It was the mechanism and order of the counting which differentiated this election from others. The counts continued long into the night, and into the following days. It was the first election with substantial mail in voting, adding many new attack vectors for fraud.
At about 2am on election night, Trump was a −190 favorite, so not huge, but definitely expected to win. It was certainly unlikely that there were enough votes in the deep blue areas that had yet to be counted to swing the election, although it was no where near prohibitively unlikely.
Then there were the tens of anecdotal reports of various fraudulent or suspicious behaviors at polling and counting sites. To determine what update, if any, these provide, we’d need to know the base rate for them: would there be this many reports for any election where there was sufficient scrutiny? It’s very possible, but it’s also possible this one really was worse.
So those are the updates. Again, it’s unclear how large they are, but they are there.
I can’t think of a position I hold for which the election being rigged/sound is actually a crux, other than “I think 99% probability the election was sound is too high,” which is why I objected. As far as “roughly as fair as any other election,” it’s possible, but as the first election with widespread mail in voting, it’s certainly reasonable that it wasn’t.
I do want to stress though, I really don’t care whether or not the election was rigged. What I’m interested is where people get these really high priors that elections are sound and fair. Everyone is assuming a base rate of rigging that is so low so as to ignore everything that transpired.
It seemed like the second we started actually looking at the election mechanics, there were fraud reports and suspicious activity everywhere, and now I have no idea what to make of election integrity as a whole. There seem to be tens or hundreds of relatively trivial attack surfaces, and especially in non-federal elections, where voting and counting take place in far fewer locations, and far less people vote, it seems very likely some results are fake.
but as the first election with widespread mail in voting, it’s certainly reasonable that it wasn’t
This seems to me like it depends on how mail in voting actually works (never mind that this wasn’t the result of any particular plan, it just happened randomly due to COVID, which also explains perfectly well the difference in use of mail vote between Democrats and Republicans).
What I’m interested is where people get these really high priors that elections are sound and fair. Everyone is assuming a base rate of rigging that is so low so as to ignore everything that transpired.
Personally, my priors come from the fact that both sides have an interest in not letting the other rig it, and that there is enough mix of powers and interests throughout the system that I don’t think any actual serious, systematic rigging would go through. Look at actual well known examples of rigged elections and you’ll usually find systems in which the rigging was blatant but still the side doing it got away with it because they could resort to physical violence and held all the relevant keys to power. If one or another jackass in a specific place had someone throw away some voting cards odds are something similar that benefitted the opposite side happened elsewhere. It’s mostly noise. The question is if there was an organised effort to rig it in one specific direction, and if there is evidence of it, and I just don’t see it. Absent which my prior is, as I said, merely “as fair as any other election”, which doesn’t imply perfectly fair, but reasonably enough not to warrant that sort of extreme behaviour, which is far more threatening of democracy if employed lightly.
Bush and Obama governed almost identically, despite the “heated” election between Obama and Romney/McCain. It seems like what we have is essentially a uniparty with two WWE faces for the public, and they execute mostly Kayfabe performances that all lead to the same outcome in the end.
It appeared, from the media reaction to Trump, that the uniparty was actually threatened by him. This is why I think it’s more likely in this election, rather than previous elections, that there was more of an effort to rig on one side than there was on the other.
I do find myself confused: Trump himself seems relatively incompetent, and his first term didn’t seem all that threatening to the establishment (despite the rhetoric). Even with this confusion, though, I still think the difference between Trump and “Republican candidate X” is significant.
Also, I intentionally didn’t refute your point about “as fair as any other election.” I completely understand that idea; no one here is claiming nothing nefarious ever happens, it’s just a matter of degree and impact.
It was the mechanism and order of the counting which differentiated this election from others. The counts continued long into the night, and into the following days. It was the first election with substantial mail in voting, adding many new attack vectors for fraud.
At about 2am on election night, Trump was a −190 favorite, so not huge, but definitely expected to win. It was certainly unlikely that there were enough votes in the deep blue areas that had yet to be counted to swing the election, although it was no where near prohibitively unlikely.
Then there were the tens of anecdotal reports of various fraudulent or suspicious behaviors at polling and counting sites. To determine what update, if any, these provide, we’d need to know the base rate for them: would there be this many reports for any election where there was sufficient scrutiny? It’s very possible, but it’s also possible this one really was worse.
So those are the updates. Again, it’s unclear how large they are, but they are there.
I can’t think of a position I hold for which the election being rigged/sound is actually a crux, other than “I think 99% probability the election was sound is too high,” which is why I objected. As far as “roughly as fair as any other election,” it’s possible, but as the first election with widespread mail in voting, it’s certainly reasonable that it wasn’t.
I do want to stress though, I really don’t care whether or not the election was rigged. What I’m interested is where people get these really high priors that elections are sound and fair. Everyone is assuming a base rate of rigging that is so low so as to ignore everything that transpired.
It seemed like the second we started actually looking at the election mechanics, there were fraud reports and suspicious activity everywhere, and now I have no idea what to make of election integrity as a whole. There seem to be tens or hundreds of relatively trivial attack surfaces, and especially in non-federal elections, where voting and counting take place in far fewer locations, and far less people vote, it seems very likely some results are fake.
This seems to me like it depends on how mail in voting actually works (never mind that this wasn’t the result of any particular plan, it just happened randomly due to COVID, which also explains perfectly well the difference in use of mail vote between Democrats and Republicans).
Personally, my priors come from the fact that both sides have an interest in not letting the other rig it, and that there is enough mix of powers and interests throughout the system that I don’t think any actual serious, systematic rigging would go through. Look at actual well known examples of rigged elections and you’ll usually find systems in which the rigging was blatant but still the side doing it got away with it because they could resort to physical violence and held all the relevant keys to power. If one or another jackass in a specific place had someone throw away some voting cards odds are something similar that benefitted the opposite side happened elsewhere. It’s mostly noise. The question is if there was an organised effort to rig it in one specific direction, and if there is evidence of it, and I just don’t see it. Absent which my prior is, as I said, merely “as fair as any other election”, which doesn’t imply perfectly fair, but reasonably enough not to warrant that sort of extreme behaviour, which is far more threatening of democracy if employed lightly.
Alright I see one crux here.
Bush and Obama governed almost identically, despite the “heated” election between Obama and Romney/McCain. It seems like what we have is essentially a uniparty with two WWE faces for the public, and they execute mostly Kayfabe performances that all lead to the same outcome in the end.
It appeared, from the media reaction to Trump, that the uniparty was actually threatened by him. This is why I think it’s more likely in this election, rather than previous elections, that there was more of an effort to rig on one side than there was on the other.
I do find myself confused: Trump himself seems relatively incompetent, and his first term didn’t seem all that threatening to the establishment (despite the rhetoric). Even with this confusion, though, I still think the difference between Trump and “Republican candidate X” is significant.
Also, I intentionally didn’t refute your point about “as fair as any other election.” I completely understand that idea; no one here is claiming nothing nefarious ever happens, it’s just a matter of degree and impact.