Conservative publication fact checks election fraud stories

This is utterly dishonest bovine byproduct. The Dispatch is NOT a conservative publication. It is a rabidly anti-Trump publication. It is possible to be a conservative and not be pro-Trump (foolish and misguided, but possible). It is NOT possible to be a conservative and be pro-Biden. And they’re wrong on the facts as well. There is widespread evidence—not rumors, not suggestions, but evidence—of voter fraud.

Thousands of out of state voters in Nevada

Hundreds (at least) of dead voters in Michigan. And Pennsylvania. And Wisconsin.

Thousands of illegal ballots being counted in Georgia where they went out and “cured” them after the election was over.

People (on camera no less) sitting in rooms where they’re supposedly counting ballots and filling them in instead.

The list goes on and on.

Whoever wrote this headline should be ashamed and then repent of lying. And whoever thought this Dispatch garbage was accurate and newsworthy is a deluded fool. Sad.

I am not naive enough to believe any of the following:

1. that there was no fraud in this election. As long as people are sinful and the stakes are high, it is unlikely we can ever have a nationwide election in any country without some fraud (referred to hereafter as “shenanigans” :-) );
2. that it’s not possible that there were enough such shenanigans in this election to have flipped the winner in the race for president in a state or two, given the slim margins; and
3. that, for at least some Democratic leaders, one motivation behind the push for mail-in ballots (and the loosening of constraints around the receipt and counting deadlines for such ballots) was their belief that mail-in ballots provide more opportunities for undetected shenanigans (e.g., more ways for votes to be illegal votes to be cast and or for legal votes to be manipulated).

That said, however, I’d like to point out even if you doubt the credibility of the “fact checking” in the linked article, it is a good reminder of how little we actually know, and of how careful we should be about what we distribute to others. Passing around defaming anecdotes such as the ones enumerated in the linked article—anecdotes that are unverified and, in most cases, practicably unverifiable—is not merely unprofitable; it’s sinful. It is bearing false witness, and it is malicious. And the fact that such anecdotes resemble the sort of wrongdoing that you believe is likely taking place doesn’t excuse it. It is highly unlikely that anyone on this board has the personal knowledge to verify whether a single one of the anecdotes debunked by the linked article is true or false. Absent such knowledge (or credible verification from a reliable and qualified source), we shouldn’t be guilty of passing such things on to others.

None of the above is to say that the allegations in these anecdotes aren’t to be taken seriously. Not at all. I believe our government should treat credible accusations of voting fraud in this election with extreme seriousness—by investigating them and, if there is enough evidence, prosecuting them to effect a legal remedy. That’s important in order to pursue justice and in order to preserve the public’s trust in the integrity of our democratic processes. In thinking about a “legal remedy,” though, it ‘s important to remember that prosecuting people for individual cases of fraud is extremely different from changing the winner of an election due to fraud. Justifying a remedy that changed the winner of the election would require demonstrating all of the following:

1. that there’s credible evidence that instances of fraud took place,
2. that the effects of such fraud is quantifiable in terms of votes affected, and
3. that the quantified collective effect of the fraud was sufficient to change the winner of the election.

And all of that would have to be completed before the Constitutional deadline for certifying the election, which is fixed and not legally alterable by anyone—not even the Supreme Court. Granted, that is a very high bar. But that really is the legal and constitutional bar here as I understand it.

According to Antonin Scalia, justices who faithfully follow a textualist philosophy will sometimes be compelled by the law to reach a decision whose outcome they don’t like. If the Trump team could get enough evidence to prove that there was election fraud and could demonstrate credibly that the result of the fraud changed the outcome of the election, they should take it to the court—and all the way to the Supreme Court, if necessary. However, without such evidence, they don’t have a valid case for overturning the election. And if the Supreme Court were to take the case without such evidence, I’m fairly confident the vote would be 9-0 against the Trump administration. And, legally, that would be the right decision.

He lost. He can whine, pout, throw temper tantrums and act like a spoiled little boy if he wishes. He lost. Bye bye, Donald. I look forward to the GOP primaries in 2024. Hopefully, they can put forward a serious candidate.

[TylerR]

He lost. He can whine, pout, throw temper tantrums and act like a spoiled little boy if he wishes. He lost. Bye bye, Donald. I look forward to the GOP primaries in 2024. Hopefully, they can put forward a serious candidate.

Amen.

on the national level. If you didn’t fight for Trump, those people aren’t going to stand up for you in 2024. Hasta la vista for a conservative Republican party on the national level.

And if you disagree with that statement, I will rephrase. I am not supporting a Republican that didn’t fight with Trump the last four years.

