Are American elections free and fair?

[historia]

According to Pew, the percentage of Americans expressing confidence that our elections will be run well has dropped from four years ago (2018), especially among voters who support Republican candidates (-30%).

Question for debate: Are elections in the United States free and fair?

[Daedalus X]

If she gave a laundry list of election fraud claims and half of them were shown to be false, are we to assume that the other half are also false without investigating them. That is why we need to see her exact wording, and if you have never seen her words then you would be just as guilty of going of half-cocked as she was.

Not a single one of them have been shown to be true.

This is a very weak claim, and it is the hole in your argument, it is possible that all her claims are true, even if your claim that "not a single one of them have been shown to be true" were also true. It is also possible that Dominion took her words out of context with the aim of silencing her with lawfare, given that the press will not point to any verifiably false claims by her, but only vague slander, I am inclined to believe her over Dominion.

You have said "I followed it all quite closely", then I would ask you, if you could speak to the nation about this whole affair, what could you say to assure us that Sidney Powells claims of an existential threat to our nation are false.

Keep in mind that we brought in these voting machines (at great expense) to solve a problem that did not exist, and given that the mail in votes now requires many days to count the votes, there is no need for these Rube Goldberg machines to count votes since we can hand count just as well, given the extended time allowed. A big red flag is that we are not allowed to look at the programs that run these machines for proprietary reasons. At the age of 13, Bill Gates, sold software to local governments to count traffic. That is all that is supposed to be inside these voting machines, if there is anymore propriatorey information in those machines than that, then the likelihood of fraud is almost certain.

If you don't believe in fraud, did you know that there were vote flipping programs available during the Kerry vs Bush election? And Kerry probably won that race. Here is a documentary about the man that wrote the vote flipping program, it if you are interested.

https://rumble.com/vn49ai-murder-spies- ... story.html

[Athetotheist]

[Replying to Daedalus X in post #21

This is a very weak claim, and it is the hole in your argument, it is possible that all her claims are true, even if your claim that "not a single one of them have been shown to be true" were also true. It is also possible that Dominion took her words out of context with the aim of silencing her with lawfare, given that the press will not point to any verifiably false claims by her, but only vague slander, I am inclined to believe her over Dominion.

https://apnews.com/article/fact-check-t ... 180973e8b3

Or maybe you'll believe this guy:

https://apnews.com/article/barr-no-wide ... 61a6c7f49d

[The Barbarian]

Where there are tens of millions of people voting, it would be absurd to think there was no fraud going on. There are always people who are wrongly prevented from voting and people voting who are not valid voters. I notice that in 2020, Donald Trump had the "dead person" vote sewn up; a number of his supporters voted for dead spouses or other relatives. Doesn't mean Trump was involved, and it obviously didn't swing the election for him.

In fact, in the last century, there has been on statewide election that was so corrupted that a new election had to be held. Not that it matters, but it was a republican who committed the fraud.

In America, we now have a substantial number of people who fear the electorate to the point that they are trying to undermine confidence in democracy and voting as a way of choosing leaders. Donald Trump once remarked, if everyone voted, the democrats would always win. It's not true, but his point was to make republicans fear democracy.

It's encouraging that in the mid-term elections, even though republicans did very poorly for a party out of power, only a few of the craziest candidates asserted that fraud determined the outcome. That's a good sign.

[AgnosticBoy]

The only bone I can toss to the Trump supporters side is that we can always use more election security. I can agree to that. I would find it suspicious if someone was against additional election security, even when it does not make it hard to vote (or doesn't suppress voters) for the majority of the population across all demographics. For instance, if someone told me they were against something as basic as voter ID, when photo ID is needed for so many things in life, then of course I would find that suspicious. Not wanting additional security does not necessarily mean that someone is for voter fraud, but it is consistent with the wishes of those who would commit voter fraud.

The BIG mistake that Trump and his supporters made was drawing conclusions off of their suspicions. Suspicion is not evidence, but at best, it should drive you to investigate and look for evidence.

[Jose Fly]

This is a very weak claim, and it is the hole in your argument, it is possible that all her claims are true, even if your claim that "not a single one of them have been shown to be true" were also true. It is also possible that Dominion took her words out of context with the aim of silencing her with lawfare, given that the press will not point to any verifiably false claims by her, but only vague slander, I am inclined to believe her over Dominion.

LOL....earlier you said you didn't even know what her arguments and claims were, but now here you are saying you're inclined to believe them?

If you don't see the obvious problem there, I'm really not sure what else to say.

You have said "I followed it all quite closely", then I would ask you, if you could speak to the nation about this whole affair, what could you say to assure us that Sidney Powells claims of an existential threat to our nation are false.

Because she couldn't support a single one of them in court and when later pressed to defend them, argued that no reasonable person should ever have taken them as true.

