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nemothekid 6y ago
It only looks bad to people who have only gotten interested in politics in the past 4 years, and for many had never known the actual process, but without any past data claim that this year's process looks "shady". A large problem is you've seen everyone else as the other group, and your group as persecuted, so to me, it looks like you are accepting right wing talking points without critical thought. I promise you I don't think every single GOP/Republican is a nazi, but some of them are feeding you misinformation. For example, there were no observers kicked out in PA. This claim famously went to court where the Trump's lawyers were forced to admit that they had the same number of observers as democrats before having their case thrown out [1]. Likewise in GA, where you have a completely Republican controlled voter apparatus, you have come to believe that the governor, secretary of state and many of the republican workers for the state have decided to sloppily tilt the state in Biden's favor, for seemingly no reason. Also consider, that in many of these cases, they are being presided over by Republican judges (or judges appointed by Republican presidents), as is the case with the majority of our judicial system. McConnell famously prevented Obama from making many court appointments, while Trump has made hundreds. The further you look into this, the voter fraud story would have required co-ordination between not only the democratic party across the country, but also with several Republican staffers and judges. Voter Fraud of this magnitude would require an incredible grand conspiracy but somehow that is more believable to many than the fact Trump lost. Again, I don't believe every single GOP/Republican is a Nazi, but the media wing seems to be working incredibly hard to make you believe that there is something nefarious going on in this election when there hasn't been any credible proof there is. Maybe that's not what a Nazi would do, but I implore that you take an unbaised look at what is being said, and what is actually happening on the ground. [1] https://twitter.com/kadhim/status/1324485343274557443 https://twitter.com/kadhim/status/1324485343274557443
- linuxftw 6y ago
  I don't see in your [1] where they admitted to any such thing. It seems they came to an agreement in court, that from that point forward, each party could have 60 representatives present. So, based on this thread alone (which was written as happening live on Nov 5), which you provided, we don't know if at any point election observers were previously kicked out, how many, when or where, or for what reasons. We also don't know if the observers were allowed to observe much of anything (there's something about not allowing them within 100 feet in that thread). The rest of what you wrote is speculation. Nobody need be concerned with the 'why' someone did something, merely the facts. Were the elections carried out in accordance to the law, or weren't they. That's what's being litigated.

jcranmer 6y ago

> Some courts are refusing to even allow lawyers to present evidence. That is a misleading interpretation. The cases are being dismissed for procedural reasons, which (depending on the specific case) can amount to "you should have brought your suit sooner" or "your evidence is inadmissible in the court of law" or "even if everything you say is true, you have not demonstrated that you have been harmed." The lawyers aren't being allowed to present evidence because they haven't even managed to demonstrate that they have a reason to present evidence--which is a pretty low bar to clear.

