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ZorbaTHut  1yr ago (text post)   31313 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of October 17, 2022

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Do you think that this action will, on the margins, increase or decrease the chances of someone attempting actual voter fraud in the 2022 elections in Florida?

The answer isn't obvious. These actions will absolutely discourage anyone with a felony conviction from trying to vote, even if they are legally permitted to, because who wants to risk getting arrested years down the line over something as individually trivial as voting? Felony disenfranchisement currently affects almost a million people in Florida, almost 10% of the adult population, so it's bound to have a significant effect.

In contrast, actual voting fraud is extremely rare. Just for perspective, 19 foreign nationals were charged for illegally voting in North Carolina in 2020. To me, it's not obvious how many of those foreign nationals were acting with malicious intent, or whether they made an honest mistake. Jeopardizing one's immigration status to cast one vote seems like an idiotic gamble. Beyond that, the scenarios where voter fraud is clearly motivated by malicious intent are too sporadic to get a comprehensive accounting for. I'm aware of very few cases, like for example this Nevada man who used his dead wife's ballot to cast a vote.

I suppose you can defend the heavy-handedness if your overriding priority is primarily to tamp down on the handful of actual voter fraud that takes place. But if so, I would like to at least see an earnest attempt to address the collateral damage. Is dissuading a handful of bad actors worth putting some innocent people in jail? Worth dissuading large swathes of the population from legally voting? If so, say so.

I don't recall if you and I have already had this conversation but I feel like this reply is illustrative of one of the wider gaps in inferential distance between the "red" and "blue-tribe"

There's a brand of argument that goes; thus far no one has been able to formally establish in a court of law that sufficient fraud to actually swing an election has occurred, therefore concerns about election fraud are completely unfounded and motivated solely by politics. However, if you stop to think about it the conclusion does not actually follow from the premise. As you yourself should well know given your background, only 19 instances of prosecution/conviction is not the same thing as there being only 19 instances of a crime. Similarly just because no one can prove X beyond a reasonable doubt doesn't mean that X didn't actually happen.

There was a post a few months back (before the transition) where Sam Harris was alleged to have "said the quiet part out loud" that tangentially points the same underlying issue. In short, there seems to be this attitude amongst a lot of blue-tribers and especially amongst those that fancy themselves "intellectuals" that they shouldn't have to justify themselves to plebes. But what is the point of having a democracy if not to justify the government to the plebes? The word democracy literally means "rule by the demos" IE the rank-and-file, or what some here might derisively refer to as "the normies". This distinction is one of the fundamental points of schism between classical liberals and the trad-right. Are hierarchies imposed or are they organic? If one takes the organic view, the onus is never on the on the loser to prove fraud. The onus is on the winner to prove they won fair and square, because "winning fair and square" is what confers legitimacy and demonstrates the Mandate of Heaven.

  1. "there is no evidence that black people commit crimes more often than white people"

  2. "there is no evidence that jews control the media"

  3. "there is no evidence sex ed teachers are grooming children"

  4. "there is no evidence democrats hacked voting machines to swing the election with 5M votes"

1 is plainly false, and justified by a ton of hedges and lies. 2 is ... eh, jews are profoundly overrepresented in the media, but going from there to 'control' or claiming jewishness is causal isn't proven at all. 3 is mostly true, sex ed teachers really aren't grooming anyone, but it's a cover for 'lgbt be bad' - which is arguable - and its own claim. and 4 is entirely true - that just didn't happen!

Just because 'the no evidence game' is played doesn't mean it isn't true sometimes.

As you yourself should well know given your background, only 19 instances of prosecution/conviction is not the same thing as there being only 19 instances of a crime

his point is the evidence for anything more than that is entirely lacking.

his point is the evidence for anything more than that is entirely lacking.

and my point is that in an adversarial environment (which elections tend to be) the absence of evidence can not be assumed to be evidence of absence.

"There is no evidence for x" does not prove the absence of x unless one is under the impression that "you can't prove x" and "x didn't happen" are equivalent statements.

I don't really understand your point. I've said many many times that voter fraud exists, and anyone who claims it doesn't exist is lying. I've also never claimed that the people who get caught for voter fraud constitute the entire universe of voter fraud. It's damn-near certain that plenty of people have engaged in voter fraud and gotten away with it, but how many exactly? Because there's a slight gap between a claim like A) "19 foreign nationals were caught illegally voting in North Carolina" and something like B) "vans are pulling up to polling places delivering suitcases full of tens of thousands of fraudulent ballots". You can't just point to A, add an unspecified "uncaught fraud" variable, and claim to have proven B. I can't just accept B as a leap of faith, and it's reasonable to discount B if the evidence presented in its support is consistently shoddy.

I don't really understand your point.

I recognize that, and that is what I'm talking about when I talk about "inferential distance"

You appear to be acting on the assumption that "you can't prove X" and "X didn't happen" are equivalent statements and the point that I am trying to make is that they are not.

A bit down thread you ask whether people should be punished for believing bogus information provided by government officials and for my part the answer is an unequivocated "yes". People should absolutely be punished for trusting bogus information because that's how you nip that shit in the bud. If you want people to trust government officials your first, last, and only priority should be ensuring that government officials are trustworthy.

You appear to be acting on the assumption that "you can't prove X" and "X didn't happen" are equivalent statements and the point that I am trying to make is that they are not.

I have no clue how you arrived at this interpretation, and if you can point to what I said that made you think this that would be helpful. No, I do not believe those statements are equivalent. I also don't believe "you can't prove X didn't happen" and "X did happen" are equivalent statements either.

People should absolutely be punished for trusting bogus information because that's how you nip that shit in the bud. If you want people to trust government officials your first, last, and only priority should be ensuring that government officials are trustworthy.

Uh, what? Nip what in the bud? How does prosecuting the people who believed the government help encourage the government to be more trustworthy? Shouldn't you direct your efforts towards...the government?

I have no clue how you arrived at this interpretation,

Explain to me then how you made the jump from absence of evidence to evidence of absence.

A big chunk of this argument has always been about the book-keeping. Things like requiring ID to vote, having documented chains of custody for ballot boxes, third party observers in the counting rooms, etc... are put in place specifically to keep people honest and act as evidence against fraud. Elections are by nature adversarial, and as such the absence of such evidence can be interpreted circumstantial evidence in itself.

For a less emotionally fraught example, imagine a dealers' service agreement that explicitly excludes the car's transmission from the warranty. What would your immediate suspicion be? I can tell you what mine would be.

Shouldn't you direct your efforts towards... the government?

In an ideal world, maybe. But in the real world asking a government agency to oversee itself is almost always a losing proposition.

For a less emotionally fraught example, imagine a dealers' service agreement that explicitly excludes the car's transmission from the warranty. What would your immediate suspicion be? I can tell you what mine would be.

Sure, I'd be suspicious of the transmission. What part of the voting system is this supposed to map to your analogy?

