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?

[Purple Knight]

Bad analogy, since it's (AFAIK) not illegal to take steroids, whereas it most certainly is illegal to cheat in an election.

It is illegal to take steroids. But that's not the point the analogy rests upon. If fairness is important, and it is seen that contestants have a right to it, cheating is presumed until fairness is proven. It doesn't work any other way. If you presume fairness and make people prove cheating, it'll never happen.

In fact it shouldn't be illegal to take steroids because 1) yes it does damage but so do cigarettes and those are legal and 2) if I want bigger muscles whose business is that but mine?

Steroids are illegal because it is so important to have fairness in sports competitions that we criminalise them just to make it harder to cheat in a process not everyone even cares about. But elections affect everybody.

But if they're uncomfortable having to prove their innocence they probably don't need to be competing in a sport or handling ballots.

Except.....again.....they do demonstrate the accuracy of election results via random post-election audits, recounts, and signature verifications. What else do you think those things are for, if not to verify the accuracy of the results?

Speed limit signs are for the purpose of stopping people from speeding. That doesn't mean they do stop it, and all you have to do to verify that they don't stop it is to go drive the speed limit and watch people speed disdainfully around you as if you're doing something wrong. Those processes need to be more transparent... To Bob Everyman, not yet another functionary. If it comes down to showing who everybody voted for, so be it. You can already see if they donated money. That's already public. And people can look that up and discriminate.

I have always suspected that third parties don't get the correct amount of votes but I had no hard evidence. Everyone I talk to could be an outlier or lying. But to my shock, I learned by way of Trump's whining that he's supposed to have his people watching the polls, and Biden gets people to watch them also. But does Jo Jorgensen get that? Nothing stops the main parties from divvying up the third party votes as they laugh about it.

For the third time in a row, I can point out how vulnerabilities exist that could bypass those measures.

Like what? If you're thinking of your imaginary rogue mail carrier, to repeat, there are already mechanisms in place to catch that.

With election cheating, we (in part) count on people's inherent sense of risk-reward. So with your rogue mail carrier, we hope that any rational person will understand that it's not worth spending 20+ years in federal prison to throw away ballots, especially when it's trivially easy to be caught. Is that a 100% absolute guarantee that it will never happen? Of course not, but that's the case with all laws and crimes.

And for the third time in a row, the worst that could happen to him is he's caught and says it was a mistake, because you will not be able to prove he committed a crime, even if he did. In other words, this type of behaviour can't lose. It can either win, or be neutral.

So in what way is the small cheating that you think exists relevant? If it's not relevant enough to do anything about then it is being treated as nothing.

No one has argued that we do nothing. Your black/white thinking really is hampering you here.

As with all laws and enforcement, we don't hold them the standard of absolute perfection and then when they don't meet that standard, limit ourselves to either draconian measures or "do nothing". As I explained with the speeding in school zones example, we put laws and enforcement mechanisms in place to prevent people from speeding in school zones, but when someone does speed by a school we don't react by setting up armed checkpoints on every road near a school, nor do we throw up our hands and "do nothing".

Well you're laughing at putting cameras on people as unreasonable, yet you're also arguing for a criminal-level burden of proof to the point that video evidence or something equally strong would be what you'd need. There's simply nowhere that extraordinarily high level of evidence would be produced, which is what's frightening in a process where fairness is so important.

So then you agree it's not about the outcome and this poor soul has a right to have his vote counted that must be respected?

Of course.

Otherwise, if someone is threatening you if you vote, just give in and walk away.

Or you could contact the proper authorities, have the person arrested, and then vote.

You could unless you're in a bad neighbourhood where the police won't come. This is especially important since minorities are so vulnerable to discrimination.

Again, I'm asking you if everything is nebulous or if there are situations where you can have a yes or no.

There are some situations where yes/no applies. This isn't one of them though.

The question of this thread is not a black/white situation. Are our elections free and fair? In terms of accuracy of outcomes, yes. The outcomes do indeed reflect the vote. But as I mentioned earlier, in terms of true representation, some are some aren't due to things like gerrymandering.

So again, the topic of this thread does not lend itself to a black/white, binary framework.

Would you also apply this same answer to an analogous sports competition if one person took steroids but there was every reason to think he'd have won anyway?

To me, it's the other side thinking in black and white here, ignoring knock-on effects. Maybe we have a crystal ball saying the steroid guy wins anyway. I don't even think we have that level of certainty but let's say we do. If he wins by a lot, that's going to dissuade other competitors in the future. And we don't know how many people didn't vote because they were watching closely and they didn't get their ballot counted.

