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> Despite evidence to the contrary, nearly one-third of Americans still believe the 2020 presidential election was stolen. Speaking of naive realism, what evid

by blfr 4y ago

> Despite evidence to the contrary, nearly one-third of Americans still believe the 2020 presidential election was stolen. Speaking of naive realism, what evidence? I'm not even asking what evidence was provided, but what could be provided at all. You can't really prove that elections were fair, especially post factum. Best case, you can show that protections against known frauds were there. And compared to elections I took part in, American elections often look woefully inadequate in that regard. In fact, at least one American president, Lyndon B. Johnson, remains under serious suspicion. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Box_13_scandal https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Box_13_scandal

skybrian 4y ago
Knowing what happened in a 1948 election is mostly irrelevant to figuring out what happened in 2020, other than "sure, in some election systems, fraud is possible." Lots has changed since then. Electronic voter machines didn't exist, new election laws were passed, and so on. I'm not going to say that figuring out for sure what happened in 2020 is easy, but you do need to look at things that happened the same year.
- blfr 4y ago
  > Electronic voter machines didn't exist It's not one of Carlin's, I think, but there's this old joke Tech enthusiasts: My entire house is smart. Tech workers: The only piece of technology in my house is a printer and I keep a gun next to it so I can shoot it if it makes a noise I don't recognize.
  - ziddoap 4y ago
    While a funny joke, the point isn't really applicable here. Parent poster, as I understood their comment, wasn't asserting that electronic voter machines are impossible to defraud. They were pointing out that you cannot reasonably make a comparison between elections 70 years apart because way too much has changed (one large change being electronic voting machines) for them to be comparable anymore.
    - pessimizer 4y ago
      The passage of time isn't an argument. If the only things cited are voting machines, then voting machines are immediately conceded as untrustworthy, no argument has been made.
      - skybrian 4y ago
        Yes, it wasn't a full-fledged argument, more of a sketch. But assuming that how elections happen doesn't change over the years doesn't seem like a great default either?
  - teddyh 4y ago
    You slightly butchered the joke; how would a printer, by itself, be useful? Here’s what I believe to be the original: > Tech Enthusiasts: Everything in my house is wired to the Internet of Things! I control it all from my smartphone! My smart-house is bluetooth enabled and I can give it voice commands via alexa! I love the future! > Programmers / Engineers: The most recent piece of technology I own is a printer from 2004 and I keep a loaded gun ready to shoot it if it ever makes an unexpected noise. — https://imgur.com/6wbgy2L https://imgur.com/6wbgy2L
    - blfr 4y ago
      Yes, good fix.
katmannthree 4y ago
> Despite evidence to the contrary, nearly one-third of Americans still believe the 2020 presidential election was stolen. > Speaking of naïve realism, what evidence You can really only prove this type of thing in a single direction, by providing evidence that there was fraud on such a scale as to have swung the results. Otherwise, one could endlessly claim that the election thieves just covered their tracks so well that you don't have any evidence of your assertions regarding their behavior. The burden of proof was on the ones making accusations of election stealing, and as was reflected in how they lost case after case regarding this, _they did not provide it_.
- StanislavPetrov 4y ago
  >Despite evidence to the contrary, nearly one-third of Americans still believe the 2020 presidential election was stolen. What evidence? An accurate statement might have read, "Despite the lack of conclusive evidence, nearly one-third of Americans still believe the 2020 presidential election was stolen". >You can really only prove this type of thing in a single direction, by providing evidence that there was fraud on such a scale as to have swung the results. This assertion relies on the baseless assumption that the elections are fair unless proven fraudulent. Given the history of elections the opposite could just as easily be argued. This is one of the most important reasons to have total and complete transparency on every level of an election with an auditable paper trail that can be publicly scrutinized leaving no doubt about the integrity of the election among any honest arbiter. Personally I have doubts about the integrity of every election in my lifetime, and I'm not a young man.
  - pavlov 4y ago
    “Despite the lack of conclusive evidence” — this sounds like there is some evidence. But there isn’t. Trump’s own attorney general said so. He quit his job when pushed by the president to ignore the lack of evidence and instead issue a statement that there might have been fraud. If you’re inclined to doubt every election, did Trump win in 2016 by fraud too? Bush in 2000? Their margins were very tight and they lost the popular vote. Doesn’t that seem like a more likely situation where fraud would carry the day?
_dw7s 4y ago
> Speaking of naive realism, what evidence? I'm not even asking what evidence was provided, but what could be provided at all. The onus is on the accuser to come up with evidence. Until then, the countless observers, the sheer number of people involved in coordinating their local election infrastructure, the voting machines audit trails, the numerous recounts, the actual cases of fraud which pointed to republican voters, all are evidence that the election was not 'stolen'. But it doesn't matter when you're dealing with 'crony beliefs'. Unless Jesus Christ himself appears, walks on water, does the whole water/wine thing again, calls Trump a moron and tells everyone the holy spirit handled the election, it's not going to change anyone's mind. And even then, the mental gymnastics of the rightwing propaganda machine will figure out a way to spin this. If you want examples of actual stolen election, look no further than https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bush_v._Gore https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bush_v._Gore. Actually, I would say that any election in which a president does not win by popular vote is by definition stolen, even if the voting process is 100% ironclad.
- gfodor 4y ago
  > Actually, I would say that any election in which a president does not win by popular vote is by definition stolen, even if the voting process is 100% ironclad. It's so funny how people can post something acting as though they are sane and rational, and then finish their thought in a way that reveals they are fully radicalized.
  - decebalus1 4y ago
    Radicalized how? And where's the humor exactly? It's no secret and it's a shared belief (shockingly, even among non-'radicalized' people, see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Efforts_to_reform_the_United_States_Electoral_College https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Efforts_to_reform_the_United_S...) that the electoral college is undemocratic, obsolete (quite stupid by today's standard), vulnerable to interference (like we saw in 2020 and we'll definitely see in 2024) and it led to the current SCOTUS anomaly. For a nation that prides itself with 'innovation', to never end up reforming its electoral process and amend the constitution is just mind boggling to me. The electoral college was supposed to protect the country against people like Trump. We all know how well that worked out for everyone. And we'll find out again in 2024, as fringe groups inside the republican party are quietly setting up their people in key places. If your counterargument in favor of the electoral college is that 'the constitution says so', there are a lot of constitutional amendments which prove that it's possible 'it can no longer say so'.
nocoiner 4y ago
Per your link, Johnson was under suspicion for a congressional election a couple decades before he became president. This was likely a function of a typical election at the end of the era of machine politics (and not sure why you would mention LBJ rather than Kennedy’s victory in IL in 1960, which may well have been dispositive in an American presidential election - but then again, so was ballot graphic design in one county in one state in 2000). In LBJ’s 1964 presidential election victory, he won an absolutely overwhelming landslide. I am not really sure what point you think you are proving.

