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posted by martyb on Wednesday December 13 2017, @08:06PM   Printer-friendly
from the It's-Fake-News-until-the-Fat-Man-Sings dept.

Democrat Doug Jones won a remarkable upset victory over controversial rival Roy Moore in the diehard Republican state of Alabama on Tuesday to win election to the US Senate.

By a margin of 49.5 to 48.9 with 91% of precincts reporting, Jones dealt a major blow to Donald Trump and his efforts to pass tax reform on Capitol Hill. Jones was able to become the first Democrat in a decade to win any statewide office in Alabama by beating Moore, who had faced multiple allegations of sexual assault during a campaign which exposed Republican party faultlines.

The Democratic victory will reduce the Republican majority in the Senate to 51-49 once Jones takes his seat on Capitol Hill. This significantly reduces the margin for error as Republicans attempt to push through a major corporate tax cut.

takyon: The final count is:

Doug Jones - 671,151 votes (49.9%)
Roy Moore - 650,436 votes (48.4%)
Write-ins (total) - 22,819 votes (1.7%)

The margin for an automatic recount in Alabama is 0.5%. Roy Moore has yet to concede.


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  • (Score: 5, Insightful) by Grishnakh on Wednesday December 13 2017, @08:32PM (23 children)

    by Grishnakh (2831) on Wednesday December 13 2017, @08:32PM (#609357)

    I fully expected Alabama voters to happily elect a molesting pedophile over a Democrat, just because the molester was religious and Trump supported him.

    I'm glad I was proven wrong, though not by much considering the narrow margin of victory here.

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  • (Score: 2, Insightful) by Sulla on Wednesday December 13 2017, @09:04PM (20 children)

    by Sulla (5173) on Wednesday December 13 2017, @09:04PM (#609379) Journal

    Alabama seems to suffer the same fate as most of the rest of us, the party primaries are designed to put forth the most radical of their party and then throw them against each other with the people choosing the lesser evil because they don't understand third parties. In this case there was a democrat that supported abortion that religious folks believe will get them sent to hell if they pay taxes for, or a dirtbag pedo who appears to dislike the constitution who would probably get kicked out and another republican chosen in his case.

    I can't imagine many of the Moore voters being too upset today that he lost, as they know they will most likely regain the seat the next election and its not enough time to get any abortion legislation passed.

    --
    Ceterum censeo Sinae esse delendam
    • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday December 13 2017, @09:10PM (4 children)

      by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday December 13 2017, @09:10PM (#609385)

      "people choosing the lesser evil" Like Cliton vs Trrrrrumph?

      • (Score: 5, Funny) by realDonaldTrump on Wednesday December 13 2017, @10:07PM (3 children)

        by realDonaldTrump (6614) on Wednesday December 13 2017, @10:07PM (#609428) Homepage Journal

        A lot, a lot of people THREW AWAY their votes. Because they did what they call a write in. They wrote in the name of somebody who wasn't a candidate. Somebody who lost. If they'd voted for Judge Roy Moore, they'd be voting for a WINNER.

        Judge Roy is asking for a recount, they're doing a recount. But it's very difficult, folks. Because the election was rigged very badly. It was rigged to it's very difficult to do a recount. With a lot of cyber voting. Which nobody understands. Cyber is complicated, it doesn't need to be so complicated. The cyber companies make it complicated so it's hard to understand. So folks will buy the support. And the election guys in Alabama said, "this cyber is too hard, let's just do the election and WIPE the records, like with a cloth or something." So maybe, probably, a lot of the election cyber got erased. How do you do the recount? It's very hard. But Roy wants a recount, and I'm behind him 100%. As I've always been.

        • (Score: 1, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday December 14 2017, @12:05AM (2 children)

          by Anonymous Coward on Thursday December 14 2017, @12:05AM (#609503)

          I understand that you're upset that he lost. Maybe if you ask him nice he'll still get you some dates.

          • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday December 14 2017, @12:43AM (1 child)

            by Anonymous Coward on Thursday December 14 2017, @12:43AM (#609513)

            Or hit up Jeff Epstein [wikipedia.org] again. He's out of prison.

            • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday December 14 2017, @03:36PM

              by Anonymous Coward on Thursday December 14 2017, @03:36PM (#609711)

              Or hit up Jeff Epstein [wikipedia.org] again. He's out of prison.