[Jose Fly]

As a non-partisan, I've interacted with people from both sides of this issue. Here are some of my observations*:

- Some don't really care about voter fraud when it benefits their side. This should not be a surprised given the fact that politicians tend to apply a different standard to themselves and their party than they do their opponents.

- A lot of the thinking on this issue has Trump in the equation. This is why views involving election security seems to split along party lines with Dems being against it and Republicans for it. Some Democrats tend to want to go against whatever Trump is for, regardless of if it is right or wrong. Trump is for increasing election security, so therefore they must be against it. Some Republicans tend to want to support Trump no matter what. They seem to follow him blindly. So these Republicans will do whatever would benefit Trump.

*The above views don't apply to all Republicans and Democrats, but just the polarized and partisan ones - the ones that put party before truth.

That's not completely accurate, especially regarding Democrats and election security. One of the first things the Democrats did upon gaining a majority in the House was to pass HR1, the "For the People Act", which included quite a number of election security improvements, such as providing money to states and local election entities to upgrade their voting equipment and security measures, more stringent security requirements for voting machines, an increase in post-election audits, a mandate for paper copies of every ballot (and money to pay for it), increases in cybersecurity, ensuring voting machines are manufactured in the US, and a host of other measures.

Republicans refused to support the bill, or even debate it or negotiate its terms. Instead, they opposed it altogether because they saw it as "federalizing our elections". That tells me all their rhetoric about "election integrity" is just that....empty rhetoric. When given the opportunity to actually address many of the issues they grouse about, they refused to do so.

[Jose Fly]

It has been said that a non auditable election bears the full presumption of fraud. If we can't look at the code inside these machines we must assume that this system was optimized for hiding fraud. And no public official would purchase such machines if they were not trying to hide fraud.

That's just bizarre. Also, our elections are auditable and are audited.

So, I asked you to support your claim that the elections were free and fair, and that Sidney Powell had confessed that her arguments were just a lie. And none of your evidence was any better than my friends support of the Russian narrative.

I showed you precisely where Powell told a court that "no reasonable person would take her claims as fact", and I even provided you the document where she said it. I also pointed to all the post-election audits, recounts, and signature verifications that showed the 2020 results were accurate.

But it looks to me like you're a fairly typical internet conspiracy theorist who will just stick to your conspiracy theories no matter what.

How do you know that the people that have been lying to us about everything else are not lying about the elections being honest?

Exhibit A

And the strongest part of your argument had to do with the courts not overturning the elections, if there were fraud then the courts would have overturned the election, the courts did not do that, therefore there was no fraud.

It shows that despite all the cries of fraud and conspiracies from Trump's people, when it came time to back all that up with evidence they couldn't do it. I'm sure you don't like that fact and you've tried all sorts of rather hilarious ways to wave it away, but reality tends to be rather stubborn. The basic reality is, you have no evidence to support your argument.

Is it possible that your position is based primarily on the information that you get from the news networks?

Nope. I took the time to read the actual court documents myself.

Notice that the news had zero curiosity about this, they did not investigate anything, all they did was to parrot the "freest fairest elections in history" mantra. Which is not to say that the elections were free and fair, but rather compared to the total corruption of all the other elections this one was relatively free and fair but still corrupt. And it is not a lack of curiosity on behalf of the press, but rather an unwillingness to keep the people informed. The press has clearly been sold out to someone, like big Pharma and other large interests. Have you ever seen them investigate the safety and efficacy of the wax, NO. But they have sure been pushing the line, get your jab or your granny will die when they have no idea if that is true. Have they reported on the Tonga volcano? I think that millions will starve because of reduced farm output due to the ash cloud, but that does not fit the global warming narrative, so they remain silent. Or they may want to keep that story for the day that they will need a fear distraction from some other news event.

Crank Magnetism

[Jose Fly]

It is illegal to take steroids.

It is? Why weren't Barry Bonds, Sammy Sosa, Mark McGwire, et al. arrested and charged with crimes?

If fairness is important, and it is seen that contestants have a right to it, cheating is presumed until fairness is proven.

Which is precisely what random post-election audits, recounts, and signature verifications are for.

Except.....again.....they do demonstrate the accuracy of election results via random post-election audits, recounts, and signature verifications. What else do you think those things are for, if not to verify the accuracy of the results?

Speed limit signs are for the purpose of stopping people from speeding. That doesn't mean they do stop it, and all you have to do to verify that they don't stop it is to go drive the speed limit and watch people speed disdainfully around you as if you're doing something wrong. Those processes need to be more transparent... To Bob Everyman, not yet another functionary. If it comes down to showing who everybody voted for, so be it. You can already see if they donated money. That's already public. And people can look that up and discriminate.

