All told those cases total less than 200 votes. No one (edit: to be clear - no reasonable folk) claims fraud doesn't happen. Just not on the scale that has been claimed at times, and not enough to tip an election with millions of votes. Could a coordinated attack swing a local race, maybe. But as seen by the links you provided, there are people watching for these kinds of fraud, and people get caught all the time, even when it's just a single extra vote, much less enough to actually make a difference.
In the 2020 election one House of Representatives race was won by 6 votes. Another by about 120.
In the 2000 Washington gubernatorial race the number of votes counted exceeded the number of registered voters and the margin of victory was less than the number of excess votes.
And even if it is just a local school board seat or dog catcher, it’s still a violation of people’s civil rights. What’s more is local elections usually have way more direct impact on people’s lives than federal elections.
The Wikipedia page, as well as the cited sources, are a fun read. The final decision by a judge in the case was that 1678 illegal votes were to be removed from the total number of votes cast. However, they were not apportioned to either candidate. The final margin of victory was 133 votes.
False. I've encountered easily thousands of people who make such claims on the internet.
You might then say "No officials make such claims" - here you're technically correct, but somewhat misinformative: the people in such situations have public relations professionals at their disposal, and also tend to have years of experience (or at least observation) of how to do PR.
When election fraud is discussed, they choose their words carefully, opting to discuss not election fraud, but massive election fraud.
If the topic was other than this one (if "the shoe was on the other foot" so to speak), I don't think these things would be hard to notice...but, human psychology is what it is, so here we are.
> But as seen by the links you provided, there are people watching for these kinds of fraud, and people get caught all the time, even when it's just a single extra vote, much less enough to actually make a difference.
This is speculation, stated in the form of a fact - this, combined with the topic, may cause readers to form a belief that it is necessarily factual.
Yes, individuals just as mistaken as those who claim fraud is rampant claim there is not fraud. People make those kinds of mistaken statements all the time. How about "most reasonable people who understand the process and have spent a little bit of time examining how it works"? I thought that was closer to the standard in discussions on HN, not "some rando on Twitter spouting off", but I guess not.
It is not speculation that there are people who look for election fraud (and then prosecute it when found). And folks do get caught/prosecuted for just about every election cycle, so "all the time". And the links demonstrate that. I may have expounded on that a bit but the language is not speculative except maybe the portion about whether or not there is enough to make a difference. That is my opinion, but heavily based on the reading on this topic I have done, checking claims from a wide variety of sources, parties, etc. I make no claims to expertise but I do believe the information I have shared is accurate to the best of my ability and folks can do with that what they will (hopefully spend their own time actually making sure they are not misled).
I think the centre of the point of contention (and we can work outward from there) can be isolated like so: have there been zero authoritative personnel that have claimed or implied that fraud sufficient to change the outcome of an election is impossible?
And while contemplating this idea, remember that we are dealing with human beings.
Nothing is impossible. But the chance of the being sufficient fraud to change say the presidential election is extremely unlikely, especially given the evidence that we have.
> But the chance of the being sufficient fraud to change say the presidential election is extremely unlikely....
Technically, the likelihood is not known. Humans are welcome to state estimates of the likelihood, and believe those estimates to be true (and rebroadcast them, seeding the "fact" into other minds), but base reality is where the truth lies. We can (and do!) pretend that our estimated reality is factual but this is a collective cultural delusion, and a harmful one at that (which sometimes people can see clearly (in the behavior of our outgroups), and other times not (in their own and ingroup behavior)). Pick any culture war topic thread on HN, and observe how people describe "reality" - the phenomenon is not really hiding as much as we aren't able to see it (similar to how we couldn't see certain things until we developed techniques, like using lenses to see into different realms of reality).
> ...especially given the evidence that we have.
Our discovery of evidence has no influence on that which preceded it, it only has influence on our beliefs of that which preceded it. Unfortunately, we often tend to not form a distinction between the two.
I don't think the number has to be zero in your hypothetical. (Yes, I'm aware I said "no one", and I'll admit that probably should have been "the vast majority ...")
I use zero as a technique to attempt to "shock" minds into a higher plane of rationality. It's hard to tell how effective this technique is, under various scenarios. It doesn't work great in settings where there are ~no rules, like internet forums. It typically works excellently when debugging tricky software bugs, which is quite analogous to the functioning of the human mind imho, so I think it has promise.
Nobody likes to get down to the details of actual fraud events, really. Neither side. Democrats because they don't believe it happens often. Republicans because when it does happen, 9 times out of 10 the perp turns out to be a Republican. This has been the amusing reality for years now.
I personally think that fraud of a significant scale in a country with thousands of different voting systems is basically impossible to hide, and a lot of people are looking for it. We take many steps to reduce that risk. And when we catch someone trying, we should slap them down hard as an example to others.
> 9 times out of 10 the perp turns out to be a Republican. This has been the amusing reality for years now.
Citation? This article shows 2 out of 2 as Democrats.
This article shows a guilty plea from a Democrat who for years rigged votes with a Judge of Elections and Democrat Ward Leader, Domenick J. DeMuro. Demuro pled guilty in 2020.
The ABA keeps a list of current litigation on election law. [1] Election law cases almost invariably come down to nobody wanting or being able to take responsibility. People are aware of issues, but the court cases take too long and the courts rule there is no remedy after the election, the plaintiffs suing have no standing, there is no remedy in law, since the legislature should oversee not the courts, etc. Yet, the legislatures do nothing but talk. Saying there isn't elections fraud all around is incorrect.