              Hide yo kids! Hide yo wif- Hm, okay just hide yo kids, then.

    • (Score: 5, Informative) by Grishnakh on Wednesday December 13 2017, @09:37PM (6 children)

      by Grishnakh (2831) on Wednesday December 13 2017, @09:37PM (#609402)

      Alabama seems to suffer the same fate as most of the rest of us, the party primaries are designed to put forth the most radical of their party and then throw them against each other with the people choosing the lesser evil because they don't understand third parties.

      This isn't really true in this case.

      First off, as far as I can tell, Doug Jones wasn't "radical" in the least, he looks like a pretty typical centrist Democrat. It was Moore that was a radical, but from my perspective, he seems to epitomize the ideals of many Alabamans, so from their perspective he's not radical.

      As for third parties, the problem here is first-past-the-post voting systems: they actively eliminate third parties. There's been plenty of research on this. Voting for a lesser party means one of the two main parties doesn't get your vote, which will actually succeed in helping elect the candidate you dislike the most. That's why people vote for the "lesser evil". The main problem is that the voters haven't demanded better voting systems, mainly because the voters are stupid AFAICT. They whine about the choices, or whine about people not voting third-party, but they never actually demand a better system.

      In this case there was a democrat that supported abortion that religious folks believe will get them sent to hell if they pay taxes for

      This just shows that the people of Alabama are a bunch of religious morons. If you're actually willing to vote for a candidate who will work against your best interests, and screw you over, just because the other candidate will vote (in a small way) against something your fairy-tale beliefs tell you is wrong, then you're an idiot, and you actually deserve to get screwed over.

      • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday December 13 2017, @10:22PM (1 child)

        by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday December 13 2017, @10:22PM (#609439)

        This just shows that the people of Alabama are a bunch of religious morons

        Careful with those generalisations, more than half of these voters let the religion aside.

        • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday December 13 2017, @11:29PM

          by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday December 13 2017, @11:29PM (#609476)

          Those would largely be the folks who aren't descended from slaveholders, in particular, those whose ancestors were enslaved.

          ...and that bunch recently got a law pushed through in Alabama which says that folks who have served their prison time are no longer disenfranchised for life.
          Ex-convicts added a lot of votes to the other side of the ledger this time.

          -- OriginalOwner_ [soylentnews.org]

      • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday December 14 2017, @04:22AM (2 children)

        by Anonymous Coward on Thursday December 14 2017, @04:22AM (#609580)

        First past the post only applies to the Presidential Electoral College. It has nothing to do with Statewide Senate General Election. Thanks for playing though.

        • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday December 14 2017, @05:37AM

          by Anonymous Coward on Thursday December 14 2017, @05:37AM (#609601)

          No. The term refers to being able to be declared the victor without receiving a majority of the votes cast.

          Another name for first-past-the-post is "plurality rules".

          -- OriginalOwner_ [soylentnews.org]

        • (Score: 2) by Grishnakh on Thursday December 14 2017, @04:06PM

          by Grishnakh (2831) on Thursday December 14 2017, @04:06PM (#609729)

          Where's the "-1 Factually Wrong and stupid" modifier?

      • (Score: 2) by dry on Friday December 15 2017, @02:59AM

        by dry (223) on Friday December 15 2017, @02:59AM (#610064) Journal

        Don't know about down there, but up here in Canada, the people do seem to want to get rid of the first past the post system. The politicians, not so much as they'll probably never get another majority and have to compromise.
        The Liberals won the last Federal election, partially based on their promise of no more first past the post elections. Didn't take long to announce they weren't going to implement election reform due to it being too decisive. Partially true as the opposition was really railing against it and insisting on referendums. (Our Constitution doesn't say much about how elections are run, just that they have to happen within 5 years)
        Last Provincial election here was similar, with the 2nd place party making an agreement with the third party (the Greens) who won enough seats in a tight election to hold the balance of power and bring down and replace the government (Parliamentary system where whoever controls the legislature forms the government or there's an election). This will be a referendum only needing a simple majority. Last time the threshold was 60% and the vote was something like 59% in favour of changing the voting system. The opposition keeps going on that it should take a super majority.

        Personally I love minority governments as the opposition parties can keep the government a bit more honest and stop them from bulldozing their agenda through.

