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Comment by jungletime | Hacker News Reader

Isn't that what the Russia gate did. It casted doubts about the election results for 4 years of his presidency. And still no definitive proof after 4 years. I don't understand the double standard now. I hope he pardons Snowden and Manning on the way out, as a final act of revenge on the system.

During the debates Biden pledged to wait for the vote to be certified before declaring victory.

Proof: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1miwDWst-IQ

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> During the debates Biden pledged to wait for the vote to be certified before declaring victory.

No, he didn't.

Proof: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1miwDWst-IQ

When discussing elections, "certified" without qualifications (or, equivalently, "legally certified" or "officially certified") conventionally refers to formal action by the government entity overseeing the election results declaring them legally final (potentially, pending certain appeals), whereas "independently certified" refers to a less formal declaration of the results by a third party other than the candidates and their proxies or government administrators such as election observers or independent media outlets.

Waiting for the election to be "independently certified", which is what Biden was asked about, is a very different thing than waiting for it to be "certified" without qualification.

> ...whereas "independently certified" refers to a less formal declaration of the results by a third party other than the candidates and their proxies or government administrators such as election observers or independent media outlets.

Can you provide a reference for that assertion? I tried to find it myself, the best thing I found is this blog post, describing the wording "independently certified" as curious:

https://excessofdemocracy.com/blog/2020/10/what-does-it-mean...

That is absolutely not what Russiagate was about. No one, so far as I am aware, was claiming that the election results were improperly counted in 2016 [1]. Instead, Russiagate was about illegal Russian interference in, and potential Republican collaboration with, political advertising that may have swayed people's votes.

[1] In favor of the Republicans, I mean. Some Republicans, primarily Trump, did claim fraud in favor of the Democrats, but were unable to find any evidence for their claims.

The implication and implied end result was that he was an illegitimate president that won by cheating. Same difference. You are splitting hairs.

The implication is that he committed a criminal act that he deserved to be impeached for (and indeed he was, although the Senate did not vote to convict), following the normal constitutional procedures. There is no implication that the election result should be annulled and the presidency should go to Clinton instead. Trump is no less an illegitimate president than Nixon, Bush, or Hayes was.

>No one, so far as I am aware, was claiming that the election results were improperly counted in 2016

The mantra for Trump's opponents and the media in the first year or so of his presidency was that "Russia hacked the election".

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