The Nation Newspaper

Category: US 2016

  • 790 economists tell voters: Don’t vote for Trump

    790 economists tell voters: Don’t vote for Trump

    A report on CNNMoney, on Tuesday, revealed that America’s economists on college campuses have no love for Donald Trump.

    A letter signed by 790 economists, some who have won the Nobel Prize in economics, urged voters not to vote for Trump.

    “His statements reveal a deep ignorance of economics and an inability to listen to credible experts,” the letter reads. The Wall Street Journal first reported on the letter, which was signed almost entirely by college professors.

    The letter was originally signed by some 370 economists. It was then reopened for new signatures and hundreds of additional economists also put down their names.

    The economists did not endorse Hillary Clinton, but recommended that would-be Trump voters “choose a different candidate.”

    Related Post: Trump on if he’ll concede if he loses: “We’ll see what happens”

    They argue that Trump has deeply misled Americans on trade, manufacturing, immigration and public institutions critical to the credibility of the economy, such as the Bureau of Labor Statistics, which keeps track of how many jobs the economy creates and publishes a widely-watched monthly report.

    One of Trump’s economic advisers, Peter Navarro, told the Journal the letter “is a headline, whatever.”

    Navarro, an economics professor at the University of California, Irvine, also told the Journal: “You shouldn’t believe economists or Nobel Prize winners on trade.” He confirmed that comment to CNNMoney, but later said that the quote was incorrect.

    Navarro added in a statement: “You don’t need a Ph.D in economics to know Trump’s plan to cut taxes, reduce regulation, increase oil, gas and clean coal production, and eliminate our trade deficit by increasing exports and reducing imports will significantly increase growth.”

    Trump has been heavily criticized for his threats to slap tariffs on Mexico and China, as well his comments about tearing up free-trade deals like NAFTA. His immigration policy to deport millions of undocumented workers has been widely lambasted by economists who say that would shrink the job market and hurt growth.

    Related Post: Topless women storm polling place where Trump was due to vote

    Clinton isn’t unanimously loved by economists either. In September, over 300 economists signed a letter arguing that her economic policies would be bad for the country. They claim that Clinton’s energy policy against fossil fuels, her tax plan and proposal to raise the federal minimum wage would slow down the economy.

    “Her outdated policy prescriptions won’t return our economy to the faster growth rates it once enjoyed,” the economists’ letter against Clinton reads.

    Those economists also did not endorse Trump.

    However, economic analysis of both candidates economic plans — from taxes to jobs to economic growth — leans towards Clinton, according to Oxford Economics, Moody’s Analytics and UPenn’s Wharton School Budget Model.

  • How hackers, social bots, data analysts shaped the U.S. election

    How hackers, social bots, data analysts shaped the U.S. election

    Analysts believed that information technology and data science have played prominent roles in the 2016 U.S. presidential race.

    They said on Tuesday in Los Angeles that the presidential candidates spent millions of dollars on data analysts in order to target specific voters while social bots attempt to manipulate discussions on social media.

    They added that hackers also caused further turmoil by leaking emails.

    “With our lives becoming more digitised, data analysts had become an increasingly important tool in U.S. political campaigns to reach out to voters.

    A report on Statistics Views noted that the Democratic Party has embraced data science early on.

    It said since the 2008 presidential election, the Democratic National Committee began gathering data sets of voters, which included information about “which magazines they subscribe to, whether they like to vote early, and how likely they are to open certain emails.

    You might also like: Who becomes America’s 45th president?

    It said further that during this election, the Democratic candidate Hillary Clinton hired about 60 analysts under the guidance of the statistician Elan Kriegel, Clinton’s director of analysts.

    “Kriegel was also Barack Obama’s battleground states analytics director in 2012.

    The report said data analysis tools help campaigns identify how to most effectively allocate their resources and be smart about how and when to target their voters.

    It said during the democratic primaries, Kriegel’s analyst team was “responsible for deciding where and when to place each of the 60 million dollars that Clinton invested on TV ads,” wrote the new report, by optimising the “cost per flappable delegate.

    The report attributed Clinton’s success over Bernie Sanders to the efficient use of data analysis.

    It said that by contrast, Donald Trump’s republican campaign was less open about its data operations than its rival.

    You might also like: us election visualisation of early voting results

    It said back in May, Trump told the media that he felt data analyst was “overrated,” and that he planned to win the election solely by his own personality.