But in the real world asking a government agency to oversee itself is almost always a losing proposition.

This is bewildering. You haven't explained how prosecuting normal people for believing the government advances any interest. What problem does this solve? What behavior is this supposed to encourage?

He is saying almost the exact opposite of assuming that "you can't prove X" and "X didn't happen" are equivalent statements.

Yet his arguments seem to rely on them being equivalent, so which is it?

People should absolutely be punished for trusting bogus information because that's how you nip that shit in the bud. If you want people to trust government officials your first, last, and only priority should be ensuring that government officials are trustworthy.

Even granting your basic premise, how does your proposed remedy accomplish this? I mean... the suggestion is literally to punish more or less random third parties, who didn't do anything wrong other than believe bad information they were given. If anyone should be punished here surely it's the people who actually dispensed the misinformation. I fail to see how your proposed remedy does anything to disincentivize the behaviour it's supposedly aimed at, because it isn't even aimed at the right people. What I do see very clearly is that it's patently unjust, for the same reason. I mean... people shouldn't be punished for stuff other people did. It doesn't get more basic than that.

people shouldn't be punished for stuff other people did.

You're not punishing "random third parties" or "someone for something someone else did" though. You're punishing people for voting illegally. The question is whether "but some dude told me I could" ought to be considered an affirmative defense for casting an illegal ballot.

You're punishing people for voting illegally

It should be ~impossible to vote illegally by mistake. It's stupid to try to fix broken procedures which allow 'illegal voting' by just punishing citizens really hard if they make a mistake.

It should be impossible to vote illegally by mistake

Is vs ought.

Trying to fixing broken procedures is a position that will draw opposition because the opposition party benefits from them, punishing individuals does not, but still has the desired effect.

Surely it makes a difference that "some dude" is a person in an official position whose job is, at least in part, to dispense accurate information about this. If anyone did anything wrong here it's them.

I guess the disagreement is largely about what kind of mens rea requirement should hold here. I don't see why voting illegally should be a strict liability thing like you apparently do, especially if the underlying goal is to prevent *intentional *voter fraud (though such votes should not be counted, if there's a way to enforce that without de-anonymizing them). Doing it with conscious intent, sure.

Surely it makes a difference that "some dude" is a person in an official position whose job is, at least in part, to dispense accurate information about this. If anyone did anything wrong here it's them.

And yet, that doesn't absolve you from following the law.

If an undercover cop tells you to commit a crime, it's still a crime.

If a military officer gives an illegal order, it's still an illegal order.

If a bureaucrat gives you the wrong application form, it's still the wrong application form.

Legitimacy doesn't derives from the government authority, nor does government authority alone absolve one from following the legitimate rules of society.

I guess the disagreement is largely about what kind of mens rea requirement should hold here. I don't see why voting illegally should be a strict liability thing like you apparently do, especially if the underlying goal is to prevent *intentional *voter fraud (though such votes should not be counted, if there's a way to enforce that without de-anonymizing them). Doing it with conscious intent, sure.

If claiming ignorance was a shield from all other laws, this might hold water, but without it it's a selective appeal for magic words. If you operate a law that only those who know the law perfectly beforehand can be penalized for, then it's not a law, it's a legal cludgeon for selective application of when 'should' applies to 'should have known.'

Not all of that (indeed, hardly any of it) is strictly true. For example:

If an undercover cop tells you to commit a crime, it's still a crime.

Sometimes. At some point it becomes entrapment; the relevant question is generally whether you showed the intention to commit some similar crime. If the cops merely provided means or informed you of a potential target, enjoy your time with bubba. But if they actively goad you into it, that's a different thing entirely. The case here is somewhere in between, it seems to me.

More generally, there are different levels of mens rea requirements already. This is not some weird form of special pleading, it's already well-established legal doctrine. For example, here's a quick summary I found on a quick Google search:

https://www.tombruno.com/articles/the-four-types-of-mens-rea/

I would argue that none of the four standards listed there are met here. Ignorance of the law isn't an excuse, true, but a total lack of morally culpable intent is.

Legitimacy doesn't derives from the government authority, nor does government authority alone absolve one from following the legitimate rules of society.

We're talking here about a "crime" that only exists because of a(n intentionally confusing) bureaucratic rule, not some well-established "legitimate rule of society".

Surely it makes a difference that "some dude" is a person in an official position whose job is, at least in part, to dispense accurate information about this

Does it? Should it?

I'm not being flippant here, that is a serious question, and part of that inferential gap that I've been talking about.

Yes. You made a good-faith effort to make sure you were on the right side of the law. That's more than most people do most of the time.

EDIT: If you check the link in the other post I'm about to put up as I type this, there's four types of mens rea listed there and the person in this example doesn't even meet the lowest one, negligence, described as "fails to meet a reasonable standard of behavior for her circumstances". Going out of your way to make sure what you're about to do is not a crime certainly meets any such standard.

Can you please connect the dots from “punishing people for trusting bogus information” to “ensuring government officials are trustworthy”? If the officials were misleading people, then they are the ones who should be punished, not the victim.

Imagine a police officer who writes tickets for speed limit violations but claims that the person caught speeding is signing a ‘warning form’ or something. The person then doesn’t show up in court, as they had no reason to believe that they needed to, and is later thrown in jail. The fix for that situation is not to tell people they shouldn’t trust cops, just like the fix in FL isn’t to tell people that they can’t trust county clerks.

Can you please connect the dots from “punishing people for trusting bogus information” to “ensuring government officials are trustworthy”?

At the most basic level this thread is about whether "a government official told me I could do X" ought to be considered an affirmative defense for illegally doing X. @ymeskhout appears to be taking the position that, yes it should, but to me this position seems untenable. To flip your scenario on it's head, If a cop pulls me over driving without a no license or insurance on a car with expired tags and I tell them that the lady at the DMV told that I didn't need any of that stuff, would you expect the cop to just say "my mistake" and let me go on my way? I wouldn't. Fact is that regardless of whatever some unnamed official at the DMV might have said, the cop has his own instructions.

There's a line of thinking here (Scott's posts on In Defense of Fauci and Bounded Distrust being central examples) that seems to go; the public trust is a public good ergo there is a moral obligation to trust public officials regardless of the truth value of their statements.

While this makes a certain amount of inductive sense if one takes the view that hierarchies as imposed, and that public officials are on the balance impartial. In practice it creates an environment that erodes trust because what real incentive does some unnamed official have to ensure that they get things right?

and I tell them that the lady at the DMV told that I didn't need any of that stuff

This discussion has been particularly frustrating because it seems that people are just assuming facts about a system they're not familiar with. This is not a case of a felon caught voting claiming someone "told" them they could vote. The problems with Florida's voting restoration system have been well known for a really long time. It would be helpful if you were at least somewhat familiar with the system, and you can learn a lot by just skimming this court opinion. Here's the 125-page court opinion that details the problems on Pg 53:

The case of one named plaintiff, Clifford Tyson, is illustrative. An extraordinarily competent and diligent financial manager in the office of the Hillsborough County Clerk of Court, with the assistance of several long-serving assistants, bulldogged Mr. Tyson’s case for perhaps 12 to 15 hours. The group had combined experience of over 100 years. They came up with what they believed to be the amount owed. But even with all that work, they were unable to explain discrepancies in the records.

