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Ballots get rejected for all sorts of reasons, as the article mentions, fraud and errors. A double rejection rate can't be 100% attributable to fraud. Here's wh

Ballots get rejected for all sorts of reasons, as the article mentions, fraud and errors. A double rejection rate can't be 100% attributable to fraud. Here's what the President claimed: > There is NO WAY (ZERO!) that Mail-In Ballots will be anything less than substantially fraudulent. Mail boxes will be robbed, ballots will be forged & even illegally printed out & fraudulently signed. The Governor of California is sending Ballots to millions of people, anyone..... ....living in the state, no matter who they are or how they got there, will get one. That will be followed up with professionals telling all of these people, many of whom have never even thought of voting before, how, and for whom, to vote. This will be a Rigged Election. No way!

whatshisface 6y ago
What's the line between "we have the best burgers in the world," and actually lying? You'll notice that Mr. POTUS said "less than substantially," whch barely means anything. Maybe he thinks 2% is "more than substantially." You can't lie if you phrase everything in a way that doesn't say anything.
- JMTQp8lwXL 6y ago
  The phrase does indeed say something. "anything less than substantially fraudulent" means near and total fraud. Claiming ~100% of mail-in ballots are fraudulent is baseless and untrue.
  - whatshisface 6y ago
    I just don't see how you can go from "anything less than substantially" to 100%. You can't go from "substantially" to any percentage. For an example, I could pull the same trick on your comment. I could try and convince people that "does indeed," implies 100% confidence, and then I could point out that since from a Bayesian perspective you should never reach 100% confidence, you can't know what you're talking about. Obviously nobody would buy that, because it's not you that wrote down 100%, it was me.
    - JMTQp8lwXL 6y ago
      What does 'substantial' mean? "of considerable importance, size, or worth.". We further constrain the definition with 'anything less than'. So what we're saying is, 'of an especially considerable importance, size of worth'. Okay, well, what does that mean? It has to be a number large enough to influence the election result, but there's no evidence election results have flipped elections due to enough fraudulent mail-in ballots. With this interpretation, the numeric quantity does not matter, but the impact does, yet it is still untrue.
    - gjulianm 6y ago
      You're getting entangled in the details. It's clear from his tweets that what he means is that mail-in ballots will cause a rigged election. We shouldn't trust rigged elections, so he's saying that if the election includes mail-in ballots, it will be untrustworthy. In order to make that reasoning (you could say that arguments are not false or true, they're just arguments) he's using false (CA will not be sending ballots to "anyone") and unsubstantiated (mail-in ballots have been working for years without extended robberies and forging, why would this be any different?) claims. You can search and reason about the words so that "technically" he isn't lying. But the actual message he's sending is very, very clear.
- UncleMeat 6y ago
  He obviously doesn’t think it is 2% because 2% in California would be nowhere close to “rigging the election” (his words).
- pfraze 6y ago
  It's pointless to quibble about what POTUS is getting at. He clearly intends to claim "mail-in voting is fraudulent." The question of whether it's a lie has more to do with whether his claim is accurate.
- dboreham 6y ago
  So "dark patterns" are ok?
- colejohnson66 6y ago
  The difference is that everyone knows “we have the best burgers in the world” is subjective, and therefore, not true. When it comes to statistics (read: not subjective measures), it’s possible to lie.
- ken 6y ago
  Specificity. It's an existing exception in advertising law (or so I've been told). Anyone can claim "we have the best burgers" -- and many restaurants do -- because it's non-specific. Ironically, if you were to attempt humility by claiming "we have the second-best burgers", that becomes a specific claim, and you'd need research to support it. "The Governor of California is sending Ballots to millions of people, anyone living in the state" is a specific claim, and would need to be supported. It's a different category of claim than merely boasting "I am the best president".
  - duskwuff 6y ago
    There's also some room in the law for puffery in advertising, which includes the use of vacuous statements like "the best".
- foogazi 6y ago
  No what Mr. POTUS said was > There is NO WAY (ZERO!) that Mail-In Ballots will be anything less than substantially fraudulent Translation: 100% certainty that Mail-In Ballots are substantially fraudulent Where do you get the 2% from? > Maybe he thinks 2% is “more than substantially” We don’t know what he thinks - we know what he wrote. And he didn’t write a “maybe 2% chance of fraud” He specified a 100% certainty of substantial election fraud
safog 6y ago
> The Governor of California is sending Ballots to millions of people, anyone..... ....living in the state, no matter who they are or how they got there, will get one This is also patently false - they're sending out ballots to registered voters, not everyone regardless of how they got there. > That will be followed up with professionals telling all of these people, many of whom have never even thought of voting before, how, and for whom, to vote. This will be a Rigged Election. No way! Who are these "professionals"? I thought that according to the right, Americans were perfectly capable of making life / death decisions for themselves and those around them during an active pandemic. So a trivial thing such as misinformation should be easy to deal with for them.
- TeaDrunk 6y ago
  Although I'm no trump supporter, it would be incorrect to assume there is no democratic push to get out the vote. Vote Save America ( https://votesaveamerica.com/ https://votesaveamerica.com/ ) is run by Crooked Media, who are most well known for having Obama officials running podcasts like Pod Save America and Pod Save The World (as well as noted black activist Deray hosting Pod Save The People). This is clearly a group that wants to get Trump out and they are actively organizing to encourage calling, texting, donating to democratic campaigns in swing states, and pushing for mail-in voting. (Disclaimer: I am pro mail-in voting and lean leftist in my political beliefs. I am merely disagreeing that there are no pushes to encourage people to vote that are also anti-trump.)
  - DFHippie 6y ago
    Sure. And if Trump only meant that people will campaign against him he sure has a roundabout way of saying it.
    - TeaDrunk 6y ago
      Correct. His implication that this somehow makes the voting process less valid is 100% wrong. It in fact makes the voting process more inclusive. But it is wrong to say there are no movements to teach people how to vote and to make voting easier explicitly with the belief that a more inclusive voting populace will vote trump out.
dathinab 6y ago
> many of whom have never even thought of voting before, how, and for whom, to vote. This will be a Rigged Election. No way! So basically he is afraid of more people voting? Like how is a election where more people then ever vote rigged? Like wtf. This might fall in line with the analysis of <forgot name sorry> which claimed that election results are more based on which people vote and which don't then on swing voters and that swing voters are pretty much irrelevant. If this is true and it turns out that an majority of voters in the US is more on the side of the democrats then a voting method which makes more people vote could indeed cause a long term defeat of the republicans in a fair democratic non rigged manner!
- dboreham 6y ago
  Of course he's afraid of people voting: he and his party are only in power because people don't vote.
  - colejohnson66 6y ago
    Partially correct. He’s in power because the left didn’t vote as much as they could’ve, but he’s also in power because his party’s constituents overwhelmingly supported him and went out in droves to vote for him. Hillary thought she had a sure win, so she didn’t campaign in some states; Trump seized those opportunities and won more support.
    - anewdirection 6y ago
      I often hear it stated as "We disliked Hillary so much, we voted for someone worse".
      - pavlov 6y ago
        The American voters’ approach to government often reduces to “cutting off the nose to spite the face.”
      - bcrosby95 6y ago
        You can phrase it that way. But it's a deceptive statement. For the most part, people don't switch parties they vote for. They just choose not to vote instead. So taken in aggregate, you could say "we disliked Hillary so we voted for someone worse". But the more accurate statement is that some groups of people decided not to vote at all because they disliked Hillary, and other groups of people decided to show up and vote.

