AgnosticBoy wrote: ↑Mon Nov 30, 2020 1:36 pm
I just take issue with members who try to push or pressure others to see it as they see it.
The point of a debate is not to convince the person you are debating to change their mind, but rather to convince the audience you have made the better case. Personally, I don't care what you believe. I'm not trying to convince you of anything.
AgnosticBoy wrote: ↑Mon Nov 30, 2020 1:36 pm
Why would someone turn down more security on such an important matter (esp. given the 2016 presidential election interference)?
Since no one in this thread has said they would turn this down, it seems you are attacking a straw man argument here.
AgnosticBoy wrote: ↑Mon Nov 30, 2020 1:36 pm
A member made an
unqualified claim about the elections being fair, and that's the claim that I've been challenging. If the member meant what you are claiming then he should've specified his claim, and in fairness I did specify my challenge early on:
" I challenged your claim that the 2020 election process was a "fair" election
if you intend that to mean that there was no cheating or no way to cheat." (
Post #6).
I see. I can assure you that when people use the term "fair" they almost certainly don't mean
perfect, as you have defined it here. To that end, it seems you have been attacking a straw man argument here.
AgnosticBoy wrote: ↑Mon Nov 30, 2020 1:36 pm
I'm not expecting perfection just as I'm sure you're not expecting an election with no oversight or monitoring just because they are not perfect.
Good, then we should be able to draw reasonable conclusions about this election despite the fact that we can never be completely certain of all that took place and no election, including this one, is perfect.
AgnosticBoy wrote: ↑Mon Nov 30, 2020 1:36 pm
You're jumping the gun by saying that Trump lost the election or that he has no valid points.
Since no one has said that Trump has "no valid points," we can, once again, set aside a straw man argument.
To say that I'm "jumping the gun" in claiming Trump lost the election, however, is simply absurd.
Again, Trump's legal team has not been able to demonstrate widespread fraud in
any court in this country, with many of their lawsuits being tossed out by judges for farcically bad arguments. Trump's own Attorney General admitted he has seen no evidence of fraud that would change the results of the election. And enough states have certified their results to give Biden 270 electors. It's over, and that has been obvious for weeks now.
AgnosticBoy wrote: ↑Mon Nov 30, 2020 1:36 pm
There is no harm giving him time to make his case or to at least investigate the matter
Except that Trump is not merely expressing concerns about election oversight or investigating election irregularities. Rather, he is claiming outright and in ALL CAPS that he won the election "in a landslide" and that Democrats, Republican election officials, and the so-called Deep State "stole" it from him. He's also openly pressuring Republican state legislators and governors to simply discard certified election results and put forward their own slate of pro-Trump electors to the Electoral College.
This is gross, pathetic, and deeply undemocratic. Having the President of the United States spreading deranged, easily-debunked conspiracy theories and making a public spectacle of himself degrades the office that he holds and our standing in the world. The fact that millions of Americans have been taken in by this thicket of lies erodes the social fabric and faith in our democratic institutions. Trump supporters like Michael Flynn have even gone so far as to call for the suspension of the Constitution and the imposition of martial law.
I fear this will also do deep, lasting damage to the Republican party and the conservative movement, as young people and college-educated voters recoil in horror at all of this craziness.
It even does harm to the election oversight and fraud concerns you've expressed in this thread. By mixing those serious concerns with a slew of unserious and totally absurd conspiracy theories and an avalanche of misinformation, Trump has buried any legitimate issues around election integrity under a mountain of bull sh*t that will cause many in this country to dismiss all of it together as nuttery.
AgnosticBoy wrote: ↑Mon Nov 30, 2020 1:36 pm
Many may see and think about these matters in black-and-white terms, but as an agnostic I tend to see a lot of gray areas.
I also think that the world is full of grey areas. But, just because things are rarely black and white, doesn't mean they are all the same shade of grey. Just because we can't be completely certain about this election doesn't mean we should retreat into a paralyzing position of uncertainty where we can't say who
most likely won.
AgnosticBoy wrote: ↑Mon Nov 30, 2020 1:36 pm
I'm willing to come off of the fence pending the result of a Philadelphia recount with adequate bipartisan oversight.
Why? Even if you threw out every single vote in Philadelphia, and handed Trump all 20 of Pennsylvania's electors, Biden would still win the presidential election.
AgnosticBoy wrote: ↑Mon Nov 30, 2020 1:36 pm
historia wrote: ↑Fri Nov 27, 2020 1:30 pm
AgnosticBoy wrote: ↑Sun Nov 22, 2020 5:33 pm
I see alternatives to some of your conclusions. You say that 90% of mail-in votes were for Biden. Given that Philadelphia is a largely Democrat city, I would expect Biden to get a majority votes, but that doesn't necessarily translate into getting such a high of margin (90%?) of mail-in voting since Democrats can also vote in-person. So there is some speculation on your part on just how big of a majority we would expect from mail-in voting.
On the contrary, that number is perfectly in line with what we would expect given the facts.
Consider that 76% of the residents of the city are registered Democrats. And, since 2000, the Democratic nominee for president has garnered between 80%-85% of the vote (obviously winning over some Democratic-leaning independents as part of that total).
