Are American elections free and fair?

[historia]

According to Pew, the percentage of Americans expressing confidence that our elections will be run well has dropped from four years ago (2018), especially among voters who support Republican candidates (-30%).

Question for debate: Are elections in the United States free and fair?

[AgnosticBoy]

Is voter ID "draconian", Jose?

It depends. If the government also provides a free and readily available ID to every registered voter, then no.

I'd be for that seeing that the US government already gives out free cellphones. Although I doubt that lack of money is a real obstacle here. To really find out, I'd want eligibility guidelines in place for free IDs so we can weed out those who truly can't afford it vs. those who have the income to get it but just don't want to.

What about more security to keep minorities from being pressured to vote for some party?

You'll have to be more specific. What types of "security"? Where (at polling places, homes, campaign events, social media)? What constitutes "pressure"?

I was referring to illegal practices like this:

Coercion. This may include offering money to vote for a certain person, spreading false rumors about candidates or voting, displaying signs with false or misleading information, impersonating poll workers.

I brought up a case in one of my previous posts where that happened, although that case involved a campaign worker also looking at how a person filled out their ballot (I never show a poll worker my ballot so they can see how I voted) to get them to change their vote.

If we can acknowledge that the scenario can and has happened, then feel free to offer your own security plan to deter and/or catch when it happens. I hope that we can at least agree that doing nothing about it is not a solution.

I haven't seen you offer ANY (draconian or not) extra security proposal, why is that?

Because I don't see a need for it. Probably the main thing I think we need is to have national election standards, rather than the current patchwork of standards and processes for various aspects of our elections. I would also support increased post-election random audits, to both help identify potential issues and to reassure voters.

Further, if we're talking about elections being "fair", then the first thing on my list would be to eliminate gerrymandering. That's far more of a problem than actual voting and counting votes.

All good steps to take. I'd vote for that!

[historia]

The fact that both election officials and voters are respectively tracking the outbound and inbound delivers of mail ballots means it wouldn't be "easy" for rogue mail carriers to just discard mail-in ballots and get away with it, as you asserted.

They'd get away with it because nobody can prove they tossed ballots.

I should have phrased that more precisely. Your claim was that "it easily could happen and no one would know."

What I'm pointing out -- and what you haven't rebutted -- is that, in this scenario, some voters would likely discover that their mail ballot wasn't delivered, in turn alerting election officials (and likely also going in to cast provisional ballots). At that point, we would know something happened.

I think law enforcement would likely investigate, get someone to confess, and arrest all involved. You disagree. But that's ancillary to the main point I'm making here:

This and other hypothetical scenarios that imagine bad actors committing election fraud without anyone knowing are actually unlikely.

[Jose Fly]

I'd be for that seeing that the US government already gives out free cellphones. Although I doubt that lack of money is a real obstacle here. To really find out, I'd want eligibility guidelines in place for free IDs so we can weed out those who truly can't afford it vs. those who have the income to get it but just don't want to.

I would want the government to do everything it can to ensure every registered voter gets one (or at least has had multiple opportunities to get one).

I brought up a case in one of my previous posts where that happened, although that case involved a campaign worker also looking at how a person filled out their ballot (I never show a poll worker my ballot so they can see how I voted) to get them to change their vote.

If we can acknowledge that the scenario can and has happened, then feel free to offer your own security plan to deter and/or catch when it happens. I hope that we can at least agree that doing nothing about it is not a solution.

We have to make sure that our response is proportional to the scale of the problem. If we catch one person speeding through a school zone, we don't respond by setting up armed checkpoints on all roads in front of every school.

All good steps to take. I'd vote for that!

Glad we agree.

[Purple Knight]

The problem is that your argument that cheating is small enough that it doesn't matter is reducible to that graphic. Saying there might be cheating but still being dismissive of it is not different than defining it as logically impossible.

LOL....what? Of course there's a massive difference between "cheating exists, but it's insignificant to the outcome" and "cheating is impossible".

What difference? My point was that when you place the burden of proof on anyone claiming cheating, you can prove it's impossible. You can then weaken your conclusion to make it seem more reasonable but I'm not seeing the difference to this particular question. If the cheating is small enough that it can and should just be blown off as nothing, then it effectively is nothing.

That's utterly ridiculous and a clear example of black/white, binary thinking. You do realize that it's possible for an election system to not be 100% absolutely perfect in every aspect, and the results to also be fairly decided and accurate, right? Or are you actually arguing that the mere possibility of voter fraud = US election results can't be trusted?

