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Free and fair elections are a source of US national pride and identity. If a national election wasn't fair, then we have no more political freedom than a non-de

by awb 3y ago

Free and fair elections are a source of US national pride and identity. If a national election wasn't fair, then we have no more political freedom than a non-democratic country. So yes, you're allowed to say it, but without solid evidence, it does strike a deep nerve with people. To my knowledge, no one has been able to provide proof in court of any orchestrated election tampering.

yawboakye 3y ago
but have there ever been free and fair elections? even without an official court case against any election it’s preposterous to declare it free and fair. so why should the desire to label any one election as ‘free and fair’ supersede the right/freedom of any individual or group to call the fairness of any election into question? what does it change? their evidence could even be anecdotal: human error at their polling station.
- alkonaut 3y ago
  A typical method of ensuring free and fair elections is to have free press, international observers and so on. Whether you trust the OSCE observers or whatever is of course up to you but let's just define a free and fair election as one held in a stable democracy and recognized as free and fair by the international community and international observers. There is no other useful definition, so you can just as well use that one. If it doesn't meet your standards, then there aren't any free and fair elections. But you just made the term useless for no good reason then. > what does it change? their evidence could even be anecdotal: human error at their polling station. Here is the thing: there are irregularities in ALL elections. But that doesn't make them unfair. All that's required for a "free and fair" election is that the irregularities don't affect the result in any meaningful way. If people saw one person vote twice, they can accuse that person of voting twice. And the legal system will deal with that. But that is not a good reason to call the integrity of the whole election into question unless you have reason to believe there are systematic irregularities. Free and fair doesn't mean "without irregularities".
- mikeyouse 3y ago
  You're completely flipping the burden of proof - which is where your confusion is coming from. Elections are designed to be fair with about a million safeguards in the leadup to voting day, the way votes are handled, and then the post-election activities. You need substantial evidence that broke some of the safeguards to say they weren't fair -- and you need to point to either coordinated methods of impropriety to claim they were rigged. Otherwise you get into this stupid "it's impossible to know what is true" freshman year philosophy nonsense that is both inaccurate and completely devoid of the ability to falsify.
- awb 3y ago
  Fair is subjective, but I personally wouldn't consider human error to be unfair, especially if it isn't significant enough to impact the result of an election. I think you'd be hard-pressed to call the landslide victories of Regan, Nixon Roosevelt, etc. unfair based on undocumented cases of human error. Elections have documented processes that are followed by poll workers in terms of counting (and in cases of suspected errors, re-counting). That's the basis for "free and fair", that the process is documented, certified, and public. It's fine to raise questions, but if all you have are questions, then not many people will believe you until evidence starts to emerge. But yes, any group has the right to ask whatever questions they want.

by awb 3y ago

yawboakye 3y ago

but have there ever been free and fair elections? even without an official court case against any election it’s preposterous to declare it free and fair. so why should the desire to label any one election as ‘free and fair’ supersede the right/freedom of any individual or group to call the fairness of any election into question? what does it change? their evidence could even be anecdotal: human error at their polling station.

alkonaut 3y ago
A typical method of ensuring free and fair elections is to have free press, international observers and so on. Whether you trust the OSCE observers or whatever is of course up to you but let's just define a free and fair election as one held in a stable democracy and recognized as free and fair by the international community and international observers. There is no other useful definition, so you can just as well use that one. If it doesn't meet your standards, then there aren't any free and fair elections. But you just made the term useless for no good reason then. > what does it change? their evidence could even be anecdotal: human error at their polling station. Here is the thing: there are irregularities in ALL elections. But that doesn't make them unfair. All that's required for a "free and fair" election is that the irregularities don't affect the result in any meaningful way. If people saw one person vote twice, they can accuse that person of voting twice. And the legal system will deal with that. But that is not a good reason to call the integrity of the whole election into question unless you have reason to believe there are systematic irregularities. Free and fair doesn't mean "without irregularities".
mikeyouse 3y ago
You're completely flipping the burden of proof - which is where your confusion is coming from. Elections are designed to be fair with about a million safeguards in the leadup to voting day, the way votes are handled, and then the post-election activities. You need substantial evidence that broke some of the safeguards to say they weren't fair -- and you need to point to either coordinated methods of impropriety to claim they were rigged. Otherwise you get into this stupid "it's impossible to know what is true" freshman year philosophy nonsense that is both inaccurate and completely devoid of the ability to falsify.
awb 3y ago
Fair is subjective, but I personally wouldn't consider human error to be unfair, especially if it isn't significant enough to impact the result of an election. I think you'd be hard-pressed to call the landslide victories of Regan, Nixon Roosevelt, etc. unfair based on undocumented cases of human error. Elections have documented processes that are followed by poll workers in terms of counting (and in cases of suspected errors, re-counting). That's the basis for "free and fair", that the process is documented, certified, and public. It's fine to raise questions, but if all you have are questions, then not many people will believe you until evidence starts to emerge. But yes, any group has the right to ask whatever questions they want.