Hacker News Reader

Stop creating alternative accounts. It's against the rules, and there's a very good reason you're being downvoted.

> I have done my own research

So has every conspiracy theorist on the planet. What's that saying... "extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence"? I notice you didn't site any of the sources of your personal research.

Show me hard evidence, you know, like the kind that can be substantiated, with a quantifiable impact on the election results, which are able to stand up to the scrutiny of the courts. I know, such high standards! Meet them and you have my ear, but there is such a huge amount of garbage information out there that unless you do, I don't have time to listen anymore.

For an executive summary of the evidence available, the Texas lawsuit is a good starting point (first 36 pages). https://www.texasattorneygeneral.gov/sites/default/files/ima...

For Michigan specifically this document has an overview of affidavits (from Nov 10): https://cdn.donaldjtrump.com/public-files/press_assets/1.-11...

Most of my information has come from watching the many hours of state legislature hearings (PA, MI, GA, AZ). I don't have a link readily available but they should be easy enough to find if you look.

There have been a few witnesses in these hearings that have been debunked. For example one lady testified that people were voting in MI without identification. Which is perfectly legal. A bit disconcerting, but legal. Other witnesses have provided wild speculation (e.g. Smartmatic hacking) with indeed no evidence.

The vast majority of the witnesses at these hearings, however, do seem to be legitimate complaints. It seems odd to me, that a reasonable person, after listening to their testimonies, would not at least have some doubts regarding the integrity of the election.

Whether it's the constitutional issues regarding signature matching in PA, or the poll watchers being thrown out in MI, or the many other issues at hand, it seems that at least one of these reasons would be cause for concern. And these aren't small issues - they could potentially affect hundreds of thousands of ballots.

So when people say that there is "no evidence" - I am a little bit shocked, surprised, at how quickly these claims are dismissed. Usually people point to the judges' casual dismissal, as justification for their own casual dismissal. Very rarely have I seen much effort made in actually investigating the claims that have been made. Actual investigation into these issues have been limited at best, and done with the strict intent of "debunking" rather than trying to get to the truth.

( Please be considerate with the downvotes. I am a new user and the negative karma is causing rate limits, effectively censoring me from this discussion. I am trying to have reasonable, constructive discourse. )

> Usually people point to the judges' casual dismissal, as justification for their own casual dismissal

I can't say how usual this is without evidence, but sounds like you might be casually dismissing other peoples' thought processes, including the judges.

I think some of the issues and concerns being raised absolutely should be looked into, and at minimum they should help inform us on how to improve election processes going forward. But the bar for deciding to throw out votes needs to be very high, so I expect the evidence required to reach that level to go far beyond seemingly legitimate witness complaints. Those complaints seem like a great starting point for investigators though, and it's beyond my expertise to evaluate them myself.

Unfortunately we also have an administration coming at these issues in rather dubious ways, which seems to harm their efforts for seeking out the truth. It makes me suspicious they are really only seeking their version of the truth, otherwise why would they be arriving at such strong conclusions _before_ enough evidence has been gathered to determine real, quantifiable effects of specific events? If I have a hypothesis and want to legitimately evaluate it by gathering facts and then I proceed to announce conclusions before the evidence has been gathered and vetted, I would be correctly dismissed as biased and only looking to advance my own agenda, not seeking the truth.

> I have done my own research, and to me, it seems unquestionable that election laws were broken in a variety of significant ways that meaningfully impacted the result of the election.

Oh? Why in your research were highly paid lawyers unable to point to anything convincing? Why in most cases did they not even try once in a venue where lying would have penalties?

> unable to point to anything convincing?

It's pretty well documented that poll watchers were denied their lawful right of meaningful observation.

The counter-claim to this is that the poll-watchers were being rude/abusive but this is the claim that does not have evidence.

The lack of meaningful observation in MI/PA alone, contrary to election law, would result in 100's of thousands of ballots being thrown out.

There are many other ways election laws were also broken. This is just the example I use that, to me, is the most straight forward and best documented.

> Why in most cases did they not even try once in a venue where lying would have penalties?

Often times the courts haven't even provided the opportunity to swear in witnesses.

