We don't have voter ID checks at the actual polling place for casting your vote, but we have signature checks and comparisons of who purported to vote with who is actually registered to vote at that polling place, and there are checks and verification involved in getting to that point.
This is sufficient to catch any double voting or voting as someone else that occurs at sufficient scale to be above the normal error rate.
The allegations still being made about election fraud by some Republicans have nothing to do with people double voting or voting as someone else. They are that election workers slipped in extra pre-filled ballots, or that they ran Biden ballots through the tabulating machines multiple times, or that the machines were programmed to switch votes, or that there are statistical anomalies in the vote totals or counting that could only be there due to fraud.
Every one of these is based on one or more of the following kinds of things:
1. There is simply no way, they say, Trump could possible have gotten less votes than Biden. There must have been fraud. (Variation: Trump got more votes in 2020 than Obama got in 2008 or Clinton got in 2016, so how could he lose? Completely ignoring that voter turnout was a lot higher in 2020)
2. Someone seeing something and misunderstanding it. E.g., one of the prominent claims of running ballots through the tabulating machine multiple times was actually an election worker before the count started running a test ballot through multiple times.
That's part of the standard pre-election test and setup procedure that the manufacturer's instruction call for before each election. The person who saw it happening was a volunteer who had skipped the training session where they covered that.
3. Taking things out of context. E.g., surveillance video purporting to show extra ballots being sneaked in to a counting area overnight, where we see someone pull boxes out from under a table and remove a bunch of ballots and start counting them.
We do indeed see that. But if you obtain the whole video instead of that short clip, you see that those boxes contain the ballots that were being counted when it was time for the counters to take a break. They put the uncounted ballots in their standard ballot storage lock boxes, put the boxes under the table, took their break, came back, retrieved the ballots from the boxes, and resumed counting. All completely normal.
4. Ignoring the recounts. The machines alleged to have switched Trump votes leave a paper trail. The hand recounts from the places where this switching is alleged to have occurred match the machine count.
5. Misunderstanding statistics. E.g., claims that first digit distributions of candidate totals across districts or counties not following Benford's law is proof of fraud. The mistake here is that Benford's law only applies to certain kinds of samplings of certain kinds of distributions. The distribution of population and of votes across districts or counties in most areas is not the right kind for this.
6. Ignoring that in-person election day votes are counted in many areas before mail-in ballots are counted. (Indeed, in some Republican controlled states, they have passed laws preventing election officials from starting to count mail-in ballots until the polls close).
Combine this with COVID in many "rural red, urban blue" states, where in-person urban voting often means long crowded lines at polling places, and you had a much higher percentage of urban voters going to mail-in voting than is usual. On top of that, Democrats on average were more likely to take COVID seriously, further shifting mail-in votes to be more likely to be from Democrats.
Result: in effect those states ended up counting Republican ballots first, then Democrat ballots. And so of course Trump was ahead in the evening, and then Biden got most of the later counted mail-in ballots, which mostly came from the large urban areas.
None of that has anything whatsoever to do with voter ID.
Well this is a first, a dem telling the republicans how they feel.
> This is sufficient to catch any double voting or voting as someone else that occurs at sufficient scale to be above the normal error rate.
Most of the country doesn’t believe this. Regardless of what you believe, being on the other side nobody on the right will believe you. You stand to benefit most from this.
> Well this is a first, a dem telling the republicans how they feel.
Could you please point out where the parent claims to be a Democrat? I don't see it anywhere in what they've said, or in the past few days of their comment history.
> Most of the country doesn’t believe this.
I'm not sure about "most", but it's certainly a significant fraction; presumably caused by Trump's refusal to admit defeat.
> Regardless of what you believe, being on the other side nobody on the right will believe you. You stand to benefit most from this.
What do you mean by "other side"? The Democrats? I would again ask where you got the idea that the parent is a Democrat; I don't see it in their posts.
I think you may be mixing up cause and effect. Your claim seems to be that people on the right will not believe what the parent poster says, because the parent poster is a Democrat. However, your response is evidence of the inverse: that people on the right will believe the parent poster is a Democrat, because of what the parent poster says.
This mistake is troubling, since it admits a circular argument: Democrats aren't believed, and those who aren't believed are Democrats. Like all circular arguments, this is self-consistent whilst being completely detached from reality (the content of any claims, evidence, etc. are irrelevant; that self-justifying loop will work for anything).
> Could you please point out where the parent claims to be a Democrat? I don't see it anywhere in what they've said, or in the past few days of their comment history.