Keep in mind that we brought in these voting machines (at great expense) to solve a problem that did not exist, and given that the mail in votes now requires many days to count the votes, there is no need for these Rube Goldberg machines to count votes since we can hand count just as well, given the extended time allowed. A big red flag is that we are not allowed to look at the programs that run these machines for proprietary reasons. At the age of 13, Bill Gates, sold software to local governments to count traffic. That is all that is supposed to be inside these voting machines, if there is anymore propriatorey information in those machines than that, then the likelihood of fraud is almost certain.

If you don't believe in fraud, did you know that there were vote flipping programs available during the Kerry vs Bush election? And Kerry probably won that race. Here is a documentary about the man that wrote the vote flipping program, it if you are interested.

https://rumble.com/vn49ai-murder-spies- ... story.html

In the US we have a court system specifically set up to adjudicate such claims. If you or anyone else thinks you have a case to make regarding election fraud, the burden is on you to demonstrate them to a court. And if that court doesn't rule the way you want, you can appeal.

Anyone can go online and make all sorts of unsupported claims, but if you can't prove any of it in court, it's just empty rhetoric.

[Daedalus X]

Because she couldn't support a single one of them in court and when later pressed to defend them, argued that no reasonable person should ever have taken them as true.

Sidney Powell did say that the "no reasonable person" bit was lifted out of context, and she till stands behind all her allegations.

Here is one of the clips that Dominion thought was defamatory, but I see nothing false in it, do you?

In the US we have a court system specifically set up to adjudicate such claims. If you or anyone else thinks you have a case to make regarding election fraud, the burden is on you to demonstrate them to a court. And if that court doesn't rule the way you want, you can appeal.

That must be nice, here in the Divided States of America we have a court system set up for those who have huge piles of money. If they want to shut somebody's mouth, they will just launch a law suit for a billion or more dollars and win by default because it is impossible to survive a court case like that. Justice for the rich and just us for the rest.

I used to be a democrat (still am registered as a D, but seldom vote for a D, except in the primaries). Back in the day the democrats were the antiestablishment party, but all that has changed. There are still many good democrats that have some integrity like Robert F Kennedy jr and Tulsi Gabbard but for the most part the Democratic Party has been hijacked even more than the Republican Party.

Compare America to Charlie Brown, when Lucy promises not to pull the football when he goes to kick it, and every time she does and he lands flat on his back, and he will never trust her again till the next she promises not to pull it. They just keep telling the American people that if they will all just vote a little harder they will actually get what they voted for, and nothing ever changes and we just keep trusting the authorities. True the news, trust the science, trust the red, white and blue.

A good example is the Obama v Romney election, we sent Romney packing because we did not want his Romney Care health exchange plan. So the people gave Obama both houses of congress, and he would obviously give us a single payer system like France or Germany. But, no he gave us Romney Care, only he tacked his own name on it and we get Obama care.

So, even when the people win an election, the people don't get what they voted for, but the rich bankers got their big bailout and all the billionaires did very well under Obama.

In most of these elections they don't need to cheat because both candidates will push the elites agenda, but when a person like Trump is running, they know that trump will not knowingly push the elite agenda so they can and will cheat to keep him out of office. But even Trump was easy to manipulate indirectly, for example, big Pharma did not want hydroxychloroquine used by doctors, because if it worked then the emergency authorization for the needle would not happen. So, they got Trump to promote HCQ and and that was magically the end of doctors being able to prescribe HCQ. I asked two doctors to prescribe it for me and nothing doing, I had to order it from Singapore and even with first class air, it took a month to get to me, but I had it when I did get covid. Saved my life, maybe? But it did not kill me like CNN said it would.

Also the burden of proof to show that the elections are free and fair is on the government, and they have not done so, therefore we must assume they are fraudulent.

[Diogenes]

I don't know what Powell's election fraud arguments were....

That you continue to argue this issue despite your admission you literally do not know what you are talking about, has got to at least tie you for the record on this forum for THE WORST ARGUMENT EVER.

Powell's false claims about her facts and 'proof' are a matter of public record, as is her admission that no reasonable person would have believed she was making factual claims.

the claims Powell made in interviews on Fox News and Fox Business, and in a press conference at the Republican National Committee are not statements of fact. In particular, her claims “that she had evidence that the election result was the ‘greatest crime of the century if not the life of the world,’” or that Democrats “developed a computer system to alter votes electronically” would not be accepted by a “reasonable person” as “statements of fact.”

https://www.sos.ga.gov/news/kraken-crac ... nclude-her
You can simply look up the pleadings and various filings [Yes, the word is "filings," not "fillings" as you wrote. Filling is something you put inside a pie, not file with a court ]

[Jose Fly]

Sidney Powell did say that the "no reasonable person" bit was lifted out of context, and she till stands behind all her allegations.