And see page 65 about the workload the state estimated for itself:

Even without screening for unpaid LFOs, all the Divison’s caseworkers combined can process an average of just 57 registrations per day. The LFO work, standing alone, is likely to take at least as long as—probably much longer than—the review for murder and sexual offenses and for custody or supervision status. Even at 57 registrations per day, screening the 85,000 pending registrations will take 1,491 days. At 261 workdays per year, this is a little over 5 years and 8 months. The projected completion date, even if the Division starts turning out work today, and even if screening for LFOs doesn’t take longer than screening for murders, sexual offenses, custody, and supervision, is early in 2026. With a flood of additional registrations expected in this presidential election year, the anticipated completion date might well be pushed into the 2030s.

You can't just point to A, add an unspecified "uncaught fraud" variable, and claim to have proven B.

Your error is italicized. The claim is not that B is proven, the claim is that B is alleged, and that A provides enough evidence that measures should be taken to investigate or attempt to prevent cases up to and including B.

This feels like shadow boxing because I'm not opposed to investigating claims of fraud. If I had any pushback it would be not wanting to see resources wasted chasing after patently delusional claims (e.g. Italian satellites) but hey, it's not really my money anyways, and the report could make for some entertaining reading.

It's not just "investigating claims of fraud" post facto. It's also about increased security measures that provide one or both benefits: deterring fraud from happening in the first place, and/or generating more evidence such that future investigations may be more successful. The secret ballot has a great many reasons to exist as good policy, but as a starting point, it makes fraud investigations difficult.

Without more security measures, too many fraud investigations will end with "we did not find enough evidence to prove fraud." This leads immediately to the metaphorical response, "did you turn on the lights when you were looking?" I can generate a "no fraud detected" response by sitting on my ass and doing nothing. I can only be confident in the results of fraud investigations if the answer to "if there was fraud, would we have detected it?" is sufficiently high-probability.

Ok, which part of that do you think I disagree with? What position of mine do you take issue with?

The onus is on the winner to prove they won fair and square...

What sort of proof would you suggest? You're asking the winner of every election -- regardless of party -- to prove that voter fraud didn't happen. So, for example, what should Donald Trump have had to do after the 2016 election to justify taking power?

We could have a voting system where voting fraud is hard to commit and those who are caught trying face significant punishment. In this system, for example, if we find that 99% of people in several nursing homes voted even though dementia rates in these nursing homes should have made such high voting rates impossible, the FBI and elite media consider figuring out who committed this voting fraud to be a top priority.

That's one of those hard questions of politics because in any adversarial scenario involving millions of people there will always be assholes. That said, the absolute last thing you want to do if you want to project an air of legitimacy is attack any one who questions your legitimacy as a conspiracy theorist/existential threat to democracy. The louder you insist that there's nothing to see behind the curtain the more convinced people will be that you're hiding something.

The 2000 presidential election went to the Supreme court. Maybe 2016 and 2020 should have to.

That's one of those hard questions of politics because in any adversarial scenario involving millions of people there will always be assholes.

It's not just a matter of 'there will be assholes'. It's that motivated reasoning is extremely common - if you're mad you lost and work backward from the conclusion that you must have been cheated, nothing the winner can do will convince you. Even if you're well aware you lost fair and square this principle incentivizes you to act as if you believe you were cheated. It's essentially a heckler's veto for election results and seems unusable in practice.

The 2000 presidential election went to the Supreme court. Maybe 2016 and 2020 should have to.

I don't see how this is a remedy. The 2000 presidential election didn't go to the supreme court. A specific issue in Florida's election administration went to the supreme Court, and it did pretty much the opposite of convince people that the election outcome was proper. Fairly or not, the view of most Democrats was that Bush won because conservative justices put their thumb on the scale.

Then there's the question of what are we bringing before the court in 2016 and 2020? None of the serious accusations against Trump in 2016 really had any bearing on the legitimacy of the election from a process standpoint, and the 2020 voter fraud allegations are so broad and nebulous that there isn't really a thing you can bring up (you could pick through the various court cases brought by Trump to try and find something, but they're basically all laughable).

In contrast, actual voting fraud is extremely rare.

Actual voting fraud convictions are extremely rare. Actual voting fraud is unknown as the Republican party was unable to perform any investigation into it for 30+ years.

The consent decree you reference hardly prevented investigation of voter fraud. As described in the 2009 decision modifying the decree, said that the RNC agreed (a consent decree is exactly what the name implies):

(a) comply with all applicable state and federal laws protecting the rights of duly qualified citizens to vote for the candidate(s) of their choice;

(b) in the event that [it] produce[s] or place[s] any signs which are part of ballot security activities, cause said signs to disclose that they are authorized or sponsored by the [RNC];

(c) refrain from giving any directions to or permitting their agents or employees to remove or deface any lawfully printed and placed campaign materials or signs;

(d) refrain from giving any directions to or permitting their employees to campaign within restricted polling areas or to interrogate prospective voters as to their qualifications to vote prior to their entry to a polling place;

(e) refrain from undertaking any ballot security activities in polling places or election districts where the racial or ethnic composition of such districts is a factor in the decision to conduct, or the actual conduct of, such activities there and where a purpose or significant effect of such activities is to deter qualified voters from voting; and the conduct of such activities disproportionately in or directed toward such districts that have a substantial proportion of racial or ethnic [minority] populations shall be considered relevant evidence of such a factor and purpose;

(f) refrain from attiring or equipping agents, employees or other persons or permitting their agents or employees to be attired or equipped in a manner which creates the appearance that the individuals are performing official or governmental functions, including, but not limited to, refraining from wearing public or private law enforcement or security guard uniforms, using armbands, or carrying or displaying guns or badges except as required by law or regulation, in connection with any ballot security activities; and

(g) refrain from having private personnel deputized as law enforcement personnel in connection with ballot security activities

That's it.

btw I think it's funny people downvoted a factually true comment that took some effort to dig up, and didn't even bother refuting it

Sadly, that is par for the course.

the Republican party was unable to perform any investigation into it for 30+ years

What does this even mean? Are you assuming that voter fraud is only/primarily committed by Democrats? Because why would it be the Republican party's responsibility? And why/how were they "unable" to investigate the issue? What was law enforcement doing this whole time?

I believe that he’s referring to this. Per the article: “After more than three decades, Republicans are free of a federal court consent decree that sharply limited the Republican National Committee’s ability to challenge voters’ qualifications and target the kind of fraud President Donald Trump has alleged affected the 2016 presidential race.”