    It said that Trump did not invest in data analysis during the primaries but, did start spending millions of dollars in the summer at the insistence of his close advisors.

    “Not only did the campaigns analyse massive amount of voter data, they also actively influenced people’s opinions by manipulating social media.

    Emilio Ferrara, a Research Assistant Professor at the Information Science Institute of the University of Southern California, said that many recent papers have demonstrated how people’s opinions are swayed by what they read online, and bots can contribute to that effect.

    A recent study by Ferrara and his colleague Alessandro Bessi found that nearly one-fifth of all 20 million election-related tweets they collected between mid-September and late October were from “social bots.

    Bots is an automated computer programme that are designed to pose as real people, sometimes without disclosing their true artificial identity.

    The computer scientists found that Twitter accounts identified as pro-Trump bots have mainly been tweeting positive messages, increasing the republican nominee’s popularity, while only half of pro-Clinton bots were spreading positive messages, with the other half criticising the democratic nominee.

    Another set of analysts noted that hackers added, even more turmoil into this year’s already unusual election.

    You might also like: Topless women protest at polling place where Trump was due to vote

    They said a large number of emails from John Podesta, Hillary Clinton’s campaign chair, were released in batches on the WikiLeaks website, revealing embarrassing private discussions within the Clinton campaign.

    They noted that analysing some of the leaked emails, some speculate that Podesta fell into the trap of a “phishing email” back in March, which posed as Google’s account services department and directed him to a fake website to give his email password.

    They recalled that in October, the Obama administration officially accused Russia of attempting to interfere with the elections, by hacking the computers of political organisations including the Democratic National Committee.

    “The Office of the Director of National Intelligence and the Department of Homeland Security in a joint statement that U.S. Intelligence Community is confident that the Russian Government directed the recent compromises of e-mails from U.S. persons and institutions, including from U.S. political organisations.

    The accusation was dismissed by the Kremlin.

    Julian Assange, Editor-in-Chief of WikiLeaks, also denied that the Russian government or any other “state parties” could have been the source of the Podesta emails.

    Last summer, in an interview with Bloomberg, Kim Dotcom, the New Zealand-based founder of MegaUpload, said that Julian Assange would be Hillary Clinton’s “worst nightmare” in 2016.

    “I know where Hillary Clinton’s deleted emails are and how to get them legally,” the German millionaire tweeted on Oct. 27, adding they “are all stored in the NSA (National Security Agency) spy cloud in Utah.”

  • Trump on if he’ll concede if he loses: “We’ll see what happens”

    Trump on if he’ll concede if he loses: “We’ll see what happens”

    Republican U.S. Presidential Candidate, Donald Trump on whether he will concede the election if he loses when asked by reporters, responded, saying, “We’ll see what happens.

    The comments were made after he cast his ballot at a polling location in New York.

    He was accompanied by his wife Melania and daughter Ivanka.

    Trump was echoing remarks made in the third presidential debate, when the moderator asked if he would honour the election results.

    Trump replied that he would “keep you in suspense.”

    Another reporter asked Tuesday which candidate he voted for.

    Trump responded by saying that it had been a “tough decision.”

  • Topless women storm polling place where Trump was due to vote

    Topless women storm polling place where Trump was due to vote

    Two protesters shouting anti-Trump slogans tore off their tops at the Manhattan polling place where the Republican nominee for president cast his ballot on Tuesday.

    The women, from the feminist activist group Femen, had the phrases “Hate out of polls” and “Trump, grab your balls” written on their bodies, images posted on social media showed.

    The latter phrase was a clear reference to lewd comments made by Trump in 2005 and captured by a hot microphone.

    “I’m automatically attracted to beautiful (women), I just start kissing them.

    “It’s like a magnet, just kiss, I don’t even wait, and when you’re a star they let you do it.

    “You can do anything, grab them by the pussy,” Trump said in the leaked audio that rocked his campaign in October.

    Security officials escorted the two women from the polling site, a Manhattan high school gym and the disruption was over within minutes.

    Trump, who had not yet arrived to cast his ballot, missed the protest.

    Femen, a group of Ukrainian origin, is known for its naked protests around the world.

    On its website, Femen describes itself as “an international women’s movement of brave topless female activists painted with the slogans and crowned with flowers.”

