[codingprograms]

Election rules were changed in unorthodox ways due to a global pandemic. You have to admit that the election was unlike any other on recent memory.

The losing side, given this unorthodox election, wanted some validation of results, as well as to legally challenge the way they were done (PA's changes).

The response was one of derision and essentially shutting out the right from discourse. No effort was made a conciliation. This had the predictable effect of galvanizing people that there was indeed fraud.

If you think that these people had no reason to be angry, you aren't paying attention. If you can understand the frustrations and lead up to the BLM movement, but don't even want to pay lip service to this, you are either a horrible person or stupid. Take your pick: evil, ignorant, or both?

[loceng]

There are poll watchers from both parties - it's a role/position you apply beforehand to become a poll watcher. Their arrogance of the system, where in fact they all themselves could become poll watchers to make sure there isn't fraud, isn't a valid reason for them to be angry - though it's understandable that they would be angry with the propaganda they've been fed, when instead of they were told that there were Republican poll watchers at ALL of the polling stations - then their reaction would be "oh.. okay." Maybe if they didn't believe it then they themselves could work as a poll watcher to see for themselves. Likewise there were people saying exactly what I have - however it's highly unlikely the people watching Fox News (or other) would be putting that messages out, so who's at blame? Arguably the treasonous Republicans trying to start a civil war and mainstream media channels who are inciting themselves. In this circumstance, yes, it's predictable - but please do tell how you reach the ignorant people who will only listen to very specific sources and have primed for years, decades, to think Democrats are evil - and that the election is rigged, that is it's only rigged if their pick doesn't win.

[jerkstate]

What is the purpose of a poll observer? I’ve read some of the affidavits, and many are immaterial, but some do raise concern. For example from a Bloomberg article:

> Their affidavits raise a series of observations where the effect is not clear. For instance, one Republican poll challenger, Articia Bomer, said she saw 27 ballots inserted into a counting machine “at least five times.” An affidavit by a poll watcher named Brett Kinney said he witnessed a worker reach into an envelope marked “invalid ballots” and “process them with valid ballots.”

Why would this happen? Can we have an explanation that explains why this is standard operating procedure? Assuming good faith on the part of everyone, an explanation like “each ballot has a unique bar code and a misread would require re-reading, on a misread this red light on the scanner would light up and the ballot should be re-scanned until the green light lights, but even if the ballot is scanned successfully multiple times it would not be counted more than once” - maybe there is an explanation like this out there but I haven’t found it, only repeated insistence from every mainstream media outlet that there is no evidence of voter fraud.

Furthermore, there are credible examples of observers being disenfranchised - again, many not so credible (for example, building at capacity when there are already plenty of bipartisan observers, or “feeling intimidated” or whatever). But in Fulton County, observers insist that they were told by election officials that counting is over for the night, and that’s backed up by news reports from election night (https://abcnews.go.com/Politics/pipe-bursts-atlanta-arena-ca...) and then they continue counting - but now the election officials insist that nobody was told that counting was over for the night even though ABC reported that a specific responsible person, Regina Waller, had said so. Who is wrong? There are also many reports from several states where observers were kept 6 to 25 feet away or only able to watch the counts through a video monitor, which doesn’t seem like it would allow them to really observe anything. Many of the court cases were thrown out due to lack of evidence that the election outcome was altered - because affidavits aren’t investigations, they of course can’t show evidence of that. I have heard plenty of rebuttals for some of the more far fetched fraud theories, but it still seems to me that observer rights need to be bolstered, including a more thorough explanation of procedures, a way to document and address/explain exceptions in the public view. However, there does need to be a way to filter out the specious complaints, because any system where exceptions require handling can be DDoSed.

So while there is a lot of easily debunked, meaningless, agitating noise, there are also still some valid, unexplained concerns. I think you are right that a lot of people just won’t believe it no matter what, but I also think a lot of reasonable people are still feeling pretty uneasy about this election, and the fact that a couple dozen radicals shut down the last chance for transparency for 75 million voters ought to concern everyone.

[filoeleven]

PA’s changes were not challenged when they were first signed into law in 2019. That was the time to act if there was a good-faith concern about them. The fact that the GOP waited until it would cause problems with votes already counted / in transit, and therefore undermine faith in the election, is further evidence that that was their goal in the first place.

[codingprograms]

It’s a violation of the constitution for an individual state to change voting laws like that

[pseudalopex]

"The Times, Places and Manner of holding Elections for Senators and Representatives, shall be prescribed in each State by the Legislature thereof; but the Congress may at any time by Law make or alter such Regulations, except as to the Places of chusing Senators."

Which federal law do you think they violated?

[mcv]

Then they need to challenge it at the time they are changed, and not after the election regulated by those laws have already happened. You could still challenge them now, but it would flagrant assault on democratic principles to use this as an excuse to not count votes cast according to these rules.

There have been plenty of much more questionable elections in the past. 2000 is a big one. In 2004 there were a lot of hints that Diebold voting machines favoured Republican candidates. Still, those elections stood, because the votes had already been cast. If rules are unfair, change them, but don't demand the election gets blindly thrown your way for no good reason.