So once again you're employing very black/white, binary thinking, where either election verification/speed limits are 100% absolutely perfect, or they are worthless.

I have always suspected that third parties don't get the correct amount of votes but I had no hard evidence. Everyone I talk to could be an outlier or lying. But to my shock, I learned by way of Trump's whining that he's supposed to have his people watching the polls, and Biden gets people to watch them also. But does Jo Jorgensen get that? Nothing stops the main parties from divvying up the third party votes as they laugh about it.

Actually, there are several measures in place to prevent that from happening, and there's zero evidence that it has ever happened. But I'm sure you'll just say that since they're not 100% absolutely effective, then stealing third-party votes must be rampant. Such is the nature of the binary thinker.

And for the third time in a row, the worst that could happen to him is he's caught and says it was a mistake, because you will not be able to prove he committed a crime, even if he did. In other words, this type of behaviour can't lose. It can either win, or be neutral.

I'll be honest here....that's just stupid. You're actually arguing that a mail carrier who throws away bagfuls of ballots and gets caught can just say "Oops, I made a mistake" and authorities will have no choice but to shrug their shoulders and do nothing?

That's just plain ridiculous.

Well you're laughing at putting cameras on people as unreasonable

You clearly don't live in the US, or are rather ignorant of the topic you're attempting to debate. Vote counting processes are already on camera.

yet you're also arguing for a criminal-level burden of proof to the point that video evidence or something equally strong would be what you'd need. There's simply nowhere that extraordinarily high level of evidence would be produced, which is what's frightening in a process where fairness is so important.

Yeah, imagine that....before you charge someone with a crime, you have to actually have evidence of them doing it. Crazy!

You could unless you're in a bad neighbourhood where the police won't come. This is especially important since minorities are so vulnerable to discrimination.

Or what if the police are in on it?!!?!

I guess by your logic, we should have military presence at all polling sites, with fighter jets, helicopters, artillery, and thousands of troops at the ready. That's the only way we can guarantee 100% absolute security, right?

Oh but wait.....what if the military are in on it too? Oh no!!!!

Would you also apply this same answer to an analogous sports competition if one person took steroids but there was every reason to think he'd have won anyway?

Bad analogy. With voting, we actually have a tally that can be verified after the fact, so there's no need to imagine who might have won.

[Purple Knight]

It is illegal to take steroids.

It is? Why weren't Barry Bonds, Sammy Sosa, Mark McGwire, et al. arrested and charged with crimes?

Maybe they had a prescription.

So once again you're employing very black/white, binary thinking, where either election verification/speed limits are 100% absolutely perfect, or they are worthless.

I'll go to very, very dark grey for speed limit signs. Some people do follow the speed limit. A huge amount do not. It still proves that there are cases where laws and enforcement do not solve a problem, because you can go out and watch people speed right this minute. The election process is not that transparent, so I can't show you people cheating like I can show you people speeding, even if they are.

Actually, there are several measures in place to prevent that from happening, and there's zero evidence that it has ever happened. But I'm sure you'll just say that since they're not 100% absolutely effective, then stealing third-party votes must be rampant. Such is the nature of the binary thinker.

I'm saying I have every reason to think stealing third party votes is rampant because the main parties have extra protections the third parties do not, and if they didn't need them, if the amount of votes they expected to lose from not having them was insignificant, they wouldn't insist upon them. Either way, third parties not having those protections qualifies as unfair.

I'll be honest here....that's just stupid. You're actually arguing that a mail carrier who throws away bagfuls of ballots and gets caught can just say "Oops, I made a mistake" and authorities will have no choice but to shrug their shoulders and do nothing?

That's just plain ridiculous.

It's not stupid if you require a criminal burden of proof, like you're arguing for. Unless he does it in front of a witness you will not have the kind of evidence you want. Not every last ballot in those bagfuls will belong to someone checking. At most, you will get a couple. And when a handful of ballots lead back to that mail carrier, do you think that's proof positive he absolutely trashed them? Of course it's not.

Well you're laughing at putting cameras on people as unreasonable

You clearly don't live in the US, or are rather ignorant of the topic you're attempting to debate. Vote counting processes are already on camera.

Can I see the footage?

I guess by your logic, we should have military presence at all polling sites, with fighter jets, helicopters, artillery, and thousands of troops at the ready. That's the only way we can guarantee 100% absolute security, right?

Just what I said before, the process should be more transparent. To Bob Everyman, not yet another functionary you're just demanding he trust.

