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Challenging elections to ensure they're fair and legal is hardly undermining them. It forces them to be strengthened against fraud. I don't think Bush/Gore und

Challenging elections to ensure they're fair and legal is hardly undermining them. It forces them to be strengthened against fraud. I don't think Bush/Gore undermined anything. I don't think Hillary undermined them when she told Biden not to concede under any circumstances. I don't support her or Biden's politics, but I cheered that position.

MereInterest 6y ago
Challenging elections to ensure they're fair and legal is hardly undermining them, but isn't what Trump is doing. He is grasping at the barest of legal straws, all the while asserting that he is right. For a good review of just how off base these lawsuits are, Legal Eagle has done a good review of them [0,1]. (Warning, long-form content with sponsorship segments.) [0] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ha7iWECm_8E https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ha7iWECm_8E [1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v-nblE8ps2M https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v-nblE8ps2M
- tetrometal 6y ago
  I don't really care what legal straws he grasps at, though. I say go for it. Any challenge only serves to strengthen our democracy, excepting any that succeed in spite of being wrong. I have so far seen no reason to worry about the latter bit.
  - MereInterest 6y ago
    I strongly disagree. This is the equivalent of using SLAPP lawsuits to muddy the waters and prevent moving forward.
    - tetrometal 6y ago
      What challenges are you referring to, specifically? I have been following most of them and nothing seemed water-muddying to me.
tt433 6y ago
You actually don't have a legal right to a lawyer who lies about fraud whenever they aren't in front of a judge and their actual freedom depends on telling the truth.
tzs 6y ago
> I don't think Bush/Gore undermined anything. That's because in that case you had the infamous butterfly ballots in one large Florida county, where a very poor UI led to a large number of people voting for both Gore and Buchanan. You also had a large number who voted for Buchanan but for all the other offices voted for people that it was very unlikely a Buchanan supported would vote for. For those not familiar with them, the ballots listed Bush at the top of the left page, with Gore listed second on that page. Buchanan was listed on the top of the right page, with the list on the right page vertically offset so it was like this: ------ Bush | |---------- -----| | Buchanan Gore | |---------- -----| | McReynolds Browne | |---------- -----| (and so on) Nadar | (and so on) You voted by punching a hole in the center column next to your candidate. So to vote for Bush, you punched the first hole. To vote for Buchanan, you punched the second hole. To vote for gore you punched the third hole. McReynolds the fourth, and so on. The ballot was wide enough that you might not realize that there were Presidential candidates on both pages. It is very hard not to conclude that many people who wanted to vote Gore saw he was second on the left page, and so punched the second hole, and some realized their mistake and tried to correct it leading to both holes two and three punched. That's why the challenges there did not undermine anything (other than confidence that whoever designed those ballots was competent). We had actual concrete and sound evidence that a large number of ballots did not reflect the intended vote of the voter, and there were enough of these to affect the outcome because it was an extremely close race. The 2020 challenges so far have failed to include any concrete and sound evidence. Its all been things like that surveillance video that they say shows extra ballots being sneaked in late at night, which when you look at the whole video instead of just that short clip you see that those were ballots that had always been there--when counting stopped for the night they were put in their standard ballot storage containers, and what the clip is showing is those ballots being removed from those containers when counting resumed. Or things like that statistical argument that was in the Texas Supreme Court filing that said there was only a one in a quadrillion chance that Trump could lead in the evening and then behind after more ballots were counted overnight, which completely overlooked that in-person ballots were counted before absentee ballots, and that Democrats were far more likely to vote absentee because of COVID than were Republicans. That's why 2020 challenges are undermining in a way no previous election challenges were. They aren't going to force any strengthening against fraud because they are failing to point out any fraud to strengthen against.

MereInterest 6y ago

Challenging elections to ensure they're fair and legal is hardly undermining them, but isn't what Trump is doing. He is grasping at the barest of legal straws, all the while asserting that he is right. For a good review of just how off base these lawsuits are, Legal Eagle has done a good review of them [0,1]. (Warning, long-form content with sponsorship segments.) [0] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ha7iWECm_8E https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ha7iWECm_8E [1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v-nblE8ps2M https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v-nblE8ps2M

tetrometal 6y ago
I don't really care what legal straws he grasps at, though. I say go for it. Any challenge only serves to strengthen our democracy, excepting any that succeed in spite of being wrong. I have so far seen no reason to worry about the latter bit.
- MereInterest 6y ago
  I strongly disagree. This is the equivalent of using SLAPP lawsuits to muddy the waters and prevent moving forward.
  - tetrometal 6y ago
    What challenges are you referring to, specifically? I have been following most of them and nothing seemed water-muddying to me.

tt433 6y ago

You actually don't have a legal right to a lawyer who lies about fraud whenever they aren't in front of a judge and their actual freedom depends on telling the truth.

tzs 6y ago

> I don't think Bush/Gore undermined anything. That's because in that case you had the infamous butterfly ballots in one large Florida county, where a very poor UI led to a large number of people voting for both Gore and Buchanan. You also had a large number who voted for Buchanan but for all the other offices voted for people that it was very unlikely a Buchanan supported would vote for. For those not familiar with them, the ballots listed Bush at the top of the left page, with Gore listed second on that page. Buchanan was listed on the top of the right page, with the list on the right page vertically offset so it was like this: ------ Bush | |---------- -----| | Buchanan Gore | |---------- -----| | McReynolds Browne | |---------- -----| (and so on) Nadar | (and so on) You voted by punching a hole in the center column next to your candidate. So to vote for Bush, you punched the first hole. To vote for Buchanan, you punched the second hole. To vote for gore you punched the third hole. McReynolds the fourth, and so on. The ballot was wide enough that you might not realize that there were Presidential candidates on both pages. It is very hard not to conclude that many people who wanted to vote Gore saw he was second on the left page, and so punched the second hole, and some realized their mistake and tried to correct it leading to both holes two and three punched. That's why the challenges there did not undermine anything (other than confidence that whoever designed those ballots was competent). We had actual concrete and sound evidence that a large number of ballots did not reflect the intended vote of the voter, and there were enough of these to affect the outcome because it was an extremely close race. The 2020 challenges so far have failed to include any concrete and sound evidence. Its all been things like that surveillance video that they say shows extra ballots being sneaked in late at night, which when you look at the whole video instead of just that short clip you see that those were ballots that had always been there--when counting stopped for the night they were put in their standard ballot storage containers, and what the clip is showing is those ballots being removed from those containers when counting resumed. Or things like that statistical argument that was in the Texas Supreme Court filing that said there was only a one in a quadrillion chance that Trump could lead in the evening and then behind after more ballots were counted overnight, which completely overlooked that in-person ballots were counted before absentee ballots, and that Democrats were far more likely to vote absentee because of COVID than were Republicans. That's why 2020 challenges are undermining in a way no previous election challenges were. They aren't going to force any strengthening against fraud because they are failing to point out any fraud to strengthen against.