With apologies to our many friends and posters outside the United States... it's time for another one of these! Culture war thread rules apply, and you are permitted to openly advocate for or against an issue or candidate on the ballot (if you clearly identify which ballot, and can do so without knocking down any strawmen along the way). "Small-scale" questions and answers are also permitted if you refrain from shitposting or being otherwise insulting to others here. Please keep the spirit of the law--this is a discussion forum!--carefully in mind.
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Notes -
Under what circumstances will you (interested in a sample of opinions) accept the election as legitimate and not having been tampered with to any significant degree?
My question is predicated on the fact that I see a lot of Trump supporters preemptively asserting that there will be significant voter fraud this election. I do think it is quite an increasing trend among the left as well.
For the people on both sides that say the above, what does their candidate winning mean to them? Does it mean that their political rivals did not commit fraud and decided to conduct the election honorably? Or does it mean they committed fraud which was irrelevant or not on a scale large enough to matter? Does it imply that there was fraud committed on both sides? Does it imply they believe their candidate committed fraud but because it's their candidate they don't particularly care?
Does fraud require positive evidence for you, or is it assumed without direct evidence of significant fraud countermeasures?
This might seem like a facetious question, but I have a hard time understanding what political assumptions people have baked in when talking about election fraud (for example, whether it is expected to be a magnitude worse this time than previous elections, or whether it is a common thing that has happened in every election)
My own intuition is that (absent direct evidence of fraud which moved the needle one way or the other) the overwhelming likelihood is on either no significant fraud or fraud here and there on both sides which should mostly cancel out, regardless of which candidate wins. I assume there would be more this election than previously but not an order of magnitude more
Everyone wants to look at this as a black and white issue. I think that's a mistake.
Elections can be more or less legitimate. The most legitimate elections are victories that are "too big to steal". I'm pretty sure the 1984 election was 100% legitimate, for example.
But U.S. election security is a joke. There's almost certainly a low level of fraud and incompetence in every election, although it's hard to measure by design. Many razor thin victories have fallen well within the margin of error for fraud and incompetence. For example, it's possible (even likely) that Nixon was the rightful victor of the 1960 election, but was defeated by fraud engineered by Democrat machines in Texas and Illinois.
More recently, it's almost certain that Gore would have defeated Bush in 2000 if not for poorly designed "butterfly ballots" in Florida.
So unless one candidate or another wins by a convincing margin, I'd withhold any judgment on full legitimacy.
In terms of things to watch this election, I'd look at Trump's relative performance in states that have adequate election security (Virginia, Florida) vs. those that don't (Minnesota, Pennsylvania).
VA going red would be a dream come true. But Northern VA is TDS ground zero, and very populous. I still see people, alone in their car on 66 wearing their stupid little covid mask. Although less this year than last, finally.
I've seen a lot of trump signs, it's hard to tell if it's trolls enjoying a layup or some real groundswell of support.
The road I live on in a rural exurb has a pretty solid mix of Harris/Trump signs along the 20 miles I take to drop my daughter off at school. I wouldn't take anything for granted.
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