Presumably, republican organizations that aren't the "RNC" would be able to do that? And there are a ton of those.

Or you know, law enforcement. I'm guessing the counter-argument is that the consent decree that the RNC voluntarily agreed to had such a profound chilling effect that it spooked the RNC and their allies from even raising the issue, even after the decree expired in 2018.

that the RNC voluntarily agreed to

The RNC of 30 years prior, you mean? And aren’t consent decrees settlements to lawsuits? Seems pretty disingenuous to call it “voluntary” when the nigh-certain alternative was an even worse court-imposed judgment.

had such a profound chilling effect that it spooked the RNC and their allies from even raising the issue

Yeah, surely the prior three decades of forced atrophy had no effect on their ability to effectively discover and root out such things. Two years should be more than enough to get them up to speed! Not to mention that they obviously extensively raised the issue in 2020, their next earliest opportunity, much to your oft-voiced chagrin.

Seems pretty disingenuous to call it “voluntary” when the nigh-certain alternative was an even worse court-imposed judgment.

Why do you think the prospect of a worse court-imposed judgment was nigh-certain? Do you believe it's disingenuous to label voluntary any lawsuit settlement? I'm assuming the RNC is not a mom & pop business whose legs start shaking at the sight of a legal document. They had the resources to litigate the allegations and chose not to, I'm assuming because the chances they had a meritorious defense was dim.

Yeah, surely the prior three decades of forced atrophy had no effect on their ability to effectively discover and root out such things. Two years should be more than enough to get them up to speed! Not to mention that they obviously extensively raised the issue in 2020, their next earliest opportunity, much to your oft-voiced chagrin.

Right, we're back in familiar unfalsifiable country. If the RNC lose on an issue it's not because it wasn't meritorious but rather because the RNC is perpetually helpless and unable to defend its interests against an onslaught of relentless attacks. These types of excuses can be self-soothing as a coping mechanism, but they're not very persuasive to other people.

Why do you think the prospect of a worse court-imposed judgment was nigh-certain?

You've conveniently supplied an easy answer to your own question:

the chances they had a meritorious defense was [sic] dim

Whether or not they had a meritorious defense, I cannot say. Either way, settling because you are highly likely to lose at trial is not "voluntary" in any meaningful sense, any more than cutting off your own finger to avoid someone else cutting off two.

If the RNC lose on an issue it's not because it wasn't meritorious but rather because the RNC is perpetually helpless and unable to defend its interests against an onslaught of perpetual attacks

Again, I neither asserted nor implied anything as to the legal merits of the RNC's position. I simply drew the obvious inference regarding the effects of the settlement on their institutional capacity to effectively engage the relevant issue, entirely independently of whether that settlement was warranted.

These types of excuses can be self-soothing as a coping mechanism, but they're not very persuasive to other people.

I am not now, nor have I ever been, a member of the Republican Party. Now that I've sworn the oath, can I speak without further insinuations?

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was unable to perform any investigation into it for 30+ years.

As much as I am annoyed by the Democrats saying "there is no almost no fraud in the places it is easiest to look and someone would have to have shit for brains to try to commit fraud", it is the same annoyance when Republicans forget their own commissions set up to exactly find fraud and then do not find any.

It is like there is no room for nuance at all and it is all signalling.

The investigation in Wisconsin didn't turn up definitive individual examples of fraud, but it turned up a lot of sketchy evasion of normal laws with hundreds of thousands of people avoiding normal voter ID procedures in 2020. If you're ever bored, I recommend a full read through of the report. The lack of security measures makes it difficult to trace individually fraudulent actions, but the overall impression one gets is not that this is a particularly secure process.

The problem is that just because an event is rare, it can still be high-impact when it does occur.

I tend to hate that the Blue Tribe talking point states that "WIDESPREAD" voter fraud is a myth.

Because it doesn't have to be 'widespread' to have a significant effect on outcomes. Even accounting for how ambiguous that term is. If 50,000 fraudulent votes are cast in one precinct, that might not count since it wasn't taking place elsewhere?

And the rarity of it occurring in the past is not sufficient evidence that it won't be widespread in the future, if conditions change.

Of course, the Dems spent years alleging Russian 'interference' with the 2016 election despite no direct evidence, so I also don't think they've demonstrated good faith on the issue anyway.

  1. Surely "widespread" here means "significant"

  2. Of course there is evidence of Russian attempts to influence the 2016 election.

How many votes were flipped, added, or otherwise how was the actual outcome impacted by Russian interference?

No clue. Perhaps not at all, though of course some states were so close that even a small change might have been significant. But I did say only that there is evidence of attempts to influence the election. That seems pretty clear.

So was it or was it not appropriate for Democrats to claim Russia helped Trump win the election?

Especially one year+ after the fact?

Was that backed by the evidence or not?

If you are asking whether it is appropriate for anyone to intimate that the election was not legitimate: No. Absent something like hacked software or massive ballot box stuffing which is so extreme that it is reasonable to conclude that the vote count did not reflect how actual voters actually voted, it is not appropriate for anyone to claim that an election is not legitimate. So, eg, it is inappropriate to claim that the 2000 Bush victory was illegitimate (it is also unreasonable to make that claim, but that is a topic for another post).

If you are asking whether is it is reasonable to claim that Clinton would have won, absent the Russian efforts, let’s do the math. The closest states that Trump won were Michigan (0.3% margin); Wisconsin (1% margin); and Pennsylvania (1.2% margin). Had Clinton won all three, she would have won the election. So, the question becomes: Is it reasonable to claim that the Russian efforts caused 0.6% +1 of voters to switch from Clinton to Trump (half the largest margin, plus 1)? Based on my understanding of the poli sci literature, I am personally skeptical that campaigning, etc, have much of an effect on voters. And, it is my understanding that the volume of Russian intervention was, in the grand scheme of things, not all that large. So, I, personally, would not make that claim. Nevertheless, there are a lot of unknowns in this area, and given that the margins were so small, it seems to me that reasonable minds might differ on this question, so, no, it is not completely unreasonable to claim that Clinton would have won, absent the Russian efforts.

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Interference versus influence.

Whats the difference?

I don't understand your question.

Because it doesn't have to be 'widespread' to have a significant effect on outcomes. Even accounting for how ambiguous that term is. If 50,000 fraudulent votes are cast in one precinct, that might not count since it wasn't taking place elsewhere?

I am not aware of anyone pointing out 50 fraudulent votes within a single district, let alone 50,000. If something like 50,000 in a single district was something that had actually been shown to have happened, that argument would be a lot more relevant. Particularly if those 50,000 fraudulent votes came from individual people who should not have been allowed to vote individually deciding to vote.

Basically my issue with this is the type of fraudulent vote they're going after here isn't the type of fraud that I would expect to swing elections.

Of course, the Dems spent years alleging Russian 'interference' with the 2016 election despite no direct evidence, so I also don't think they've demonstrated good faith on the issue anyway.

