That really can't be noted enough. That the count took so long is specifically because several legislatures decided to not allow any preprocessing of mail ballots, and to count mail ballots last.
Indeed this bears repeating.
The whole process mounting to the election day was engineered to sabotage and outright throw out votes from the opposition, even if that comes at the expense of the core principles of the whole political system.
The only explanation they can come up with is voter fraud which has not been found to be a widescale problem by nearly every group that has looked into it.
There are certainly some people and perhaps even most people in that group, however there are also still millions of people who do actually believe in small government. Do these people think that winning elections is more important than democracy or is there some reason that they have used to convince themselves that it is okay to make it harder to vote?
On a side note... thank you. At least you asked a question about my position rather than simply downvoting without an explanation.
I do agree that it seemed somewhat isolated in official statements. I did hear quite a few individuals in my personal life believe/state that since the system was compromised that must mean the votes/count must have been changed.
I can see how the fraud claim is popular - if you're losing the popular vote consistently due to (simplistically) higher urban population, you might look for something to use as an excuse. This makes an easy excuse since in your constituent areas (rural) you would have the observation bias that almost everyone you know voted for your candidate and still lost. Sloppy voting system maintenance supplies plenty of anecdotal things to point to, like dead people kn the voting role.
Democrats weren't claiming massive voter fraud was occurring and that it robbed them of the election and refused to concede as as result.
In fact, the one person very loudly crying about voter fraud in 2016 was the same person doing it now. Donald Trump, unhappy at losing the popular vote, claimed and continues to claim that the only reason he failed to secure the popular vote was due to massive voter fraud.
People say all kinds of crap. There are people who are democrats who are bad people, lie, and say dumb crap. There are people who are republicans who are bad people, lie, and say dumb crap.
There is a profound and marked difference between Harry Reid grumbling about 2016 and what is happening in this election.
Parties play party politics, and you're correct in that there is a lot hypocrisy in that, especially when the balance of power swings. This, however, is not an example of that. This is a refusal to not only accept reality, but also leave lasting damages and deepen the divide in this country. It's shameful and a national tragedy.
Yeah, I can see Trump's comments being divisive. There have been Democrats that have made divisive comments too. Which is why I see them as similar. We'll have to see if he steps down when he's supposed to.
From my perspective, they both do questionable, self-serving, and even illegal things. The topics, methods, and frequency do vary. Personally, the last couple presidential elections have felt like a choice between a shit sandwich and a shit sandwich without the bread. (Which is which? Take your pick)
To give you an example from another context which is similar:
In Germany, polticians and some news media have started to use the notion that right-wing terror (e.g. neo-nazi) and left wing terror (e.g. Antifa) are equally evil. If you look objectively though, there is still a disproportionate amount of right-wing terror and many of the crimes attributed to the left-wing are really just part of their fight against the right (they are anti-fascists for a reason). While right-wing terror killed German citizens and immigrants each year, there is no comparable level of crime anymore that could be attributed to the left (need to go back 40 years).
Also, do you have numbers for looking at this from the perspective of the politicians? My comment was mainly focused on the politicians and party leadership, not really on individuals without an official capacity.
1st: "Every group that has looked into it" and "widespread". First at this point I don't trust many of the groups and institutions, because I have repeatedly over the past 4 years seen various groups act in a concerted manner to try and slander, libel and misrepresent trump while trying to drive people to be angry and irrational about. There have been multiple I've seen things reported that I've said to myself. "Okay if Trump really said that then I am way off of supporting him" but then I go look at the actual remarks and it is radically different from what he said. Any else remember a 2 week news cycle on whether or not cofeve was a racist dog whistle? Ultimately at the end of this my faith in mant previously authoritative institutions has been shaken.
Also I don't know anyone that is claiming "widespread" voter fraud, no one believes there was "widespread" voter fraud in this election it was targeted specific voter fraud at particular places and counties is the contention. Everyone knew going into this what states needed to be won for biden to win. Many of these states were decided by less than 10,000 votes.
In response to your contention about being against making it easier to vote. The fact of the matter is that the more room for error in the voting process the less likely people are to trust the outcome. If we imagine for a second we lived in a non-Covid world right now and there everyone voted like normal do you believe as many people would doubt the veracity of the election? Ultimately I consider integrity of the election to be of higher value than ease of access, because it doesn't matter who gets to vote if no one trusts the process.
Again you asked how could a good faith conservative believe this. This is how, I could be wrong I could be off, but that is how I see things right now. Maybe that'll change but for right now that's how I reconcile being good faith and conservative.
> I don't know anyone that is claiming "widespread" voter fraud
This makes it very hard for me to take your claim of good faith seriously. Yes, perhaps the exact word "widespread" did not come out of Donald Trump's mouth, but there can be no doubt in anyone's mind (if they are indeed dealing in good faith) that Donald Trump has in fact been consistently and emphatically -- and, most important, falsely -- alleging wide spread voter fraud. Try doing a web search for "trump claims wide spread voter fraud" if you don't believe me.
