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>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 ba

>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 ago
Election 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 ago
    How 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 ago
    Can 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...
    - lp0_on_fire 4y ago
      https://www.phillymag.com/news/2020/11/05/election-watchers-philadelphia-vote-count/ https://www.phillymag.com/news/2020/11/05/election-watchers-... The city played the covid social distancing game and forced poll watches to be so far from the action that one reported needing binoculars to even being to see what was going on. The commonwealth court ordered the city to allow the poll watches within a reasonable distance so they could, you know, observe.
  - jessfyi 4y ago
    Except the entire process was being recorded and that never happened. https://www.reuters.com/article/uk-factcheck-philadelphia-poll-watchers/fact-check-philadelphia-poll-watchers-were-bipartisan-list-of-banned-watchers-does-not-prove-fraud-idUSKBN27S23W https://www.reuters.com/article/uk-factcheck-philadelphia-po... Love how temp accounts can post partisan hackery (and post a comment noting they have an obvious agenda), so we get to hear all the old, lame conspiracy theories from twitter on hn.
- deleted 4y ago
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all2 4y ago
This is a hysterical question to ask, primarily because -- if you look at the statistics of election night -- it appears that exactly what you're describing happened.
- larkost 4y ago
  You mean that as absentee ballots started to be counted (after the in-person ones, as required by Republican officials), that the polls started to swing just as everyone (including then-President Trump) had expected before the election? Is that what you mean?
slg 4y ago
They would need to be able to mobilize tens or hundreds of thousands of votes on hours of notice. They would also need to be able to distribute those votes broadly enough not to cause suspicion when an unexpected trove of votes are added late. These votes would also need to be cast intelligently enough to match all expected down ballot elections not to draw suspicion. I don't think there is a way to do all of this without a sweeping multi-state conspiracy.
- deleted 4y ago
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- deleted 4y ago
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- hammock 4y ago
  > They would need to be able to mobilize tens or hundreds of thousands of votes on hours of notice. The ability does exist, for example in Fulton County there is video of workers pulling suitcases full of ballots out from under tables and running them possibly multiple times through machines after poll watchers had been sent home. An investigation revealed there was no widespread voter fraud, but in an alternate universe those ballots could have been shenanigan votes. >They would also need to be able to distribute those votes broadly enough not to cause suspicion when an unexpected trove of votes are added late. The votes that were added overnight actually weren’t broadly distributed at all. Suspicion was raised (and dismissed, since investigations suggested no evidence of widespread voter fraud). >These votes would also need to be cast intelligently enough to match all expected down ballot elections not to draw suspicion. If I recall, many if not most of the votes added overnight did not have downballot selections at all. Of course, this fact is not evidence of widespread voter fraud. >I don't think there is a way to do all of this without a sweeping multi-state conspiracy. I tend to agree. A multi-state conspiracy is more likely than districts in Atlanta, Detroit, Philadelphia and other swing state cities acting independently of each other - that is, if widespread voter fraud did occur, which of course there is no evidence of.
  - slg 4y ago
    If you are going to make claims like this, you really should back them up with sources. I was only able to find info about one of the issues you mentioned. >The ability does exist, for example in Fulton County there is video of workers pulling suitcases full of ballots out from under tables and running them possibly multiple times through machines after poll watchers had been sent home. An investigation revealed there was no widespread voter fraud, but in an alternate universe those ballots could have been shenanigan votes. "The 90 second video of election workers at State Farm arena, purporting to show fraud was watched in its entirety (hours) by @GaSecofState investigators. Shows normal ballot processing. Here is the fact check on it." [1] >The votes that were added overnight actually weren’t broadly distributed at all. Suspicion was raised (and dismissed, since investigations suggested no evidence of widespread voter fraud). Source? >If I recall, many if not most of the votes added overnight did not have downballot selections at all. Of course, this fact is not evidence of widespread voter fraud. Source? [1] - https://twitter.com/GabrielSterling/status/1334825233610633217?s=20 https://twitter.com/GabrielSterling/status/13348252336106332...
rootusrootus 4y ago
LOL, this is about the time someone points out that faking the moon landing would be more expensive than just doing it. Tell me how you coordinate a pause across even a few different precincts, much less states, and then it'll be worth discussing whether you could invent 80K fraudulent votes in just the right places.