disgrunt 6y ago
In some cases, it is a jurisdictional ruling. Meaning that the only solution is to appeal to a higher court until you get to the court with jurisdiction to rule on the case. This is largely why these rulings are happening in rapid succession, there's a procedure that must be followed and deadlines to meet. The Texas Attorney General likely has short circuited this process by filing a claim that can only be resolved by a federal court. And now 11 other states (at my last count) have joined on as plaintiffs and the U.S. Supreme Court has placed it on the docket.
- jcranmer 6y ago
  > The Texas Attorney General likely has short circuited this process by filing a claim that can only be resolved by a federal court. Having read the claim, there is no chance that SCOTUS will do anything other than deny it per curiam. > And now 11 other states (at my last count) have joined on as plaintiffs They have not joined as plaintiffs. They filed an amici brief. And it's actually 17. And reading the amici brief, they don't even attempt to justify why Texas has standing in the case, which is the biggest reason to dismiss the case. > and the U.S. Supreme Court has placed it on the docket. You're aware that means absolutely nothing? To be refused to be docketed is an exceptionally high bar that requires the court to think you a vexatious litigant. Several thousand cases are docketed a year, and yet there's only around 200-ish that are even considered petitions worthy of commentary, and only 70-ish are actually heard. The actual bar you're looking for is if SCOTUS accepts the petition which, (for a leave to file motion in original jurisdiction) requires 5 justices to agree to hear the case, and will not be decided before the reply brief is filed tomorrow. I suspect it will be discussed at the regular Friday conference, and likely disposed of in the Monday orders list, although the justices may decide it's important enough to release in a Friday orders list. I've said elsewhere why the case is likely to be go absolutely nowhere: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25353139 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25353139.
  - disgrunt 6y ago
    > They have not joined as plaintiffs. They filed an amici brief. And it's actually 17. And reading the amici brief, they don't even attempt to justify why Texas has standing in the case, which is the biggest reason to dismiss the case. You are correct, they are not plaintiffs, but a third of U.S. states are now in support of this action. I would argue that if a U.S. state has made unconstitutional election changes and thus has conducted an unconstitutional election then other U.S. states not in violation of the constitution have standing to dispute the election results with federal implications in accordance with the 12th Amendment. This is not totally unprecedented, however, as the Election of 1824 resulted in a contingent election where the candidate with the popular vote lost. [0] [0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1824_United_States_presidential_election#1825_contingent_election https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1824_United_States_presidentia...
    - jcranmer 6y ago
      > I would argue that if a U.S. state has made unconstitutional election changes and thus has conducted an unconstitutional election then other U.S. states not in violation of the constitution have standing to dispute the election results with federal implications in accordance with the 12th Amendment. The process you are talking about involves the US House of Representatives, not suing the states in SCOTUS. The legal basis for claiming injury in the face of improper elections is the notion of "vote dilution." However, vote dilution cannot happen in the Electoral College by definition. Texas gets 38 of the 538 votes in the Electoral College, and that is true no matter how tight or loose the voting restrictions are in Pennsylvania. The voting power of Texas residents remains unaltered no matter what the voting power of residents in Pennsylvania is. Texas's brief did not persuade me that it had standing to sue (although it does appeal to vote dilution), and none of the other briefs have attempted to address the issue of standing at all. That the House has had to decide the election is not unprecedented (it has done so on three occasions, 1800, 1824, and 1876, where it delegated its decision to accept the votes to a separate commission). What is unprecedented is a state asking SCOTUS to overturn the results of another state.
      - whiddershins 6y ago
- nobody9999 6y ago
  I'm sorry. But you appear to be ignorant of the legal processes in the United States. I suggest you educate yourself, as you keep saying things that don't comport with reality.

everdrive 6y ago

>why wouldn't Democrats do everything in their power to get him removed from office? Correctly, people note that a sure marker of a conspiracy theory is that the absence of evidence supports the claim. (ie, there must have been a cover-up!) This is definitely true, but another aspect which doesn't get enough attention is an argument which relies totally on psychoanalysis. "Group X would surely want to do x, and therefore they probably did!" The truth is that you generally don't understand people's incentives as well as you might guess. Further, simply because there is an incentive does not mean there is a capability. But, most importantly, claims require evidence. Reading incentives is pretty flawed regardless. At best, it must be backstopped by real, hard evidence. This total lack of evidence is why these cases are being unceremoniously tossed out of court.

