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True The Vote, the group behind the wildly popular "2000 Mules" film that purported to document extensive election fraud in Georgia, has admitted to a judge that it doesn't have evidence to back its claims.
Y'all know I love my hobby horse, even if it's beaten into an absolute paste, and I admit at having ongoing puzzlement as to why 2020 stolen election claims retain so much cachet among republican voters and officials. TTV has a pattern of making explosive allegations of election fraud only to then do whatever it takes to resist providing supporting evidence. TTV has lied about working with the FBI and also refused to hand over the evidence they claimed to have to Arizona authorities. In Georgia, TTV went as far as filing formal complaints with the state, only to then try to withdraw their complaints when the state asked for evidence.
The founder of TTV was also briefly jailed for contempt in 2022 because of her refusal to hand over information in a defamation lawsuit where TTV claimed an election software provider was using unsecured servers in China.Edit: @Walterodim looked into this below and I agree the circumstances are too bizarre to draw any conclusions about the founder's intentions.I have a theory I'm eager to have challenged, and it's a theory I believe precisely explains TTV's behavior: TTV is lying. My operating assumption is that if someone uncovers extensive evidence of election fraud, they would do whatever they can to assist law enforcement and other interested parties in fixing this fraud. TTV does not do this, and the reason they engage in obstinate behavior when asked to provide evidence is because they're lying about having found evidence of election fraud. It's true that they file formal complaints with authorities, but their goal is to add a patina of legitimacy to their overall allegations. TTV's overriding motivation is grifting: there is significant demand within the conservative media ecosystem for stolen election affirmations, and anyone who supplies it stands to profit both financially as well as politically. We don't have direct financial statements but we can glean the potential profitability from how 2000 Mules initially cost $29.99 to watch online, and the millions in fundraising directed towards TTV (including a donor who sued to get his $2.5 million back). There's also a political gain because Trump remains the de facto leader of the conservative movement, and affirming his 2020 stolen election claims is a practical requirement for remaining within the sphere.
I know this topic instigates a lot of ire and downvotes, but I would be very interested to hear substantive reasons for why my theory is faulty or unreasonable! I believe I transparently outlined my premises and the connective logic in the above paragraph, so the best way to challenge my conclusion could be either to dispute a premise, or to rebut any logical deduction I relied on. You could also do this by pointing out anything that is inconsistent with my theory. So for example if we were talking about how "John murdered Jane", something inconsistent with that claim could be "John was giving a speech at the time of Jane's murder". I would also request that you first check if any of your rebuttals are an example of 'belief in belief' or otherwise replaying the 'dragon in my garage' unfalsifiability cocoon. The best way to guard against this trap would be to explain why your preferred explanation fits the facts better than mine, and also to proactively provide a threshold for when you'd agree that TTV is indeed just lying.
I'm excited for the responses!
Edit: I forgot I should've mentioned this, but it would be really helpful if responses avoided motte-and-bailey diversions. This post is about TTV and their efforts specifically, and though I believe stolen election claims are very poor quality in general, I'm not making the argument that "TTV is lying, ergo other stolen election claims are also bullshit". I think there are some related questions worth contemplating (namely why TTV got so much attention and credulity from broader conservative movement if TTV were indeed lying) but changing the subject isn't responsive to a topic about TTV. If anyone insists on wanting to talk about something else, it would be helpful if there's an acknowledgement about TTV's claims specifically. For example, it can take the format of "Yes, it does appear that TTV is indeed lying but..."
It’s really just a motte-and-bailey.
These guys seem to exaggerate fudge provable fraud.
This survey caught my eye. It’s probably not perfect but it showed 20% of mail-in-voters admitted to some kind of voting fraud.
https://heartland.org/opinion/heartland-rasmussen-poll-one-in-five-mail-in-voters-admit-to-committing-at-least-one-kind-of-voter-fraud-during-2020-election/
It’s by no means a perfect survey. But I think real world awareness is going to tell you the secret ballot was violated and people voted in groups. That’s fraud.
My guess is this kind of fraud likely did tip the election but would be nearly impossible to detect for a court.
I’ve also been looking into Douglas Murray’s Real Education and he makes good points that half the population is below average and a large percentage can only do rudimentary reading comprehension and arithmetic. Truthfully in politics if you want to win you still need a lot of votes from these people. Whatever you want to call it grifting, causing outrage to get people mad enough to vote, etc you need to do it. The left will do it too. As they do with race relations. Flood the zone with accusations and get your people voting. Both sides have dumb people.
Also I’d note there does seem to be some evidence the illegal who shot up the Houston Church had voted but I haven’t dug in enough to verify.
Illegals also count for population which changes government funding, house seats, and electoral college votes. Which feels like another form of voting fraud to me.
That Rasmussen survey is crap. Basically all of the described conduct can be legal depending on jurisdiction. Maybe you think it's all colloquially fraud, but that does not make it illegal. Just using my own state as an example:
That's totally legal in my state. If you are a US citizen living abroad and maintain a residence in Washington state you're allowed to continue voting at that residence. Or even if you live more permanently in another state but have not registered to vote in that state, you can continue voting at your Washington residence.
This is legal in many jurisdictions, including mine, when the voter in question has a disability. From the AARP guide for Washington state:
This also goes to the next Rasmussen question about signing a ballot for a friend or family member. Rasmussen makes it sound nefarious by combining "with or without" their permission but that distinction is pretty important! With permission it can be totally legal.
Again the equivocation between "pay" and a "reward." If someone offers you a sticker for voting, is that a "reward?" Would it be "fraud?" Note also that it is being offered for voting, not for any particular candidate.
I’ll agree I have a concern with the survey. But since you used crap. I’d say the same about your explanations.
You very well know 17% of voters do not have Washington St residence and live in Europe. Even during COVID that isn’t true. My critique would be the number is obviously too high to be believable and indicates trolling. Even peak work from anywhere COVID wasn’t going to close to that.
Yes. Disabilities exists. But 15-20% of voters do not have those disabilities.
I’m not entirely sure what to think of this polls issues. Some of the data seems implausible. But the explanations you are using is what I would call misinformation by giving a true exception. But those reasons don’t seem to be numerically close to same values.
I do think there was a lot of fraud with regards to people sharing answers and helping with a ballot. It’s illegal to campaign at the poll booth in person so I assume that is also illegal when voting at home. And if it’s not illegal I would still call that fraud.
I don't think it's something to be worried about if someone lets a family member fill out their ballot for them. Maybe it's illegal, but when you're saying that an election is fraudulent, and what you mean is "some people illegally let their spouses fill out their ballot for them," that's not what it sounds like you were saying, and it's not what people care about.
I definitely care about that. Perhaps because I think it’s sways elections.
Let’s say you work at Disney. You bs a lot of corporate BS. Everyone is voting at work and showing each other their ballots. Everyone expect you to do the same. Do you think a guy who votes Trump is getting promoted? That is more extreme but this did happen within families. We already knew that Trump outperforms his polling so there were a lot of quiet Trump voters.
For a lot of voting rules a good question is whether each side fights over them so much if they didn’t think they mattered. If their isn’t fraud why wont Dems get rid of extensive mail-in voting unless they think it’s a huge benefit to them.
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