but-lovable, first-generation John Wayne. Hero cop with a wall full of commendations and President of the Eagles Club
As a grown-up reporter I learned that the The Eagles Club was whites-only and his stories and souvenirs had another side.
This was an ad taken out in the local alternative newspaper (which also printed the home addresses of hundreds of Milwaukee cops) after his violent crackdowns on protestors for "curfew violations."
Some of his men carried sawed-off pool cues as clubs.
Spent the past couple days at the National Butterfly Center in Mission, Texas to take some pics and tell a rather amazing story...
Run by nonprofit nature lovers, this place is a 100 acre pocket of amazing wildlife on the banks of the Rio Grande…
It is situated in “the tip of the funnel” of butterfly migration and is the southernmost way station for Monarchs making the long flight from Mexico to backyards across the U.S. (they are still in Mexico but here's one with a funny nose)