Biden has not officially been declared the winner, regardless of what the media says. The Constitution does not give them the authority to decide who the next President will be.
Dick Morris shows how Trump could still be reelected: https://www.newsmax.com/morris/arizona-electoral-georgia/2020/11/08/id/…

Stephen Presser explains the grave importance of what happens now: “What’s Now at Stake is the Rule of Law”

The problem that we have is that we have Trump, Rudy and a ton of far right to extreme right news agencies that are throwing out all kinds of examples of fraud and injustice. What you find, when reading the lawsuits is very little to no concrete examples of fraud. Even in PA where Trump won a court ruling, the ballots were already being set aside, and to this point, have not even been counted in the totals. I have read many of the lawsuits and I am struggling to find any real evidence for anything outlined in them. This is why most are getting rejected. There is nothing legally going on wrong, even if you try to stretch the definition. The sad thing is that Trump doesn’t really care about the nation. If he did he would be speaking to it. Instead he used the last 4 years to feed his ego, and stand awash in the adulation of his supporters, while calling everyone else loosers. He was never a president of this United States, he was a leader to a segment of people, and only a segment that would feed his narcissm. Everyone talks about how great a leader he was, and I think over these next two months you will continue to see his real character continue to come out. It is sad to see his reaction and how he is behaving right now. I am not the oldest one on this forum, but if you have lived long enough, you have heard how the next democrat will ruin the nation and our lives will be over. And yet we continue to move on. Biden will be significantly hampered for the next few years. Yes, he will undue a string of executive orders, but maybe that isn’t all that bad. The flipside, is given Trump, Biden as much a centrist as the Democrats had, barely won. If the Republicans can get a half decent candidate to run in 4 years, it will be an easy win.

I don’t mean in the election count. The “fraud” was the switch in several states to mail-out to all registered voters with ballots. By “fight with Trump” I meant in all the battles over the last 4 years. The constant calls that Trump and his supporters were racists. The opposition to his immigration controls. His tax cuts. His strong opposition to China and North Korea, and yes, Russia. The opposition to the Democrat plans ran by Speaker Pelosi and Sen Schumer. Those things. If you blew off Trump in his first 2 years when the Repubs had all of government. That kind of thing.

I suspect the Repubs are going to go back to be a “don’t tax me bro” party. The faithful and loyal opposition that neither seeks nor wants the leadership.

According to a conference that Giuliani held the other day, he has 50+ affidavits from poll watchers in PA who were completely denied suitable access. He is planning to file a lawsuit tomorrow. We will see what comes of that lawsuit.
Also, there is a huge constitutional issue with what the PA Supreme Court did. If the US Supreme Court does not intervene and invalidate what they have done, a very wrong precedent will be set that will effectively mean that we have lost the rule of law in our country.
Regardless of who ultimately wins, we must have a fair election.

[dgszweda]

The problem that we have is that we have Trump, Rudy and a ton of far right to extreme right news agencies that are throwing out all kinds of examples of fraud and injustice. What you find, when reading the lawsuits is very little to no concrete examples of fraud. Even in PA where Trump won a court ruling, the ballots were already being set aside, and to this point, have not even been counted in the totals. I have read many of the lawsuits and I am struggling to find any real evidence for anything outlined in them. This is why most are getting rejected. There is nothing legally going on wrong, even if you try to stretch the definition. The sad thing is that Trump doesn’t really care about the nation. If he did he would be speaking to it. Instead he used the last 4 years to feed his ego, and stand awash in the adulation of his supporters, while calling everyone else loosers. He was never a president of this United States, he was a leader to a segment of people, and only a segment that would feed his narcissm. Everyone talks about how great a leader he was, and I think over these next two months you will continue to see his real character continue to come out. It is sad to see his reaction and how he is behaving right now. I am not the oldest one on this forum, but if you have lived long enough, you have heard how the next democrat will ruin the nation and our lives will be over. And yet we continue to move on. Biden will be significantly hampered for the next few years. Yes, he will undue a string of executive orders, but maybe that isn’t all that bad. The flipside, is given Trump, Biden as much a centrist as the Democrats had, barely won. If the Republicans can get a half decent candidate to run in 4 years, it will be an easy win.

The thing here, regarding claims that “we don’t know”, is that there is something we do know. There are a lot of people out there who were registered poll watchers who were denied access. As I noted on another forum, that’s like telling an ISO or other auditor that he can’t come into your facility when he comes to do a required audit, and one must assume bad intent when an entity does that. If your facility tells an auditor to stay out, it’s almost guaranteed that your accreditation will be revoked for that reason. The same should hold for polling places.

Do we know how many ballots were stuffed into the ballot box? No, but we do know that a number of areas showed behaviors that are compatible with ballot box stuffing, and are for that reason illegal. All of them happen to be run by Democrats, and they’ve been showing these behaviors for decades. I’ve known basically since my college days that in certain states, the urban/liberal areas always report last, and “inexplicably” the Democrats always seem to make up a huge amount of ground in the wee hours when the poll watchers are tired or gone. We need to start taking ballot box security seriously one of these days.

