I will try to post withinin the parameters of Rational Jews’s initial post. I would appreciate if you could please address these points/questions:
1. As someone suggested, we are not experts on each incident. So one way of assessing fraud allegations is to look at what the experts have to say.
a. William Barr, a Trump appointee and loyalist says he didn’t see any widespread fraud that would change the outcome. If you are adamant that this is false, what is your reaon for giving him zero credence?
b. Similary, Trump had appointed an official to oversee fraud issues and he stated that this year’s election was the safest we’ve seen. His team had apparently worked with the states to ensure nothing would be compromised. He lost his job a day after saying this. Similarly, why are we dismiss his statement out of hand?
c. 40 or so court cases were brought alleging allegations. It would be prudent for us to actually examine some of these before insisting they were wrong. I have read a couple of instances where Trump’s lawyers backed down and acknowledged there was no fraud (in Pennsylvania, but I don’t have the specifics). Are you saying all the judges in each case were corrupt and unfairly dismissed the allegations?
2. To prevail in court, we have to bring proof. It can be in the form of direct evidence (i.e. video tape) or circumstantial evidence (a broken cookie jar + your child has cookie crumbs in his pocket). An allegation that did receive much attnetion here is the “pipe burst” incident in Georgia. This would amout to direct evidence. Yes, someone narrated her take on what was occuring in the video. I have seen another explantion: the count was suspended to fix the leak, and they were able to resume the count soonafter. The video shows them setting up again and resuming. Is this explantion wrong? Becasue the only retort I saw on this thread was that they aren’t allowed to bar poll watchers. Did they ban poll watchers here? If they were absent, is there a legal obligation to seek them out before resuming? I’ve also read that the procedure even without poll watchers is to make sure democrates and republicans are both present in the counting. Can someone verify or educate on this, how it works, and how we make sure counting isn;’t compromised?
3. Finally, and importantly: if hypothetically a candidtate WERE to baselessly allege fraud just to thwart the election, how for all practical purposes might that situation appear different than the case at hand? Might we assume that the hypothetical trouble-maker would get several hundred supporters to go out and sign affidavits (which wouldn’t hold up in court), spread various misinformration, and direct supporters to specific websites who would peddle his lies? If you are genuinely concerned about election integrity, it would seem fair for you to acknowledge that one would have reason to be skeptical about the claims of fraud. I say this because it’s wrong to assume we are dismissing the allegations merely because we don’t like Trump. The fact that I haven’t seen this acknolegement so far is what has led me to conclude that most people are singularly focused on supporting Trump, not because of genuine concern about security. Could somebody please explain why you are so convinced by any particular allegation that you can’t give benefit of doubt to any skeptic?