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Democracy is in trouble....

Zig, how would you distinguish a system that is actually rife with fraud from one that has been hyped, over years, as being full of fraud, except by the number of court cases dealing with fraud?

There has been a massive spotlight on the election this time, and literally NOTHING has come of it.

extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence
 
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johnny karate said:
A sentiment you weren’t expressing four years ago.
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That is false. In the past it mostly came up in the context of voter ID laws, but I've been saying for a very long time that our elections are not sufficiently secure, and that they aren't transparently secure either. Your imagined hypocrisy doesn't exist.
 
The Great Zaganza said:
Zig, how would you distinguish a system that is actually rife with fraud from one that has been hyped, over years, as being full of fraud, except by the number of court cases dealing with fraud?
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Interesting question, though I don't think you've actually thought it through. A system where fraud is common but detection is poor may have just as many detected cases of fraud as a system in which fraud is rare but detection is very good. You cannot tell them apart at all by looking at the number of court cases.

Which is why examining the actual mechanisms you have to ensure security is a better approach if you want to prevent fraud and instill confidence in the system.
 
Ziggurat said:
Well, no. The fact that people don't have faith in the system is a description of a problem in and of itself. You may not care about that problem, but in a democracy, it matters. A lot.

I haven't assumed that people don't have faith in the system. It's pretty well demonstrated.
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No, that's not demonstrated at all. What "people" don't have faith in the system? You mean a percentage of Repubs, right? And on what basis? You think maybe the fact that a raging lunatic and his fawning acolytes have promoted a false tale that he couldn't have lost a free and fair election might have more to do with it than any deficiencies in the system?
 
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Ziggurat said:
Interesting question, though I don't think you've actually thought it through. A system where fraud is common but detection is poor may have just as many detected cases of fraud as a system in which fraud is rare but detection is very good. You cannot tell them apart at all by looking at the number of court cases.

Which is why examining the actual mechanisms you have to ensure security is a better approach if you want to prevent fraud and instill confidence in the system.
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you know how I know that the system is fine, and that politicians know it is?

Because NONE of the Republicans elected on the same ballot as Biden have called their own legitimacy into question.
And neither have any of their voters.

Face it. this has nothing to do with fraud and everything to do with losing.
 
Bob001 said:
No, that's not demonstrated at all.
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Then you haven't been paying attention.

What "people" don't have faith in the system?
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For example:
https://www.foxnews.com/politics/republicans-president-trump-robbed-poll
Other polls have also found large numbers considered the election stolen. That's a problem, isn't it?

And on what basis? You think maybe the fact that a raging lunatic and his fawning acolytes have promoted a false tale that he couldn't have lost a free and fair election might have more to do with it than any deficiencies in the system?
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I think that these claims about a stolen election got a lot of traction because the system is insufficiently secure. Had the system been more secure, and visibly so, far fewer people would have found those claims to be persuasive.

You can't stop people from claiming fraud without getting rid of the 1st amendment. We CAN do something to improve election security and transparency. So what's the goal: find someone to blame, or actually do something about the problem?
 
The Great Zaganza said:
you know how I know that the system is fine, and that politicians know it is?

Because NONE of the Republicans elected on the same ballot as Biden have called their own legitimacy into question.
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Wow, that's a stupid argument. When a system benefits someone, their incentive is to not question it. Anyone who won their election benefited from the current system.
 
Ziggurat said:
Wow, that's a stupid argument. When a system benefits someone, their incentive is to not question it. Anyone who won their election benefited from the current system.
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maybe you haven't considered it, then.

Voters in places where their R-Congressman won, but so did Biden, don't think the system benefited them - they feel cheated according to you.

But, also according to you, they are fine with the result that benefits them and only call foul on the one they don't like.


In other words, people being upset about the result is no evidence of fraud at all.

would you have considered the system rigged if Trump had won?
Because none of the Trump voters would have.
 
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Ziggurat said:
I think that these claims about a stolen election got a lot of traction because the system is insufficiently secure.
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So it was nothing to do with Trump's months-long, relentless disinformation campaign on Twitter then. And the people who don't trust it aren't the ones so clueless about how the system works that they couldn't tell the difference between normal procedure and wholesale fraud. Glad we got all that sorted out.

Dave
 
Dave Rogers said:
So it was nothing to do with Trump's months-long, relentless disinformation campaign on Twitter then.
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I didn't say that. Are you taking the position that it has nothing to do with deficiencies in the security and transparencies of our elections? You haven't actually said that either. I will assume, charitably, that you are not.

But only one of those two things is actually the responsibility of government to address. Care to guess which one?
 
The Great Zaganza said:
would you have considered the system rigged if Trump had won?
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I would consider the system insufficiently secure and transparent, yes. I thought it was back in 2016, and even before.

Because none of the Trump voters would have.
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The nice thing about claims like this is that, because they rely on counter-factuals, they can never be disproven.
 
Ziggurat said:
That is false. In the past it mostly came up in the context of voter ID laws, but I've been saying for a very long time that our elections are not sufficiently secure, and that they aren't transparently secure either. Your imagined hypocrisy doesn't exist.
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Provide a link to a post from shortly after Trump won in which you expressed concern for election integrity as you’re doing now, and I’ll retract my statement.
 
Ziggurat said:
I would consider the system insufficiently secure and transparent, yes. I thought it was back in 2016, and even before.

The nice thing about claims like this is that, because they rely on counter-factuals, they can never be disproven.
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Your claims regarding election security remain unsupported and therefore continue to not to be taken seriously.
 
I remember years ago in this forum there were some threads about e-voting and it was mostly agreed that it wasn't secure enough. The more knowledge the posters had about computers, the less they trusted these systems. The fact that it is not allowed in the great majority of countries should mean that its lack of sufficient security is incontrovertible. I know it may not be the best moment to talk about it because it gets mixed with Trump's CT about having won by a landslide (yeah, right...)but it is nevertheless a real issue.
 
johnny karate said:
Provide a link to a post from shortly after Trump won in which you expressed concern for election integrity as you’re doing now, and I’ll retract my statement.
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That's unfair. He only has 47,000 posts on this forum. Practically a newbie.
 
johnny karate said:
Provide a link to a post from shortly after Trump won in which you expressed concern for election integrity as you’re doing now, and I’ll retract my statement.
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November 28, 2016.

Ziggurat said:
It's not speculation that the system is inadequately secured. That remains true regardless of how much that insecurity has been exploited.
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I have always been consistent about this.
 
Ziggurat said:
I would consider the system insufficiently secure and transparent, yes. I thought it was back in 2016, and even before.
.....
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90% of votes in 2020 were cast on paper ballots that can be stored and recounted. I agree it should be 100%. That could be accomplished by conducting elections entirely by mail. But the expansion of mail voting with paper ballots this year seems to be a primary basis for allegations of fraud. Trump and his acolytes literally tried to claim that only ballots cast on election day were valid. That reflects a basic delusion about how elections work, and how they are supposed to work. Their delusions are on them, not on the electoral process.
 
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