zests 6y ago
I will come out and say I have not looked at a single court case nor do I look at Trump twitter nor do I read any social media beyond Hacker News. My interest in politics is not partisan. I am not here to debate the likelihood of any sort of fraud because internet debates about this kind of thing are pointless. The rationalistic question is something along the lines of "how do you adjust your priors of voter fraud based on the rhetoric of the party alleged of committing the fraud." The lazy answer is "your voter fraud prior should always be zero." Is that the right answer? There's are interesting discussions to be had here. They likely cannot be had on Hacker News. Many people have beliefs about Trump where, IF I had the same beliefs I'd totally be on board with voter fraud to get him out of office.
- everdrive 6y ago
  >Many people have beliefs about Trump where, IF I had the same beliefs I'd totally be on board with voter fraud to get him out of office. I wouldn't, but this is because of the game theory sort of nature of democracy. If I can do it, so can my opponents. Suppose Trump is evil, and defeated, and next election my side has a truly wonderful and excellent candidate. (again, I'm just being theoretical.) I don't want the other side to be able to beat my candidate using voter fraud. Ideally, no one can beat anyone using voter fraud. >The rationalistic question is something along the lines of "how do you adjust your priors of voter I'm not sure what you mean, but I'm guessing you mean "this party has previously had issues with voter fraud, and therefore it's not stretch to be concerned about it again." If I have you correct, I'd again say that this is a fine suspicion, but then evidence must be produced. If evidence cannot be produced, then the priors alone are not enough. To use a very flimsy metaphor, suppose in a small town there is a kid who has robbed a convenience store. Later, when another convenience store is robbed it might make sense to suspect the kid. But, you had better not charge or convict him unless you can produce some real evidence. (and to be clear, I am not comparing either party to a common criminal, I just wanted a simple metaphor which I thought best explained the argument.)
  - zests 6y ago
    Just to pull the thread a little further, what if you already believed that the other side was using unfair tactics to achieve their political goals. Gerrymandering, unfair court appointments, electoral college unfairness, racially based voter suppression. I'm hard pressed to believe that someone who believes these are going on AND that the current president is a Russian asset (for example) would not support voter fraud.
    - MGGJFU 6y ago
      And that's exactly the problem. Republicans are indeed benefiting from the backwards or technically legal but scummy tactics you outlined. Democrats are not trying to fight fire with fire, they're just trying to make it easy to vote for anyone who is entitled to vote. It just happens that there are more of those people than there are people supporting Republicans. Quite a bit more. You just can't imagine someone wouldn't stoop that low when you would.
    - everdrive 6y ago
      I'm not sure what you're arguing here, so I'm going to address both possibilities as I understand them: #1 - Could there be anyone, anywhere, who believes that voter fraud is warranted because they believe the situation is so dire? Sure, I'll bet there are some people who feel this way. #2 - Does the possibility that some people, somewhere feel this way suggest that there is real possibility of fraud? Without evidence, no. Remember that "some democrats" feeling this way is actually not very useful. Instead, various and multiple people with different levels of the election oversight process would need to 1) feel this way, and 2) be willing to risk a federal crime despite all other incentives, and 3) have the actual capability of carrying this out. Each step in the process here carries further inter-dependencies. For example, the people who really feel this way must be multiple election officials in multiple locations. Recall that there are no "state" elections, but rather multiple districts, which are then collected for the state elections. And so there has to be fraud in multiple locations, and it must be coordinated. Before we go any further, it's important to understand that when we're supposing that we know "how people would feel," we suddenly mean "I know the motivations and incentives of multiple strangers, whose jobs and lives I know nothing about." This is where our ability to judge a person's incentives really falls apart. If we're considering scenario #1, where an imagined other might feel some way, that's probably fine. By the time we're in scenario #2, we already do not know enough information to determine all the incentives involved. One pole worker may be a republican, another a democrat. One pole worker may have a strict credo they live by (in other words, they wouldn't break the law no matter what) while others may be much more open to malicious actions. Some might be risk averse, so might be risk addicted. The point is we don't have factual information about all these different competing incentives. Even if we could establish the various incentives, there's further information we don't have: What is the structure of the various election boards? Which individuals would be required to coordinate malicious to reach the desired outcome? And, which of those individuals do we think have the "wrong" incentives? In other words, were enough bad actors in the right place? Lastly, (and shortly since I'm getting too wordy) supposing we could work out the first two problems, do we think such a group could escape the nigh-historical oversight which has been playing out after this election?

ragnese 6y ago

Even if you support the President and his policies, I don't see how you could be surprised at his rather large loss in 2020. He lost the popular vote in 2016 by around 3 million votes. And he was running against someone very unpopular. He ran in 2020 against someone who is much more popular than his 2016 opponent. His approval rating never touched 50%, IIRC. The economy is terrible right now. Never a great sign for an incumbent. And that's all to say nothing about the fervor of the people who oppose him. There's absolutely no reason to believe that he wouldn't have lost by >3 million this time around.

