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Allegations of Fraud in 2020 US Election

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shuttlt said:
I suppose those elections could be invalid as well. I don't think though that there is any rule that if you claim one election is fraudulent you have to claim all are. Many of the fraud claims seem to be isolated to particular counties, so I'm not sure that they would apply to every county.
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I think there's a bit of the excluded middle argument here. It's probably reasonable to claim that there is no such thing as a perfectly clean election, because there are always people prepared to do illegal things and some of them will sometimes get away with it. I would be very surprised if a complete investigation of every aspect of the 2020 election didn't uncover any voter fraud whatsoever. The question is, to what extent did that fraud influence the outcome of the election? If there are isolated cases of a few dozen votes being falsified in places that were won by several tens of thousands, the answer would be "none at all". Fraud claims isolated to particular counties would therefore have to pass an incredibly stringent test before being even considered for the sort of remedies Trump is calling for.

Dave
 
shuttlt said:
I suppose those elections could be invalid as well.
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They're all voted for on the same piece of paper. Why would invalidating the vote for president not also invalidate the other votes on that piece of paper?

I'm only aware of one claim of fraud that is restricted to the president, the supposedly abnormal number of ballots that are blank down ballot. To say more one would need to know more about the specifics.
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That doesn't even vaguely begin to answer the question. In fact, it just emphasises the question - if Democrats were rigging the election, why would they only rig the presidential election and leave themselves in a minority in the Senate?
 
Squeegee Beckenheim said:
They're all voted for on the same piece of paper. Why would invalidating the vote for president not also invalidate the other votes on that piece of paper?



That doesn't even vaguely begin to answer the question. In fact, it just emphasises the question - if Democrats were rigging the election, why would they only rig the presidential election and leave themselves in a minority in the Senate?
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Let alone that there was nothing abnormal with "the supposedly abnormal number of ballots that are blank down ballot".
 
shuttlt said:
I'm only aware of one claim of fraud that is restricted to the president, the supposedly abnormal number of ballots that are blank down ballot.
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That's one that's amenable to a perfectly innocent explanation, of course; it simply requires that an unusually large number of otherwise apolitical people utterly despise President Trump and care about nothing but voting him out of office. I suppose someone who's been living in a cave in Mongolia for the last four years might consider that implausible, but other than that there's really only Trump himself.

Dave
 
Dave Rogers said:
I think there's a bit of the excluded middle argument here. It's probably reasonable to claim that there is no such thing as a perfectly clean election, because there are always people prepared to do illegal things and some of them will sometimes get away with it. I would be very surprised if a complete investigation of every aspect of the 2020 election didn't uncover any voter fraud whatsoever.
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Agreed.

Dave Rogers said:
The question is, to what extent did that fraud influence the outcome of the election? If there are isolated cases of a few dozen votes being falsified in places that were won by several tens of thousands, the answer would be "none at all". Fraud claims isolated to particular counties would therefore have to pass an incredibly stringent test before being even considered for the sort of remedies Trump is calling for.
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Agreed.
 
shuttlt said:
You don't remember recounts? What are recounts except a blind search for irregularities? Also, I vaguely remember some kind of enquiry claiming Trump colluded with some foreign country to steal the election.
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Every candidate has the right to a recount, as does Trump, and if that were all that was happening, no one would have any objections. Baseless allegations of fraud are completely different and shouldn't be allowed.

Did the enquiry about the collusion happen because of the election result or because someone had found an irregularity?
 
Dave Rogers said:
That's one that's amenable to a perfectly innocent explanation, of course; it simply requires that an unusually large number of otherwise apolitical people utterly despise President Trump and care about nothing but voting him out of office. I suppose someone who's been living in a cave in Mongolia for the last four years might consider that implausible, but other than that there's really only Trump himself.

Dave
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Sure, this is another thing that indicates a line of investigation that I assume Trump will attempt to follow. The fact that one can construct an innocent explanation for it is terrific, but that doesn't mean it is in fact innocent. We just have to wait and see what turns up. Beyond that, I don't know what to say.
 
Squeegee Beckenheim said:
That doesn't even vaguely begin to answer the question. In fact, it just emphasises the question - if Democrats were rigging the election, why would they only rig the presidential election and leave themselves in a minority in the Senate?
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It depends how they are rigging them and who is rigging them if indeed anybody is rigging them. If I were dumb enough to start speculating I'll be shot down for speculating. I've danced that pointless dance on this forum too many times before.
 
shuttlt said:
The fact that one can construct an innocent explanation for it is terrific, but that doesn't mean it is in fact innocent.
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Again, this is reversing the burden of proof. If the only evidence presented of fraud is something that has, not just an innocent explanation, but an innocent explanation that accords perfectly with everything we know about the US electorate's attitude to President Trump, then it isn't even evidence of fraud. It certainly doesn't justify the expenditure of a huge amount of public money on, and the erasure of public confidence by, a massive fishing expedition. In effect, it's merely Trump claiming that he could not conceivably have lost a fair election therefore any election he loses must be unfair. Giving in to that sort of logic endangers democracy.