whatshisface 6y ago

What's the line between "we have the best burgers in the world," and actually lying? You'll notice that Mr. POTUS said "less than substantially," whch barely means anything. Maybe he thinks 2% is "more than substantially." You can't lie if you phrase everything in a way that doesn't say anything.

JMTQp8lwXL 6y ago
The phrase does indeed say something. "anything less than substantially fraudulent" means near and total fraud. Claiming ~100% of mail-in ballots are fraudulent is baseless and untrue.
- whatshisface 6y ago
  I just don't see how you can go from "anything less than substantially" to 100%. You can't go from "substantially" to any percentage. For an example, I could pull the same trick on your comment. I could try and convince people that "does indeed," implies 100% confidence, and then I could point out that since from a Bayesian perspective you should never reach 100% confidence, you can't know what you're talking about. Obviously nobody would buy that, because it's not you that wrote down 100%, it was me.
  - JMTQp8lwXL 6y ago
    What does 'substantial' mean? "of considerable importance, size, or worth.". We further constrain the definition with 'anything less than'. So what we're saying is, 'of an especially considerable importance, size of worth'. Okay, well, what does that mean? It has to be a number large enough to influence the election result, but there's no evidence election results have flipped elections due to enough fraudulent mail-in ballots. With this interpretation, the numeric quantity does not matter, but the impact does, yet it is still untrue.
  - gjulianm 6y ago
    You're getting entangled in the details. It's clear from his tweets that what he means is that mail-in ballots will cause a rigged election. We shouldn't trust rigged elections, so he's saying that if the election includes mail-in ballots, it will be untrustworthy. In order to make that reasoning (you could say that arguments are not false or true, they're just arguments) he's using false (CA will not be sending ballots to "anyone") and unsubstantiated (mail-in ballots have been working for years without extended robberies and forging, why would this be any different?) claims. You can search and reason about the words so that "technically" he isn't lying. But the actual message he's sending is very, very clear.
UncleMeat 6y ago
He obviously doesn’t think it is 2% because 2% in California would be nowhere close to “rigging the election” (his words).
pfraze 6y ago
It's pointless to quibble about what POTUS is getting at. He clearly intends to claim "mail-in voting is fraudulent." The question of whether it's a lie has more to do with whether his claim is accurate.
dboreham 6y ago
So "dark patterns" are ok?
colejohnson66 6y ago
The difference is that everyone knows “we have the best burgers in the world” is subjective, and therefore, not true. When it comes to statistics (read: not subjective measures), it’s possible to lie.
ken 6y ago
Specificity. It's an existing exception in advertising law (or so I've been told). Anyone can claim "we have the best burgers" -- and many restaurants do -- because it's non-specific. Ironically, if you were to attempt humility by claiming "we have the second-best burgers", that becomes a specific claim, and you'd need research to support it. "The Governor of California is sending Ballots to millions of people, anyone living in the state" is a specific claim, and would need to be supported. It's a different category of claim than merely boasting "I am the best president".
- duskwuff 6y ago
  There's also some room in the law for puffery in advertising, which includes the use of vacuous statements like "the best".
foogazi 6y ago
No what Mr. POTUS said was > There is NO WAY (ZERO!) that Mail-In Ballots will be anything less than substantially fraudulent Translation: 100% certainty that Mail-In Ballots are substantially fraudulent Where do you get the 2% from? > Maybe he thinks 2% is “more than substantially” We don’t know what he thinks - we know what he wrote. And he didn’t write a “maybe 2% chance of fraud” He specified a 100% certainty of substantial election fraud

