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Comment by quotemstr

5 months ago

Articles like this are pure chutzpah. The same side that's alleging interference in 2024 suggested that to question election irregularities in 2020 was to reject democracy itself. I don't think the authors are going to convince anyone.

"But there's evidence this time and there wasn't in 2020!" Well, the other side would argue the opposite. We're not going to get anywhere this way.

Look: regardless of the the extent to which these alleged voting shenanigans are real, we need to fix the system. The legitimacy of the state is at risk.

Just as Caesar's wife must be above reproach, our voting system must be above reproach. There are plenty of common sense things officials can take to bolster the public's faith in the system. For example, we should ban electronic voting machines. The real threat to democracy isn't election manipulation but officials who refuse to enact measures that would dispel even the appearance of manipulation.

> The same side that's alleging interference in 2024 suggested that to question election irregularities in 2020 was to reject democracy itself.

It is absolutely not the position of mainstream Democrats that the 2024 election was rigged, invalid etc. This ETA organization (founded December) is some fringe weirdo and doesn't represent dems.

  • The position of the Democratic party shouldn't change the analysis. If there is evidence it should be analyzed on its own merits.

    • GP is insinuating that the 2024 dem response to losing the election is comparable to 2020 gop response to losing that election; it is not.

> The same side that's alleging interference in 2024 suggested that to question election irregularities in 2020 was to reject democracy itself. I don't think the authors are going to convince anyone.

The people claiming election interference in 2020 had every chance to provide any piece of evidence, and they never could.

  • I'm concerned by the turn of this thread. The claims of voter fraud in 2020 were tenuous claims based on mail-in ballots and other speculation. This is a claim based on statistical analysis -- something I'd think would click with the HN crowd, regardless if there's room for debate on the meaning of the stats.

Democracy demands a lot of the electorate. We have to be willing to suppress our own values and accept those of our opponents, when the vote doesn't go our way.

It's reasonable for all of us to expect that the election was secure, with a very high degree of certainty. When people aren't willing to consider the possibility of shenanigans, or that the systems* we're using might be insecure, we shouldn't be surprised that people are unwilling to do the democratic thing and accept the winner.

*by "system", I don't just mean the voting machines themselves, but also the whole process surrounding the collection and tallying of votes.

> Articles like this are pure chutzpah.

I shouldn't spend time on this but it seems from context you think that word means "bullshit" and it doesn't. I'm sorry for pointing it out but it bothers me.

> "But there's evidence this time and there wasn't in 2020!" Well, the other side would argue the opposite. We're not going to get anywhere this way.

We might be able to by actually looking at the evidence. This is a really common problem I see among people who through good intentions avoid controversial topics.

Sure scientists say the moon is real, but Keith on Facebook says it's a hologram. I guess we should rule out any evidence from the entire field of astronomy until they can dispel even the appearance of misinformation.