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Comment by creaghpatr | Hacker News Reader

This is extremely predictable though, because a sizable segment of Facebook users did not trust the outcome of the 2016 election. Why would it be any different in 2020?

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People trust the outcome generally, whether they like it or hate it. The folks aren't trusting the inputs.

2020 is not 2016. Polling is suggesting a large shift. That may cause distrust in the outcome itself if the outcome doesn't align to polling due to voter suppression efforts and other possible issues.

Is the polling really all that different from this point in 2016? As I recall, in 2016, the eventual winner was way down in the polls right up until election day.

By the time of the election, the polls had narrowed considerably. There were a lot of clowns with predictions of 99% chances and whatnot, but people that actually understood statistics and polls had the race a lot closer to a coin flip at the time of the election (IIRC 60-40 odds).

FiveThirtyEight had Trump at 29%. Most others had him at 1-15%. Betting markets had him at 18%.

https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/why-fivethirtyeight-gav...

> There were a lot of clowns with predictions of 99% chances and whatnot

Is that what we're calling the New York Times these days? How the might have fallen…

But wouldn't these people still exist and not trust the outcome regardless? I wonder what the media consumption of these individuals looks like beyond Facebook.

If people suspect fraud and did nothing about it, they don't deserve to live in a free democratic society, and won't.

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