Bad analogy. With voting, we actually have a tally that can be verified after the fact, so there's no need to imagine who might have won.

Yes, by yet another functionary. Again, the process is not transparent.

Functionary: "You lost."
Al Gore: "I'd like a recount."
Different Functionary: "You still lost."

[Jose Fly]

Can I see the footage?

So you really are unaware of basic facts.

CLICK HERE

As for the rest, rather than go round and round about imaginary scenarios, how about you tell me what measures you would put in place that you think would absolutely, 100% prevent any and all election crimes and fraud.

[Purple Knight]

Can I see the footage?

So you really are unaware of basic facts.

Surely you see that a very short news video doesn't count as a video of the whole process, and none of the videos you can get that way can make the process transparent, as in, allow Bob Everyman to catch fraud or miscounting.

As for the rest, rather than go round and round about imaginary scenarios, how about you tell me what measures you would put in place that you think would absolutely, 100% prevent any and all election crimes and fraud.

I'd let everyone see the whole videos. All of them. And I don't see it as a problem that you then get to see who Granny Weatherall voted for because you can already see who she donated to, and if we'd then need anti-discrimination measures to counteract this, so be it, we already need them to counteract discrimination against people who donate.

Also, I would like to self-correct. I said steroid use was illegal. What I ought to have said is it's illegal to obtain them without a prescription. Apparently just the use of them is not illegal. It is illegal in many states but not all of them.

[Jose Fly]

Surely you see that a very short news video doesn't count as a video of the whole process, and none of the videos you can get that way can make the process transparent, as in, allow Bob Everyman to catch fraud or miscounting.

Seriously? You didn't even notice that they are live video feeds? Sigh.....

I'd let everyone see the whole videos. All of them.

Already done.

Also, you know videos can be faked, right? How would you ensure that the fraudsters won't just conduct a staged vote counting process and film that, while the fraud goes on behind the scenes?

And I don't see it as a problem that you then get to see who Granny Weatherall voted for because you can already see who she donated to, and if we'd then need anti-discrimination measures to counteract this, so be it, we already need them to counteract discrimination against people who donate.

So you would overturn the fundamental right to a secret ballot.

And again, how would that prevent fraudsters from faking the info available to the public? If Granny voted for Democrats but her vote was fraudulently switched, what would stop the fraudsters from just faking the info she sees?

[AgnosticBoy]

As a non-partisan, I've interacted with people from both sides of this issue. Here are some of my observations*:

- Some don't really care about voter fraud when it benefits their side. This should not be a surprised given the fact that politicians tend to apply a different standard to themselves and their party than they do their opponents.

- A lot of the thinking on this issue has Trump in the equation. This is why views involving election security seems to split along party lines with Dems being against it and Republicans for it. Some Democrats tend to want to go against whatever Trump is for, regardless of if it is right or wrong. Trump is for increasing election security, so therefore they must be against it. Some Republicans tend to want to support Trump no matter what. They seem to follow him blindly. So these Republicans will do whatever would benefit Trump.

*The above views don't apply to all Republicans and Democrats, but just the polarized and partisan ones - the ones that put party before truth.

That's not completely accurate, especially regarding Democrats and election security. One of the first things the Democrats did upon gaining a majority in the House was to pass HR1, the "For the People Act", which included quite a number of election security improvements, such as providing money to states and local election entities to upgrade their voting equipment and security measures, more stringent security requirements for voting machines, an increase in post-election audits, a mandate for paper copies of every ballot (and money to pay for it), increases in cybersecurity, ensuring voting machines are manufactured in the US, and a host of other measures.

Admittedly, my conclusions in my last post were partly based on impressions. For instance, in response to the debate topic here, if someone responds by bringing up Trump a lot of times, doesn't offer any security proposals of their own, and just brushes off claims of voter fraud, oh, and you find out that the person is a Democrat, then you're gonna start getting the impression that such a person is biased against Trump, against election security, etc. This is like watching an atheist constantly bashing God and religion and that giving the impression that the atheist is a strong atheist or even a gnostic atheist.

Of course, sometimes it takes pressing such a person on an issue to get them to reveal another side of their view, like me asking the Democrat in the example above if he or she is even against increased security on basic matters such as voter ID. At least a non-partisan agnostic is usually willing to show that they are open to both or all sides from the start (without having to be pressed on it, as much)

You brought up H.R. 1, For the People Act that was passed by the Democrats. Interestingly, Senate Republicans drafted their own legislation on election integrity called S. 359,Save Democracy Act. None of these bills have made it into law (refer to the tracker here). While that shows that BOTH groups are for election security, but it still leaves the door open to my point that they are for it to an extent - up to the point that it benefits their side. If you notice, the Democrats bill is focused on expanding voter access by removing some requirements, while the Republican bill focuses more on qualifications for voting, like voter ID requirements (the Democrats bill doesn't require voter ID), qualifications for mail-in ballots, etc.

