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>Even changing the outcome of a Presidential election doesn't require any kind of sweeping, nationwide fraud campaign. Just enough well-placed ones where the vo
by slg 4y ago
>Even changing the outcome of a Presidential election doesn't require any kind of sweeping, nationwide fraud campaign. Just enough well-placed ones where the vote will be close enough that the fraud doesn't have to be too large.
This only looks true when viewed retroactively. It would have taken roughly 80k votes to switch the 2016 election from Trump to Clinton. However people had no idea of that beforehand. That 80k vote number accomplishes the goal only if one knows exactly where to place them. Someone would need to add hundreds of thousands if not millions of votes across numerous battleground states in order to be convinced that their changes would have the desired impact. That certainly sounds like a "sweeping, nationwide fraud campaign".
- maerF0x0 4y agounsure the exact math here, but certainty isn't the required bar for an investment, just positive EROI .
- slg 4y agoI wasn't addressing a question of whether election fraud happens or the motivation for it. I was specifically criticizing the idea that "changing the outcome of a Presidential election" is possible without a "sweeping, nationwide fraud campaign". The EROI doesn't matter in that context because the goal is a singular binary event. It either was enough to sway the election and it qualifies for this discussion or it wasn't enough and therefore doesn't support OPs original point.
- maerF0x0 4y agoIf the EROI is high enough you try it prior to knowing the outcome. Because there is a curve of investment that eats into the Return portion of the equation, they should push up the number of votes (cost) until they hit their desired (cost of capital + profit margin). That is the rational way to act at least. If someone says to you pay $1 to have a 75% chance at $2. you definitely should take it. It's the same with millions of dollars or billions of dollars.
- slg 4y agoYes, but if the question was "did someone give you $2?" then your ROI is irrelevant. The question wasn't whether someone would want to attempt this fraud. It is whether someone could successfully execute this fraud.
- maerF0x0 4y ago> It is whether someone could successfully execute this fraud. Wouldn't this become a certainty given enough Investment? if so then the EROI is a real factor because it tells us that someone not only could spend $ALOT but could also expect to profit from and so is likely able to fund the project.
- slg 4y ago>> It is whether someone could successfully execute this fraud. >Wouldn't this become a certainty given enough Investment? No, because the larger the fraud, the easier it is to detect and detection would make is unsuccessful. This requires an expertly targeted fraud that is both large enough to change the overall result while being small enough to go undetected. I don't think that specific combination is possible without a large conspiracy behind it.
- hammock 4y ago>It would have taken roughly 80k votes to switch the 2016 election from Trump to Clinton. However people had no idea of that beforehand. What if they paused ballot counting on the night of Election Day, assessed how many votes they needed, and worked overnight to get the votes needed, reporting new totals the next day? Wouldn’t that solve the issue you raise here?
- the_snooze 4y agoElection returns centers have a lot of people in it. You'd need a pretty sizeable conspiracy to carry out an attack you describe. At the very least, such a conspiracy would produce some kind of written communications or financial transactions. You'd need pretty good coordination to pull it off, and people are neither psychic nor capable of playing verbal "telephone" at scale.
- hammock 4y ago>such a conspiracy would produce some kind of written communications or financial transactions. How would we ever know if those exist?
- weakfish 4y agoHow do you know anything exists?
- lp0_on_fire 4y ago> Election returns centers have a lot of people in it. In Philly they barred GOP poll watchers from observing the process and they (GOP) had to get a court order to force the center to allow them in...so all it takes is a few partisans at the top of the food chain.
- vharuck 4y agoCan you link to evidence of this happening? Because all I could find were stories about how Trump's lawyers argued this was the case, but were forced to admit in court there were poll watchers acting on Trump's behalf: >Judge : “Are your observers in the counting room?” >Trump lawyer: "There's a non-zero number of people in the room.” https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2020/11/11/trump-lawyers-suffer-embarrassing-rebukes-judges-over-voter-fraud-claims/ https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2020/11/11/trump-law...