They say that they believe an election was stolen (without evidence), and that they want the democratic election to be overturned (according to their signs).

There are only a handful of endings to this... hostage-taking of senators or house representatives, or failing that, occupation of the building.Considering that the senators and house representatives have been evacuated, the latter is looking more likely.

It depends on how long a game is being played, this is more like 1923 Weimar Republic than 37...

Question worth asking. I&#x27;d suspect this is a huge tactical error because it forces mainstream politicians to pick a side between fascists and non fascists. Presumably most of them are going to pick the non side. This marginalizes the fascists which seems like a forced error.

I highly doubt they have any sort of a plan. Just anger and hatred.

It&#x27;s not conspiratorial! The president has stated, repeatedly and at length and to many different people, that he&#x27;d like to invalidate the election results and make himself the winner. This reflexive dismissal that he could mean what he says is coming very close to ending the country.

Let&#x27;s be honest, no amount of proof would convince them. They would move the goalpost as far as necessary for them to get what they want. They just KNOW they WON the election and I fail to see what would budge their belief.I think it&#x27;s a mistake to think that these people argue in good faith. I tried listening to what they have to say and they&#x27;re not consistent, they&#x27;re not coherent, they&#x27;re not honest and they want the truth only if it confirms their beliefs.

If 60 failed court cases wasn&#x27;t enough, what could possibly pacify these people. There were dozens upon dozens of opportunities to make the case election fraud had occurred. The courts would have listened if they had anything to present.

According to some of the more conspiratorial comments in this thread, a coup.The actual answer is probably that they do not believe the claims of election fraud have been sufficiently investigated. I&#x27;m sure they want a more thorough investigation to be held before the election results are officially recognized by congress.That and they&#x27;re just angry people who have resorted to rioting - like how a toddler resorts to a tantrum when it doesn&#x27;t get its way. This appears to be an increasingly common theme with modern US politics.

Well, they halted the certification process, didn&#x27;t they?

Terrorism is the unlawful use of force or violence against persons or property to intimidate or coerce a government or its citizens to further certain political or social objectives.

What do these protestors hope to accomplish?

To which the penalty could be death. I doubt it will come to that, but these clowns are over their head.

Where are you reading that the protestors are armed? The linked NPR article does not say so. The NYTimes coverage [1] mentions that people posted pictures of weapons on Facebook on Tuesday, but does not mention that the people in the Capitol are armed.Breaching into government buildings in response to spurious allegations of electoral fraud is bad enough - there&#x27;s no need to taint the message with embellishment, and doing so gives ammunition to people who want to claim that critics of these events are spreading falsehoods.1. <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.nytimes.com&#x2F;live&#x2F;2021&#x2F;01&#x2F;06&#x2F;us&#x2F;electoral-vote" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.nytimes.com&#x2F;live&#x2F;2021&#x2F;01&#x2F;06&#x2F;us&#x2F;electoral-vote</a>

Yes. Armed protestors storming the capitol and taking over the legislative chambers at the request of the defeated president is 100% a literal coup.

This (aside from the realisation of how fragile american democracy is) isn&#x27;t yet, but in the Pa. State Senate they have realised they can just refuse to swear in the newly elected democratic senator and refuse to let the Democratic Lt. Gov. Preside.These Republicans (particularly Ted Cruz) aren&#x27;t stupid enough to believe their own words, but they&#x27;re seriously playing with fire risking their countries democracy in the name of a &#x27;24 run at a time when China is only getting stronger.

Rhetorical question? If not a coup then certainly an attempted coup.

&quot;Orange man bad&quot; has not aged well. This has to be one of not many times in politics where someone has been worse than even his own opponents could dream.History will not look kindly on people who turned a blind eye.

Fascist Trump can&#x27;t even get anyone from attacking him publicly whatsoever. You really like to use that word, but are clueless and careless.

Without hyperbole, this is textbook fascism.

Conspiracy theory extremism slowly turning into domestic terrorism. It&#x27;s not a matter of what is real or what isn&#x27;t. It&#x27;s a matter of bullying the rest of the population to accept their beliefs as the truth.<a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.hstoday.us&#x2F;subject-matter-areas&#x2F;infrastructure-security&#x2F;5-terrorism-trends-to-watch-in-2021&#x2F;" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.hstoday.us&#x2F;subject-matter-areas&#x2F;infrastructure-s...</a>

no, there is no credible evidence of fraud, this is a fascist brown shirt style coup

Have there been any Benford’s Law studies? Post them!

There is very suspect video evidence of hidden away votes being snuck in once the room was cleared and those votes pushed Biden on top after Trump was winning. There is also iffy statistical data on the numbers of votes.

Appeal to authority, what higher authority than the POTUS? For weeks people have been telling Trump and his enablers they were playing with fire. Well..

The fraud was the black voter suppression.

The only serious problems we can see from the 2020 election, aside from the normal voter suppression that has long been common in many states, was the deliberate hobbling of the USPS by a Trump appointee and donor that results in an untold number of ballots not being counted that would have been counted had the USPS been operating at it&#x27;s normal efficiency.

Every election has fraud, and this one was no different. It&#x27;s just a matter of the scale of fraud. From all evidence thus-far, this election is not all that different than past elections when it comes to voter fraud. There was more chance for fraud (due to more mail-in voting), but no one has been able to prove it was large enough to impact any election result.So yes, Trump has been riling up his base with words of stolen election, which has led to this moment.

Saying there was absolutely zero fraud in this election is inaccurate, but saying the election was &quot;stolen&quot; is inaccurate as well. Every election has irregularities - most of it is people making honest mistakes on forms. As is typical, it is fairly minor in this election as well. Big picture - there are problems with electronic voting that have been researched into by many academics. I believe we must insist that the source code to all voting systems to be made public.

Do we know who runs that site? It could be accidental but it looks like a very low information way to barrage one&#x27;s opponents and avoid specific criticism

Have you found anything credible? All I can find with random clicks are lots of very long youtube videos that don&#x27;t ever seem to get to the point and links to voting laws in particular states without any context.It gives the impression of there being plenty of evidence, but non of the items I looked at actually upheld what they claim.

<a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;hereistheevidence.com&#x2F;" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;hereistheevidence.com&#x2F;</a> presents some evidences, up to reader to decide if credible&#x2F;substantial or not

Is there ANY credible evidence of fraud, anywhere? Or are people protesting solely because they trust Trump?

Most of the reporting by media around events around the nation in response to police violence were called protests even as they devolved into violence and clear rioting so I am not sure where you get this position from

Windows were broken, that&#x27;s how the inurectionists entered the capitol.

When windows start getting broken, buildings set on fire, etc. From what I can gather thus far, it seems like it&#x27;s people being where they&#x27;re not supposed to be and refusing to leave.edit from downthreadAnd there we go, they&#x27;re breaking in now. Time to clean house.

When does it stop being&quot;protests&quot; in the reporting?

Some of those that work forces
Are the same that burn crosses

I came to say this in a more ironic way, but this is clearer.During the BLM protests the police wasn&#x27;t late at showing up fully armed.

Yep: <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;twitter.com&#x2F;MEPFuller&#x2F;status&#x2F;1346909804036386816" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;twitter.com&#x2F;MEPFuller&#x2F;status&#x2F;1346909804036386816</a>

“The Police” is an over generalization. We shouldn’t ask the police to both intervene while also calling all of them fascists.

The police and the fascists are on the same side.