I don’t like Trumps lack of character, and I don’t like his habit of “nonsensing” in his Twitter feed. That noted, he does fight, and that’s something that the GOP desperately needs. The GOP also desperately needs people who understand that at many points, per the definition of populism, that yes, coastal elites are doing things that work strongly against the interests of the middle class.

[RajeshG]

According to a conference that Giuliani held the other day, he has 50+ affidavits from poll watchers in PA who were completely denied suitable access. He is planning to file a lawsuit tomorrow. We will see what comes of that lawsuit.

Also, there is a huge constitutional issue with what the PA Supreme Court did. If the US Supreme Court does not intervene and invalidate what they have done, a very wrong precedent will be set that will effectively mean that we have lost the rule of law in our country.

Regardless of who ultimately wins, we must have a fair election.

The problem with the affidavits is that they indicate some individual people were not allowed to watch the polls or were not allowed to watch at a level they felt they should be watching. The problem with these is that 1) people were still allowed to watch the polls, and 2) no evidence of fraud. What you are hearing from this camp is an announcement of a perceived problem, which allows them to raise a question and then try to link that question to fraud. It is the same exact models that conspiracy theories are structured upon. Now whether there was fraud or not, cannot be perceived from these lawsuits, because no fraud is identified or highlighted and therefore can’t be addressed by the court. This is why so many are being thrown out so quickly.

In terms of the PA Supreme Court, again, no sign of fraud, but a sign of irregularity. In addition, regardless of what happens here, it doesn’t change the results, as the ballots in contention haven’t even been counted yet or added to the totals. In actuality the response of the US supreme court was a rebuff to the Republicans.

All in all, with as massive of a turnout as we had and with the large number of mail in and absentee ballots, this went very smoothly in my opinion. Some irregularities no doubt, and given the size and number of counties there shouldn’t be an expectation that nothing will be found. But no signs of fraud (which is the intentional and systematic process of committing a crime). We will find over the next few days that nothing will make its way through the predominately republican judges and supreme court and that no fraud or any irregularity that impacts the outcome will be made.

[Bert Perry]

The thing here, regarding claims that “we don’t know”, is that there is something we do know. There are a lot of people out there who were registered poll watchers who were denied access.

I would encourage you to read the details in some of the less biased news sources. In all cases, there were poll watchers. Rudy and Trump declared that poll watchers were denied access in a Detroit precint. This is true, but what they forget to mention is that there were already more than 200 Republican poll watchers roaming around the precint room and that it had reached capacity as hundreds more poll watchers wanted access. All of these cases in the various states have been investigated and been proven to be false by numerous investigations. What we have perpetuating this discussion is Rudy and Trump rehashing the same story and numerous far right sites reprinting the same exact story.

https://www.forbes.com/sites/tommybeer/2020/11/06/trump-and-allies-keep…

[dgszweda]

RajeshG wrote:

According to a conference that Giuliani held the other day, he has 50+ affidavits from poll watchers in PA who were completely denied suitable access. He is planning to file a lawsuit tomorrow. We will see what comes of that lawsuit.

Also, there is a huge constitutional issue with what the PA Supreme Court did. If the US Supreme Court does not intervene and invalidate what they have done, a very wrong precedent will be set that will effectively mean that we have lost the rule of law in our country.

Regardless of who ultimately wins, we must have a fair election.

The problem with the affidavits is that they indicate some individual people were not allowed to watch the polls or were not allowed to watch at a level they felt they should be watching. The problem with these is that 1) people were still allowed to watch the polls, and 2) no evidence of fraud. What you are hearing from this camp is an announcement of a perceived problem, which allows them to raise a question and then try to link that question to fraud. It is the same exact models that conspiracy theories are structured upon. Now whether there was fraud or not, cannot be perceived from these lawsuits, because no fraud is identified or highlighted and therefore can’t be addressed by the court. This is why so many are being thrown out so quickly.

In terms of the PA Supreme Court, again, no sign of fraud, but a sign of irregularity. In addition, regardless of what happens here, it doesn’t change the results, as the ballots in contention haven’t even been counted yet or added to the totals. In actuality the response of the US supreme court was a rebuff to the Republicans.

All in all, with as massive of a turnout as we had and with the large number of mail in and absentee ballots, this went very smoothly in my opinion. Some irregularities no doubt, and given the size and number of counties there shouldn’t be an expectation that nothing will be found. But no signs of fraud (which is the intentional and systematic process of committing a crime). We will find over the next few days that nothing will make its way through the predominately republican judges and supreme court and that no fraud or any irregularity that impacts the outcome will be made.

Dick Morris!? Hah, ha, ha …