This is incorrect and illustrates the parent’s point. There is a sincerely held belief that a subset of the people who had the means, motive, and opportunity to

This is incorrect and illustrates the parent’s point. There is a sincerely held belief that a subset of the people who had the means, motive, and opportunity to influence the results in key districts may have succumbed to the temptation. This is actually the more rational position as far as I can tell. So, a lot of people are looking at anything that may prove or disprove this. This is in no way unlike what the democrats do. It’s still a common belief that the 2000 election was stolen, and academics were analyzing it even years after. Also, Trump lost by fewer votes than Abrams did, and that’s still a conspiracy theory in the left. It seems odd to me that so many folks on the left don’t realize how similar they are. Are you engaging honestly? Or are you just assuming bad faith? The dangerous territory is acting as though legitimate questions and inquiry is dangerous territory. Many of us in tech have had election security concerns for like a decade. We set up voting machines for kids to hack at defcon. Of course, there are loud Q anon types on twitter throwing out all kinds of crap. Most of them are actually sincere as well, even though we know better and it seems silly. But those voices aren’t representative of the legitimate concerns. I asked my wife, who hates Trump, if she was tasked with reporting a vote total in a crucial district, and she had the opportunity to plausibly fudge the numbers such that it would change the outcome, would she “do the right thing” and save us from another 4 years of Trump? She said yes without hesitation. Somehow, I don’t think she is the only person who thinks that way. That doesn’t mean that someone cheated, but only a fool would take their word for it. With so much on the line, it’s in everyone’s best interest to get more certainty. We already know that voter fraud happens routinely, and even enough to swing elections. Especially in Philadelphia. We also know that humans make mistakes. In most elections, mistakes are a rounding error that is below the noise floor. In a tight race, a few mistakes can change the outcome. You’re better off letting them look and find nothing than shout them down and say “nothing to see here!”. As part of this process, a lot of irregularities are going to be found that appear suspicious, and most are going to have benign explanations after they are investigated. That doesn’t make it bad faith. They have already found several errors and thousands of ballots on memory cards that they “forgot” to upload. Ensuring that these were isolated incidents only makes sense.