Other times, e.g. Arizona, only a few were deposed unfortunately. Probably for time reasons? It took weeks to document the affidavits. I would have preferred that Binnall had chosen other witnesses/affidavits to swear in, but there certainly wasn't time to do them all.

> The lack of meaningful observation in MI/PA alone, contrary to election law, would result in 100's of thousands of ballots being thrown out.

That's just not how it works. Even _granting_ the premise, it's not "You couldn't see well enough? Well let's disenfrancise a few hundred thousand people." That's not a reasonable remedy by any stretch of either common sense or law.

Then going back to the premises, isn't this in PA the one where they could see, they just weren't as close as they wanted to be, and they were exactly as close as the observers from the other campaign?

> Other times, e.g. Arizona, only a few were deposed unfortunately. Probably for time reasons? It took weeks to document the affidavits. I would have preferred that Binnall had chosen other witnesses/affidavits to swear in, but there certainly wasn't time to do them all.

Time reasons sounds reasonable to you? They have raised multiple _hundreds_ of millions of dollars, and the candidate has his own funds. They can't get more lawyers and assistants to help? This has been going for weeks.

You don't think it's more likely that the witnesses and affidavits they're using are subpar because that's the best they have?

In Michigan, based on testimony/affidavits: 1) The poll workers were almost exclusively Democrats. 2) It was only Republican poll watchers who were being thrown out 3) Republican poll watchers were not replaced after they were thrown out 4) By the end of the night there were only a handful of Republican watchers 5) The Democrat poll watchers would harass the Republican poll watchers until they are thrown out 6) The reasons provided to throw out Republicans were applied unevenly (Only applied to Republicans)

Again, this is based on the dozens of testimony/affidavits I've heard & read. If there is evidence to the contrary for the above claims, I haven't seen it.

> That's just not how it works. Even _granting_ the premise, it's not "You couldn't see well enough? Well let's disenfrancise a few hundred thousand people." That's not a reasonable remedy by any stretch of either common sense or law.

How should it work? It's not a fair system either to kick out all of the observers, and then claim that "no fraud happened" after kicking out everyone who was there to detect fraud.

The election laws exist for a reason and these laws were basically outright ignored.

Keep in mind, that even with the limited observation, there is testimony that points to specific cases of fraud. For example, during the duplication process, when both Biden and Trump are filled in, the vote (according to testimony) went to Biden. When a challenge was raised, the challenge was ignored. This is one example of many where challenges were raised and ignored.

> You don't think it's more likely that the witnesses and affidavits they're using are subpar because that's the best they have?

I don't know why they chose to select those witnesses to depose, and not the others. Perhaps Binnall personally felt those were his strongest witnesses. Maybe the other witnesses were not available to testify (or did not want to seek out the harassment).

I don't know. Judges are fallible, as are laywers, and people.

I can only tell you what I personally believe based on the evidence/testimony I have heard & read, is that there is compelling evidence and its a legitimate case worth hearing, and should not be dismissed so casually as it has often been by the judges so far.

(Please be considerate with the downvotes. I'm a new user, and I'm trying to be constructive with my posts, yet getting rate-limited due to negative karma.)

>Again, this is based on the dozens of testimony/affidavits I've heard & read.

Cite them, please.

>For example, during the duplication process, when both Biden and Trump are filled in, the vote (according to testimony) went to Biden. When a challenge was raised, the challenge was ignored.

Cite this, please.

>This is one example of many where challenges were raised and ignored.

Cite this, as well, please.

>I can only tell you what I personally believe based on the evidence/testimony I have heard & read, is that there is compelling evidence and its a legitimate case worth hearing, and should not be dismissed so casually as it has often been by the judges so far.

These next two questions are real questions, not snark, I promise.

Honestly, genuinely, do you believe your layman perspective is more valid than someone who has spent their entire life honing their craft (judges)? Do you really believe that?

Edit: Downvote me if you want, but at least have the decency to answer my questions. If you're so concerned about it, then get your information out in front of more people, instead of making baseless claims.

For the specific claim made above (Biden and Trump both filled in, going to Biden), if I recall it was one of the witnesses during the Michigan legislature hearing.

For your other citation requests, please see: https://cdn.donaldjtrump.com/public-files/press_assets/1.-11...

