RationalWiki:What is going on with the elections?/December 2016

December 2016
The Electoral College has sealed the deal for Donald Trump. The total number of so-called faithless electors &mdash; those who voted for someone else instead &mdash; was simply insufficient. Bernie Sanders stood a better chance of defeating Donald Trump compared to Hillary Clinton. As a matter of fact, in a recent MSNBC forum, Sanders managed to earn the support of Trump voters. (Autoplay video) 79.6% of voters in Kyrgyzstan cast their ballots in favor of various constitutional amendments, which strengthen the powers of the executive at the expense of parliament, severely undermine judicial independence, and restrict fundamental rights and freedoms. How Clinton lost Michigan and blew the election by concentrating on the popular vote instead of the electoral vote. Her campaign's voter demographic data servers also had significant security flaws. Clearly, this is Huma Abedin’s fault. [https://www.propublica.org/article/pro-trump-group-blew-by-basic-campaign-finance-laws The America Comes First PAC, a pro-Trump group, did not disclose its donors before Election Day. And its top funder is banned from the securities industry.] Republican John Kennedy has won Louisana's Senate run-off election. CNN: "Obama orders review of Russian election-related hacking." WikiLeaks: "Obama orders report into WikiLeaks."Oops. Right wing populist Norbert Hofer finally concedes the Austrian presidential election, making Alexander Van Der Bellen the first Green Party head of state Federal judge ends Michigan recount In Michigan, 610 precincts out of 1,680 (and 392 of those in Detroit) have discrepancies between the number of votes in the computerized poll book and the ballot boxes (most likely due to human error) meaning that they cannot be recounted under Michigan law. Howard Dean has dropped out of the DNC chairperson race. [http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/politics/2016/12/the_myth_of_the_rust_belt_revolt.html Donald Trump didn’t flip working-class white voters. Hillary Clinton lost them.] "He certainly is off the spectrum. There's never been anything like him" Noam Chomsky talks about Donald Trump in a nuanced interview on Aljazeera, says that Trump has no dedicated ideology but that strongman right wing populists like him internationally help a rebranded Right to power. French primary voters have apparently been asleep throughout 2016: [http://www.nytimes.com/2016/11/27/world/europe/francois-fillon-wins-center-right-nomination-for-french-presidency.html? François Fillon has won his party's nomination]. He wants to cut the French budget by 100 billion Euros ($106 billion), cut 500,000 public sector jobs, toughen immigration laws, crack down on Islam, raise the retirement age, change the labor code, lengthen the workweek, and reduce corporate taxes. He is also opposed to gay rights like marriage and adoption and is opposed to abortion.