Maybe it’s an isolated incident, really.
The media response that “there is no evidence of fraud” shifted to “no widespread fraud” at some point in last three years. I remember noting the appearance of the new qualifier. That rhetorical shift was their own nuance in the face of recurring anecdote.
But let’s accept that - no widespread fraud. The concern - regardless of Trump or this election - is over a critical mass of fraud in counties that are won by narrow margins.
“Widespread” has never been a requirement of the good faith critique of voter fraud.
So when you hear the catchphrase “no evidence of widespread fraud” realize that it signals buy-in to a straw man argument which talks past the issue at hand.
[0] https://www.justice.gov/opa/pr/former-philadelphia-judge-ele...
A single individual is hardly evidence of "widespread fraud". If you want to play dueling anecdotes, I'll see your PA and raise you Republican vote tampering in North Carolina [1].
None of this is relevant to the substance of my comment, however, which is that I have a hard time seeing how anyone dealing in good faith can honestly say that they "don't know anyone that is claiming widespread voter fraud" [emphasis added].
[1] https://www.nytimes.com/2019/07/30/us/mccrae-dowless-indictm...
The argument is to increase the integrity of elections, not offset fraud by one side with fraud by the other and call it even.
There are a lot of anecdotes of fraud, and they keep coming up, enough to undermine the integrity of our elections (as evidenced).
If this was an issue of financial accounting in an organization, I’d wager your behavior pattern would be different - the recurring anecdotes would indicate a substantial risk that needs to be mitigated by putting controls in place to ensure the integrity of the accounts.
Instead, in this instance we are being told not only to look the other way, but are being told recurring anecdotes of abuse don’t warrant substantial procedural changes and improvements in accountability.
As Glenn Greenwald said the other day, this situation is either by choice or ineptitude. But it’s not a non-issue.
Two data points is not "a lot" in a country with 150 million registered voters.
If there were actual evidence of enough voter fraud to move the needle, the Trump administration's law suits would gain some traction, particularly after four years of packing the courts with friendly judges. But they aren't [1]. Hell, not even Fox News is taking this seriously any more [1].
[1] https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/trump-vote-lawsuits/...
[2] https://www.nytimes.com/2020/11/05/business/media/fox-news-t...
This has been a recurring conversation for decades, and the fact that it’s inflamed in the last few cycles points to the fact that it’s getting worse, not better.
Look, the weak controls that were in place on this process are evidently broken in some critical locations - denying poll watchers entry, political material outside polling places, ballot chain of custody issues. So what controls we did have, weak as they were, were clearly not functioning in many critical locations, as evidenced by videos and court testimony over the last week. Without confidence that the controls are working, the results become suspect, especially when the mistakes appear aligned in one direction. This is what the auditing world would call a material deficiency. It’s that simple - how do you restore faith in the process when people won’t just take your word for it? This is a problem set with known solutions.
Forget this election and the outcome you want to see, Biden’s the president barring something crazy - but there’s a systemic problem here that’s getting worse (let’s say relative to the 2000 fiasco).
We still aren’t conversing, as a nation, about how to bring more integrity to the process to allay the very real concerns half this country has. The institutional narrative is that there is no problem. To then willfully deny that this disagreement really matters forestalls the conversation. We’ll see how this ages, but the answer here isn’t for one side to just shut up. The answer is to take meaningful steps to demonstrate that the process has integrity. Videos of poll workers denying poll watchers access don’t create an appearance of integrity. Denying observation of the ballot counting process also doesn’t support the integrity of the results.
Probably not. But I don't see any evidence that the problem extends beyond a few isolated incidents.
> the weak controls that were in place on this process are evidently broken in some critical locations
That is far from evident to me. And your claims are not evidence.
> there’s a systemic problem here that’s getting worse
Claims are not evidence.
> the very real concerns half this country has
The concern may be real, but the problem isn't. It just isn't. (Voter suppression is a real problem. But fraud is not.)
The real concern is (or at least should be) that half the country has lost touch with reality to the extent that a demagogue can make them spend so much mental energy trying to solve a problem that doesn't actually exist.
I find it terribly odd that all this concern about the sanctity of the electoral process only dawn upon the Trump administration after a) realizing they were going to lose the election, b) having spent months trying to sabotage the election by mounting a campaign to reject a voting method that was known to be used primarily by the opposition.
And still, in spite of all the explicit accusations of the existence of a massive fraud campaign, they still cannot find any single shred of evidence to support it. Hell, their initial claim about their observers being barred from observing ended up being materialized in simply wanting to have their observers closer to ballot boxes.
What a blatant red herring.