by blfr 4y ago

skybrian 4y ago

Knowing what happened in a 1948 election is mostly irrelevant to figuring out what happened in 2020, other than "sure, in some election systems, fraud is possible." Lots has changed since then. Electronic voter machines didn't exist, new election laws were passed, and so on. I'm not going to say that figuring out for sure what happened in 2020 is easy, but you do need to look at things that happened the same year.

blfr 4y ago
> Electronic voter machines didn't exist It's not one of Carlin's, I think, but there's this old joke Tech enthusiasts: My entire house is smart. Tech workers: The only piece of technology in my house is a printer and I keep a gun next to it so I can shoot it if it makes a noise I don't recognize.
- ziddoap 4y ago
  While a funny joke, the point isn't really applicable here. Parent poster, as I understood their comment, wasn't asserting that electronic voter machines are impossible to defraud. They were pointing out that you cannot reasonably make a comparison between elections 70 years apart because way too much has changed (one large change being electronic voting machines) for them to be comparable anymore.
  - pessimizer 4y ago
    The passage of time isn't an argument. If the only things cited are voting machines, then voting machines are immediately conceded as untrustworthy, no argument has been made.
    - skybrian 4y ago
      Yes, it wasn't a full-fledged argument, more of a sketch. But assuming that how elections happen doesn't change over the years doesn't seem like a great default either?
- teddyh 4y ago
  You slightly butchered the joke; how would a printer, by itself, be useful? Here’s what I believe to be the original: > Tech Enthusiasts: Everything in my house is wired to the Internet of Things! I control it all from my smartphone! My smart-house is bluetooth enabled and I can give it voice commands via alexa! I love the future! > Programmers / Engineers: The most recent piece of technology I own is a printer from 2004 and I keep a loaded gun ready to shoot it if it ever makes an unexpected noise. — https://imgur.com/6wbgy2L https://imgur.com/6wbgy2L
  - blfr 4y ago
    Yes, good fix.

katmannthree 4y ago

> Despite evidence to the contrary, nearly one-third of Americans still believe the 2020 presidential election was stolen. > Speaking of naïve realism, what evidence You can really only prove this type of thing in a single direction, by providing evidence that there was fraud on such a scale as to have swung the results. Otherwise, one could endlessly claim that the election thieves just covered their tracks so well that you don't have any evidence of your assertions regarding their behavior. The burden of proof was on the ones making accusations of election stealing, and as was reflected in how they lost case after case regarding this, _they did not provide it_.