What I'm saying is that a person's right to vote is independent of whether he sways the election or not, and it's better to be able to show there's no fraud at the same level of positive proof required in a sports competition, rather than assume there is no cheating unless someone can prove it at the same insane level we require to prove a crime.

Are you saying that if somebody beat poor Joe Everyman within an inch of his life to stop him from getting to the polls, and never would have beat him at all if he stopped trying, no rights were violated because he couldn't have affected the outcome?

So it does look like you are employing black/white, binary thinking.

Are there examples where black and white thinking is correct, or is absolutely everything so nebulous that there's no clear answer? (Hint: The answer is in the question.)

It does seem to me that a process with clear rules can have a clear answer to fairness if those rules are violated, and that the answer is no.

[Purple Knight]

The fact that both election officials and voters are respectively tracking the outbound and inbound delivers of mail ballots means it wouldn't be "easy" for rogue mail carriers to just discard mail-in ballots and get away with it, as you asserted.

They'd get away with it because nobody can prove they tossed ballots.

I should have phrased that more precisely. Your claim was that "it easily could happen and no one would know."

What I'm pointing out -- and what you haven't rebutted -- is that, in this scenario, some voters would likely discover that their mail ballot wasn't delivered, in turn alerting election officials (and likely also going in to cast provisional ballots). At that point, we would know something happened.

We would not unless the election officials have a policy of making that public. The voter whose ballot wasn't counted would know.

This says many states let you fix it if your ballot was rejected, so it looks like the "whoops, it just wasn't counted" is part of the process, and there isn't even the suspicion that anyone did anything, let alone avenues to report it.

https://ourcount.org/2020/10/your-ballo ... to-fix-it/

Tons of ballots get rejected for the signature not matching, which seems incredibly arbitrary.

https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2 ... y-did-not/

We shouldn't be hearing Donald Trump whine about this. We should be hearing the voters whine who weren't counted.

I think law enforcement would likely investigate, get someone to confess, and arrest all involved. You disagree. But that's ancillary to the main point I'm making here:

This and other hypothetical scenarios that imagine bad actors committing election fraud without anyone knowing are actually unlikely.

How unlikely it is comes down to how easy it would be to get away with it.

[Jose Fly]

What difference?

If you really can't grasp the difference between "cheating exists, but it's insignificant to the outcome" and "cheating is impossible", I can't help you.

My point was that when you place the burden of proof on anyone claiming cheating, you can prove it's impossible. You can then weaken your conclusion to make it seem more reasonable but I'm not seeing the difference to this particular question.

So you disagree with the concept of "innocent until proven guilty". Noted.

Further, once again (for about the third time now) you're completely ignoring the existence of post-election random audits, recounts, and signature verifications and how they demonstrate that election results are accurate.

If the cheating is small enough that it can and should just be blown off as nothing, then it effectively is nothing.

Strawman fallacy. No one has argued that election crimes be "blown off as nothing".

What I'm saying is that a person's right to vote is independent of whether he sways the election or not, and it's better to be able to show there's no fraud at the same level of positive proof required in a sports competition, rather than assume there is no cheating unless someone can prove it at the same insane level we require to prove a crime.

Again, you're completely ignoring the existence of post-election random audits, recounts, and signature verifications and how they demonstrate that election results are accurate.

Are you saying that if somebody beat poor Joe Everyman within an inch of his life to stop him from getting to the polls, and never would have beat him at all if he stopped trying, no rights were violated because he couldn't have affected the outcome?

No.

Are there examples where black and white thinking is correct, or is absolutely everything so nebulous that there's no clear answer? (Hint: The answer is in the question.)

Funny how your question is itself another example of your binary thinking.

It does seem to me that a process with clear rules can have a clear answer to fairness if those rules are violated, and that the answer is no.

Your black/white binary thinking is again noted.

[Purple Knight]

What difference?

If you really can't grasp the difference between "cheating exists, but it's insignificant to the outcome" and "cheating is impossible", I can't help you.

If you can't explain such a simple thing then maybe it's not me who needs help. I don't see a relevant difference.

My point was that when you place the burden of proof on anyone claiming cheating, you can prove it's impossible. You can then weaken your conclusion to make it seem more reasonable but I'm not seeing the difference to this particular question.

So you disagree with the concept of "innocent until proven guilty". Noted.