yonaguska 6y ago
What doesn't make sense to me are all the statistical anomalies everywhere. How did down ballot republicans outperform Trump everywhere, when Trump's approval ratings among republicans were incredibly high? The bellweather counties perplexes me. The crazy turnout in specific counties that far exceeded demographically similar counties that wouldn't have the impact to flip the election. The fact that Trump out performed himself with all demographics except white men, he had historic republican support from black and hispanic voters, except in specific key counties. The fact that all of these counties all flipped the next morning was perplexing, especially since many of the flips came from ballot dumps that had statistically impossible ratios of votes for Biden. Or the massive number of ballots that were showing up for Biden, but had no downballot choices filled out at all. Couple all of this with the thousands of witnesses that swore on strange activity during counting, and the absolute lack of security around the Dominion machines. I'm surprised HN hasn't been all over the Dominion machines, the HN of several years ago would have had several posts decrying the security of those machines. There are reasons to doubt things. The doubt needs to be addressed with transparency and in court, and so far, all of the municipalities that are raising suspicion are fighting tooth and nail against transparency. If the concerns are met with censorship and dismissal without real rebuttal, I don't see an optimistic future for this country.
- ragnese 6y ago
  > What doesn't make sense to me are all the statistical anomalies everywhere. How did down ballot republicans outperform Trump everywhere, when Trump's approval ratings among republicans were incredibly high? The general polls were super, duper, off. Biden was supposedly leading by 3 points in Florida and then lost by 3 points, for a net of 6 point error. I'm not shocked by polls being wrong. I think, if you accept that polls can be wrong, it's pretty easy to imagine the voters who were lifelong Republicans might have continued to vote R but left the top slot blank. > The fact that Trump out performed himself with all demographics except white men, he had historic republican support from black and hispanic voters, except in specific key counties. He BARELY won in 2016 because of a few thousand votes in three states. The geographic distribution of votes matters. Just because he picked up a few percentage points on minority demographics (still far behind Biden, just more than he had against Clinton) doesn't matter unless you tell me WHERE he picked up those margins. One of the places was south Florida and he won Florida. So there's nothing here that surprises me or seems suspicious at all. > The fact that all of these counties all flipped the next morning was perplexing, especially since many of the flips came from ballot dumps that had statistically impossible ratios of votes for Biden. Or the massive number of ballots that were showing up for Biden, but had no downballot choices filled out at all. No. We all knew for MONTHS that Trump would look better on election night than he would as the rest of the votes were tallied. We knew for MONTHS that Pennsylvania was not allowed to START counting mail in votes until AFTER polls closed on November 3rd. We knew it so well that they even coined a cutesy term for it: the "red mirage". We were repeatedly warned that we would see the red mirage on election night. You should not have been perplexed. I'm sorry. The only statistically impossible ratio of votes for Biden are those that are over 100%. > Couple all of this with the thousands of witnesses that swore on strange activity during counting, and the absolute lack of security around the Dominion machines. I'm surprised HN hasn't been all over the Dominion machines, the HN of several years ago would have had several posts decrying the security of those machines. What lack of security, specifically? What thousands of witnesses? What activities were "strange"? All I've seen or heard is a bunch of people who are very ignorant of the election process pointing to video clips from the live streams and saying "OMG, this worker just filled out a ballot!" when the person in question was clearing performing "ballot curing". Maybe HN wasn't exploding because there isn't anything to see here. That's not to say that the election was perfect. No election is. I'm in Florida. We can't do an election to save our lives down here. But a nationwide conspiracy that would require thousands of individuals to coordinate in key counties in key states (many of which are run by Republicans) is basically "moon landing didn't happen" levels of conspiracy. > If the concerns are met with censorship and dismissal without real rebuttal, I don't see an optimistic future for this country. I've seen and read many real rebuttals against all kinds of claims. From "poll workers were ejected" to "suitcases full of ballots". Similarly I saw something about a Dominion machine that supposedly flipped Trump votes to Biden votes that was summarily debunked. There was nothing surprising about the results except that Georgia flipped blue. But I think that says more about Trump and Georgia's demographics than it does about the election. Remember that 2016, when he eeked out his EC win, it was because he barely flipped the "blue wall" states. The fact that they went back blue this year is not at all surprising.
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]

ksk 6y ago

Is Google also going to ban all the people who pushed the baseless Russia-made-trump-win nonsense? What a giant waste of time and money that was. Do it equally for everyone, or don't do it at all.