Agreed.

Honestly I feel like all the talk of fraud is a distraction from things that are legal but have significant effects on voter turnout (e.g. polling place locations, canvassing, changing laws around mail-in ballots, etc).

Honestly I feel like all the talk of fraud is a distraction from things that are legal but have significant effects on voter turnout (e.g. polling place locations, canvassing, changing laws around mail-in ballots, etc).

To expand this point, a great number of things were done along these lines in 2020 that were not legal, and yet were not fraud either, e.g. officials changing rules regarding mail-in ballots without the legal authority to do so.

Cool, but I am not sure why this was a response to me.

Because you stated that Republican Commissions to find fraud tend not to find fraud.

Which is not really proof that we shouldn't place measures against fraud in place, or that Republicans are wrong to worry about it, even if they are obnoxious in their arguments.

Republican Commissions to find fraud

The guy I responded to said that Republicans were "unable to perform any investigation into it for 30+ years."

There are absolutely investigations into fraud. Your very sentence implies their existence!

I do NOT think that, as many Democrats say, that "looking for fraud and not finding any means we can stop looking."

But I also do NOT think that "if we look for fraud and and do not find enough to flip an election, that means we were just not permitted to investigate hard enough."

I suppose you can defend the heavy-handedness if your overriding priority is primarily to tamp down on the handful of actual voter fraud that takes place.

Perhaps we can gain some insight into Desantis' mindset by looking at the 2018 election:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2018_Florida_elections

Desantis won by the veritable skin of his teeth by 33,000 votes out of 8 million cast.

Rick Scott won his Senate race by about 10k votes.

Nikki Fried, the ONLY Democrat to win an executive office, won by 6,000 votes.

These are outcomes that could be swung, potentially, by one county in the state being manipulated or screwing up a count.

And guess what happened in Broward County in 2018?

https://archive.ph/Qc9Tt

Half of Broward County’s election precincts reported more ballots cast than the number of voters. Backlogs in processing mail ballots snarled reporting of results.

Confusing ballot design may have led thousands of voters to inadvertently skip an important contest.

Money was wasted on unneeded blank ballots, which weren’t adequately tracked and were eventually destroyed.

After election day, auditors found the recount was plagued by poor planning, inadequate staffing and equipment, and poor quality control.

And the money quote:

“We conclude that the November 2018 election was not efficiently and effectively conducted,” Melton wrote in to county commissioners. “Based on the totality of these issues, we are unable to provide assurance over the accuracy of the November 2018 election results as reported.”

Oh, and lets not forget that Rick Scott very directly claimed the election was being stolen. He and Stacey Abrams were two years ahead of Trump on applying this tactic.

Broward singlehandedly delayed the final outcome of multiple races and from the look of things had gaping holes in their system that COULD have been exploited. Oh, and it's heavily and reliably a blue county.

Actually, Palm Beach County also delayed it. Also another heavily blue area.

One of Desantis' first actions upon taking office was removing and replacing the Broward and Palm Beach County Election supervisors.

And, 'strangely,' Broward and Palm Beach County had no discrepancies or delays in the 2020 election. Further, Florida went more heavily Republican than usual, including more towards Trump than expected.

Broward County has almost 2 milllion citizens, this is not a small podunk area that we're talking about. Palm Beach has 1.5 million.

And while Desantis is going to walk to an easy victory this time, I can't imagine he wants to allow ANY room for doubt in the sanctity of the election should any races come down to the wire.

So in light of all this, perhaps it makes sense why Desantis might conclude that arresting 20 people is worth it for the possible upside of dissuading electoral shenanigans throughout the state?

Is dissuading a handful of bad actors worth putting some innocent people in jail? Worth dissuading large swathes of the population from legally voting? If so, say so.

I dunno. I think he cares very little that those twenty guys got misled, but cares a lot about ensuring he doesn't have to worry as much about catching electoral fraud after the fact.

So this action is a cheap way to possibly pre-emptively solve an issue that could arise.

Going along on the premise that because voter fraud has not been detected in the past and therefore is not likely to occur in the future seems like an unwise tactic in an environment as adversarial as this one.

It's not like there's not ample historical precedent of organized efforts to fraudulently influence election outcomes. Oh, also recent precedent.

In June 2022, the defendant admitted in court to bribing the Judge of Elections for the 39th Ward, 36th Division in South Philadelphia in a fraudulent scheme over several years. Myers admitted to bribing the election official to illegally add votes for certain candidates of their mutual political party in primary elections. Some of these candidates were individuals running for judicial office whose campaigns had hired Myers, and others were candidates for various federal, state, and local elective offices that Myers favored for a variety of reasons. Myers would solicit payments from his clients in the form of cash or checks as “consulting fees,” and then use portions of these funds to pay election officials to tamper with election results.

Just because it's 'rare' doesn't mean, when it happens, it won't have significant impact.

Can't imagine why you'd want to chance it in a state where races can be extremely close.

I haven't denied that election fraud by either side sometimes occurs in local elections, I don't think ymes has either. But - how on earth does arresting people who were told by the govt that they could vote help, at all, with that?

Also, the motte is "sometimes politicians tamper with the ballots, bribe election staff, etc". The bailey is "lots of illegal voters are tipping elections". You provided evidence that the former might've happened - desantis's actions only affect the latter.

It's probably also worth mentioning the 1997 Miami mayoral election, which was found by a judge to be fraudulent enough to throw out the election results. From that article:

In his written decision the judge said the absentee ballots cast in the election included those from people who did not vote, did not live in Miami or the district in which their ballot was cast, and did not qualify as unable to vote at the polls. Several ballots were even doctored to alter a vote for Mr. Carollo into one for Mr. Suarez, the judge noted.

''This scheme to defraud, literally and figuratively, stole the ballot from the hands of every honest voter in the city of Miami,'' Judge Wilson wrote.

In a similar case in 1993, a state judge also threw out the results of a mayoral election in the nearby city of Hialeah and ordered a new vote.

I don't have particular evidence that serious fraud has happened in the last decade, but the idea that American elections have always been sacrosanct and nobody could ever question their validity is IMO laughable.

This is the part that really gets me.

No, the United States is not a Banana Republic where incumbents routinely win with 105% of the vote.

No, most elections in Florida are not ultimately decided by 'the margin of fraud.'

But it is not a deniable fact that some elections in the U.S. HAVE been decided by fraud. Florida has had its share of pain in this regard.

So what possible justification is there for ignoring the risk that a fraudulent election could pop up in a key race and throw it all into doubt?

Disagree with the methods used, fine. But deny the underlying problem? Silly.

Can't imagine why you'd want to chance it in a state where races can be extremely close.