Police are standing back and standing by.<a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;twitter.com&#x2F;jazmineulloa&#x2F;status&#x2F;1346898566703435779" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;twitter.com&#x2F;jazmineulloa&#x2F;status&#x2F;1346898566703435779</a><a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;twitter.com&#x2F;igorbobic&#x2F;status&#x2F;1346902299466203145" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;twitter.com&#x2F;igorbobic&#x2F;status&#x2F;1346902299466203145</a><a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;twitter.com&#x2F;bubbaprog&#x2F;status&#x2F;1346920198461419520" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;twitter.com&#x2F;bubbaprog&#x2F;status&#x2F;1346920198461419520</a>

&quot;Some of those that work forces are the same that burn crosses&quot;

<a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;trends.google.com&#x2F;trends&#x2F;explore?date=all&amp;geo=US&amp;q=black%20lives%20matter" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;trends.google.com&#x2F;trends&#x2F;explore?date=all&amp;geo=US&amp;q=b...</a>

The stark difference in the response to these &quot;protests&quot; vs the DC BLM protests:<a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;twitter.com&#x2F;RedR1dngHood&#x2F;status&#x2F;1346908557560537091" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;twitter.com&#x2F;RedR1dngHood&#x2F;status&#x2F;1346908557560537091</a>

I’m American and that possibility has occurred to me too.  The police are trying to manage the situation without inflaming it, and especially without creating some Tienenmann-lite incident of violence.

I think the people there are looking for a grand narrative with the feeling of a struggle between two sides. My guess is that Washington is attempting to avoid creating that environment to minimize conflict. That&#x27;s why we see the burglars strolling like tourists guided by red velvet. [1]As a disclaimer, I&#x27;m not American, so take my feelings with a grain of salt.[1] <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;twitter.com&#x2F;JenniferJJacobs&#x2F;status&#x2F;1346902358006104064" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;twitter.com&#x2F;JenniferJJacobs&#x2F;status&#x2F;13469023580061040...</a>

Several people have claimed this, but none of the news sources mention it

You can still use tear gas.If countries weren&#x27;t afraid of other gasses being used in war, they&#x27;d use tear gas on the battlefield

They are armed. You can&#x27;t use tear gas against weapons but guns. Using guns will lead to deaths either way, so I think they are taking the correct stance.

The cops pulled out before that happened, and it was quite peaceful there while that was going on. It&#x27;s really not the same situation.

And during that time they surrounded a federal courthouse... where people were free to come and go and court remained in session...

I like the original better: <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;en.wikipedia.org&#x2F;wiki&#x2F;Seattle_General_Strike" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;en.wikipedia.org&#x2F;wiki&#x2F;Seattle_General_Strike</a>

BLM took over an entire section of Seattle for weeks.

It&#x27;s being live streamed on Twitch by people inside too. They locked them inside.

&gt; Imagine the social media responseNo, this is a key difference between the sides of this issue. The people in DC aren’t looking for a response on social media - they’re looking for a response in real life, with arms if necessary. I think they may well get it this time, too.The Left doesn’t seem to realize the table stakes are different with this.

What&#x27;ll really spark a bigger fire is if the protesters are given time to do what they say they want, and recruit some congressmembers to declare Trump the election winner.

There is nothing those protestors would like more than a violent response. Imagine the social media response. The leadership is scared of sparking a bigger fire

I am shocked and horrified that it is taking so long to clear those who have breached the Capitol. There is more police efficiency and aggression in a run of the mill BLM protest.Edit: for example: <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;twitter.com&#x2F;RedR1dngHood&#x2F;status&#x2F;1346908557560537091" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;twitter.com&#x2F;RedR1dngHood&#x2F;status&#x2F;1346908557560537091</a>

Claiming fraud without any evidence at all just because you lost is ridiculous. This is clearly a huge attack on democracy by Trump and his supporters&#x2F;sycophants.Edit:How are the rioters even able to breach the security and allowed&#x2F;able to stay there? Feels like some very bad policing - are they overwhelmed or is it intentional?

The much more likely scenario is that they just let people through because an overwhelming majority of law enforcement are Trump voters.

God, poor Capitol Police.Imagine having to try and reason with that crowd, to avoid having to shoot anyone.

I would not want terrorists personally honored by such a distinction. Seems like something they&#x27;d aim for.

Perhaps this one:<a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;twitter.com&#x2F;igorbobic&#x2F;status&#x2F;1346906369232920576" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;twitter.com&#x2F;igorbobic&#x2F;status&#x2F;1346906369232920576</a>

As far as photos go, this photo isn’t well composed or evocative of anything. Compare this photo to the one of the Ohio COVID protests last year (<a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;slate.com&#x2F;human-interest&#x2F;2020&#x2F;04&#x2F;ohio-protester-zombie-photo-coronavirus-interview.html" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;slate.com&#x2F;human-interest&#x2F;2020&#x2F;04&#x2F;ohio-protester-zomb...</a>). I’m sure better photographs of the protest will emerge soon.This one is wow (<a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;twitter.com&#x2F;ByMikeBaker&#x2F;status&#x2F;1346912374406615042" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;twitter.com&#x2F;ByMikeBaker&#x2F;status&#x2F;1346912374406615042</a>).

That photo has &quot;Escape from New York&quot; [1] vibes. John Carpenter is a genius.[1] <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.imdb.com&#x2F;title&#x2F;tt0082340&#x2F;" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.imdb.com&#x2F;title&#x2F;tt0082340&#x2F;</a>

Doesn&#x27;t compare to this one: <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;twitter.com&#x2F;stevennelson10&#x2F;status&#x2F;1346909952410062848" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;twitter.com&#x2F;stevennelson10&#x2F;status&#x2F;134690995241006284...</a>I have difficulty believing it&#x27;s real, but it&#x27;s from the account of a legit reporter. I predict, this will be one of the iconic images from the 53rd week of 2020.

Here is a guy occupying the senate chair: <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;twitter.com&#x2F;TheRachLindsay&#x2F;status&#x2F;1346912993729159168&#x2F;photo&#x2F;1" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;twitter.com&#x2F;TheRachLindsay&#x2F;status&#x2F;134691299372915916...</a>

It&#x27;s this one for me, with the guns drawn at the entrance to the House Floor <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;twitter.com&#x2F;GettyImagesNews&#x2F;status&#x2F;1346907671425937408" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;twitter.com&#x2F;GettyImagesNews&#x2F;status&#x2F;13469076714259374...</a>

I rather prefer this one, from the same thread - better composition, and the CSA flag adds some oomph<a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;twitter.com&#x2F;igorbobic&#x2F;status&#x2F;1346902299466203145" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;twitter.com&#x2F;igorbobic&#x2F;status&#x2F;1346902299466203145</a>

History in the making right here. This[1] might be an early contender for image of the year[1]<a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;twitter.com&#x2F;igorbobic&#x2F;status&#x2F;1346906369232920576&#x2F;photo&#x2F;1" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;twitter.com&#x2F;igorbobic&#x2F;status&#x2F;1346906369232920576&#x2F;pho...</a>

EDIT: Source - <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;twitter.com&#x2F;byaaroncdavis&#x2F;status&#x2F;1346908166030766080" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;twitter.com&#x2F;byaaroncdavis&#x2F;status&#x2F;1346908166030766080</a>&quot;BREAKING: A source tells me The Defense Department has just denied a request by DC officials to deploy the National Guard to the US Capitol.&quot; -Aaron C. Davis (Investigative Reporter for The Washington Post)

The Defense Department has just denied a request by DC officials to deploy the National Guard to the US Capitol.

Whew. I would think hard about putting my people in that position if I received that request.

Last I heard, the DC mayor requested activation of the guard, but stipulated that they not be armed nor wearing armor.

Update: White House says National Guard now dispatched: <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;twitter.com&#x2F;PressSec&#x2F;status&#x2F;1346918582832168964" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;twitter.com&#x2F;PressSec&#x2F;status&#x2F;1346918582832168964</a>

Just heard on C-SPAN: &quot;The Defense Department has just denied a request by DC officials to deploy the National Guard to the US Capitol.&quot;Source: Washington Post reporter <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;twitter.com&#x2F;byaaroncdavis&#x2F;status&#x2F;1346908166030766080" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;twitter.com&#x2F;byaaroncdavis&#x2F;status&#x2F;1346908166030766080</a>

Your sentiment is apt, but Barr is no longer the AG.

Moreover, where are AG Barr’s badgeless secret police?

How about before it turns into an actual coup, streaming live globally?Either put up a fight or give up on democracy.