the_snooze 4y ago

Election 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 ago
  How 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 ago
  Can 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...
  - lp0_on_fire 4y ago
    https://www.phillymag.com/news/2020/11/05/election-watchers-philadelphia-vote-count/ https://www.phillymag.com/news/2020/11/05/election-watchers-... The city played the covid social distancing game and forced poll watches to be so far from the action that one reported needing binoculars to even being to see what was going on. The commonwealth court ordered the city to allow the poll watches within a reasonable distance so they could, you know, observe.
- jessfyi 4y ago
  Except the entire process was being recorded and that never happened. https://www.reuters.com/article/uk-factcheck-philadelphia-poll-watchers/fact-check-philadelphia-poll-watchers-were-bipartisan-list-of-banned-watchers-does-not-prove-fraud-idUSKBN27S23W https://www.reuters.com/article/uk-factcheck-philadelphia-po... Love how temp accounts can post partisan hackery (and post a comment noting they have an obvious agenda), so we get to hear all the old, lame conspiracy theories from twitter on hn.
deleted 4y ago
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all2 4y ago

This is a hysterical question to ask, primarily because -- if you look at the statistics of election night -- it appears that exactly what you're describing happened.

larkost 4y ago
You mean that as absentee ballots started to be counted (after the in-person ones, as required by Republican officials), that the polls started to swing just as everyone (including then-President Trump) had expected before the election? Is that what you mean?

slg 4y ago

They would need to be able to mobilize tens or hundreds of thousands of votes on hours of notice. They would also need to be able to distribute those votes broadly enough not to cause suspicion when an unexpected trove of votes are added late. These votes would also need to be cast intelligently enough to match all expected down ballot elections not to draw suspicion. I don't think there is a way to do all of this without a sweeping multi-state conspiracy.

deleted 4y ago
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deleted 4y ago
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hammock 4y ago
> They would need to be able to mobilize tens or hundreds of thousands of votes on hours of notice. The ability does exist, for example in Fulton County there is video of workers pulling suitcases full of ballots out from under tables and running them possibly multiple times through machines after poll watchers had been sent home. An investigation revealed there was no widespread voter fraud, but in an alternate universe those ballots could have been shenanigan votes. >They would also need to be able to distribute those votes broadly enough not to cause suspicion when an unexpected trove of votes are added late. The votes that were added overnight actually weren’t broadly distributed at all. Suspicion was raised (and dismissed, since investigations suggested no evidence of widespread voter fraud). >These votes would also need to be cast intelligently enough to match all expected down ballot elections not to draw suspicion. If I recall, many if not most of the votes added overnight did not have downballot selections at all. Of course, this fact is not evidence of widespread voter fraud. >I don't think there is a way to do all of this without a sweeping multi-state conspiracy. I tend to agree. A multi-state conspiracy is more likely than districts in Atlanta, Detroit, Philadelphia and other swing state cities acting independently of each other - that is, if widespread voter fraud did occur, which of course there is no evidence of.
- slg 4y ago
  If you are going to make claims like this, you really should back them up with sources. I was only able to find info about one of the issues you mentioned. >The ability does exist, for example in Fulton County there is video of workers pulling suitcases full of ballots out from under tables and running them possibly multiple times through machines after poll watchers had been sent home. An investigation revealed there was no widespread voter fraud, but in an alternate universe those ballots could have been shenanigan votes. "The 90 second video of election workers at State Farm arena, purporting to show fraud was watched in its entirety (hours) by @GaSecofState investigators. Shows normal ballot processing. Here is the fact check on it." [1] >The votes that were added overnight actually weren’t broadly distributed at all. Suspicion was raised (and dismissed, since investigations suggested no evidence of widespread voter fraud). Source? >If I recall, many if not most of the votes added overnight did not have downballot selections at all. Of course, this fact is not evidence of widespread voter fraud. Source? [1] - https://twitter.com/GabrielSterling/status/1334825233610633217?s=20 https://twitter.com/GabrielSterling/status/13348252336106332...

rootusrootus 4y ago

LOL, this is about the time someone points out that faking the moon landing would be more expensive than just doing it. Tell me how you coordinate a pause across even a few different precincts, much less states, and then it'll be worth discussing whether you could invent 80K fraudulent votes in just the right places.