Why can't she prove a single one of them in court?

Here is one of the clips that Dominion thought was defamatory, but I see nothing false in it, do you?

That's for the courts to decide.

That must be nice, here in the Divided States of America we have a court system set up for those who have huge piles of money. If they want to shut somebody's mouth, they will just launch a law suit for a billion or more dollars and win by default because it is impossible to survive a court case like that. Justice for the rich and just us for the rest.

That's not at all the case with Trump's election suits. Several were even filed with judges appointed by Trump and they still lost.

The fact remains, Trump et al. have not proved any of their fraud claims in court.

I used to be a democrat (still am registered as a D, but seldom vote for a D, except in the primaries). Back in the day the democrats were the antiestablishment party, but all that has changed. There are still many good democrats that have some integrity like Robert F Kennedy jr and Tulsi Gabbard but for the most part the Democratic Party has been hijacked even more than the Republican Party.

Compare America to Charlie Brown, when Lucy promises not to pull the football when he goes to kick it, and every time she does and he lands flat on his back, and he will never trust her again till the next she promises not to pull it. They just keep telling the American people that if they will all just vote a little harder they will actually get what they voted for, and nothing ever changes and we just keep trusting the authorities. True the news, trust the science, trust the red, white and blue.

A good example is the Obama v Romney election, we sent Romney packing because we did not want his Romney Care health exchange plan. So the people gave Obama both houses of congress, and he would obviously give us a single payer system like France or Germany. But, no he gave us Romney Care, only he tacked his own name on it and we get Obama care.

So, even when the people win an election, the people don't get what they voted for, but the rich bankers got their big bailout and all the billionaires did very well under Obama.

In most of these elections they don't need to cheat because both candidates will push the elites agenda, but when a person like Trump is running, they know that trump will not knowingly push the elite agenda so they can and will cheat to keep him out of office. But even Trump was easy to manipulate indirectly, for example, big Pharma did not want hydroxychloroquine used by doctors, because if it worked then the emergency authorization for the needle would not happen. So, they got Trump to promote HCQ and and that was magically the end of doctors being able to prescribe HCQ. I asked two doctors to prescribe it for me and nothing doing, I had to order it from Singapore and even with first class air, it took a month to get to me, but I had it when I did get covid. Saved my life, maybe? But it did not kill me like CNN said it would.

Noted.

Also the burden of proof to show that the elections are free and fair is on the government, and they have not done so, therefore we must assume they are fraudulent.

LOL....what? Again, all the talk of "fraudulent elections" is just that....talk. The government has proved that our voting systems are free and fair via winning every lawsuit claiming otherwise, random audits confirming results, recounts confirming results, etc.

Meanwhile the "fraudulent elections" people haven't proved a single thing. And now the lawyers like Powell and Giuliani who pushed it are being held accountable for their lies.

[Purple Knight]

I hate to take the side of Trump supporters, but in the case of a process like an election, the fairness of which ought to be sacred, the burden of proof should be on the side claiming the process is fair.

I'll give you another example of a process which should hold fairness sacred: Sports. If someone accuses an athlete of taking steroids, you don't laugh at him and tell him he can't prove it, you bloody test the athlete for steroids. And if you don't like having to prove your innocence, you have every freedom not to participate in a process where fairness is sacred. Don't like being tested for steroids when you've done nothing wrong? Don't be an athlete. Don't like having to defend the assertion that elections are fair with the burden of proof on you? Don't go looking for a job organising elections.

The American people have a positive right to free and fair elections, which means, they have a right to have it proved to them that the elections are fair. I am not forced to be an athlete. But I am forced to live under the rule of the representatives and policies chosen in elections. So if I say prove it's fair, they should do so.

I said the same when it was Gore wanting recounts and I say the same now when it's Trump saying it was rigged. There is not enough transparency. There is every opportunity for cheating.

[Jose Fly]

I hate to take the side of Trump supporters, but in the case of a process like an election, the fairness of which ought to be sacred, the burden of proof should be on the side claiming the process is fair.

And that's been done. What do you think all the audits, recounts, and signature verifications were about? Why do you think the government has won all the cases brought by Trump's "election fraud" people? I mean....what else do you want?

The American people have a positive right to free and fair elections, which means, they have a right to have it proved to them that the elections are fair. I am not forced to be an athlete. But I am forced to live under the rule of the representatives and policies chosen in elections. So if I say prove it's fair, they should do so.

What do you think they should do that hasn't already been done?

I said the same when it was Gore wanting recounts and I say the same now when it's Trump saying it was rigged. There is not enough transparency. There is every opportunity for cheating.

Where? How?