Do you want this to escalate? This would be a bad time to start making martyrs out of these people.

<a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;twitter.com&#x2F;jaboukie&#x2F;status&#x2F;1346888652216037376?s=21" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;twitter.com&#x2F;jaboukie&#x2F;status&#x2F;1346888652216037376?s=21</a>

I wonder how many of the current group is armed compared to past incidents were rubber bullets were used.  Is it possible that there is a concern that escalating force may result in an increase in violent response?  Is it like a smaller version of MAD policy, one involving guns instead of nukes.  Those who have the ability to ensure MAD get different treatment than those who don&#x27;t have the ability to ensure MAD.

TPTB want a tragedy to happen to manufacture societal consent for giving up our right to self-defense.

&gt; DC&#x27;s National Guard just activated. It took a few dozen minutesThe Guard was requested yesterday, in advance of the protests, to prevent this kind of thing.<a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.nbcnews.com&#x2F;news&#x2F;us-news&#x2F;d-c-mayor-calls-national-guard-pro-trump-protests-set-n1252800" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.nbcnews.com&#x2F;news&#x2F;us-news&#x2F;d-c-mayor-calls-nationa...</a>Took more than a few dozen minutes.

DC&#x27;s National Guard just activated. It took a few dozen minutes, but its a full 100% response with 1100 troops allegedly being deployed.I think the optimists were hoping that these protesters would calm down if given the space. But at this point, its clear that they aren&#x27;t calming down and need to be met with more force.Hopefully things remain somewhat peaceful. I don&#x27;t think anyone&#x27;s actually been hurt yet: just lots of property damage right now.

&gt; Where&#x27;s the tear gas and rubber bullets?Tear gas was deployed and live fire (not rubber bullets) exchanged within the Capitol.But, yeah, allowing them to breach the Capitol and open fire within the building is very different than we&#x27;ve seen with protests with a different ideological bent. But it&#x27;s consistent with how right-wing white protestors have been treated elsewhere in the country recently by law enforcement.

Well they did shoot and kill a woman, and they were totally pepper spraying people by the end.But I agree, Capitol Police should have never let this even happen. They knew there was a big protest. They should have been 100% ready for this and they totally dropped the ball.Good thing very few people even went in and there was little damage. Well except for that women I mentioned. Anyone even know her name yet? Wonder if there will be murals of her.

Where&#x27;s the tear gas and rubber bullets? Where is the national guard? There was more police response for a fscking photo op!

BLM they had military out in full force, even though BLM was non-violent protests. Flip side this terrorism event was known to be coming and they did very little to prepare for it. Nor are they stopping it with any great haste.

Other than political viewpoints, I don&#x27;t really see much difference.

Yeah. I understand the unfortunate symbolism of right-wing intruders taking the chambers but I still think in terms of injuries&#x2F; fatalities while staff and lawmakers were evacuated, this was a successful de-escalation. (This [well, &#x27;taking&#x27; the parliament] happened in Germany, too, and no-one was talking about it anymore days later because nothing really happened.)It is unfortunate though, that this strategy is only seemingly applied to white people.

I think the double standards are despicable.

You&#x27;re right, practicing restraint is very important. What I meant is that the difference itself is what&#x27;s despicable. An actively hostile, antagonistic response to protestors who were almost entirely peaceful versus doing almost nothing to impede armed rioters breaking into the Capitol.

&gt; It is despicable how tepid the police responseHaving been gassed and flashbanged all summer in Portland while protesting for Black Lives, the last word I can imagine using to describe police restraint is &quot;despicable.&quot; I don&#x27;t wish that shit on anybody.

Or perhaps they were more focused on getting the people inside to safety than they were about the actual physical building.

Wow, that&#x27;s unbelievable. What possible explanation could there be for this?

It&#x27;s quite unfair to call them terrorists when they&#x27;ve harmed no one and destroyed nothing. Remember, riots are the voice of the unheard!

I&#x27;m confused by this video, what evidence is there that this is &quot;allow[ing] the terrorists into the building&quot;? All I see is law enforcement opening a gate. The Twitter account appears to be a random unverified person, so I can&#x27;t rely on that either.Not saying the police response has been perfect, but this video doesn&#x27;t say much about that.

The police specifically allowed the terrorists into the building. They are on the same side.<a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;twitter.com&#x2F;i&#x2F;status&#x2F;1346924307692318723" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;twitter.com&#x2F;i&#x2F;status&#x2F;1346924307692318723</a>

<a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.nytimes.com&#x2F;live&#x2F;2021&#x2F;01&#x2F;06&#x2F;us&#x2F;washington-dc-protests#police-in-washington-seize-5-guns-and-arrest-at-least-13-during-violent-capitol-protest" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.nytimes.com&#x2F;live&#x2F;2021&#x2F;01&#x2F;06&#x2F;us&#x2F;washington-dc-pro...</a>

NYT is reporting at least 5 guns seized so far, 13 arrested. Early numbers and not hard to extrapolate that many who got out when it was open season could also be armed.<a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.nytimes.com&#x2F;live&#x2F;2021&#x2F;01&#x2F;06&#x2F;us&#x2F;washington-dc-protests#police-in-washington-seize-5-guns-and-arrest-at-least-13-during-violent-capitol-protest" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.nytimes.com&#x2F;live&#x2F;2021&#x2F;01&#x2F;06&#x2F;us&#x2F;washington-dc-pro...</a>

What evidence do you have that they are armed? In every piece of media I&#x27;ve seen, no one has anything in their hands.

Yes. They were smashing windows and doors in the Capitol. They destroyed press cameras and other recording equipment. I didn&#x27;t see any reports of molotov cocktails explicitly but they were using pepper spray and other similar sprays against the police.

Were they destroying property and throwing molotov cocktails at them like Antifa&#x2F;BLM did over the summer?

I think they&#x27;ve responded well. All the congresspeople were evacuated safely, I expect that if they had any chance of causing harm there the police response would have skyrocketed.What you had after the evacuation was complete was just a few fools breaking some windows, posing on the dias for Twitter likes, and wandering the hallways. I&#x27;m surprised they haven&#x27;t spray painted their message on the walls yet.Government property gets vandalized all the time, and can be replaced. The last thing you want to do is to kill these people who have been trapped in a cult of disinformation and turn them into martyrs, possibly building into a civil war. Currently, the response makes them look weak, but at the end of the day they&#x27;ll all just leave, hopefully without loss of life.That civil war must be avoided at all costs, and if a tepid-looking response, a few of them getting away without being arrested, a few panes of glass, and some carpet cleaning are what that costs, then I&#x27;m more than happy to pay it.I&#x27;m less enthusiastic about the criminals at the top escaping prison time, as Joe Biden seems intent on allowing per his messaging, but again, if prosecuting everyone complicit in the previous administration&#x27;s crimes has a 1% chance of inciting civil war, well, it&#x27;s just not worth it.

Several instances where they vandalized and destroyed tens of thousands of dollars of camera equipment belonging to reporters<a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;twitter.com&#x2F;shomaristone&#x2F;status&#x2F;1346941715895250949" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;twitter.com&#x2F;shomaristone&#x2F;status&#x2F;1346941715895250949</a><a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;twitter.com&#x2F;Journo_Christal&#x2F;status&#x2F;1346945835368501249" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;twitter.com&#x2F;Journo_Christal&#x2F;status&#x2F;13469458353685012...</a>Also, WTF do you mean by any evidence of buildings being looted or vandalized? Have you stuck your head in sand or not seen the rioters destroying shit in the Capitol? Just look up any legitimate media source or anything on twitter from today. They also fucking placed pipe bombs and explosives in several locations.

Do you have any evidence of armed rioters storming anything?  The only video I have seen is people &quot;armed&quot; with flags, signs, banners, phones, and cameras.  Has anyone been beaten to a pulp?  Have buildings been looted, vandalized, or burned down yet?  &quot;BLM protests&quot; gained a well deserved reputation before the police responses became aggressive.  I don&#x27;t recall the police doing much of anything until after they allowed &quot;peaceful protesters&quot; to storm and burn down the police precinct and the rioting&#x2F;looting began.

