[awb]

So the theory is that the Democrats while out of power stole the election and then when in power didn’t steal it?

Here’s another theory: the candidate with betting polling in 2020 won and the candidate with better polling in 2024 won.

[xhkkffbf]

I believe most of the accusations about 2020 were centered in places where the Democrats were in power like Philadelphia and its suburbs.

Control of the WH is immaterial because all voting is controlled by the states or local municipalities.

Another part is that the Republicans were much more prepared this time to stop the alleged fraud before it happened. They had lawyers ready to protest immediately when election judges were locked out of counting rooms or when counting stopped. They made sure they had enough election judges for all precincts and sometimes they set up cameras to count the number of voters entering the site.

Perhaps your point about polling is still the best answer

[awb]

Sure, but the FBI and DOJ still have the authority (and mandate) to detect and prevent election fraud, and certainly to the scale that was alleged.

Deciding between the effort required for a political opponent to run a massive multi-state voter fraud conspiracy under your nose and the effort required for an over-the-top personality to make a wild accusation that was never proven in court, I think we can consult Occam’s Razor.

[xhkkffbf]

I believe that many of the court battles revolved around issues like "standing", not whether there was any substance to the matter. So it's not really fair to put any value in whether the accusations were "proven in court" because the courts never focused on the accusations themselves.

[awb]

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Post-election_lawsuits_relat...

62 lawsuits in 9 states, 30 dismissed on merits, several from Trump appointed judges.

My recollection is that when the cases went to court, the lawyers backed away from claims of fraud: https://time.com/5914377/donald-trump-no-evidence-fraud/

Trump was consistently losing in all polls in 2020.

538 had Trump’s odds at 10%: https://projects.fivethirtyeight.com/2020-election-forecast/

Betting markets had him at ~35%: https://www.realclearpolitics.com/elections/betting_odds/202...

Biden was favored in MI, WI, NV, PA, AZ, FL, NC and GA on Election Day meaning he had many paths to victory.

And polls were pretty accurate for Biden:

State - Polling Avg. (Result)

MI - 51.2% (50.6%)

WI - 52.1% (49.5%)

NV - 49.7% (50.1%)

PA - 50.2% (49.9%)

AZ - 48.7% (49.4%)

FL - 49.1% (47.9%)

NC - 48.9% (48.6%)

GA - 48.5% (49.5%)

The surprise wasn’t that Trump lost in 2020, is was that based on polling averages that he didn’t lose by more.

[xhkkffbf]

I have no real desire to work through all of this again. It was 4 years ago. Alas, all of your numbers aren't so convincing to me. As we saw with this last go around, you could find numbers from pollsters that predicted either outcome. So I don't know where you got them and I'm not interested in parsing whatever you have to say.

I do know that many of the "merits" you cite were never litigated. Were there any cases where the court granted discovery? So how can anyone guess at what a court would decide about the matter? Many of the news articles I read at the time suggested that the courts were just not interested in opening up cans of worms.

[awb]

Ok, I’m actually curious why folks think the 2020 election was stolen. I don’t know of any credible reporting on it.

The polling average numbers are from Project 538. The dropdown lets you navigate to each state.

https://projects.fivethirtyeight.com/2020-election-forecast/

The election results are from Wikipedia.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/2020_United_States_president...

[rewtraw]

The polls were herded to show ~50/50 support in order to prop up Harris. In reality, she never stood a chance.

[awb]

Polls seemed pretty accurate.

Look at PA polls: https://projects.fivethirtyeight.com/polls/president-general...

The last 2 polls had Harris at 49, and 48. She ended up at 48.5%. Last 2 polls for Trump were 50 and 49. He ended up at 50.5%.

https://apps.npr.org/2024-election-results/pennsylvania.html...

Similar story for Wisconsin, (Harris polls 49 and 48; result: 48.9% and Trump polls 50 and 49; result: 49.7%) and Michigan (Harris polls 48 and 48; result: 48.3% and Trump polls 50 and 50; result: 49.8%)

Despite the end result, it was really was a minor polling error away from a Harris victory.

Also, FWIW, the total 3rd party vote in WI and MI was greater than the margin of victory for Trump in those states.