Further, 84% of the applications to vote by mail in Philadelphia this year came from registered Democrats, with over 90% of the votes from mail-in ballots going for Biden (obviously winning over some Democratic-leaning independents who also applied to vote by mail).
The issue with me is not the margin of victory for Biden but rather it's the way in which he won. He won by mail-in ballots and that's the method that I'm questioning given all of the lax standards surrounding it. All other past elections were won mostly in-person voting. Now it's reasonable to point out that Democrats have won 80% of the Philadelphia's votes on average in past elections and that percentage is consistent with this year's election. Here's two points to consider:
- First, it's reasonable to consider that we're dealing with mail-in votes this time and those tend to have a high rate of rejection compared to in-person votes. (
source)
- Secondly, I don't completely buy your margin of victory point because you assume that Biden couldn't have underperformed or that Trump couldn't have overperformed. Keep in mind, if Biden underperformed by just by TWO percent (getting 78% of the vote in Philadelphia) or if Trump overperformed by just TWO percentage points, then Trump could've won the state. It may not seem like a big deal to be off on your predictions by just TWO percentage points, but when that's all it would've taken for a candidate to win, then that is a big deal (Biden won Pennsylvania by 1.5%).
historia wrote: ↑Fri Nov 27, 2020 1:30 pm
Take the total number of votes in Philadelphia (741,377) and multiply it by .02 to get the total number of votes needed to improve Biden's total by 2% (= 14,828). Since you would need to steal 10 ballots to net one additional Biden vote, multiply the votes you need by 10 to get the number of ballots you need to steal (= 148,280). Divide that by the total number of mail-in ballots (370,361) to get the percentage of the ballots you need to steal (= 40%). And that's a conservative estimate.
Thanks for showing the work. I understand the first sentence but the only problem I see is that you used the overall vote total which includes both candidates, instead of using only Biden's vote total to figure out a 2% increase for just Biden. Biden received a total of 604,175 in Philadelphia (
source). A 2% increase of that number would be about 12,083 more votes (Biden's vote count would go from 604,175 to 616,258).
Sorry, but you seem to have completely lost track of the point that I was making. The numbers you're quibbling over here don't affect my argument at all.
AgnosticBoy wrote: ↑Mon Nov 30, 2020 1:36 pm
Either way, this doesn't change my overall point that just a 2% advantage would help a candidate win, since every vote matters and Biden won by 1.5% afterall.
No one is suggesting that a 2% increase in vote share wouldn't
help a candidate win. That's obviously true.
Your earlier comment that a 2% increase in Philadelphia would "guarantee" Biden a win is obviously erroneous. After all, Clinton in 2016 did 2% better than Biden in Philadelphia, and yet lost Pennsylvania. Likewise, Trump increased his vote share in Philadelphia by 3% over 2016, yet lost Pennsylvania this time around. Noting that Biden won the
state by 1.5% is mixing apples and orange groves, of course.
But that's neither here nor there. The point I'm making is
not that a 2% increase in Biden's Philadelphia vote wouldn't help him, but rather that trying to achieve that goal by
stealing ballots is impractical and nonsensical.
AgnosticBoy wrote: ↑Mon Nov 30, 2020 1:36 pm
historia wrote: ↑Fri Nov 27, 2020 1:30 pm
Take the total number of votes in Philadelphia (741,377) and multiply it by .02 to get the total number of votes needed to improve Biden's total by 2% (= 14,828). Since you would need to steal 10 ballots to net one additional Biden vote, multiply the votes you need by 10 to get the
number of ballots you need to steal (= 148,280). Divide that by the total number of mail-in ballots (370,361) to get the percentage of the ballots you need to steal (= 40%). And that's a conservative estimate.
I also understand the 2nd sentence but only up to the comma. I don't understand your analysis after the comma. You say that it would take Biden getting 148,280 more votes to increase his vote count by 2%
No, I said you have to steal 148,280
ballots. Since 90% of the ballots you steal were already going to vote for Biden anyway, to net an additional 14,828 Biden
votes you need to steal ten times that number of ballots.
AgnosticBoy wrote: ↑Mon Nov 30, 2020 1:36 pm
Also, you're working within the overall total of mail-in votes in Philadelphia (370,361, based on your data). Biden already gets 90% of those votes which would be 333,324. Needing to steal 148,280 on top of the 333,324 mail-in votes would put him over the total number of mail-in votes, so there's no room for your analysis to work unless you go beyond the total number of mail-in votes.
You don't need to steal 148,280 ballots
on top of the 333,324, you need to steal 148,280 ballots
out of the 370,361. Actually, that's a bit of the fudge: more precisely, you would need to steal 148,280 ballots out of the 425,000 ballot requested by Philadelphia residents.
But let me reiterate the overarching point, lest one continue to miss the forest for the trees here: Stealing 148,280 ballots is an
insane proposition. To imagine nefarious actors could pull that off and somehow get away with it without anyone noticing is absurd! It is simply impractical and nonsensical to steal ballots from a place where voters already overwhelmingly support your candidate. That should be obvious.