  • U.S. election: Campaigns, normal activities ongoing with no security deployment

    U.S. election: Campaigns, normal activities ongoing with no security deployment

    U.S. witnessed normal government and commercial activities on Tuesday in the ongoing historic election with no security personnel deployed to polling stations.

    A correspondent of the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) in the U.S. reports that government offices, commercial banks, schools and other activities remained open with no restriction of movements.

    Working class individuals were also seen coming early to the polls to cast their votes before going to their offices.

    Elections officials told NAN that security personnel are not deployed to polling stations as violence are not usually anticipated.

    They, however, said that security personnel could be called should there be any hitch to the poll at any of the centres.

    NAN also reports that campaigns were ongoing at the polling centres with supporters of candidates publicly soliciting for votes.

    NAN, however, reports that guns could be carried into some polling centres like churches and other public places except schools, according to officials.

    The laws of some states in the U.S. permit carrying of guns except in mostly northeastern states.

    A commissioner at the Department of Elections, State of Virginia, Mr Edgardo Cortes, said that law enforcement officials are prohibited from being deployed to polling centres.

    “Law enforcement agents are not deployed to polling centres. They are not deployed to protect ballots; it is prohibited.

    “Law enforcement agents are only on calls to respond if there are disturbances, but we ask them not to set up speed stops or checks that could deter people from accessing voting places.

    “Holidays are also not declared,” he told NAN.

    He also said that campaigns are allowed at the polling centres within certain perimeters.

    “Campaigns are allowed outside 40 feet of the polling centres. There is no law banning campaigns on election day.

    “There is going to be campaigns going on as the voting is going on,” he said.

    At all the polling stations visited by NAN, no security official was sighted.

    Ms Joyce Gunderlach, Chief Election at Kiln Greek precinct in Newport News, said that the centre did not require any law enforcement official as no incidences of violence had been recorded there in history.

    Similarly, Mrs Linda O’Dell, Election, Chief Election Officer at Old Courthouse Way Community Centre, said she could call the police if their services are required but expressed confidence that such would not be necessary.

    Results from the elections are expected to be declared tonight while the president-elect would also be announced by major media networks later on Tuesday. (NAN)

  • Who becomes America’s 45th president?

    Who becomes America’s 45th president?

     

    • Continued from yesterday

    Electoral College

    It is automatic victory for the winner of today’s election. According to the U.S. Constitution, America’s presidents and vice presidents are not elected by citizens’ votes alone. After today’s popular election, Trump and Clinton will go for another election at the Electoral College.

    Electoral College, as the name may have implied, is not an institution, but a group of representatives (electorals) from all the federating states. It is a form of check and balance in the U.S. electoral system to prevent election of a dangerous president.

    The purpose behind Electoral College as is to give every constituency an opportunity to have input in the selection of who becomes occupant of the White House.

    There is a total 538 Electoral College votes that will be cast. This number is determined according to constituencies represented in the Congress. Each party nominates its loyal members as electorals.

    For any candidate to be elected president or vice president, he must garner 270 majority out of 538 Electoral College votes.

    It doesn’t mean the popular votes are meaningless; they give candidate a chance to win the Electoral College votes. For a candidate to win electoral votes in a state, he has to win the state during presidential election.

     

    How Electoral College works

    Traditionally, Republican and Democratic parties put together a slate of electorals in each state. These are loyal members and people that could be counted on to support their candidates. According to the U.S. Constitution, one month after the presidential election is held, the electorals of the winning party in each state go to the state capital to cast their Electoral College votes for the president and vice president.

    Each electorate will cast ballots for the president and do the same for the vice president. This is regarded as the official election to the U.S. presidency.

    Does that mean the popular vote is meaningless?

    Winning majority of the states’ popular votes in today’s presidential election is not enough to declare any of the candidates a winner. But, it gives the leading candidate a clear opportunity to win the Electoral College votes of states he or she wins. For a candidate to win electoral votes in a state, he or she needs to win the state in the election.

    The State of New York, for instance, has 29 Electoral College votes. Any of the candidates needs to win simple majority of the popular votes to win the New York’s 29 Electoral College votes. It is the same way in almost every state. There are couples of states that are different. Such states include Nebraska and Maine; the reason being that they are very small states.

     

    Can any electoral change his mind?

    There is the possibility that an electorate may change his mind and vote against the party’s directive. Although, the electorates are chosen on the basis of long time loyalty to the party and trust, but America’s founding fathers wanted in the system to run a final check and ensure Americans did not elect somebody too dangerous.