Dave
 
I've heard a podcast where Kevin Barrett interviewed a guy called Jonathan Simon who claims that the whole voting system is rigged for the Republicans and up to 10 millions votes were stolen for them. Yes, that Kevin Barrett, hardcore 9/11 truther that everybody who ever heard his name on this forum likely hates. I happen to like him a lot, but I was against the premise when I clicked that link. If any voting fraud, I think it happened against Trump this time.

But what I found out is what I knew since 2000, that the voting mechanisms in the US are just a joke. And that Lawrence Lessig, who ran for president in 2016 or 2012, can't remember right now, was right with his "We will first fix the system, and then vote again" message. This just can't be taken serious anymore.
 
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shuttlt said:
You don't remember recounts? What are recounts except a blind search for irregularities?
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Your fallacy is: Equivocation. We're talking about allegations of fraud, which is a subset of "irregularities". Recounts are a very coarse simple check against irregularities, primarily errors in the count. What they are not is a post hoc revision of the rules of the election to exclude votes that were properly counted in accordance with the ab initio rules, which is effectively what Trump is demanding. A simple recount will simply yield the result, "We counted these votes about right," not "We verified that all these votes were placed in accordance with applicable law," and certainly not "We adjusted the count to make sure the candidate who threw the loudest tantrum won."

Dave
 
Childlike Empress said:
I've heard a podcast where Kevin Barrett interviewed a guy called Jonathan Simon who claims that the whole voting system is rigged for the Republicans and up to 10 millions votes were stolen for them. Yes, that Kevin Barrett, hardcore 9/11 truther that everybody who ever heard his name on this forum likely hates. I happen to like him a lot, but I was against the premise when I clicked that link.
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Which is no less of a "some guy said this" than any of the Trump campaign's claims.

Childlike Empress said:
If any voting fraud, I think it happened against Trump this time.
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Yes, dear.

Dave
 
Dave Rogers said:
Again, this is reversing the burden of proof. If the only evidence presented of fraud is something that has, not just an innocent explanation, but an innocent explanation that accords perfectly with everything we know about the US electorate's attitude to President Trump, then it isn't even evidence of fraud.
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One can frequently come up with innocent explanations for things that are none the less evidence of crimes. You then investigate and maybe find out if the situation can be clarified. There is no burden of proof here, since I don't think anybody here is arguing that fraud of a sufficient scale to matter definitely did happen. Trump would obviously have a burden of proof if this makes it anywhere near a court.

Dave Rogers said:
It certainly doesn't justify the expenditure of a huge amount of public money on, and the erasure of public confidence by, a massive fishing expedition.
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If there isn't an investigation, it will be seen as a cover up. The way to restore confidence is to have an investigation. The cost of it will be trivial in the grand scheme of things.

Dave Rogers said:
In effect, it's merely Trump claiming that he could not conceivably have lost a fair election therefore any election he loses must be unfair. Giving in to that sort of logic endangers democracy.
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Trump says a lot of bombastic stuff. If there isn't an investigation, it will be seen as a cover up.
 
Dave Rogers said:
Your fallacy is: Equivocation. We're talking about allegations of fraud, which is a subset of "irregularities". Recounts are a very coarse simple check against irregularities, primarily errors in the count. What they are not is a post hoc revision of the rules of the election to exclude votes that were properly counted in accordance with the ab initio rules, which is effectively what Trump is demanding.
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If the votes were proper, then they won't be discarded. No? Or at least it would be something we could argue over. Hypothetically if a bunch of dead people voted (presumably not enough to make a difference), then they should be discarded, no?


Dave Rogers said:
A simple recount will simply yield the result, "We counted these votes about right," not "We verified that all these votes were placed in accordance with applicable law," and certainly not "We adjusted the count to make sure the candidate who threw the loudest tantrum won."
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If that is the case, then he will not be successful. If the count changes bigly, then maybe this goes somewhere. It's hard to know without a count.
 
Squeegee Beckenheim said:
The head of the DoJ's election crimes department has resigned after Barr issued a memo directing the department to investigate allegations of fraud
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Donald Trump Junior has been pounding away on his kiddie plastic toy 'lap top' and making all sorts of playground noises at Pilger (the guy who resigned shortly afer Barr put out his memo).

Richard Pilger resigned after Attorney General William Barr authorized federal prosecutors across the U.S. to pursue 'substantial allegations' of voting irregularities before the 2020 presidential election is certified, despite little evidence of fraud.

Pilger, director of the Election Crimes Branch of the Department of Justice since 2010, stepped down within hours of Barr's announcement, in an email he sent to colleagues that was obtained by The New York Times.

And President Donald Trump's son, Don Jr, was quick to criticize Pilger.

He wrote: 'Wait. Seriously? Isn’t this the guy who was involved with the IRS and Lois Lerner in targeting conservatives and the Tea Party? Maybe that’s why he hasn’t done ◊◊◊◊ at DOJ. #deepstate' https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/ar...ion-probes-despite-little-evidence-fraud.html
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Quite. 'And your daddy smells of poo,' would be Pilger Jnr's response.
 
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