It is despicable how tepid the police response to armed rioters storming the Capitol has been compared to the response to BLM protests over the summer.

The republican leadership is the person who is leading this coup.

And it hasn&#x27;t exactly been subtle either. That this isn&#x27;t apparent to anyone that has been conscious for the past year+ makes you wonder if you&#x27;re going crazy, doesn&#x27;t it?

They invited this! It&#x27;s the republican leadership that&#x27;s perpetuation this!

&quot;Impeachment trials&quot; are not really designed to be fair in the way actual trials are. They are legally designed to be a popularity contest among the legislature; hence why the Republican party was able to block it, and also why they would have been able to vote no if they had decided not to block it. Honestly, letting the term run out and having the president lose in a typical election is probably the least debatable way to change the president. There is some historical precedent for impeachments being used as political tools, while elections are wreathed in tradition and legitimacy.

They had their chance to do the right thing last January. Instead of holding a fair impeachment trial in the Senate, with witnesses, they chose to let this clown show go on. They are complicit.

The senators could have voted to convict convict during the impeachment trial.That would have been more than a speed bump. They had the opportunity to act, chose not to (well except for Romney).

Most of them came out against Trump only so long as it didn&#x27;t matter, and in the least effectual way they could. They also almost universally stopped even pretending once he was elected.

&gt; If the republican leadership had unequivocally come out against the narrative that the election was stolen, this wouldn&#x27;t be happening.They all came out against Trump when this started in 2016. Was not even a speed bump.

They were speaking out of both sides of their mouth, per usual. They deserve no credit, they only acted when their actions would have no consequences.

I wasn&#x27;t sure if McConnel finally found a conscious or if he was simply pissed off at Trump for spreading the &quot;Stop the Steal&quot; nonsense that likely suppressed a little bit of Republican turnout and lost them the Ossoff&#x2F;Perdue race.  That speech seemed carefully calculated to draw the maximum ire of the President.

But only when violence was on their literal doorsteps.

I&#x27;m sorry, but WHY are you glad about that? If anything that infuriates me more. They have known about these threats for months if not years and decided to do nothing until actual violence was at their doorsteps.

I was glad to hear McConnel and Pence finally (FINALLY) do the right thing.

The writing was on the wall and they knew it. Now that Trump doesn&#x27;t benefit them, they will act like they don&#x27;t support him.

There&#x27;s barely any &quot;establishment&quot; members left in the Republican party. They were primaried to death in the past couple of decades, or chose to quit when they saw what direction their party was heading. Like it or not Trump and his brand of politics is the modern Republican party.<a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;fivethirtyeight.com&#x2F;features&#x2F;why-there-are-so-few-moderate-republicans-left&#x2F;" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;fivethirtyeight.com&#x2F;features&#x2F;why-there-are-so-few-mo...</a>

Well the Republican “leadership” is no longer a monolithic entity, it’s split between Trumpists and establishment types.  The former have been leading it all.  The latter have been speaking out against it all along, but to no effect.

I think that the republicans have benefitted a lot from hyperbole and insults. People need to tone down their language

This is terrorism, plain and simple. Donald Trump is the leader of a terrorist cult.

&gt;The cops have a strange affinity for certain kinds of &#x27;protesters&#x27; too, we all know it would end differently if BLM or &#x27;Antifa&#x27; did this.You mean they would have let the protestors occupy several blocks of the city while declaring independence for several months until their private security forces murdered too many black teenagers?

&gt; This is a failure of leadership by the republicans - plain and simple.The cops have a strange affinity for certain kinds of &#x27;protesters&#x27; too, we all know it would end differently if BLM or &#x27;Antifa&#x27; did this.

The DC National Guard, unique among all other guards, is under the command of the President. A state governor can call up that state&#x27;s Guard, but the government of D.C. cannot.

They were requested by the DC Mayor and approved by the Pentagon for deployment yesterday by... But no idea where tf they are.<a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;edition.cnn.com&#x2F;2021&#x2F;01&#x2F;04&#x2F;politics&#x2F;muriel-bowser-dc-national-guard-protests&#x2F;index.html" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;edition.cnn.com&#x2F;2021&#x2F;01&#x2F;04&#x2F;politics&#x2F;muriel-bowser-dc...</a>

What is the point of a national guard if they can&#x27;t be used to defend the capitol?

This isn’t a failure of leadership like my code failed to compile just now. This is leadership with a vision.

The democrats could peal out their conservatives too.Then you could have the progressives, the moderates, the ultra conservatives, and I guess a Texas separation party, and it&#x27;ll be like Canada

Many Republicans on TV agree with you.The party needs to split into the anti-democracy, pro-Trump faction, and the rest of the party. The moderate wing could easily pull some people that voted Democrat this year, and form a stable, coalition government.This would help de-radicalize our political system.

The Republican leadership doesn&#x27;t lose out from this(this won&#x27;t flip an anti-abortioner&#x27;s vote), but have a slight chance at winning out.It makes sense that they&#x27;d leave it alone to do it&#x27;s thing

The failure of leadership by the Republicans occurred in 2016 when no other candidate could manage to beat Trump in the primary. The rest was just the other train cars continuing to derail.

This is a failure of leadership by the republicans - plain and simple. I don&#x27;t care if this comment is perceived as partisan, it&#x27;s a statement of fact. If the republican leadership had unequivocally come out against the narrative that the election was stolen, this wouldn&#x27;t be happening.Edit: Yes, it&#x27;s true that the top leader and his acolytes have engineered this outcome, but the majority of the republican leadership did not want this and do not benefit from this, they were (with some exceptions) simply too cowardly to speak out against it.

The 2000 elections were most probably stolen, but Al Gore played the safer card and accepted defeat. Since then I don&#x27;t see how anyone can trust the process.

&gt; I have absolutely no faith in the election since voting required the use of hackable electronic voting machines.This is mostly not true. See <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;ballotpedia.org&#x2F;Voting_methods_and_equipment_by_state" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;ballotpedia.org&#x2F;Voting_methods_and_equipment_by_stat...</a> . Almost every state produces a voter-readable paper trail for all votes.

&quot;no faith in the election since voting required the use of hackable electronic voting machines.&quot;The voting machines produce a paper ballot, which can be recounted and audited.The elections were fine.100% of the issue is derived from Trump&#x27;s attempt to sow doubt, and of course, his enablers.

Did you take any comfort from the Georgia hand-count?

Put simply, I don&#x27;t know what to believe. As an IT security worker, I have absolutely no faith in the election since voting required the use of hackable electronic voting machines.We need to restore trust in the system. An idiot needs to be able to understand and audit it. Until that happens, there will always be people who think it&#x27;s rigged, and politicians will always exploit that.

Two things:1) You can&#x27;t reason yourself out of a position that you didn&#x27;t reason yourself into. They don&#x27;t care that the data is bad, they care that it supports their worldview.2) The folowing remains true now as it did more than 70 years ago: 
“Never believe that anti-Semites are completely unaware of the absurdity of their replies. They know that their remarks are frivolous, open to challenge. But they are amusing themselves, for it is their adversary who is obliged to use words responsibly, since he believes in words. The anti-Semites have the right to play. They even like to play with discourse for, by giving ridiculous reasons, they discredit the seriousness of their interlocutors. They delight in acting in bad faith, since they seek not to persuade by sound argument but to intimidate and disconcert. If you press them too closely, they will abruptly fall silent, loftily indicating by some phrase that the time for argument is past.”― Jean-Paul Sartre

They’re out there if you want to search for them.I went through three or four of the statistical analyses that purported to show the election results were practically impossible.They were trivially junk. E.g. one compared the voting rate in 2020 and 2016 but used votes to registered voters in 2020 but votes to eligible voters in 2016.The others were similarly laughable, but no body cared when I posted this.Others says it better than I can, but the people who believe this stuff believe it because they want to, not because it makes sense. Facts and reason didn’t get them to this point and facts and reason isn’t going to pull them back.