    The electorates are deemed as responsible people and can ultimately make the decision on behalf of their constituencies. Electorates vote according to their conscience. They, technically, will cast two different ballots. This is why it is technically possible for the U.S. to have a president from one party and vice president from another party.

     

    Latest Electoral College map

    Polls conducted, a few weeks ago, by the Washington Post-ABC News indicated that Mrs Clinton was leading in the Electoral College votes. About 265 electorates polled in favour of Clinton, against 168 going for Mr Trump.

    As the election draws closer, the equation changed as more controversies blew out of the both candidates’ camps. The latest Electoral College’s map as the election heads into the final hours is a little more favourable to Mr Trump, but Mrs Clinton still holds a substantial number of the electorates.

    What has changed? State of Maine’s second Congressional District moves from being a battleground for both candidates to lean towards the Republican Party. Although Maine only has four Electoral College votes, the state has the potential to decide the ultimate winner of the election.

    New Hampshire, too, yesterday moved from being leaned towards Democratic Party to a battleground state. Like Maine, New Hampshire has four Electoral College vote. As it turns out to be a battleground, it means Mrs Clinton and Mr Trump must fight to keep the electorates.

    State of Ohio was, for months, a battleground. Some Ohio voters had cast their ballots weeks before the election, but the rest will cast their ballots today. Yesterday, Ohio leaned towards the Republican Party, putting Mrs. Clinton in a precarious position to win the state’s 18 Electoral College votes.

    Also, State of Utah switched from being a battleground to leaning towards the Republican Party. Its six Electoral College votes may go for Mr Trump of the GOP wins the state’s popular votes.

    Which way America?

    Already, about 40 million people have voted in early voting in 38 states; some 100 million votes are still up for grab today. Americans are faced with hard choice to elect a candidate they can trust between Trump and Clinton. With baited breath, the world expects to see how the U.S. would elect its 45th president and it would manage the outcome of the most divisive election in its history.

  • Eric Trump posts, delete illegal ballot selfie on Twitter

    Eric Trump posts, delete illegal ballot selfie on Twitter

    Eric Trump, the son of Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump, may find himself in trouble after he illegally posted a photo of his marked ballot on Twitter on Tuesday.

    The photo, which has since been deleted from the 32-year-old Trump’s Twitter feed, was in violation of laws in New York State.

    New York along with more than a dozen other states, prohibits voters from posting photos of their marked ballots.

    Trump shared the photo of his ballot filled out in support of his father with the note, “it is an incredible honor to vote for my father! He will do such a great job for the U.S.A.’’

    It is unclear if posting the image, also called a ballot selfie, will draw any legal consequences.

    Last month, singer Justin Timberlake also broke the law by posting a photo of himself in a voting booth in his home state Tennessee, where he was casting his ballot early.

    Local officials decided not to review the case but they warned Timberlake of the violation, which is punishable by a fine or up to 30 days in jail, according to local News Channel 3 Memphis.

    “We’re thrilled; Justin can’t stop the feeling when it comes to voting so much that he voted early in person is promoting voting to his millions of fans.

    “In Tennessee, using electronic devices inside polling locations to take pictures, videos or make calls is not allowed,” the office of Tennessee Secretary of State Tre Hargett said.

  • Clinton, Trump cast ballots in US presidential election

    Clinton, Trump cast ballots in US presidential election

    Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump joined voters across the U.S. on Tuesday in casting ballots for president in an election that brings a long and bitter campaign to a close.

    Clinton started her day by casting her vote in Chappaqua, New York, where she and her husband, former president Bill Clinton, have lived since he left office in 2001.

    “I know the responsibility that goes with this,” she said, as she greeted people at the polling station.

    “So many people are counting on the outcome of this election and what it means for our country, and I’ll do the best I can if I’m fortunate enough to win today.”

    Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump has also cast his ballot in New York City at the polling station nearest his home in Trump Tower.

    The candidate arrived with his wife Melania, who also cast a ballot.

    “Everything’s very good,” he said when asked what he had heard about early returns.

    People shouted “loser” and booed the candidate from behind a barrier set up by police on the street.

    Some also shouted, “Go, Donald” and gave him a thumbs up.

    At a polling station in Williamsburg, a neighbourhood in New York City’s Brooklyn borough, Jasmin Stein said she felt somewhat tired of the divisive campaign.

    However, she said she was glad that the election cast a spotlight on underlying anxieties among Americans.