chillwaves 6y ago
We don't know if Russia made Trump win, we only know that they helped him. Likewise, we don't know if Trump himself worked with Russians, we only know his campaign chairman Paul Manafort did. These are both facts that have been verified by the Republican controlled Senate Intel Committee. You are free to read their report yourself. https://www.intelligence.senate.gov/sites/default/files/documents/Report_Volume2.pdf https://www.intelligence.senate.gov/sites/default/files/docu...
- ksk 6y ago
  >We don't know if Russia made Trump win, we only know that they helped him. That's a bit like saying we know there is election fraud in 2020 because we found 2 voting irregularities. Minor voting irregularities happen in every election and are also facts. Sorry, it goes both ways. Both sides need to provide evidence and prove it in court before making such statements. If you don't know, then the right thing to do is to say nothing unless it has been proven.
  - chillwaves 6y ago
    Have any democrats been implicated in voter fraud? You are completely ignoring the high level of coordination that has been proven, between the Trump campaign and the Russians. It's impossible to know what the effect was, but we know for sure they tried, which is illegal. Can you find any example of a "voter irregularity" that has the same level of intent and coordination with an official of the Democratic party? It only "goes both ways" when you are blatantly lying and discounting reality. Many of the states in question are run by Republicans. Are you saying that Republicans conspired to steal the election from Trump?
    - ksk 6y ago
      >You are completely ignoring the high level of coordination that has been proven, between the Trump campaign and the Russians. No high level of co-ordination to steal the election was "proven". I don't know what kind of "news" you read. https://taibbi.substack.com/p/russiagate-is-wmd-times-a-million https://taibbi.substack.com/p/russiagate-is-wmd-times-a-mill... >It's impossible to know what the effect was, but we know for sure they tried, which is illegal. If you don't know what the effect was, what is your point again? >It only "goes both ways" when you are blatantly lying and discounting reality. Childish name-calling? Nice.. >Many of the states in question are run by Republicans. Are you saying that Republicans conspired to steal the election from Trump? Actually, I'm claiming both sides are in their own bubble clutching their little (R) and (D) flags and waving them frantically.
      - chillwaves 6y ago
        To claim something false is lying. To point out lying is not "name calling". > No high level of co-ordination to steal the election was "proven". I don't know what kind of "news" you read. Here, try this: https://www.intelligence.senate.gov/sites/default/files/documents/report_volume5.pdf https://www.intelligence.senate.gov/sites/default/files/docu... Ctrl+F "manafort" if you are having trouble finding it. > Actually, I'm claiming both sides are in their own bubble clutching their little (R) and (D) flags and waving them frantically. Bro, is this not name calling? At least I am actually offering evidence. All you is your sense of superiority. Also, the whole cover of partisanship is just so intellectually lazy. You can literally dismiss any evidence or reality just by claiming partisanship. I am sure partisanship is involved, but that is not a rebuttal to the evidence presented. What a poor use of time to have a conversation with you.
        ksk 6y ago
        So you keep posting the same old tired link claiming its "evidence". I don't think you understand what that document actually says. I don't rebut evidence, I accept it, if courts accept it when used as evidence in a case. I don't know what rebutting evidence means, or what that would accomplish. After four years of nonsense investigations there were no indictments on this so called "collusion". This fact alone makes anyone involved in making those allegations look completely nutty. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indictment https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indictment No indictment = no charges = no case = no conviction = innocent until proven guilty. Regardless of this report, if Dems had solid evidence to bring criminal charges, I'd bet my life savings that they'd have brought cases by now, and we'd know about it.