If you do a search for "Exhibit 1" this will take you to the list of affidavits.

> Honestly, genuinely, do you believe your layman perspective is more valid than someone who has spent their entire life honing their craft (judges)?

In matters of law, certainly not. In matters of right and wrong, I consider myself on an equal footing as anybody else.

I've reviewed the reasons the judges have dismissed the cases. The reasons typically boil down to either:

1) Outright dismissal without giving opportunity to provide any evidence, 2) Dismissal on technical grounds (e.g. standing), 3) Dismissal from declaring the affidavits hear-say, 4) Dismissal that grants premise that election laws were not followed but this does not prove fraud

I'm not sure what the legal standards are on what determines an affidavit to be hear-say or not, but they can be submitted to a court as evidence. Thus far, no judge (as far as I'm aware) has allowed them to be provided as evidence.

Regardless of the legal implications of affidavits and the standards they must meet to be provided as evidence in court, I have seen more than enough (dozens if not hundreds) of testimonies that provide the same consistent general picture: election laws were not followed, and in a significant way.

For point #4 above, either the election laws exist for a reason, or they don't. The election laws that prevent fraud were (in my opinion) blatantly ignored, in critical Democrat areas, amounting to hundreds of thousands of votes processed without the required legal oversight.

(For the record, wasn't me who downvoted. Thanks for engaging in constructive discussion. )

For the sake of balance, this defendant's motion to dismiss is also relevant since it directly disputes these claims: https://www.courtlistener.com/docket/18619867/31/donald-j-tr...

Many more documents are available, but I doubt most people have the amount of time required to read through, and much less understand in full: https://www.courtlistener.com/docket/18619867/donald-j-trump...

This has also received plenty of media coverage, for example: https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/michigan--poll-watch...

Thanks for the links. I have reviewed the first link some weeks back. From what I can tell, the judgement falls under the "casual dismissal" category. Aside from the fact that the judgement is loaded with clearly biased editorializations, it doesn't provide adequate justification for its findings. As an example:

> Challengers are allocated one per respective party or organization to each counting board.5 > The only challenger right specifically listed with respect to absent voter ballots is to observe the > recording of absentee ballots on voting machines. M.C.L. § 168.733(1)(e)(i) (“A challenger may > do 1 or more of the following: … Observe the recording of absent voter ballots on voting > machines.”) This requirement was met at all times.6

"This requirement was met at all times". How was this finding reached? The footnotes referenced (5,6) does not provide any indication to how this was reached. Yet, this finding is in direct contradiction to the affidavits that were provided. On what evidence was this finding based?

Further, the judgement states:

> Even Plaintiffs’ “material” allegations could not possibly support their causes of action. If > each and every one of the allegations were true (they are not true), at most, they relate to a small > number of ballots, that could not possibly change the outcome of the election.

This is just factually not true, based on the number of hours of lack of meaningful observation, which would be hundreds of thousands of votes. Again, there is no indication in the judgement how this finding was reached.

THANK YOU however for providing these links. I have not yet looked at the other two and I will review them with the attention they deserve.

prucomaclu: Shame on you for gullibly believing and mendaciously spreading hypocritical, cynical, Anti-American lies, and shame on Texas for trying to overturn Democracy.

Texas: Don't mess with America.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/courts_law/supreme-c...

Supreme Court dismisses bid led by Texas attorney general to overturn the presidential election results, blocking Trump’s legal path to reverse his loss

The Supreme Court on Friday dismissed a long-shot bid by President Trump and the state of Texas to overturn the results in four states won by Democrat Joe Biden, blocking the president’s legal path to reverse his reelection loss.

The court’s unsigned order was short: “Texas has not demonstrated a judicially cognizable interest in the manner in which another state conducts its elections. All other pending motions are dismissed as moot.”

Justices Samuel A. Alito Jr. and Clarence Thomas, as they have in the past, said they did not believe the court had the authority to simply reject Texas’s request. “I would therefore grant the motion to file the bill of complaint but would not grant other relief, and I express no view on any other issue.”

Trump, who has appointed three of the court’s nine members, has long viewed the Supreme Court as something of an ace-in-the-hole, and called for the justices to display “courage” and rescue him in post-election litigation.