    “A lot of things have been coming to the light that I think the country feels and I kind of would rather have it out in the open than it just be in peoples’ homes,” Stein, 29 said.

    Another voter, Matt Sutton, who works in public relations, said he didn’t want to take any chances to let Trump get elected.

    “It’s amazing that I voted for the first woman president.

    “I didn’t know if I would even see that in my lifetime,” 29-year-old Sutton said.

    He said he was planning to go to Times Square in the evening to await the results.

    Jessica Quinn, 37, who brought her 8-month-old daughter, Emma, to the polls, said she got so anxious about the elections.

    She said that she volunteered to work for the Clinton campaign on Monday, making about 30 phone calls.

    “I needed to do something productive with all of my anxiety about what was happening with the election,” Quinn said.

    Both campaigns kept up the pressure until the end.

    Clinton’s campaign ticked down the minutes until the start of the polls with calls to vote and to “build bridges, not walls,” a dig at Trump’s promise to build a wall along the U.S. border with Mexico to keep out illegal immigrants.

    Trump highlighted his final round of campaign stops, saying on Twitter: “Today we are going to win the great state of MICHIGAN and we are going to WIN back the White House!”

    Clinton is favoured to win based on nearly all surveys of likely voters.

    However, the race marked by ugly rhetoric and personal attacks has been surprisingly close, especially since many Americans considered Trump’s campaign little more than a novelty when it began in 2015.

    Since then, he has built a strong campaign around people who feel they have been left behind by the political system.

    Voters are also electing members of the lower chamber House of Representatives and one-third of the U.S. Senate.

    Voting continues until polling stations close in Hawaii, the state furthest to the west.

    Polls will begin closing at 6 p.m. in the Eastern Time zone, and early results are expected shortly after that.

    The winner will become the 45th U.S. president on inauguration day, Jan. 20, and will succeed Barack Obama, the nation’s first African-American president.

  • US election: Visualisation of early voting result

    US election: Visualisation of early voting result

    The people of the United States of America will on Tuesday night choose their next President to succeed Barack Obama, who made history as the first African-American to emerge President in the U.S.

    As Americans go to the polls, the long, unusual and often ugly 2016 presidential campaign has been about the country’s changing demographics and the shifting coalitions of the two major parties as much as about the two main candidates, Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton.

    Below is a visualisation of the early votes cast thus far, showing the percent cast by a given party:

    According to New York Times, in a battle of the belts, it’s Sun vs. Rust.

    The changing nature of the presidential map can be deduced from where Mrs. Clinton went on Monday. She was assured enough of her prospects for winning Florida, a state that George W. Bush won twice, to not return to the biggest battleground of them all, but she held her second event in four days in Michigan, a state no Republican has won since 1988.

    Mrs. Clinton’s aides express confidence that the results will go their way, in large part because of their optimism about Colorado, Florida, Nevada and Virginia, but they are less bullish about their prospects in Michigan and states like Iowa and Ohio. It is a striking turnabout given how rooted Democrats once were in the heavily unionized Midwest and how much they struggled in the South and parts of the West.

  • Trump wins in New Hampshire

    A trio of small towns in a remote corner of New Hampshire cast the first Election Day ballots for United States president early Tuesday, with Donald Trump beating Hillary Clinton 32 to 25 in the overall count.

    The three communities’ small handful of residents voted at the stroke of midnight, in a quadrennial election ritual that goes back to the first half of the 20th century.

    Members of the media far outnumbered the eight eligible voters in Dixville Notch, nestled in New Hampshire’s Great North Woods about 30 kilometres from Canada.

    Clinton, the Democratic Party’s nominee, beat Republican Trump four votes to two in Dixville Notch.

    She also scored a 17 to 14 victory in Hart’s Location, a town with a population of about 40 people. But the real estate mogul trounced Clinton 16 votes to four in Millsfield, a few kilometers south of Dixville Notch.

    The News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) reports that it was the first time the community had held such a vote in decades. The electoral law in the New England state allows communities of fewer than 100 people to open their polls at midnight, in what’s become a proud tradition for their residents.

    The event garners headlines and curiosity each election cycle, even if it isn’t considered predictive of how residents of the rest of the small north-eastern state will vote during the daytime hours. New Hampshire has four Electoral College votes and is described as a toss-up state this election, with Trump and Clinton seen as running neck-and-neck.