Is there any source that has a bunch of the claims and refutations to it?Just saying fraud doesn&#x27;t exist doesn&#x27;t help calm the outrage of those who believe it was stolen. Also based on how partisan the impeachment was it is likely people don&#x27;t trust the government to have any sense of accuracy and merely attribute it to partisan lines.The strategy of acknowledging what someone says and then responding to it often calms down difficult interpersonal conflicts. I think the same applies here.We understand you believe &quot;A&quot;, we do not believe that because of proof &quot;B&quot;.Instead the approach taken is largely ad hominem&#x27;s which only escalate things further.

The evidence is just laughably bad. But there is a lot of it and if you wanted to explain why each claim is either meaningless or outright false would take a lot of time. I guess that&#x27;s the point.

I think it&#x27;s also worth considering that none of this evidence has been through any sort of judicial review -- at no point in the Trump campaign&#x27;s barrage of lawsuits did they litigate any election fraud, only procedural questions around the inclusion or exclusions of ballots.

So, I am certain, _somewhere_ in this whole election _someone_ surely stole some votes. I can almost guarantee that on such a big number of people voting that at least some number of votes were stolen, probably by representatives from both parties. What I strongly doubt is the fact that this was widespread, organized or the numbers of these frauds were in any meaningful way impacting the election.The difference between parties was not insignificant. In other election cycles you had much lower differences but the other party conceded to the process ( looking at 2000).So this whole thing is, IMO, predicated on one side simply refusing to admit defeat.

I clicked on one in the list randomly. #38 8,000 voter application submitted by couple on behalf of homeless and the dead - <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.nbclosangeles.com&#x2F;news&#x2F;local&#x2F;pair-charged-with-voter-fraIud-allegedly-submitted-thousands-of-fraudulent-applications-on-behalf-of-homeless-people&#x2F;2464168&#x2F;" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.nbclosangeles.com&#x2F;news&#x2F;local&#x2F;pair-charged-with-v...</a>A man who tried to run for mayor in Hawthorne is among two people charged in a voter fraud case in which thousands of fraudulent voter registration applications were allegedly submitted on behalf of homeless people, the Los Angeles County District Attorney&#x27;s Office announced Tuesday.It doesn&#x27;t even allege that any votes were submitted, the article was published Nov 17 so the investigation must have been going on for months.Clicked on #237: Posted confidential voter information on website - <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.washoecounty.us&#x2F;voters&#x2F;elections&#x2F;20_gen_ab_ev_reports.php" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.washoecounty.us&#x2F;voters&#x2F;elections&#x2F;20_gen_ab_ev_re...</a>That&#x27;s the official website for Washoe County and the page is a voter turnout report so yeah obviously it&#x27;s evidence of fraud (&#x2F;sarcasm).#356: Count the fraudalent [sic] ballots <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.youtube.com&#x2F;watch?v=4eH3FpIy3TE&amp;feature=youtu.be" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.youtube.com&#x2F;watch?v=4eH3FpIy3TE&amp;feature=youtu.be</a>It&#x27;s just a youtube video of voting officials talking at a desk or something.That website is evidence of nothing more than someone with too much time on their hands and ideology to push.

not a supporter, but i like that the author has taken the time to distinguish what they consider &quot;verified&quot; and the rest they consider &quot;unverified&quot;. quite a few of the 80 &quot;illegal votes&quot; accusations here bear very big numbers - would be nice to crowdsource an effort to provide the other side to each of them.unfortunately, like i suspect many here, i&#x27;m not particularly inclined to spend time going thru them, particular the ~30% of those that link to youtube and twitter accounts.Brandolini&#x27;s law, aka the bullshit asymmetry principle comes to mind - &quot;The amount of energy needed to refute bullshit is an order of magnitude larger than to produce it.&quot;

Well, the fact that the site lists stats like number of court cases with evidentiary hearings blocked without a companion stat of cases allowed to proceed is evidence of bias.

&gt; Are there people here on HN that believe the election was stolen?There are. One sent me to this [1] resource earlier. I do not endorse this source, and have not manually verified their claims myself.If anyone else would like to check the source, that would be good, I intend to manually check their claims myself later, but don&#x27;t have time now.[1] <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;hereistheevidence.com&#x2F;" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;hereistheevidence.com&#x2F;</a>Edit: I would ask anyone checking the source to not use the tool that the source provides, for obvious reasons.Also, we should probably see if the datasets provided are available elsewhere.

Listen to the tape of the Trump call to Georgia, or better yet this Georgia election official&#x27;s point-by-point takedown of Trump&#x27;s claims: <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.nytimes.com&#x2F;2021&#x2F;01&#x2F;04&#x2F;us&#x2F;politics&#x2F;trump-georgia-election-fraud.html" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.nytimes.com&#x2F;2021&#x2F;01&#x2F;04&#x2F;us&#x2F;politics&#x2F;trump-georgia...</a>There simply is no reality based reason to believe that the election was stolen, certainly not in any consistently logical belief system (e.g. the 2016 Electoral College results were almost exactly the same in the opposite direction).

I don&#x27;t believe the election was stolen.But I will say: it&#x27;s almost impossible to prove an election has been stolen after the fact with mail-in ballots. Once the outer envelope is removed and destroyed, the ballot is irreversibly anonymous. It&#x27;s impossible to tell if an anonymous ballot is fraudulent or not -- there&#x27;s no ability to audit it by contacting the voter.Mail-in ballots are particularly vulnerable to fraud, something the New York Times correctly worried about back before Trump.[1]. And we just had more mail-in ballots than ever before thanks to Covid.HN has long been suspicious of voting systems; we all know how often systems are hacked by bad actors. I don&#x27;t think it&#x27;s a stretch to think that election tampering is possible, particularly in close elections.1. <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.nytimes.com&#x2F;2012&#x2F;10&#x2F;07&#x2F;us&#x2F;politics&#x2F;as-more-vote-by-mail-faulty-ballots-could-impact-elections.html" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.nytimes.com&#x2F;2012&#x2F;10&#x2F;07&#x2F;us&#x2F;politics&#x2F;as-more-vote-...</a>

Many people look at these cases and see they were not allowed to be heard. How many of Gore&#x27;s supporting court cases were tossed for lack of standing etc?

A person can believe anything they want.If there were evidence of a stolen election, then Trump would have won a number of court cases from one of the MANY judges, mostly ... well, conservative, to use a label ... that he placed his cases in front of.Anyone can look at these cases and have an understanding of the actual evidence presented, and see, objectively, that there was not significant election or voter tampering, and definitely not significant enough to change the election.I&#x27;m far more concerned about attempts to make it harder to vote before the election - the one drop box per county in TX, for example, then I am that any election was stolen.

We might like to think that by virtue of of being technically minded, logical, and by following the scientific method that somehow biases can be eliminated. And yet, there are those here willing for example, to espouse a spiritual belief that has no basis in fact or science. That alone should put paid to any hope that any of us can truly shake biases and beliefs and operate solely on the basis of fact.Further, very few information sources are truly factual, and without bias?

Well, yes, people with higher education tend to be smarter, yes.

There are climate change deniers and, I&#x27;d wager, holocaust deniers here, so why not? I don&#x27;t understand why people have such a hard time believing that just because you&#x27;re in tech you&#x27;re not immune to the cognitive biases shared by the entire human race.

Thank you. I feel the same way.I vote in every election. There are problems with many elections, especially ones for US President. Those problems are baked into the system we&#x27;ve established as a nation. States run their own elections. States elect US Presidents and not citizens.I don&#x27;t think states could coordinate a conspiracy to change citizen votes to steer elections one way or another. Too many moving parts, too many people. It is fair one state has one set of rules that differ from another? Yes. It is the way the USA is built.It frustrates me to no end that a group of people say, &quot;The election had no issues&quot; just as it frustrates me when someone says, &quot;The election was stolen.&quot; Those thoughts are always perpetuated by those who lead political parties.