Actually I specifically said before that if we can't prove it to the level of a criminal offence, we don't have to punish anyone for it. Just like we don't call it criminal to refuse to give a sample in a sports competition to prove you're not on steroids. But if they're uncomfortable having to prove their innocence they probably don't need to be competing in a sport or handling ballots.

Further, once again (for about the third time now) you're completely ignoring the existence of post-election random audits, recounts, and signature verifications and how they demonstrate that election results are accurate.

For the third time in a row, I can point out how vulnerabilities exist that could bypass those measures.

If the cheating is small enough that it can and should just be blown off as nothing, then it effectively is nothing.

Strawman fallacy. No one has argued that election crimes be "blown off as nothing".

So in what way is the small cheating that you think exists relevant? If it's not relevant enough to do anything about then it is being treated as nothing.

What I'm saying is that a person's right to vote is independent of whether he sways the election or not, and it's better to be able to show there's no fraud at the same level of positive proof required in a sports competition, rather than assume there is no cheating unless someone can prove it at the same insane level we require to prove a crime.

Again, you're completely ignoring the existence of post-election random audits, recounts, and signature verifications and how they demonstrate that election results are accurate.

Irrelevant. I said people have a right to vote.

Are you saying that if somebody beat poor Joe Everyman within an inch of his life to stop him from getting to the polls, and never would have beat him at all if he stopped trying, no rights were violated because he couldn't have affected the outcome?

No.

So then you agree it's not about the outcome and this poor soul has a right to have his vote counted that must be respected? Otherwise, if someone is threatening you if you vote, just give in and walk away.

Your black/white binary thinking is again noted.

Again, I'm asking you if everything is nebulous or if there are situations where you can have a yes or no. If you can't have a yes or no to this thread question, I don't even see the point of arguing about it. Calling something black and white in order to refute it has the hidden premise that nothing is black and white.

[Jose Fly]

I don't see a relevant difference.

Noted.

Actually I specifically said before that if we can't prove it to the level of a criminal offence, we don't have to punish anyone for it. Just like we don't call it criminal to refuse to give a sample in a sports competition to prove you're not on steroids.

Bad analogy, since it's (AFAIK) not illegal to take steroids, whereas it most certainly is illegal to cheat in an election.

But if they're uncomfortable having to prove their innocence they probably don't need to be competing in a sport or handling ballots.

Except.....again.....they do demonstrate the accuracy of election results via random post-election audits, recounts, and signature verifications. What else do you think those things are for, if not to verify the accuracy of the results?

For the third time in a row, I can point out how vulnerabilities exist that could bypass those measures.

Like what? If you're thinking of your imaginary rogue mail carrier, to repeat, there are already mechanisms in place to catch that.

So in what way is the small cheating that you think exists relevant? If it's not relevant enough to do anything about then it is being treated as nothing.

No one has argued that we do nothing. Your black/white thinking really is hampering you here.

As with all laws and enforcement, we don't hold them the standard of absolute perfection and then when they don't meet that standard, limit ourselves to either draconian measures or "do nothing". As I explained with the speeding in school zones example, we put laws and enforcement mechanisms in place to prevent people from speeding in school zones, but when someone does speed by a school we don't react by setting up armed checkpoints on every road near a school, nor do we throw up our hands and "do nothing".

With election cheating, we (in part) count on people's inherent sense of risk-reward. So with your rogue mail carrier, we hope that any rational person will understand that it's not worth spending 20+ years in federal prison to throw away ballots, especially when it's trivially easy to be caught. Is that a 100% absolute guarantee that it will never happen? Of course not, but that's the case with all laws and crimes.

So then you agree it's not about the outcome and this poor soul has a right to have his vote counted that must be respected?

Of course.

Otherwise, if someone is threatening you if you vote, just give in and walk away.

Or you could contact the proper authorities, have the person arrested, and then vote.

Again, I'm asking you if everything is nebulous or if there are situations where you can have a yes or no.

There are some situations where yes/no applies. This isn't one of them though.

If you can't have a yes or no to this thread question, I don't even see the point of arguing about it. Calling something black and white in order to refute it has the hidden premise that nothing is black and white.

The question of this thread is not a black/white situation. Are our elections free and fair? In terms of accuracy of outcomes, yes. The outcomes do indeed reflect the vote. But as I mentioned earlier, in terms of true representation, some are some aren't due to things like gerrymandering.

