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Not only that, they did it with the intention of overturning elections: > The unnamed employees secretly conferred with a political advocacy group about a requ
by afavour 9mo ago
Not only that, they did it with the intention of overturning elections:
> The unnamed employees secretly conferred with a political advocacy group about a request to match Social Security data with state voter rolls to "find evidence of voter fraud and to overturn election results in certain States,"
https://www.npr.org/2026/01/23/nx-s1-5684185/doge-data-social-security-privacy https://www.npr.org/2026/01/23/nx-s1-5684185/doge-data-socia...
- gruez 9mo ago>they did it with the intention of overturning elections: >[...] to "find evidence of voter fraud and to overturn election results in certain States," The actual election fraud allegations are probably spurious, but regardless we shouldn't be trying imply that intending to overturn elections in cases of fraud is bad in and of itself. The badness comes from inappropriate access to the data, not trying to find evidence of fraud.
- NoMoreNicksLeft 9mo ago>but regardless we shouldn't be trying imply that intending to overturn elections in cases of fraud is bad in and of itself.
- deleted 9mo ago[deleted]
- tshaddox 9mo agoHow many allegations of fraud need to be taken to court and dismissed before it’s no longer conceivable that this is a good faith non-partisan search for evidence of fraud?
- gruez 9mo ago>The actual election fraud allegations are probably spurious
- tshaddox 9mo agoSure, and my point is that we shouldn't apologize for people deliberately "investigating" bogus allegations on the grounds that investigating legitimate allegations is a good thing.
- gruez 9mo ago>Sure, and my point is that we shouldn't apologize for people deliberately "investigating" bogus allegations But I'm not "apologizing" for them? I'm pushing back on OP's phrasing of "they did it with the intention of overturning elections". It's possible to push back on some person's criticism of [bad guy] without being accused of "apologizing" for [bad guy]. From my original comment: >we shouldn't be trying imply that intending to overturn elections in cases of fraud is bad in and of itself See also my sibling comment: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46734439 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46734439
- tshaddox 9mo agoYou said "The badness comes from inappropriate access to the data, not trying to find evidence of fraud." I disagree. I think that a blatantly bad faith partisan investigation demanded by a politician who stands for gain and executed by public servants would be bad even if they didn't inappropriately access this data. Both things are bad and would be still be bad independent of one another.
- gruez 9mo ago>I think that a blatantly bad faith partisan investigation Sounds like you agree with me, because you're still not objecting to my original premise of "we shouldn't be trying imply that intending to overturn elections in cases of fraud is bad in and of itself". You might think "bad faith partisan investigation" is bad, but not the act of trying to overturn elections itself.
- tshaddox 9mo ago
- afavour 9mo agoWe don't have to examine every situation in the theoretical. We can pay attention to context. These are not good faith actors, they are not seeking the truth.
- gruez 9mo agoRight, I'm not trying to argue that the actions in this case are praiseworthy, only that the OP is misidentifying the source of the badness. That's important, because if we establish a pattern of "overturning elections are bad", then that will come back to bite us when there actually is a legitimate reason for overturning elections.
- kccoder 9mo ago> but regardless we shouldn't be trying imply that intending to overturn elections in cases of fraud is bad in and of itself The only rational viewpoint is to assume everything this administration does is in bad faith, until proven otherwise.
- xtiansimon 9mo agoIn the legal realm, journalist and legal analyst Emily Bazelon analyzes the legal "presumption of regularity" which has been trashed by the current administration.
- xhkkffbf 9mo agoSo is "find evidence of voter fraud" the same as "overturning elections"? Or we all so partisan now that we don't care about the evidence or the reality of the fraud?
- libraryatnight 9mo agoYour premise requires good faith actors to even merit consideration.
- xhkkffbf 9mo agoLet me guess. You're the kind of guy who looks at the videos of unoccupied daycare centers and then trundles out words like 'bad faith" to rationalize ignoring it. Because no one in my tribe would ever do something wrong.
- libraryatnight 9mo agoNah I'm a guy who saw a man with a greencard dragged out of a home depot parking lot while his wife screamed and cried.
- relaxing 9mo agoYeah man. In the broad faith spectrum of humanity, that’s up there with the worst of the bad faith actions, and actors.
- techblueberry 9mo agoSorry, if I'm so partisan that I don't trust the guy spending literally hundreds of millions of dollars to elect one party to be an impartial jury on voter fraud. But yes, yes we should have an impartial jury look for evidence of voter fraud.