The media did no such thing. What "the media" did was listen to the Trump campaign's empty claims about having lost the election to this magical massive widespread wave of voter fraud, and proceeded to ask the Trump administration for evidence of this massive widespread wave of voter fraud they were complaining about.
Asking a source to substantiate their bold claims, or fact-check them, is now passed off as media manipulation?
And let's be honest here: if Trump is complaining about tens, if not hundreds, of thousands of votes being either fabricated or destroyed, how is a typo in a projection or a postman failing to deliver the mail any substance to that gargantuan claim?
But again, why spend your time arguing that there’s nothing to see here rather than advocating for improving the transactional integrity of the voting process? And surely you must see those problems even if you trust that politicians don’t leverage them. Which of those pursuits do you think will be more effective in countering the distrust people have in the system? Which one do you think is ultimately healthier for the country? Saying, yes, I see why you would be concerned, let’s work to fix the integrity of the process so those concerns are addressed, or saying the all-to-frequent anecdotes mean nothing and we should have faith that the political machine is inherently trustworthy?
I don't know what you were trying to say, but you said nothing if substance. It reads like a red herring that desperately tries to conflate the world begging the Trump campaign to substantiate any of their myriad of claims regarding their so-called massive nation-wide wave of voter fraud, which succeeded their initial absurd and ridiculous announcement of having won the election, with other propaganda tropes.
> But again, why spend your time arguing that there’s nothing to see here rather than advocating for improving the transactional integrity of the voting process?
The only problems that can be fixed are those which exist in the realm of reality.
Where is the massive wave of voter fraud that supposedly robbed Trump of his election? If that problem really exists, shouldn't you be worried about getting to know the evidence of its existence in order to ensure the same thing doesn't happen again?
Because otherwise these wild election fraud claims jus sound like a desperate red herring fabricated by a childish irresponsible man who decided to throw a tantrum instead of admitting defeat.
The Trump Administration itself couldn't find evidence of widespread voter fraud.[1]
>Also I don't know anyone that is claiming "widespread" voter fraud, no one believes there was "widespread" voter fraud in this election it was targeted specific voter fraud at particular places and counties is the contention. Everyone knew going into this what states needed to be won for biden to win. Many of these states were decided by less than 10,000 votes.
The 2016 election was one of the closest elections we have ever had and it still would have required roughly 100k votes changed to change the result. This election is even less close. Biden is winning PA by 30k, MI by 150k, and WI by 20k. That alone wins it. You can ignore the close states like GA, NV, or AZ and Biden still wins. This would have needed widespread fraud in order to switch a true Trump win to a Biden win.
>The fact of the matter is that the more room for error in the voting process the less likely people are to trust the outcome.
This flows the other direction too. Voting being suppressed makes people trust the outcome less too. How can an election have integrity if people who want to vote can't? If that is the outcome of strict voting laws, shouldn't we require some higher level of evidence of voter fraud in order to justify this cost of people losing their vote?
[1] - https://apnews.com/article/f5f6a73b2af546ee97816bb35e82c18d
1. The link you provide is indicating there was no voter fraud in the 2016 election not the, 2020 election.
2. As for "widespread" I think we are disagreeing on what it means, in this case you seem to indicate I am talking just about 1000s of people going out and voting multiple times, there are also concerns around counters through some means, providing a different number for the counted whether by introducing false ballots, lying about the number they counted, etc.
For example there was a machine in Detroit that read in 8,000 votes that were listed for Trump as votes for Biden [0] now that could very well be a simple technical error but it indicates how easy it is cause voting totals to not match the reality of the voting.
As for the final rejoinder, I think maybe we are having different opinions in mind as to what we are discussing. For me I fully support having many polling places that are easy to get to for many people in multiple locations and that on election day we should make it as easy as possible for people to vote; however I also think there should be tighter integrity checks on who is voting and on the counting of votes itself.
[0] https://www.freep.com/story/news/politics/elections/2020/11/...
>For me I fully support having many polling places that are easy to get to for many people in multiple locations and that on election day we should make it as easy as possible for people to vote; however I also think there should be tighter integrity checks on who is voting and on the counting of votes itself.
The first half of that goes against the policies of the Republican part and Democrats aren't going to disagree with the second half.
Anyone can be forgiven for doubting the integrity of our election process in the face of worrying anecdote. The answer isn’t to call for blind faith by ignoring the red flags, but to shore up the process and improve its systemic integrity.
What would your standard be if this concerned the finances of your own company? You wouldn’t be telling the organization to not worry and ignore warning signs.
Some states eliminated witness signature requirements on absentee ballots; some states allowed new votes with no postmark up to a week after the election; videos showing the eviction of poll watchers, political placards posted at the entry of polling places; a “reporting error” with an extra zero corrected only after being called on it, software “glitches” resulting in 3000-vote over-count in one county corrected only after being challenged; a box of ballots produced after Election Day, 100% of whose contents went to one candidate; counting paused in the middle of the night. None of it helped by being refereed by a media plurality that clearly wanted a specific outcome all year.
