Live Updates: Presidential Transition : NPR

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‘No Evidence’ Election Was Compromised, Cybersecurity Agency Says : Live Updates: Presidential Transition : NPR

There is "no evidence" the Nov. 3 election was compromised, committees within the Department of Homeland Security that worked on protecting U.S. voting systems affirmed Thursday. In a statement, they also called the 2020 election the "most secure in American history."

"When states have close elections, many will recount ballots. All of the states with close results in the 2020 presidential race have paper records of each vote, allowing the ability to go back and count each ballot if necessary," members of committees, which include officials from the U.S. Election Assistance Commission and the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency said in a joint statement.

"This is an added benefit for security and resilience. This process allows for the identification and correction of any mistakes or errors. There is no evidence that any voting system deleted or lost votes, changed votes, or was in any way compromised."

Donald John Trump and Vote Fraud 🐴

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Donald John Trump and Vote Fraud 🐴

Often I think partisans and the media turn elections into too much of a horse race, thinking that every little vote or action is significant and that any little thing that could change the outcome of a race is important. And while winning versus losing is important to the politician and staff themselves, to the American people and public policy over the long run not so much so. Elections occur every year, and power is divided into many different levels of government. One candidate or party in a closely divided country isn’t likely to have a long legacy.

Let’s say there is a theoretical race where candidate “A” gets 49% of the vote and candidate “B” gets 50% of the vote. Candidate “B” is the winner, whose ideas represent the majority of the electorate? Not really. When a race is that close you might as well flip a coin because either candidate in practice represents a majority of the electorate. Particularities like random error, minor mishaps or fraud, weather or even the location of polling sites or hours might define the winner. Chances are on a race so close the next election things might flip the other way.

Elections shouldn’t be seen a precise measurement of public opinion but more of an estimate of public sentiments.

A lot of people don’t vote and there are all kinds of rules and procedures that distort the outcome of elections. State, county and municipal lines rarely represent communities of interest – often instead they’re historical conglomerations that lead to certain voices not being heard. Legislative districts are subject to gerrymandering and little things like locations of polling places and absentee ballot rules can effect who votes and how much weight their vote gets.

That said, elections do work and do represent a significant amount of the public opinion even if the results aren’t always a strict numerical majority of public opinion. Elections force politicians back to the middle and to be responsive to the public’s interest. Even if a particular candidate or party might not win a certain election, their competive presence makes the winner more accountable to the public by putting fear into them that they may lose the next cycle around.

Was there enough voter fraud in 2020 to make a difference in the presidential election? Probably not, most of President Trump’s claims have been debunked by the media. But regardless, either candidate as winner represents a close approximation of contemporary public sentiment – the split was quite narrow, especially under the rules of the Electoral College which create further distortions in the process.

And if you don’t like the outcome of the election, thousands of local and county officials will be on the ballot next year and ultimately there will be state and federal elections in 2022 and 2024.

Why Do Suburban Retrofit Projects So Often Get All the Details Wrong? — Strong Towns

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Why Do Suburban Retrofit Projects So Often Get All the Details Wrong? — Strong Towns

Gone are the days when a typical growing American suburb didn’t have a single building over two stories. While the classic images of suburbia remain the single-family home with a spacious lawn and the strip mall on a stroad, a slow but steady change has occurred over the past couple decades. We’ve witnessed the normalization of “suburban retrofit” projects: private developments that attempt to introduce a more urban form to the suburbs, with compact layouts, higher densities, taller buildings, more variety in land use (residential, retail, etc.) and more emphasis on walkability.

Mid-rise apartments tend to sprout up in little pockets of open land along major roads that were left undeveloped, like holes in Swiss cheese, as development filled in around them. In fast-growing places, the “Swiss cheese” effect is a common phenomenon, as landowners may sit on undeveloped land for a long time to speculate on its rising value, wait for the right market timing to develop it, or navigate a slow and complex approval process.