I don't disagree that this is the motivation behind the current system. Black voters are much more likely to be disenfranchised because of a felony record, and that demographic heavily votes Democrat. It's true that in total, there are way more white voters who lose their right to vote, but the voting pattern of the ex-con in general is not as lopsided as it is for the black demographic. So there's good reason to suspect that allowing felons to vote would benefit democrats, even slightly, but as you note there were enough close-call elections for that to be a real risk for republicans. Therefore, it made sense for the Republican legislature to do as much as it did to kneecap the implementation of the 2018 felony voting restoration amendment. Given the demographics, it was better for the republican party to keep as many felons disenfranchised as possible than to take a gamble with election results.

As for the rest of your post, I struggle to understand how it's relevant. You post about some election precincts in Florida having problems around keeping track of ballots. Assuming these were legitimate issues, I don't see how you solve that problem by targeting individual voters who are mislead by election officials. If I understand your argument correctly, you believe that prosecuting individual felons who were mislead by the government will have a collateral dissuasion effect on other (potentially higher-up) voter fraud that could happen, right? If so that seems to me to be needlessly attenuated. Why wouldn't these investigations just focus directly on the election officials responsible instead? What kind of messaging is sent by the government taking random nobodies to jail because they were dumb enough to believe something the government told them? I don't get it.

If so that seems to me to be needlessly attenuated. Why wouldn't these investigations just focus directly on the election officials responsible instead?

What makes you think they won't, or haven't?

Perhaps they've identified possible suspects but lack sufficient evidence for prosecution?

The Electoral Crimes Unit has only existed for LESS THAN A YEAR. This is the first election they'll be able to investigate directly while it happens.

How about this, if they DO make broad arrests of various public officials based on voter fraud allegations in 2022, would you then agree that this process was justified?

I am actually predicting the opposite, I expect very little fraud to occur in 2022.

But if it does, doesn't this, by your own standards stated herein, show that Desantis was doing the right thing?

What makes you think they won't, or haven't?

Because the problems with how voting restoration works are not going to go away, as they're baked into the system the Republican legislature intentionally chose to implement. The problems that exist with tabulating the records are also not the result of any malicious behavior. The 20 people who were arrested were given faulty information by local election officials. All those local officials did was rely on faulty information that the state gave them. And as far as I can tell, the people working for the state appear to be doing the best they can in tabulating this information. For an ex-felon to get erroneously registered to vote, no one involved in the chain needs to have acted maliciously. Again, the record-keeping problems are inherent with the system DeSantis and the Florida GOP wanted to see implemented, so there's absolutely no surprise that mistakes were made, this was precisely the issue that was litigated! Again, here's the 125-page court opinion that details the problems on Pg 53:

The case of one named plaintiff, Clifford Tyson, is illustrative. An extraordinarily competent and diligent financial manager in the office of the Hillsborough County Clerk of Court, with the assistance of several long-serving assistants, bulldogged Mr. Tyson’s case for perhaps 12 to 15 hours. The group had combined experience of over 100 years. They came up with what they believed to be the amount owed. But even with all that work, they were unable to explain discrepancies in the records.

And see page 65 about the workload the state estimated for itself:

Even without screening for unpaid LFOs, all the Divison’s caseworkers combined can process an average of just 57 registrations per day. The LFO work, standing alone, is likely to take at least as long as—probably much longer than—the review for murder and sexual offenses and for custody or supervision status. Even at 57 registrations per day, screening the 85,000 pending registrations will take 1,491 days. At 261 workdays per year, this is a little over 5 years and 8 months. The projected completion date, even if the Division starts turning out work today, and even if screening for LFOs doesn’t take longer than screening for murders, sexual offenses, custody, and supervision, is early in 2026. With a flood of additional registrations expected in this presidential election year, the anticipated completion date might well be pushed into the 2030s.

So this is a system that can eat up dozens of hours from experienced staff for a single registration and still give the wrong information. There's no connection to actual voter fraud here either, because so much resources are incinerated towards a doomed mission of trying to make sense of a mess that was entirely man-made. There's no reason for me to expect criminal conduct from officials to be at play here, so there's no reason for me to expect any officials to be arrested.

The only honest response from DeSantis here should've been to admit the problem. Any of the system's supporters should be willing to defend it on its merits, and explain why the headache is worthwhile and what important interests are advanced. Instead they're taking out their frustrations on random nobodies and putting them in jail.

So if we see arrests of actual public officials, with actual evidence that said public officials were involved in voter fraud schemes, would that be something you would support?

Would that justify Desantis' actions thus far?

Just saying. This is the first year the Election Crimes Unit will be active during an election.

If they're decent at their jobs, and some amount of fraud occurs, one would expect them to catch it.

Do you think they're going to keep on arresting only Felons who got misled about their voting status?

What is your prediction, here?

So if we see arrests of actual public officials, with actual evidence that said public officials were involved in voter fraud schemes, would that be something you would support?

Sure, but I don't see any reason to believe anyone related to the felony voting restoration process acted with criminal intent. So I don't see why this should be the focus of a law enforcement agencies. Arresting random nobodies does not advance the goal of addressing voter fraud. DeSantis is using the spectre of voter fraud as a pretext to scare a portion of the electorate he does not like away from voting.

What is your prediction, here?

I predict that the voter restoration process for felons will not get appreciably easier. I predict the backlog for processing felony registration will continue to pile up. I predict that out of the million or so felons who are potentially eligible to have their voting rights restored, very few will even bother to apply, and even fewer will get approved. I predict that even the ones that do get approved to vote, even fewer will bother voting because they'll have the threat of prosecution dangling over their head. I believe all these effects are intentional.

I'd be curious to know how other aspects of the felon demographic intersect with its racial makeup. Although they are disproportionately black, it's also disproportionately male and not college-educated. I suspect it'd still solidly favor Democrats, but less lopsidedly than someone might imagine.

[I'll just repost a comment I wrote on this]

There have been multiple studies, but it's difficult to get a clear picture because every state is different and there are a host of confounding variables.

It's relatively straightforward to get a good perspective from Vermont and Maine, because those are the only states that allow people currently incarcerated to vote from prison. The Marshall Project surveyed that population and did not find that they leaned heavily Democratic.

Elsewhere however, a common problem is that it is very difficult for felons to know exactly their right to vote is restored, so many of them don't bother trying even if they are legally allowed to. If you asked me right now to answer without looking up whether felons can vote in my state, I literally have no idea whether they regain their right upon release or after a judge restores it, and I'm a public defender who has processed hundreds of guilty pleas! All I know is that felony convictions take away your right to vote, and you get it back "someday".

Besides the lack of knowledge, felons face higher hardships (finding housing, finding employment, not committing more crimes, etc) than the general population, and their appetite for voting is a fairly low priority. You can see why something as heavily publicized as a referendum on a constitutional amendment for voting right restoration would draw a lot of attention and get people with convictions coming out of the woodwork to register. In a state that is as purple as Florida and with razor-sharp electoral margins, this is bound to be a catastrophic risk that just isn't worth it for the party that expects the short-end of the stick.