StanislavPetrov 4y ago
>Despite evidence to the contrary, nearly one-third of Americans still believe the 2020 presidential election was stolen. What evidence? An accurate statement might have read, "Despite the lack of conclusive evidence, nearly one-third of Americans still believe the 2020 presidential election was stolen". >You can really only prove this type of thing in a single direction, by providing evidence that there was fraud on such a scale as to have swung the results. This assertion relies on the baseless assumption that the elections are fair unless proven fraudulent. Given the history of elections the opposite could just as easily be argued. This is one of the most important reasons to have total and complete transparency on every level of an election with an auditable paper trail that can be publicly scrutinized leaving no doubt about the integrity of the election among any honest arbiter. Personally I have doubts about the integrity of every election in my lifetime, and I'm not a young man.
- pavlov 4y ago
  “Despite the lack of conclusive evidence” — this sounds like there is some evidence. But there isn’t. Trump’s own attorney general said so. He quit his job when pushed by the president to ignore the lack of evidence and instead issue a statement that there might have been fraud. If you’re inclined to doubt every election, did Trump win in 2016 by fraud too? Bush in 2000? Their margins were very tight and they lost the popular vote. Doesn’t that seem like a more likely situation where fraud would carry the day?

_dw7s 4y ago

> Speaking of naive realism, what evidence? I'm not even asking what evidence was provided, but what could be provided at all. The onus is on the accuser to come up with evidence. Until then, the countless observers, the sheer number of people involved in coordinating their local election infrastructure, the voting machines audit trails, the numerous recounts, the actual cases of fraud which pointed to republican voters, all are evidence that the election was not 'stolen'. But it doesn't matter when you're dealing with 'crony beliefs'. Unless Jesus Christ himself appears, walks on water, does the whole water/wine thing again, calls Trump a moron and tells everyone the holy spirit handled the election, it's not going to change anyone's mind. And even then, the mental gymnastics of the rightwing propaganda machine will figure out a way to spin this. If you want examples of actual stolen election, look no further than https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bush_v._Gore https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bush_v._Gore. Actually, I would say that any election in which a president does not win by popular vote is by definition stolen, even if the voting process is 100% ironclad.

gfodor 4y ago
> Actually, I would say that any election in which a president does not win by popular vote is by definition stolen, even if the voting process is 100% ironclad. It's so funny how people can post something acting as though they are sane and rational, and then finish their thought in a way that reveals they are fully radicalized.
- decebalus1 4y ago
  Radicalized how? And where's the humor exactly? It's no secret and it's a shared belief (shockingly, even among non-'radicalized' people, see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Efforts_to_reform_the_United_States_Electoral_College https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Efforts_to_reform_the_United_S...) that the electoral college is undemocratic, obsolete (quite stupid by today's standard), vulnerable to interference (like we saw in 2020 and we'll definitely see in 2024) and it led to the current SCOTUS anomaly. For a nation that prides itself with 'innovation', to never end up reforming its electoral process and amend the constitution is just mind boggling to me. The electoral college was supposed to protect the country against people like Trump. We all know how well that worked out for everyone. And we'll find out again in 2024, as fringe groups inside the republican party are quietly setting up their people in key places. If your counterargument in favor of the electoral college is that 'the constitution says so', there are a lot of constitutional amendments which prove that it's possible 'it can no longer say so'.

nocoiner 4y ago

Per your link, Johnson was under suspicion for a congressional election a couple decades before he became president. This was likely a function of a typical election at the end of the era of machine politics (and not sure why you would mention LBJ rather than Kennedy’s victory in IL in 1960, which may well have been dispositive in an American presidential election - but then again, so was ballot graphic design in one county in one state in 2000). In LBJ’s 1964 presidential election victory, he won an absolutely overwhelming landslide. I am not really sure what point you think you are proving.