Yes, reread their comment, apply context, it should be apparent.
> I'm not sure about "most", but it's certainly a significant fraction; presumably caused by Trump's refusal to admit defeat.
Why do you think Trump has anything to do with it? He doesn't. Really people couldn't care less about Trump. The system is flawed regardless.
> This mistake is troubling, since it admits a circular argument: Democrats aren't believed, and those who aren't believed are Democrats. Like all circular arguments, this is self-consistent whilst being completely detached from reality (the content of any claims, evidence, etc. are irrelevant; that self-justifying loop will work for anything).
Hmmm, yup we have a divide in this country, mostly caused by dems refusal to accept and admit the right are people with opinions, ideas and feelings as well. Right doesn't believe left, left doesn't believe right. So, divide we have!
> reread their comment, apply context, it should be apparent.
I did. It was not apparent; hence why I asked.
> Why do you think Trump has anything to do with it?
If we're still talking about "it" being a significant fraction of the US public being distrustful of the election process/results, then Trump's main relevance is the combination of:
- His holding of the most powerful office in the world for four years
- His direct attacks on the election process/results, e.g.
- The attacks on the election process/results by other Repulican politicians, either using Trump's example to seize or cling-to power, or to curry Trump's favour, or to avoid Trump's wrath (either direct, or indirect like https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Attempts_to_overturn_the_2020_... ), e.g.
Notice this started before Trump was elected? The rest of your comment is trying to support your belief this is somehow about Trump, therefore ignored.
We don't have voter ID checks at the actual polling place for casting your vote, but we have signature checks and comparisons of who purported to vote with who is actually registered to vote at that polling place, and there are checks and verification involved in getting to that point.
This is sufficient to catch any double voting or voting as someone else that occurs at sufficient scale to be above the normal error rate.
The allegations still being made about election fraud by some Republicans have nothing to do with people double voting or voting as someone else. They are that election workers slipped in extra pre-filled ballots, or that they ran Biden ballots through the tabulating machines multiple times, or that the machines were programmed to switch votes, or that there are statistical anomalies in the vote totals or counting that could only be there due to fraud.
Every one of these is based on one or more of the following kinds of things:
1. There is simply no way, they say, Trump could possible have gotten less votes than Biden. There must have been fraud. (Variation: Trump got more votes in 2020 than Obama got in 2008 or Clinton got in 2016, so how could he lose? Completely ignoring that voter turnout was a lot higher in 2020)
2. Someone seeing something and misunderstanding it. E.g., one of the prominent claims of running ballots through the tabulating machine multiple times was actually an election worker before the count started running a test ballot through multiple times.
That's part of the standard pre-election test and setup procedure that the manufacturer's instruction call for before each election. The person who saw it happening was a volunteer who had skipped the training session where they covered that.
3. Taking things out of context. E.g., surveillance video purporting to show extra ballots being sneaked in to a counting area overnight, where we see someone pull boxes out from under a table and remove a bunch of ballots and start counting them.
We do indeed see that. But if you obtain the whole video instead of that short clip, you see that those boxes contain the ballots that were being counted when it was time for the counters to take a break. They put the uncounted ballots in their standard ballot storage lock boxes, put the boxes under the table, took their break, came back, retrieved the ballots from the boxes, and resumed counting. All completely normal.
4. Ignoring the recounts. The machines alleged to have switched Trump votes leave a paper trail. The hand recounts from the places where this switching is alleged to have occurred match the machine count.
5. Misunderstanding statistics. E.g., claims that first digit distributions of candidate totals across districts or counties not following Benford's law is proof of fraud. The mistake here is that Benford's law only applies to certain kinds of samplings of certain kinds of distributions. The distribution of population and of votes across districts or counties in most areas is not the right kind for this.
6. Ignoring that in-person election day votes are counted in many areas before mail-in ballots are counted. (Indeed, in some Republican controlled states, they have passed laws preventing election officials from starting to count mail-in ballots until the polls close).
Combine this with COVID in many "rural red, urban blue" states, where in-person urban voting often means long crowded lines at polling places, and you had a much higher percentage of urban voters going to mail-in voting than is usual. On top of that, Democrats on average were more likely to take COVID seriously, further shifting mail-in votes to be more likely to be from Democrats.
Result: in effect those states ended up counting Republican ballots first, then Democrat ballots. And so of course Trump was ahead in the evening, and then Biden got most of the later counted mail-in ballots, which mostly came from the large urban areas.
None of that has anything whatsoever to do with voter ID.