Vermont and Maine are ~95% white. Their state prison populations are overwhelmingly white. It's not reasonable to infer that the same political preferences follow for the nationwide prison population.

If you read the article, the prison population was 'roughly half' nonwhite. It also claims the POCs were "20 percent identifying as black, 14 percent as Latino, 17 percent as Native American and 19 percent as Asian or other races" (which adds up to 70%?), and that they polled at 20% trump / 30% novote / 50% dem, while whites 40% trump / 25% novote / 35% dem.

Then at least one of three possibilities must hold true:

  1. The interviewed population was far broader than Vermont and Maine state prisoners.

  2. Serious cherry-picking of interviewees took place.

  3. Vermont and/or Maine have diversity quotas for their prisoner population; gangs of New England slavers roam the country to fill said quotas.

Seriously, I have a hard time picturing any state except maybe Alaska with that kind of minority breakdown in its prison population.

I agree, and would never claim otherwise. It might still be a useful sample if compared against that specific state's average. But besides that my main point is that we don't know much on this topic, and finding out more information is very hard.

Half of Broward County’s election precincts reported more ballots cast than the number of voters.

I stopped reading here because I had to look this up.

This is not "there are 4000 voters in this county, but 4100 ballots were cast."

This is "212 people were logged as submitting a vote at this voting center, but 213 ballots were in the machines."

So someone goofed up, or someone stuffed a ballot. This is distributed across 293 precincts, with a total of 885 extra ballots.

'strangely,' Broward and Palm Beach County had no discrepancies or delays in the 2020 election

It sounds like Florida fixed the problems. Which is what is supposed to happen when an auditor shows problems! That is not "strange" at all!

The systems to keep the books aligned have gotten much better. The election I observed in Florida (very boring!) had numbers on each ballot so if one just "showed up" it would be recognized. Was it someone playing games or was it normal human error? Good question. The new system stops both accidentals and purposeful unaccounted ballots, so either way I am happy it is in place.

Oh, and lets not forget that Rick Scott very directly claimed the election was being stolen. He and Stacey Abrams were two years ahead of Trump on applying this tactic.

This is important to remember.

It sounds like Florida fixed the problems.

Uh, specifically Desantis fixed the problems. He probably would have done more investigation into what actually happened but he didn't take office until months after the fact.

Which is why the current measures shouldn't be surprising in the least. Because if an election does get compromised sufficiently, it is extremely hard to fix things after the fact.

Which Florida knows full well from the 2000 election.

Desantis has taken a series of seemingly low-cost steps to prevent some potentially VERY high cost issues from arising.

Desantis has taken a series of seemingly low-cost steps to prevent some potentially VERY high cost issues from arising.

...and that is precisely why I suspect the word has gone out on whatever the current iteration of Journo-list is that DeSantis must be undermined at every opportunity. He is the potential nightmare scenario what many were warning about back in 2017, a "Trump" without Trump's baggage.

Its weird because while the Dems seem to correctly identify that Desantis is their single largest threat in 2024, they also seem to focus on his popularity and Trump-like qualities as the biggest danger.

They seem HORRIBLE at actually modelling him as a threat. Because if they could, they'd realize that what makes him really dangerous to them is the fact that he doesn't just do things for their object-level effects. He wants to win on the meta level, and isn't just focused on pumping his personal image or winning the next election. He is explicitly NOT Trump-like in this specific way, which is to say he won't make the same mistakes as Trump.

The lack of apparent baggage, of course, means their normal tactics are likely to fail, too. Ironically, their biggest hope is that a Desantis- Trump battle fractures the GOP and prevents either from getting the nom.

My impression is that Desantis first needed to be undermined because he bucked the narrative on Covid policy. No mask mandates, no vax mandates, he didn't close schools and businesses. Maybe it's just b/c I'm in public health, but I first remember hearing about Desantis when the consensus was that Florida MUST be cooking the books on their Covid numbers because his reckless leadership was obviously killing Grandma. And if the data disagree, the data must be lies..

surely desantis is being 'undermined' because democrats dislike republicans, as usual, similar to how republicans 'undermine' biden, not specifically because of voter fraud?

Any evidence here? Did the past journo-list leaks have any instances of "this guy is cracking down on voter fraud! better get him, we depend on illegal voters!" or even something vaguely similar to that?

These are outcomes that could be swung, potentially, by one county in the state being manipulated or screwing up a count... It's not like there's not ample historical precedent of organized efforts to influence voter outcomes. Oh, also recent precedent. Can't imagine why you'd want to chance it in a state where races can be extremely close.

Those are, of course, organized efforts. Individual acts of fraudulent voting don't seem to be a major vector for attacks on election integrity; although they certainly happen, it's always marginal and doesn't have a huge partisan slant. The actual vector, both historically and in the present day, is actions by election officials and professionals.

Imagine a world where instead of this fiasco, DeSantis investigated Palm Beach County officials and came up with a ream of evidence that they manipulated the election. Would that have been more significant than this showboating, both in terms of ensuring election integrity and in terms of securing his political future?

Imagine a world where instead of this fiasco, DeSantis investigated Palm Beach County officials and came up with a ream of evidence that they manipulated the election.

Given that he's formed a branch of the State Law Enforcement specifically to investigate election crimes, I'd guess the odds of such an investigation both taking place and finding evidence if fraud did occur is substantially higher than it was before.

Likewise, this would imply that any officials who might have been considering it are much less likely to try it.

It'd be a bit hard for him to order an investigation into such a problem if it occurred in 2018 seeing as he didn't take office until months after the election.

Firing the Palm Beach County Election Supervisor was a measure he took to reduce the risk of it happening. So was the formation of the election crimes unit. So was the announcement of these arrests.

Not sure why this is hard to grok.

Maybe it works maybe it doesn't, but I don't find the motive behind it 'bewildering' at all.

Given that he's formed a branch of the State Law Enforcement specifically to investigate election crimes, I'd guess the odds of such an investigation both taking place and finding evidence if fraud did occur is substantially higher than it was before.

I mean, the motivation behind forming this agency was as a response to completely delusional claims of voter fraud that are unfortunately held by a significant portion of the electorate. I get that DeSantis is a politician that has to cater to the people who vote for him (no matter how crazy they are), so I can't fault him too much on this point. However, it does undercut the notion that this necessarily means it's an earnest and non-crazy investigative endeavor. It's possible that it was just put in place for the sake of appeasing the louder loons. Of course this doesn't mean that the agency is incapable of doing honest police work, but it definitely doesn't augur well that they chose — as their opening salvo — to go after random nobodies who are guilty of being misled by their government.

but it definitely doesn't augur well that they chose — as their opening salvo — to go after random nobodies who are guilty of being misled by their government.

The Election Crimes Unit has been in existence for LESS THAN A YEAR.

If they're going to take down Public Officials, (which, being honest, I do not predict will happen!) it behooves them to build a very strong case, which means gathering evidence, which takes time. And of course this election would be their first chance to catch it in action.