So again, the topic of this thread does not lend itself to a black/white, binary framework.

[AgnosticBoy]

As a non-partisan, I've interacted with people from both sides of this issue. Here are some of my observations*:

- Some don't really care about voter fraud when it benefits their side. This should not be a surprised given the fact that politicians tend to apply a different standard to themselves and their party than they do their opponents.

- A lot of the thinking on this issue has Trump in the equation. This is why views involving election security seems to split along party lines with Dems being against it and Republicans for it. Some Democrats tend to want to go against whatever Trump is for, regardless of if it is right or wrong. Trump is for increasing election security, so therefore they must be against it. Some Republicans tend to want to support Trump no matter what. They seem to follow him blindly. So these Republicans will do whatever would benefit Trump.

*The above views don't apply to all Republicans and Democrats, but just the polarized and partisan ones - the ones that put party before truth.

[Daedalus X]

Also the burden of proof to show that the elections are free and fair is on the government, and they have not done so, therefore we must assume they are fraudulent.

LOL....what? Again, all the talk of "fraudulent elections" is just that....talk. The government has proved that our voting systems are free and fair via winning every lawsuit claiming otherwise, random audits confirming results, recounts confirming results, etc.

It has been said that a non auditable election bears the full presumption of fraud. If we can't look at the code inside these machines we must assume that this system was optimized for hiding fraud. And no public official would purchase such machines if they were not trying to hide fraud.

I heard someone say "The FTX Fraud on top of the pandemic fiasco and all the other lies and fraud we seen in the past few years should remind us to be grateful that our election systems are the only systems in America that are not fraudulent despite all the incentives and opportunities to be so. And that is why I accept the results of the mid term elections". I had nothing to say in response to that.

That's for the courts to decide.

A few years back I was talking to a co-worker who was convinced that Trump cheated in the 2016 election. At the time I had not seen enough evidence to say one way or the other, so I asked him for the evidence that would support why he believed what he believed. He said there is evidence all over the place, so when I pressed him, he said things like it is all over the place CNN, MSNBC, Washington Post, New York Times, etc. Rachel Meadow has given tons of evidence, even Jimmy Carter came right out and said the only reason Trump won was because Russia gave him the win. Even Adam Schiff said he had seen conclusive proof that Russia colluded with the Trump campaign but the information is classified so he can't tell us what the proof is. It took a few years for us to find out that the whole Russian collusion was a big hoax that was started by the Clinton campaign and push by members of the Obama administration. And my friend had just believed a big lie.

So, I asked you to support your claim that the elections were free and fair, and that Sidney Powell had confessed that her arguments were just a lie. And none of your evidence was any better than my friends support of the Russian narrative. How do you know that the people that have been lying to us about everything else are not lying about the elections being honest?

And the strongest part of your argument had to do with the courts not overturning the elections, if there were fraud then the courts would have overturned the election, the courts did not do that, therefore there was no fraud.

The purpose of the courts is not to find the truth, their job is to apply the law as it is written and interpreted under the precedence set by previous decisions.
A good example is this FTX scandal, it turns out that the second largest contributor to the Democrats was FTX, so is it good enough for the Democrats to return those illegal contributions or is the fruits of those illegal contributions also poisoned. Do we have redo the elections? All of this will be up to the courts to decide.

Is it possible that your position is based primarily on the information that you get from the news networks? Notice that the news had zero curiosity about this, they did not investigate anything, all they did was to parrot the "freest fairest elections in history" mantra. Which is not to say that the elections were free and fair, but rather compared to the total corruption of all the other elections this one was relatively free and fair but still corrupt. And it is not a lack of curiosity on behalf of the press, but rather an unwillingness to keep the people informed. The press has clearly been sold out to someone, like big Pharma and other large interests. Have you ever seen them investigate the safety and efficacy of the wax, NO. But they have sure been pushing the line, get your jab or your granny will die when they have no idea if that is true. Have they reported on the Tonga volcano? I think that millions will starve because of reduced farm output due to the ash cloud, but that does not fit the global warming narrative, so they remain silent. Or they may want to keep that story for the day that they will need a fear distraction from some other news event.

You also said that "None of this "election integrity" nonsense started until Trump became the GOP leader". I pointed out that elections were fraudulent far before Trump, but you ignored it. Personally I think that elections have been fraudulent since the first ballots were cast in Ancient Greece, why should that change now?

If you have any good arguments to support your beliefs, I would love to hear them.