If you look for it, just about every state has had some anomalies that were noted by the officials. It&#x27;s all boring.All of it has been on a scale that wouldn&#x27;t affect the outcome of elections. For example in Georgia 2 ballots were submitted in the names of dead people. In Colorado they are investigating non-matching signatures on a few hundred ballots.This kind of stuff is routine, and happens in every election. Of course it isn&#x27;t perfect, but its a decent enough system that has worked well in 100s of countries across centuries

Are there a lot of people claiming the election was near perfect?I see people saying there isn’t evidence of wide-spread fraud sufficient to overturn the results of the election.There do seem to be a lot of people making the mistake of trying to cast this as black and white, totally fraudulent or totally perfect. But that never made sense.(Edit: typo)

This is just your cognitive bias away from an extreme position. Actually election integrity in the US is pretty close to perfect. 10s of cases out of 100s of millions&#x2F;low billions of votes cast. This has be exhaustively studied, MIT has produced papers.The closest thing to a widespread problem is voter suppression, where states administer elections in regionally uneven ways to suppress one party&#x27;s turnout. This is predominately against black citizens in the south after Shelby v Holder.

&gt; In my mind any system involving hundreds of millions of peoplein a popular vote elections even a hundred thousand votes would be just a rounding error. In US electoral system just a few counties going wrong way could turn the elections, ie. theoretically &quot;some bad actors, mistakes, fraud, etc.&quot; would be enough to do it. Add to that the facts like Dominion Voting Systems (whose machines were used in some of those key states and counties if i remember correctly) being a client of SolarWinds ... and one can have more than enough for a good conspiracy theory. At least i have :)

I do not believe the election was stolen. But I also don&#x27;t believe we had perfect election integrity either. In my mind any system involving hundreds of millions of people is bound to have some bad actors, mistakes, fraud, etc. It&#x27;s important to acknowledge when and where it happens, and how to improve. But claiming any given election had near perfect integrity raises some alarm bells with me at least.

I haven&#x27;t had confidence in most elections in a long time.  Nothing seems worse about this election than, say, Ohio in 2004, but I like the idea of adopting a system where there is much more thorough verifiability and ease of auditing.

For all the fraud allegations thrown around by Trump and his allies, his lawyers have consistently refused to allege fraud in their court proceedings. See for example <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.nytimes.com&#x2F;2020&#x2F;11&#x2F;18&#x2F;us&#x2F;politics&#x2F;trump-giuliani-voter-fraud.html" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.nytimes.com&#x2F;2020&#x2F;11&#x2F;18&#x2F;us&#x2F;politics&#x2F;trump-giulian...</a>

I stopped reading the first article after this:&quot;We are told that Biden won more votes nationally than any presidential candidate in history. But he won a record low of 17 percent of counties; he only won 524 counties, as opposed to the 873 counties Obama won in 2008. Yet, Biden somehow outdid Obama in total votes.&quot;&gt;&gt;Yet, Biden somehow outdid Obama in total votes.If you look at the populations of these various counties it isn&#x27;t puzzling at all.<a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.reuters.com&#x2F;article&#x2F;uk-factcheck-votes-counties-election&#x2F;fact-check-clarifying-the-comparison-between-popular-vote-and-counties-won-in-the-2020-election-idUSKBN2931UY" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.reuters.com&#x2F;article&#x2F;uk-factcheck-votes-counties-...</a>

Well, these are lists of claims, but they are unsubstantiated.The question is, where is the evidence of fraud?The people pursuing these issues need to go beyond tweeting or holding press conferences and bring evidence to court.So far, that hasn’t happened.At this point there’s been plenty of opportunity, so it doesn’t seem there’s evidence to substantiate this stuff.

&quot;Someone pulled up cases out from under a table, so I can conclude it&#x27;s full of fraudulent ballots.&quot;.God damn, maybe I should just say I have this box full of bitcoin wallets in USB disks, someone want to give me a billion dollars for them? And yes, it&#x27;s enough that you believe me without looking inside the box. Or checking the validity of those wallets.

This is a good read, if you only read one link of my post let it be this one: <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;spectator.us&#x2F;reasons-why-the-2020-presidential-election-is-deeply-puzzling&#x2F;" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;spectator.us&#x2F;reasons-why-the-2020-presidential-elect...</a>It&#x27;s my understanding Trump supporters are mad their concerns aren&#x27;t taken seriously. Most court cases were dismissed on technicalities, without looking at the provided evidence or testimonies.This is supposed to be the evidence: <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;got-freedom.org&#x2F;evidence&#x2F;" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;got-freedom.org&#x2F;evidence&#x2F;</a>One example, the Georgia video: <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.youtube.com&#x2F;watch?v=LJ0xDWhWUxk" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.youtube.com&#x2F;watch?v=LJ0xDWhWUxk</a> 
And the comments about that video: <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;thefederalist.com&#x2F;2020&#x2F;12&#x2F;07&#x2F;no-the-georgia-vote-counting-video-was-not-debunked-not-even-close&#x2F;" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;thefederalist.com&#x2F;2020&#x2F;12&#x2F;07&#x2F;no-the-georgia-vote-cou...</a>Then there&#x27;s this:
<a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;twitter.com&#x2F;MArepublican18&#x2F;status&#x2F;1346596969729417216" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;twitter.com&#x2F;MArepublican18&#x2F;status&#x2F;134659696972941721...</a>
<a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;twitter.com&#x2F;Maximus_4EVR&#x2F;status&#x2F;1346582356899991552" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;twitter.com&#x2F;Maximus_4EVR&#x2F;status&#x2F;1346582356899991552</a>PA &amp; AZ Republicans wanting to decertify Biden after the election fraud hearings in their states. Not sure how serious those attempts are.I&#x27;m European so I don&#x27;t have a horse in this race.

The media’s ad-supported business model and the effects of branding on consumer behaviors naturally results in an extraordinarily pro-left media environment. The cost of advertising is bid up by brands that benefit from presenting a liberal image, and it drowns out all alternative views.Just to illustrate, take greenwashing as an example. Companies market their products as being good for the environment because that drives sales, and you can find that message on every shelf in the grocery store. There are many alternative views, very convincing ones in my opinion, that choosing the bottle of water that uses a thinner plastic is still harmful to the environment, and supporting greenwashing by purchasing it actually results in net harm to the environment because it reduces adoption of better options (reusable bottles, tap water) and distracts consumers from issues that could actually have a meaningful impact on climate change (innovation in direct air capture, greener steel production or air travel, a carbon tax, etc).But how would that message ever reach consumers? It doesn’t make them spend more, so people never hear any of this.The result is a populace that believes they are saving the world by not asking for a straw at Starbucks.This is happening at an ideological level. Major brands either declare no political stance, or they declare a pro-left stance. Every celebrity either declares no political opinion, or declares a pro-left political opinion. (Or declares any pro-right opinion, even vaguely or accidentally, and has their brand harmed or destroyed for it.)I’m something like a Clinton-era liberal, I guess, but the media environment is concerning to me. I would choose Biden over Trump, but the fact that the election was this close even with every major media source being so aggressively and overtly anti-Trump and pro-Biden does concern me. I can’t ignore the fact that if the media environment was more balanced and less ad-driven, it probably would have been an easy victory for Trump. And I do think all of the above is material to the subject of election integrity and the health of our democracy.

Re: &quot;There is no argument here.&quot; can you clarify what you mean? Are you making an argument that electronic voting machines resulted in an incorrect election outcome?

Are there any voting machines that actually SOLELY tabulate electronically that don&#x27;t have a paper record?I believe they all print out a ballot or receipt that records the vote and those are what are counted&#x2F;scanned and or can be in verifications&#x2F;recounts(maybe i can&#x27;t think of an example let me know if so i would also agree that not having a paper record is bad but i dont think it exists).

I agree about the need for paper ballots. I disagree with the indefensibly broad claim that without a national ID card, it is a joke.