dukeofdoom 6y ago

The rules were changed prior to the election, in a way that clearly favours the democratic party. That should raise suspicion. We also had : 1. Unusually low mail in ballot vote rejection rate (0.02 vs 6% previous elections) 2. Unusually many voters 3. Unusually high turnout in specific areas (90%+) 4. Delay in announcing results 5. Results that don't match (6000 votes flipped back to Trump after "glitch" Vote rigging: How to spot the tell-tale signs https://www.bbc.com/news/world-africa-37243190 https://www.bbc.com/news/world-africa-37243190

drchopchop 6y ago
1. If huge swaths of Americans are forced to vote by mail, wouldn't you expect the rate to decrease? 2. Trump is incredibly polarizing, so, sure 3. What was the previous turnout / percentage increase? 4. The GOP specifically passed laws that disallowed counting ballots until election day in many districts, which, combined with lots of mail-ins, makes things much slower 5. This was an accident, and was corrected
- laverya 6y ago
  1. No, I would expect people filling out a mail-in ballot for the first time to get it wrong (and thus have the ballot rejected) more often than people who have done it before. This would track with previous elections, where first-time mail-in voters are more likely to have their ballots invalidated. Protections on mail-in ballots have unambiguously been reduced this election - many states skipped signature validation, for instance. This may be acceptable, but IMO should not have been implemented due to being easy fodder for conspiracy theorists. Yes, the mere appearance of illegitimacy is reason enough to not do something when it comes to potentially contested elections.
- dukeofdoom 6y ago
  2. This election turn out was 2 standard deviations above average. That has never happened in the past. 3. Detroit region of Wayne, Oakland and Macomb counties. Oakland had a 15% increase in turnout compared to 2016 and Macomb was up 18%. More black people came out to vote for Biden than Obama in these historically Black counties. https://www.mlive.com/politics/2020/11/see-2020-election-turnout-by-michigan-county-compared-to-2016.html https://www.mlive.com/politics/2020/11/see-2020-election-tur...
MGGJFU 6y ago
> The rules were changed prior to the election, in a way that clearly favours the democratic party. That should raise suspicion. Meaning voting was made easier for millions, hence they voted. Meaning Republican suppression of Democratic voters was less effective, hence more voters. There is one of the two parties fighting for election security and it's not the republicans. Mitch McConnell has a few election security bills on his desk that were never brought to a vote.
cfmcdonald 6y ago
1) Didn't happen. https://www.reuters.com/article/uk-factcheck-georgia-rejected-ballots-fo/fact-check-georgia-rejected-ballots-did-not-go-from-4-to-almost-zero-in-2020-idUSKBN2832CM https://www.reuters.com/article/uk-factcheck-georgia-rejecte... 2) Both Democrats and Republicans had greater turnout. This was expected since Trump is a highly polarizing figure. Not relevant to claims of fraud. 3) Like, say, Utah, which voted for Trump? https://www.fox13now.com/news/election-2020/utah-reports-90-voter-turnout-in-2020-election https://www.fox13now.com/news/election-2020/utah-reports-90-... Please show relevance. 4) Expected, due to increased mail-in ballots and delay in counting mail-in ballots required by law in several states. 5) A glitch that was fixed. Relevance?
- dukeofdoom 6y ago
  1) "The total rejected ballots data is not yet available for 2020." from the fact check. So how can the fact check be used to disprove Trump's statements, or that it "Didn't happen". More worrying, its been weeks since the election, and we still don't have definitive results. You don't find that suspicious? Most countries have final results on election night.
  - cfmcdonald 6y ago
    Okay, so if the total rejected ballot data isn't available what is your basis for claiming that it did happen? The burden of proof rests on the accuser. In any case we know that the signature rejection rates for Georgia in past elections were low. What do you mean we don't have definitive results? Biden's win was certified by the states in the last week, in accordance with the law. It will only get more definitive when the electoral college votes next week. This is nothing new in the U.S., it's the way the process works.
    - dukeofdoom 6y ago
      These seem to be the most up to date numbers. "Rejected absentee/mail-in ballots as a percentage of total absentee/mail-in ballots returned, 2016-2020" Georgia 2016 6.42% Georgia 2020 .60% Source https://ballotpedia.org/Election_results,_2020:_Analysis_of_rejected_ballots https://ballotpedia.org/Election_results,_2020:_Analysis_of_... Which cites the official Georgia election website as source of the raw data.