There’s enough widespread questionable anecdote to warrant a top to bottom audit, which nobody can afford.
Every time the media (trusted by the public less than Catholic priests and politicians, btw) says there’s “no evidence of widespread fraud” in the face of this, it doesn’t help - it only raises another red flag.
And this isn’t just the Presidential election, btw.
That we are incapable of building and executing a process with inherent integrity is getting increasingly risky/dangerous.
Also it isn't just the media that investigates voter fraud. Academics and political institutions have looked into it also and not found a problem. Trump's Administration even looked into it and couldn't find any significant problem. Is there anyone who you would trust that could certify this isn't a problem?
I think the accounting analogy is the best suited. You won’t say, with whistleblower reports in hand, that there’s no evidence of _widespread_ problems and leave it at that. The presence of recurring whistleblower reports about financial irregularities demands a different conversation: these are the preventative and detective controls we will put in place, and here’s the evidence that they worked, such that we can be assured a high degree of integrity in what we’re reporting.
Right now, the evidence doesn’t even exist to be challenged. Party A puts the onus on Party B to prove that ballots without postmarks weren’t submitted on time and then say there’s no evidence of a problem. No, the problem in that example is the lack of postmarks to even begin to evaluate the suitability of the ballots.
It’s hard to interpret the willful reticence to have this kind of conversation as a nation, especially because the shoe can absolutely be on the other foot some day.
When the integrity of the institution is in question, the right response isn’t to tell people to look the other way. What I’m trying to convey is that nobody believes that a talking head on the news has any authority or personal expertise to tell people “everything’s fine” when the anecdotes just keep coming, particularly in places run by people with a conflict of interest in the outcome.
You ask what authority would have credibility to be taken on their word that everything’s fine. The right question is how do we demonstrate that the processes have integrity. How do we increase the integrity of the processes such that we’re not relying on me accepting integrity on faith.
You used the word “certify”. That’s a good word and we should dig into the strength behind those attestations. Right now they’re based on very weak control structures.
If that was the case then why has the Trump campaign failed to present any evidence whatsoever to substantiate it's baseless accusations of electoral fraud?
I mean, the Trump campaign complains that the election was stolen from them as a result of this hypothetical electoral fraud campaign that no one sees or has any tangible proof of existing. Heck, the Trump campaign is even accusing elections organized by Republicans of having been compromised. If there is indeed a problem then how come no one is able to see it anywhere, no matter how may times everyone asks?
If no one is able to find any problem anywhere, is there really a problem to begin with?
Further, when the body of material lacks metadata to support chain of custody investigations, or observers can’t witness counting processes, it’s pretty disingenuous to say no evidence can be found. The control failures are the evidence.
There are very real bad examples, and we don’t know how representative they are. There are critical control failures (missing information) that make investigation difficult.
If you want to convince people everything is fine, take away these distractions by shoring up the process - transparency and authentication controls would go a long way towards fending off the accusations of fraud.
Are you referring to the cases where the place was packed above capacity (and packed with both dem and good observers) and those wanting to enter had to wait for their turn to enter?
> videos of political material posted at the entrance to multiple polling places;
Are you talking about the Trump supporters getting arrested after picketing a polling place with pro Trump propaganda while brandishing a firearm?
I'm going to make it very simple for you: show any evidence. A primary source describing anything will do. Don't fabricate accounts or go with the "he said she said" approach. Each and every single case you vaguely referred to has been debunked and corrected, but apparently either you prefer to ignore facts or preferred to turn yourself off from the world. Show the evidence. Can you do it?
Not "nearly" every group. Every group. Election fraud is effectively nonexistent.
Not tallying votes early doesn’t seem so clear cut to me.
The argument is that if early vote counts came out in favor of Biden it could suppress voter turnout on the Republican side.
I don’t know if that’s actually how it would have played out, but it does seem reasonable not to have results start to be reported before everyone has made their choice.
More independence is generally better in voting systems.
In theory, even counting could be done as long as no result is leaked, though there’d be a risk.
Explicitly not allowing the preprocessing - and as far as I followed the news, that’s what happened in PA - seems like a pretty clear cut case of “we want to draw the count out.” to me.
Even if a minority of the vote was known, how different would that be from public polling that also represent a slice of the electorate (which also is likely not 100% representative of the actual results.)
Of course a small sample of votes is likely to be too, but we aren’t talking about statistical inference here, we talking about political perception.
https://abcnews.go.com/Politics/pennsylvania-counting-votes-...
No it’s not.
> it isn't sabotage or subterfuge.
It’s absolutely sabotage. “You can either count all the ballots or count quickly” is dishonest hackery, and defending this behaviour is shameful.