I posted this response in another comment, but I&#x27;ll post it here because I&#x27;ve seen so much misinformation on the topic. This website, <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;ballotpedia.org&#x2F;Voting_methods_and_equipment_by_state" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;ballotpedia.org&#x2F;Voting_methods_and_equipment_by_stat...</a>, shows voting methods by state, and you&#x27;ll see that nearly all of them produce a voter-verifiable paper trail.Here are the list of states that have at least some electronic voting withOUT a paper trail:Kansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, Mississippi, New Jersey, Oklahoma, Tennessee, Texas7 of those states were won by Trump, 1 by Biden, and none of those states were even within 15 percentage point margin except for Texas, which Trump won by 5 and a half percent.

There is no argument here.The fact is that you should never let electronic voting machines ever in the first place. I went crazy the first time I saw them in the US long time ago and said: &quot;this is the end of democracy&quot;You should only count physical ballots in front of someone that represents all the parties.As an engineer I can not trust them. There are 20 different ways I can cheat using those machines, from network hacks to software that self modifies.The US election system is a joke, with no national ID card.The worst thing is that they are trying to import those defective systems into Europe.

The vote spikes are simple - early voting ballots getting reported [1]. Biden encouraged his supporters to vote early. Trump did the opposite. Accordingly, the early&#x2F;absentee votes are ~90% for Biden. Due to the way they get counted they come in larger lumps than day-of vote counting. As far as I can tell the rest of the post is statistical gish-gallop with some graphs and equations to make it all look more convincing.I also want to say that the sources of reported votes isn&#x27;t a mystery, and the author could easily have found out that they were early votes if they had wanted to. Either they didn&#x27;t check, or didn&#x27;t want to inform people of those very relevant facts.[1]: <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.reuters.com&#x2F;article&#x2F;uk-factcheck-wi-pa-mi-vote-spikes-idUSKBN27Q307" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.reuters.com&#x2F;article&#x2F;uk-factcheck-wi-pa-mi-vote-s...</a>

This type of stuff was posted on HN and pretty well debunked &#x2F; rejected by most commentors: <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;news.ycombinator.com&#x2F;item?id=25031344" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;news.ycombinator.com&#x2F;item?id=25031344</a>My comment and some discussion on it: <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;news.ycombinator.com&#x2F;item?id=25031443" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;news.ycombinator.com&#x2F;item?id=25031443</a>

I have seen this article [1] being thrown around among my conservative friends, and while I do not have the statistics background to understand the detailed analysis, it seems to suggest some strange behavior around the reporting of mail-in votes. Not exactly evidence, but something that may have warranted investigation at the time.[1] <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;votepatternanalysis.substack.com&#x2F;p&#x2F;voting-anomalies-2020" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;votepatternanalysis.substack.com&#x2F;p&#x2F;voting-anomalies-...</a>edit: I&#x27;m looking for folks to give their take on this analysis since I nowhere qualified. A good summary is the final two sections of the article.

That is impossible to square with a secret vote.The tried and tested way to hold free and fair elections are paper ballots, simple boxes with obvious seals, and observers from all parties as well as international ones.

Sure but these people had zero problem trusting the system when they won in 2016 by a very similar margin. Also, the &quot;government&quot; who is overseeing the election is controlled by the very same party that lost. I would understand conspiracies if Obama&#x27;s administration was in control, but when you can&#x27;t believe the words of Republican officials like those in Georgia, then there is nothing that can convince such a person.

Become a poll watcher. Pretty much every single vote is viewed by an election worker (or three), one Republican, one Democrat. Sometimes other parties.And this year many counts were filmed and streamed live because some Republicans complained that 6 feet was too far away with COVID - that challenge got thrown out in court.

I don&#x27;t believe it was stolen.I think we should be able to see how our vote was recorded.The whole system is based on trust. Right now that trust is being threatened (eroded?). Since there isn&#x27;t a way to individually inspect the system, we have to rely on the word of others to validate it.The government doesn&#x27;t always act in the best interest of the populace and often outright lies to it. This begs the question, should we take their word for it?

You believe this because you have no idea how incredibly scrutinized the process is. There is a reason that there are Poll Watchers from both parties, including lawyers and independents to ensure that poll workers don&#x27;t put their thumb on the scale.

That is not watch a poll watcher does.How exactly would any party put a thumb on the scale?There is a watcher from each party and an election worker.The ballots are watched the entire way from opening an envelope&#x2F;voting booth, counting, moving sealed and secured boxes of ballots, counting, to the end.

Absolutely, given how polarized things are, I have little trouble believing poll workers and others with the ability to put their thumbs on the scales would do just that.

For disregarding court orders, it&#x27;s the same problem as trying to charge trump. The governor&#x27;s in charge of enforcement. Punishment comes in the form of losing elections or impeachments, not law enforcement.I&#x27;m not sure you can argue they&#x27;re bad actors when the clear and obvious reasoning for those measures across the country are to limit the spread of a deadly pandemic.It seems to me like the poll watcher is the person with standing? They could bring the exact same case a second time, that they were not able to watch. that comes against another legal doctrine now that the elections have been certified -- it&#x27;s a moot pointThe lack of standing is pretty obvious for the supreme Court isn&#x27;t it? Texas has no say in how Pennsylvania votes. There&#x27;s other things that are ridiculous about that case, like wanting throw out unrelated Texan votes.I find it strange that that they weren&#x27;t also suing to Wisconsin for the same thing and want to throw out Texan republican votes equal to the number of Wisconsin votes counted in this manner they don&#x27;t like?

Regarding &quot;the Constitution says only the legislature sets the election rules,&quot; David French had a good post debunking some falsehoods about this line of thought: <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;frenchpress.thedispatch.com&#x2F;p&#x2F;debunking-the-frivolous-and-dangerous" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;frenchpress.thedispatch.com&#x2F;p&#x2F;debunking-the-frivolou...</a>In a nutshell: Yes, state legislatures are responsible for deciding the &quot;Manner&quot; used to appoint Presidential electors. And in most states, the &quot;Manner&quot; set forth by the state legislature is &quot;general ballot at the general election.&quot;And as long as that process occurs, stuff like disputes over deadlines, drop box locations, signature verifications, etc stay squarely in the realm of election administration. As Judge Brett Ludwig (a Trump appointee) put it:&gt; But issues of mere administration of a general election do not mean there has not been a “general ballot” at a “general election.” Plaintiff’s conflation of these potential nonconformities with Constitutional violations is contrary to the plain meaning of the Electors Clause. If plaintiff’s reading of “Manner” was correct, any disappointed loser in a Presidential election, able to hire a team of clever lawyers, could flag claimed deviations from the election rules and cast doubt on the election results. This would risk turning every Presidential election into a federal court lawsuit over the Electors Clause. (Internal citations omitted.)(Source: <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.scribd.com&#x2F;document&#x2F;487916351&#x2F;12-12-20-Trump-v-Wisconsin-Decision" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.scribd.com&#x2F;document&#x2F;487916351&#x2F;12-12-20-Trump-v-W...</a>)

Do you think that the remedy to a legal disagreement on balance of power between local&#x2F;state&#x2F;judicial should be to throw out thousands and thousands of legitimate votes? Or are you saying those votes are fradulent?