safog 6y ago

> The Governor of California is sending Ballots to millions of people, anyone..... ....living in the state, no matter who they are or how they got there, will get one This is also patently false - they're sending out ballots to registered voters, not everyone regardless of how they got there. > That will be followed up with professionals telling all of these people, many of whom have never even thought of voting before, how, and for whom, to vote. This will be a Rigged Election. No way! Who are these "professionals"? I thought that according to the right, Americans were perfectly capable of making life / death decisions for themselves and those around them during an active pandemic. So a trivial thing such as misinformation should be easy to deal with for them.

TeaDrunk 6y ago
Although I'm no trump supporter, it would be incorrect to assume there is no democratic push to get out the vote. Vote Save America ( https://votesaveamerica.com/ https://votesaveamerica.com/ ) is run by Crooked Media, who are most well known for having Obama officials running podcasts like Pod Save America and Pod Save The World (as well as noted black activist Deray hosting Pod Save The People). This is clearly a group that wants to get Trump out and they are actively organizing to encourage calling, texting, donating to democratic campaigns in swing states, and pushing for mail-in voting. (Disclaimer: I am pro mail-in voting and lean leftist in my political beliefs. I am merely disagreeing that there are no pushes to encourage people to vote that are also anti-trump.)
- DFHippie 6y ago
  Sure. And if Trump only meant that people will campaign against him he sure has a roundabout way of saying it.
  - TeaDrunk 6y ago
    Correct. His implication that this somehow makes the voting process less valid is 100% wrong. It in fact makes the voting process more inclusive. But it is wrong to say there are no movements to teach people how to vote and to make voting easier explicitly with the belief that a more inclusive voting populace will vote trump out.

dathinab 6y ago

> many of whom have never even thought of voting before, how, and for whom, to vote. This will be a Rigged Election. No way! So basically he is afraid of more people voting? Like how is a election where more people then ever vote rigged? Like wtf. This might fall in line with the analysis of <forgot name sorry> which claimed that election results are more based on which people vote and which don't then on swing voters and that swing voters are pretty much irrelevant. If this is true and it turns out that an majority of voters in the US is more on the side of the democrats then a voting method which makes more people vote could indeed cause a long term defeat of the republicans in a fair democratic non rigged manner!

dboreham 6y ago
Of course he's afraid of people voting: he and his party are only in power because people don't vote.
- colejohnson66 6y ago
  Partially correct. He’s in power because the left didn’t vote as much as they could’ve, but he’s also in power because his party’s constituents overwhelmingly supported him and went out in droves to vote for him. Hillary thought she had a sure win, so she didn’t campaign in some states; Trump seized those opportunities and won more support.
  - anewdirection 6y ago
    I often hear it stated as "We disliked Hillary so much, we voted for someone worse".
    - pavlov 6y ago
      The American voters’ approach to government often reduces to “cutting off the nose to spite the face.”
    - bcrosby95 6y ago
      You can phrase it that way. But it's a deceptive statement. For the most part, people don't switch parties they vote for. They just choose not to vote instead. So taken in aggregate, you could say "we disliked Hillary so we voted for someone worse". But the more accurate statement is that some groups of people decided not to vote at all because they disliked Hillary, and other groups of people decided to show up and vote.