[ardy42]

> It’s a violation of the constitution for an individual state to change voting laws like that

I mean, while we're making stuff up, lets say it's a violation of the constitution to allow for a Democratic government. Article IV, Section 4 requires Republican party rule. /s

[camel_Snake]

show me where.

[switch007]

How did the right get “shut out”? The entirety of the right? That to me seems a quite hilarious claim when the President up until quite recently had a huge platform on Twitter.

Validation of the result? Beyond all the official counts and recounts? I’m confused.

Also your last paragraph was completely uncalled for.

[zo1]

One can't point to a definitive set of facts that proves the right was "shut out" completely. Because they weren't all shut out and they weren't (for now) supposedly singled-out and "shut out" because they republican/right-leaning. They had "plausible" and "official" reasons for doing the things they did in each case.

What did occur was a lot of little things and disparate things that had a huge dampening effect on the mobilization of discussion and questioning of details. And this has been happening for way before the election results were even out, it's been going on for years with a steady escalation.

There was also the constant repetitive narrative pushing, specific language and tone by reporters, activists and politicians that essentially gave "official" and "quotable" legitimacy to potentially-questionable election results, and gave plausible excuses/cover to de-legitimize and conspiracy-blame any criticisms of the election results. This stuff is downright scary, and a good chunk of the people not seeing it are the ones that are (for now) in the "good books" of whoever is overall in charge of driving the narrative and controlling public discourse. Right now, the left/Democratic party is in said good books.

Look how the discussion is so widely and suddenly revolving around conflating this protest with insurrection even though it was essentially a fart in the grand scheme of things, and implying that there is a huge overlap between right/republican/conservative individuals and "racists/white-supremacists". It's laying the ground-work to make it legitimate and acceptable to assume/claim that republicans are racists among other things. Next up we'll have dehumanization, firings and overall de-platforming because said protestors were "terrorists" due to their participation. The event will be labelled as a "coup attempt" and the storming of the building was a "terrorist attack". And if you question any of these accepted facts (because hey all news reports labelled it as such) you too will be de-platformed, ostracized and called a terrorist-sympathizer or a "something-denier" (hint look at the anti covid-lockdown protests for an example).

[mcv]

This was not a protest, and not a fart "in the grand scheme of things". This was a direct assault on democracy. They were explicitly hunting down specific politicians (Pelosi and Pence, for example), and several were armed with weapons, explosives, tie wraps, and by all evidence, it looks like they intended to hurt or abduct people. It was a coup and should be treated as such. Everybody outside the US sees it as such, and the US would see it that way had this happened in another country. The US would see it that way if these rioters had been black. The only reason many people don't see it that way is because they were white and right-wing, act like they own the place, and have always been able to get away with that. The US has a blind spot to right-wing terrorism.

The process you talk about in your first paragraphs: that some people get subtly shut out of the political process, does happen, but it happens mostly to poor people, black people, and university students. Various forms of voting suppression are aimed at preventing them from voting. Several voter ID laws require forms of ID that conservatives are more likely to have. For example, a gun license would be valid, while a student ID card wouldn't.

Also note the difference in DC police response against the BLM protests in the summer versus this more protest.

[mcv]

This is a misrepresentation. They got that validation. It was addressed in courts, but they expected thousands of voters to have their votes ignored, and the courts found that unacceptable.

Then the losing side didn't accept the results from the courts, and that's where it became a ridiculous circus. Also, the demands were ridiculously out of proportion. In the end, because they couldn't get their way, they tried to overthrow the legal result of the election and threatened members of Congress with serious harm.

> "No effort was made a conciliation."

They never tried. They demanded a total surrender of democracy to their demands. That is completely unacceptable. You can't compromise with something like that.

The reason these people were angry is simple: they were lied to and manipulated by media and politicians manipulating them to do their dirty work. The lived in an ecosystem of lies that kept telling them they should be angry, so they were. The lies they believed have been refuted time and time again, but they did not tolerate reason.

> "evil, ignorant, or both?"

Considering how eager they were to hurt people, they definitely check the evil box. It's hard to believe they honestly believed the lies, but it appears that some of them definitely did. But they must have been unbelievably gullible to take it this far.

I really, really hope they will finally learn that their leaders and media have constantly fed them lies; lies that they keep repeating to each other, and I hope they stop listening to them.

But there is no way to compromise with their attitude. You can't say: alright, let's have some lies and some truth. Let's have some freedom and some oppression. Some democracy and some autocracy. A movement that is so eager to hurt people our of sheer hatred should not set the political direction of a country.

This was the Beer Hall Putsch. It's good it failed, but it needs to have consequences. The US can't allow this to happen again.

[Fargren]

They had their day(s) in court. They were heard out. There were recounts. What else would have been needed? Was there any amicable resolution that didn't involve Trump getting elected? If the alternatives are Trump is elected or there is violence, this is not democracy.

[mberning]

You are 100% correct. The attitude on display in the parent comment is the same type of rhetoric you see everywhere, and it is not winning over anybody “on the other side”.