    • (Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday December 13 2017, @10:59PM (1 child)

      by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday December 13 2017, @10:59PM (#609459)

      Doesn't seem to be the case. The big difference in this case came from 22k voters that were so unwilling to vote for a Democrat that they wrote other candidates in rather than vote for what was clearly the better candidate.

      You can't blame that on the primaries. It's a state with enough purposefully ignorant hicks that any method of primaries would cause that result even without gerrymandering.

      • (Score: 5, Informative) by takyon on Wednesday December 13 2017, @11:19PM

        by takyon (881) <reversethis-{gro ... s} {ta} {noykat}> on Wednesday December 13 2017, @11:19PM (#609470) Journal

        More than 22k voters made a difference here.

        Here's the last several Alabama Senate election results:

        2016:

        (R) Richard Shelby - 1,335,104 (63.9%)
        (D) Ron Crumpton - 748,709 (35.8%)

        2014:

        (R) Jeff Sessions - 795,606 (97.3%)
        (he was the only candidate to file this year)

        2010:

        (R) Richard Shelby - 967,861 (65.3%)
        (D) William G. Barnes - 515,049 (34.7%)

        2008:

        (R) Jeff Sessions - 1,305,383 (63.36%)
        (D) Vivian Davis Figures - 752,391 (36.52%)

        2004:

        (R) Richard Shelby - 1,242,200 (67.6%)
        (D) Wayne Sowell - 595,018 (32.4%)

        2002:

        (R) Jeff Sessions - 792,561 (58.6%)
        (D) Susan Parker - 538,878 (39.8%)

        A Democrat hadn't cracked 40% of the vote since 1996.

        --
        [SIG] 10/28/2017: Soylent Upgrade v14 [soylentnews.org]
    • (Score: 1, Troll) by HiThere on Wednesday December 13 2017, @11:45PM (5 children)

      by HiThere (866) Subscriber Badge on Wednesday December 13 2017, @11:45PM (#609493) Journal

      In US elections, third parties are a snare and a delusion. If we had IRC or Condorcet voting, then I'd agree that you should vote for the best candidate. As it is... the only reason to vote for a third party is because you are so disgusted with both of the candidates that have a chance that you might as well not vote, but you have a habit of voting.

      --
      Javascript is what you use to allow unknown third parties to run software you have no idea about on your computer.
      • (Score: 2) by Grishnakh on Thursday December 14 2017, @04:20PM (2 children)

        by Grishnakh (2831) on Thursday December 14 2017, @04:20PM (#609743)

        As it is... the only reason to vote for a third party is because you are so disgusted with both of the candidates that have a chance that you might as well not vote, but you have a habit of voting.

        That's not true. Those other parties will never have a chance of taking over from either of the dominant parties if no one ever votes for them, plus parties get federal matching funds and other benefits after they get to a certain percentage of the vote.

        So, if you live in a place that very reliably votes a certain way, and you're quite sure your vote won't be missed in a particular election (this Jones vs. Moore election is not a good example obviously), then go ahead and vote 3rd party. For instance, if you think the Dems are too centrist or corporate, or you just want to support another party for a change, and you live in Mississippi during a Presidential election, you might as well vote for the Greens or whoever. Your vote for a Democrat candidate will NOT give Mississippi's electoral votes to the Dems because there's just no way MS will choose a Dem in the Presidential election, so you might as well vote for someone else, it won't make a difference to the Dems. Similarly, if you live in DC and normally vote Republican, you're wasting your vote there in the Presidential election as well, so you might as well vote for the libertarians or whoever.

        • (Score: 2) by HiThere on Thursday December 14 2017, @05:46PM (1 child)

          by HiThere (866) Subscriber Badge on Thursday December 14 2017, @05:46PM (#609772) Journal

          I understand your feeling on the matter, and I've felt that way too. But when I look at the history of US politics, all new parties seem to have been founded by splitting one of the major parties after it became totally dominant. Even Teddy Roosevelt couldn't manage to start a new party, and that one was nearly a split.

          --
          Javascript is what you use to allow unknown third parties to run software you have no idea about on your computer.
          • (Score: 2) by Grishnakh on Thursday December 14 2017, @06:50PM

            by Grishnakh (2831) on Thursday December 14 2017, @06:50PM (#609802)

            True, but that doesn't mean that a small party can't rise to dominant status, in tandem with one of the two dominant parties shooting itself in the foot. It just needs enough people to start voting that way.