[...]

The states said Texas’s claims were hypocritical and cynical. Although Texas said in a filing that it “does not ask this court to reelect President Trump,” the suit does not ask the court to discount the votes in any state Trump won where state officials and courts altered voting procedures because of the coronavirus pandemic.

Among those states are Texas itself, where the governor made changes.

> For the specific claim made above (Biden and Trump both filled in, going to Biden), if I recall it was one of the witnesses during the Michigan legislature hearing.

To follow up on this, specific citation is below. This witness starts at 1:34:45 in the below video. (Christina Caramo) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eZXkAv7yKgw&list=UU8Ioh4atND...

Shame on you, and shame on Texas. You LOST the Civil war, and you FAILED to start another one. Trump and Texans are such Anti-American sore losers. No slaves for you!

Texas: DON'T MESS WITH AMERICA!

https://www.businessinsider.com/kinzinger-republican-lawmake...

Republican congressman rips Texas GOP for suggesting secession and says 'my guy Abraham Lincoln and the Union soldiers already told you no'

Republican Rep. Adam Kinzinger on Friday criticized the Texas GOP for floating the idea of secession after the Supreme Court rejected a bid to overturn the results of the presidential election.

In a statement, the Texas GOP chairman suggested that "law-abiding states should bond together and form a Union of states that will abide by the constitution."

Republican Rep. Adam Kinzinger of Illinois said the statement should be immediately retracted and the people involved fired. "My guy Abraham Lincoln and the Union soldiers already told you no," he said.

Are there any other controversial scenarios that you believe are true, but that require thousands of individuals to secretly plan and execute, and then cover up, and still not have enough evidence to win in court?

Offer ten million dollars to one of the "inside" poll workers and get first hand eye witness testimony. Surely one of them even sneakily video taped the wrongdoing so that they could sell video evidence to the highest bidder. Surely at least one of these thousands has a paper trail of communications used to coordinate the scheme. And considering that polling officials are bipartisan, surely a few thousand would be motivated to testify about the corruption!

It takes thousands to successfully conspire. It only takes one for it to fail.

The Armenian Genocide comes to mind. You also couldn't prove that Uyghurs are being subject to anything out-of-the-ordinary in Chinese courts right now.

I'm not saying that that's what we're dealing with here, but saying that "if bad things were happening everyone would already know" is begging the question, not a convincing argument. Noting that we'd expect odd statistical distributions of votes in the case of fraud is a better one.

> saying that "if bad things were happening everyone would already know"

That is not what I said.

Trump has crossed so far over the line and lied so much, that not caring if he wins or loses isn't a reasonable, defensible position any more.

You're pretty lucky to be in such a privileged position that you can be so careless, but there are so many people who are directly affected and attacked by him that aren't privileged to be so lucky and care-free as you claim to be.

What exactly would he have to do in order for you to care? Is separating kids from their parents and putting them in cages while undermining Democracy just fine with you? Or can he get away with anything he wants to in your mind, even worse than that, and you still don't care if he wins or loses? Where do you draw the line?

> What exactly would he have to do in order for you to care? Is separating kids from their parents and putting them in cages while undermining Democracy just fine with you?

This "kids in cages" practice started under the Obama Administration. The Trump Administration stopped it. [0]

[0]: https://apnews.com/article/election-2020-democratic-national...

Check your facts:

Obama never had a policy of separating kids from their parents, like Trump does, and the cages were only used for 72 hours before releasing them to the Department of Health and Human Services for further placement.

The Associated Press reported in late 2019 that an unprecedented 69,550 migrant children were held in U.S. custody over that year.

So do you support separating kids from their parents, and keeping them in cages for longer than 72 hours? If not, then why are you defending the Trump administration's policies to do just that, by complaining about Obama? Of course I don't approve of Obama putting kids in cages for 72 hours either, but that CERTAINLY does not justify Trump separating them from their parents AND putting many tens of thousands of them in cages during the Coronavirus pandemic for much longer periods of time, then refusing to cooperate with the efforts to reunite them with their parents. Your argument is pure whataboutism and deflection.

https://eu.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2019/11/12/border-...

https://apnews.com/article/election-2020-democratic-national...