Let's consider just voter ID which is an easily fixable problem if everyone was given an ID. I would imagine that some Democrats think that the people without an ID are more likely to vote Democrat and that's why some Democrats are okay with no voter ID. I question if it were found that most of that group would support Republicans, if Democrats would still maintain their no voter ID stance? And if then, Republicans would now be okay with no voter ID? I hope that's not the case, but you get the point.

[Jose Fly]

As a non-partisan, I've interacted with people from both sides of this issue. Here are some of my observations*:

- Some don't really care about voter fraud when it benefits their side. This should not be a surprised given the fact that politicians tend to apply a different standard to themselves and their party than they do their opponents.

- A lot of the thinking on this issue has Trump in the equation. This is why views involving election security seems to split along party lines with Dems being against it and Republicans for it. Some Democrats tend to want to go against whatever Trump is for, regardless of if it is right or wrong. Trump is for increasing election security, so therefore they must be against it. Some Republicans tend to want to support Trump no matter what. They seem to follow him blindly. So these Republicans will do whatever would benefit Trump.

*The above views don't apply to all Republicans and Democrats, but just the polarized and partisan ones - the ones that put party before truth.

That's not completely accurate, especially regarding Democrats and election security. One of the first things the Democrats did upon gaining a majority in the House was to pass HR1, the "For the People Act", which included quite a number of election security improvements, such as providing money to states and local election entities to upgrade their voting equipment and security measures, more stringent security requirements for voting machines, an increase in post-election audits, a mandate for paper copies of every ballot (and money to pay for it), increases in cybersecurity, ensuring voting machines are manufactured in the US, and a host of other measures.

Admittedly, my conclusions in my last post were partly based on impressions. For instance, in response to the debate topic here, if someone responds by bringing up Trump a lot of times, doesn't offer any security proposals of their own, and just brushes off claims of voter fraud, oh, and you find out that the person is a Democrat, then you're gonna start getting the impression that such a person is biased against Trump, against election security, etc. This is like watching an atheist constantly bashing God and religion and that giving the impression that the atheist is a strong atheist or even a gnostic atheist.

Of course, sometimes it takes pressing such a person on an issue to get them to reveal another side of their view, like me asking the Democrat in the example above if he or she is even against increased security on basic matters such as voter ID. At least a non-partisan agnostic is usually willing to show that they are open to both or all sides from the start (without having to be pressed on it, as much)

You brought up H.R. 1, For the People Act that was passed by the Democrats. Interestingly, Senate Republicans drafted their own legislation on election integrity called S. 359,Save Democracy Act. None of these bills have made it into law (refer to the tracker here). While that shows that BOTH groups are for election security, but it still leaves the door open to my point that they are for it to an extent - up to the point that it benefits their side. If you notice, the Democrats bill is focused on expanding voter access by removing some requirements, while the Republican bill focuses more on qualifications for voting, like voter ID requirements (the Democrats bill doesn't require voter ID), qualifications for mail-in ballots, etc.

Let's consider just voter ID which is an easily fixable problem if everyone was given an ID. I would imagine that some Democrats think that the people without an ID are more likely to vote Democrat and that's why some Democrats are okay with no voter ID. I question if it were found that most of that group would support Republicans, if Democrats would still maintain their no voter ID stance? And if then, Republicans would now be okay with no voter ID? I hope that's not the case, but you get the point.

You hit on what I see as the primary difference between the parties when it comes to our elections. Republicans are focused on shrinking the electorate, while Democrats are focused on expanding it. The two bills we've posted demonstrate that quite well. The Dem bill includes provisions making it easier for people to register and cast their vote, while the Repub bill has measures that do the opposite.

As we discussed earlier, I'm on the side of making it easy for eligible people to register and vote, with sufficient security measures in place. I see no reason for things like restricting mail voting, limiting drop boxes, mandating continuous vote-counting, and requiring absentee ballots be received by election day. None of those are about election security and are instead about shrinking the vote.

I spend a fair bit of time reading right-wing media and listening to right-wing talk radio, and after 2018 I noticed a definite uptick in rhetoric about "mass voting" and "mob rule", which I saw as a clear indication that conservatives had realized their ability to win national elections was eroding and so they were starting to turn against the concept of democracy. I see their policies as reflective of that.