            The other thing that can happen (and has, in the past) is that one of the smaller parties gets enough popularity and votes at the polls that one of the dominant parties starts copying its stances. This happened with the Socialist party decades ago. But again, people need to actually vote for the smaller party to show support for it.

            What I described before is a perfectly safe way (esp. in Presidential races) for you to show support for other parties without the risk of "letting the bad one in". If you live in South Caroline, for instance, there is absolutely zero chance that state is going to vote for the Democratic candidate in the 2020 election, so if you lean left you might as well throw in a vote for one of the 3rd parties if you like them. And if you live in Connecticut, there's absolutely zero chance that state is going to vote for the Republican candidate in 2020, so the same applies there if you lean right. This is really the case in *many* states; only a minority of states are so-called "swing states". It's only those states where you need to actually worry that your 3rd-party vote could help the wrong lizard get in.

      • (Score: 3, Insightful) by urza9814 on Thursday December 14 2017, @04:28PM

        by urza9814 (3954) on Thursday December 14 2017, @04:28PM (#609748) Journal

        As it is... the only reason to vote for a third party is because you are so disgusted with both of the candidates that have a chance that you might as well not vote, but you have a habit of voting.

        I agree it's not nearly as effective as it should be, but it's more than just voting out of habit. There's a lot of people who just never bother to vote, and if your reaction to the selections of the major parties is to just not vote for any of them, then you blend into that group. And nobody cares. But if you vote third party, then you're specifically registering as someone who DOES vote but just doesn't like the choices. And you send a message to the major parties that they might be able to pick up your vote if they adopt certain policies. Generally, they probably still don't care if the race isn't all that close, but just look at this one -- if the Republicans could have picked up those third party votes, Moore would have won.

      • (Score: 2) by Thexalon on Thursday December 14 2017, @07:03PM

        by Thexalon (636) on Thursday December 14 2017, @07:03PM (#609807)

        Some good reasons to vote third party:
        1. The office in question has been held by a political machine run by one of the major parties for a very long time (e.g. local offices that are routinely won with 96% support in the general election), and while you aren't in agreement with the other major party you do want to shake things up. Having real threats from some kind of third-party challenger helps keep the politicians on their toes even in cases where voting for the other major party would be seen as unthinkable.

        2. You genuinely don't find either major party candidate even tolerable, and so your options are to support the third party you agree with, or not vote. Expressing your preference gives you more power than not voting: Either you'll help your preferred third party gain attention or even matching funds, or you'll give the major party closest to you ideologically some idea of what they would need to do to win you over.

        That first reason is why I'm a strong supporter of third parties at the local level: Most cities have Democratic machines, many rural areas have Republican machines, and those machines can and should be challenged by presenting what are seen by the voters as reasonable alternatives. For example, I want to see the biggest city nearest me get more Green Party city council members, mostly because the Democrats are way too comfortable and entrenched and end up fairly corrupted as a result.

        --
        The only thing that stops a bad guy with a compiler is a good guy with a compiler.
  • (Score: 3, Interesting) by PartTimeZombie on Thursday December 14 2017, @12:00AM (1 child)

    by PartTimeZombie (4827) on Thursday December 14 2017, @12:00AM (#609500)

    Is he really religious, or does he just use religion to con the rubes who are likely to vote that way?

    • (Score: 2) by Runaway1956 on Thursday December 14 2017, @01:45AM

      by Runaway1956 (2926) Subscriber Badge on Thursday December 14 2017, @01:45AM (#609534) Journal

      Almost always, religion is just one of the many planks in a candidate's platform. The candidate isn't in church on Sunday (or Saturday, depending on religion). His business dealings don't reflect his "faith". It's just propaganda for the chumps he is courting.

      In Moore's case, I think he's a believer. His beliefs align with the Mormons, and their offshoot cults more than with American Christianity. Moore probably really believes that he has every right in the world to boink 13 year old girls. "If they're old enough to bleed, they're old enough to breed!"

      Incidentally, Moore is being accused (by some) of being a pedo. That is inaccurate, of course - pedos like prepubescent children. I'm having a brain fart, can't think of the proper term for guys who like post-pubescent children, but you get the idea.