So taking an easy early 'win' in hopes of deterring other actors makes sense as an opening salvo in this context.

I responded to this here.

I don't see the win here (aside from improving DeSantis' electoral chances), because the problem with faulty record-keeping was the main argument against how Florida decided to implement Amendment 4. None of the issues are predicated on criminal behavior by the officials. The fact that the system made mistakes about voter registration was exactly what was predicted, and it's rich for the government to take out its frustrations on the victims of this system.

I mean, the motivation behind forming this agency was as a response to completely delusional claims of voter fraud that are unfortunately held by a significant portion of the electorate.

Objection! Low effort consensus building which you have not only failed to demonstrate, but you have failed to uphold in this very day's update regarding Desantis's domestic political context, in which multiple contemporary contexts of conspiracy to commit voter fraud, potential evidence of fraudulant voting, and systemic weakness for fraud have been noted without sufficient rebuttal. That you, and even a significant portion of the American electorate, insist that claims of voter fraud are completely delusional and dismiss other people's reasons and perspectives does not, in fact, make those other people unreasonable or completely delusional.

Given your past ruts on this topic with similar tendencies of not acknowledging contrary evidence, I would submit you are not objective on this topic, given your frequent shills for your private substack and the financial interests in catering to your desired target audience I would submit you are not impartial, and given some of your past clunkers on understanding other people's viewpoints even when described to you, I would submit you lack the credibility to be a trustworthy evaluator of the motivations of your outgroup, especially on topics in which you have both past bad history and current financial incentives to defend dumping on your outgroup.

That you, and even a significant portion of the American electorate

Most of the american electorate on both sides wouldn't know a motte from a pot, so that's a weird objection. Most voters vote for a combination of 'my friends/family vote this way' and really strange idiosyncratic reasons, and their positions on any specific issue are much worse. I don't see what that has to do with ymeskhout's precise and very long arguments

I would submit you are not objective on this topic, given your frequent shills for your private substack and the financial interests in catering to your desired target audience

Wouldn't he just not post on what a journo could call a "alt-right dogwhistle reactionary forum" in that case?

you have failed to uphold in this very day's update regarding Desantis's domestic political context, in which multiple contemporary contexts of conspiracy to commit voter fraud, potential evidence of fraudulant voting, and systemic weakness for fraud have been noted without sufficient rebuttal

But I did, in the same post above you're replying to. If DeSantis was serious about actual voter fraud, I don't have an explanation for why he'd choose to make a public spectacle of people who were misled by his administration and dragging them to jail.

Given your past ruts on this topic with similar tendencies of not acknowledging contrary evidence...

We've been over this so so many times by now, and this exchange from May 2021 remains the most illustrative. I ask questions and your response is along the lines that it's not your job to educate me. Ok, fine, I accept that it's not your job, but I have no idea what exactly you expect of me. I have no idea how I'd even try to parody your position if I wanted, because you repeatedly refuse to state what it is besides a generalized complaint! If I said "Trump's election fraud allegations were true, or at least were made in good faith" you'd accuse me of strawmanning or whatever and then darkly hint that I am somehow missing the point or that I am intentionally ignoring the real and totally valid election fraud theories that apparently exist somewhere out there.

I get that you don't like it when I talk about the 2020 election fraud theories, you've made that abundantly clear! What I don't get is why you keep wasting time on this beat. You either have specific arguments to make or you don't. If you don't have any, or you just refuse to make them out of principle, vaguely complaining is not going to accomplish anything. I'm not a mind reader, and you can't expect me to respond to arguments you choose to keep cloistered in your head.

given your frequent shills for your private substack and the financial interests in catering to your desired target audience I would submit you are not impartial

Well, you caught me. The dozens of subscribers paying $0 a month pose a grave liability to my impartiality. I hope my reputation can someday recover.

But I did, in the same post above you're replying to. If DeSantis was serious about actual voter fraud, I don't have an explanation for why he'd choose to make a public spectacle of people who were misled by his administration and dragging them to jail.

This would be credibility-boosting confession of failure, were it not intended to pretend to humility.

Given your past ruts on this topic with similar tendencies of not acknowledging contrary evidence...

We've been over this so so many times by now, and this exchange from May 2021 remains the most illustrative. I ask questions and your response is along the lines that it's not your job to educate me.

Oh, hey, look- linking to an argument that charged you with conflating information sets to dismiss the grounding of other people's prior arguments as non-existent...

You either have specific arguments to make or you don't.

...to conflate information sets to dismiss the grounding of other people's prior arguments as non-existent.

When the charge is you dismiss previous arguments and treat them as having never existed, dismissing previous arguments to treat them as having never existed is certainly illustrative, but also demonstrative.

I get that you don't like it when I talk about the 2020 election fraud theories, you've made that abundantly clear! What I don't get is why you keep wasting time on this beat.

Raising attention to your poor conduct and worse competencies on this topic is not time wasted.

Your projecting your opinions onto other people's evaluations is one of your consistent analytic flaws that deserves noting to warn others not already familiar with your tendencies.

If you don't have any, or you just refuse to make them out of principle, vaguely complaining is not going to accomplish anything. I'm not a mind reader, and you can't expect me to respond to arguments you choose to keep cloistered in your head.

Based on your past- and still present- conduct, I don't expect you to respond to arguments in good faith at all, and I consider it sound reminder to newer members of the community to be aware of this for the same reason the best advice to give anyone during the Julius saga was to warn those unfamiliar to move on.

given your frequent shills for your private substack and the financial interests in catering to your desired target audience I would submit you are not impartial

Well, you caught me. The dozens of subscribers paying $0 a month pose a grave liability to my impartiality. I hope my reputation can someday recover.

This, too, would be credibility-boosting confession of failure, were it not intended to pretend to humility.

Also, you're a lawyer.

Your responses, more so than anyone else's in this community, continues to be the greatest source of inscrutability for me. Besides the vague and generalized discontent, I continue to have no idea what you're talking about, and I don't understand if this is just a language issue or an indication of a less obvious chasm or something else entirely.

If anyone besides Dean is capable of summarizing to me the specific concerns he holds, that would be really helpful.

Edit: I've been trying to organize a Bailey episode about the 2020 election with Shakesneer for a few months now. If you think a real-time discussion would be helpful and want to team up with him, let me know!

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On The Motte, always attempt to remain inside your defensible territory, even if you are not being pressed.


New post guidelines

If you're posting something that isn't related to the culture war, we encourage you to post a thread for it. A submission statement is highly appreciated, but isn't necessary for text posts or links to largely-text posts such as blogs or news articles; if we're unsure of the value of your post, we might remove it until you add a submission statement. A submission statement is required for non-text sources (videos, podcasts, images).

Culture war posts go in the culture war thread; all links must either include a submission statement or significant commentary. Bare links without those will be removed.

If in doubt, please post it!


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