I&#x27;m a trump supporter. I don&#x27;t believe the election was stolen necessarily. However, there are major issues that have gone unresolved and unexamined by courts and cases dismissed without investigation.For example, in PA, a judge ordered the election officials to allow republican watchers to view the counting, and struck down the distance requirements set by the governor due to COVID. However, election officials refused to do so, violating a court order. The GOP sued the officials, but the court dismissed it due to standing. They didn&#x27;t even consider the complaint. Then a voter group tried to sue. They dismissed that for standing. Then trump sued, they dismissed that too. So if neither the political party, the voters, nor the candidate purportedly affected has standing to force the state to allow the vote to be examined and cannot bring a case against an official violating a court order -- then who exactly has that right? Can any election official simply do what they want?Or in the TX v PA case, the Supreme Court really displayed major cowardice. They ought to have taken the case, examined the merits, and said yes or no. They dismissed it due to lack of standing. The case asked a very important question -- the Constitution says only the legislature sets the election rules, but in PA, the governor and SoS made up rules. Additionally, the PA supreme court simply extended a deadline set by the legislature. If indeed the legislature is the only one who can make electoin rules, then these moves are clearly illegal. The Court should have said if it&#x27;s okay or not. They could have not granted the relief requested, which I do admit is a major ask. But they should have ruled on whether or not the PA Supreme Court or the governor&#x27;s actions were legal.To many republicans, it seems as if there were bad actors who got away with not following the law. It now seems that governors, courts, etc can simply set whatever election rules they want and get away with it. Even if it wouldn&#x27;t have changed the outcome, I&#x27;d like to see a court penalize those officials in PA who disobeyed a court order, or explain in clear legal detail after hearing a case as to why those officials were right to do so.I also want explanations into why the counting stopped. It is quite clear now that the supposed water leak in Atlanta was a simple toilet overflow that should not have caused anything to stop. Why did they do that, and why did they report it as a leak? Why did we see major drops for Biden with zero votes for Trump? Again, I am ready to concede that Biden won. In fact, I think it likely. However, it is crazy to me that so far not a single body has been willing to investigate these seeming discrepancies and instead told the groups interested in seeking resolution that they have no standing to question it.Telling people that they do not deserve an answer is what leads to the behavior we&#x27;re seeing now.The courts made a huge mistake by simply dismissing on standing. Rumor has it that John Roberts didn&#x27;t want to take the case due to fear of a mob... Well he got his mob, just not the one he expected.Downvoters: please engage in good faith. Someone asked if there was anyone who believed the election was &#x27;stolen&#x27;. I have given my good faith answer as to what I would have liked to have seen in order for me to fully trust our elections. You may disagree with me, but I&#x27;m simply giving my solicited opinion.

My techie friends pre-2016: &quot;The CIA and FBI are corrupt. Don&#x27;t trust mainstream media. Voting systems are incredibly hackable.&quot;My techie friends 2020: &quot;The FBI is our savior. What the mainstream media says is true and anyone that otherwise is a conspiracy theorist. This was the most secure election in history.&quot;

It&#x27;s not about whether the &#x27;election was stolen&#x27; and the court cases weren&#x27;t in regard to &#x27;fraud&#x27;. The court cases were on whether or not the federal government had the right to audit the state votes. The court cases decided that no, you can&#x27;t. The states have all the power to run their own elections on their own accord, fraud be damned.

&gt; Are there people here on HN that believe the election was stolen?Not me, but plenty of friends and family have such views. Every argument voiced to me so far from those sources has been some variant of the following two arguments:1) &lt;ludicrous thing&gt; happened, therefore the election was rigged2) &lt;ludicrous thing&gt; happened, therefore &lt;verifiably false thing&gt; happened, therefore the election was riggedElaborating slightly, &lt;ludicrous thing&gt; is defined here to be something designed to appeal to your common sense -- something that without close inspection would be plainly incompatible with a non-rigged election to any reasonable person. That&#x27;s probably ordinarily a fine enough chain of reasoning, but all the instances I bothered to examine had the property that reality directly contradicted one&#x27;s gut reaction; they seemed cherry-picked to be easy to believe and repeat while also being false (not to assume malice, I think that&#x27;s exactly the kind of reasoning you&#x27;d expect if you went fishing for evidence to support a theory you believe to be true).As a specific example, one argument was that the exact vote tallies for Biden and Trump were the same across many voting locations, therefore a computer program must have generated the result. This sounds reasonable on the surface because it seems unlikely that if you drew vote counts out of a hat they would coincide, and most people aren&#x27;t equipped to be able to analyze such a statement further -- it&#x27;s &quot;ludicrous&quot; to imagine that in a fair election that kind of anomaly would happen by accident. In practice though, combining the facts that most combinations of votes are comparatively unlikely (few locales would have a 0&#x2F;N split for example) with the large number of voting locations and a healthy dose of the birthday paradox, many repeated vote tallies are _exactly_ what one would expect from a fair election. Their absence would in fact be a suspicious property indicating some kind of large-scale fraud.Anywho, I didn&#x27;t investigate every theory (there were a lot), but I did check out the first 10 or so which came my way and a randomly selected 5 or so (till I grew tired or bored) from each subsequent batch. There might be a valid argument in there somewhere (and independently of their ability to come up with a valid argument there _might_ have been some kind of massive fraud), but the best evidence I&#x27;ve seen is pretty shoddy.

&gt; believe the election was stolen?I don&#x27;t &quot;believe&quot; but I do understand why people would. Every time someone questions the result, their questioning is seen as motivated and the premise that there has already been a satisfactory investigation is assumed. This is awkward because it would be a lot easier to talk people down if there was in fact an investigation that resolved concerns to show them.&gt; I&#x27;d really like to hear from anyone who believes this, to present a cogent argument.As I said, I don&#x27;t &quot;believe.&quot; But I&#x27;d certainly like an explanation of the two videos (one in Georgia and one of a thumb drive handoff) and perhaps some reasonable handling of the claims by observers that they weren&#x27;t effectively permitted to do their jobs (asked to leave, prevented from seeing the ballots, challenging ballots that were ignored, etc.)[0] <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;apelbaum.wordpress.com&#x2F;2020&#x2F;12&#x2F;03&#x2F;the-georgia-ballot-underground-railroad&#x2F;" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;apelbaum.wordpress.com&#x2F;2020&#x2F;12&#x2F;03&#x2F;the-georgia-ballot...</a>[1] <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;twitchy.com&#x2F;samj-3930&#x2F;2020&#x2F;12&#x2F;04&#x2F;that-is-some-handoff-herschel-walker-shares-video-of-woman-trying-to-hide-handing-usb-drive-to-fellow-election-worker&#x2F;" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;twitchy.com&#x2F;samj-3930&#x2F;2020&#x2F;12&#x2F;04&#x2F;that-is-some-handof...</a>

I think there had been some frauds, but even without any fraud (from either side), the result would have been the same.

What I don&#x27;t get is why anyone would believe that the Presidential election was stolen, yet not also believe that down-ballot races were also stolen.Oh, right, because they weren&#x27;t.Yes, Dems, barely managed to flip the Senate. That that was just a +3 &#x2F; +1 affair. But...Look at all the House races. Repubs won all the red-leaning districts, nearly all the purple ones, and even some light-blue ones. They did better than expected in all states including the ones where 45 lost in the Presidential race.If you&#x27;re going to steal the election of the President via a comprehensive, super-sneaky, multi-state conspiracy, why the fuck would you also not also steal House and Senate seats? That makes no goddamn sense. You&#x27;re going to alter ballots, inject fake ballots, etc., etc., etc., and not bother with the Congress and local elections too?Moronic. Totally moronic. How fucking stupid do you have to be to believe that only the Presidential race was stolen, but everything else was fine.Who out there is a supporter of 45, that believes the Dems don&#x27;t hate Moscow Mitch nearly as much as 45 himself? Or Louie Gomert, Devin Nunes, Matt Gates, or the other lackeys? &quot;Yeah, let&#x27;s steal the election for Biden, but then leave in place all the other assholes. Great idea! That will work out perfectly!&quot;Morons.

I appreciate you providing sources and a level headed post.. but I don&#x27;t understand how anyone can claim the media is not reporting on something, and then link directly to media about that thing.

I&#x27;m not an American but as a citizen of the world I care about what&#x27;s going on in the USA. So I decided to click on one of your links and go down that rabbit hole. I picked [3]. This certain Nahshon Garret who claims that he has not voted in Arizona yet somehow did vote in Arizona.So it seems this dude is a wrestler, and here&#x27;s a random Twitter quote: &quot;If the CHURCh understood the Laws of God which govern our relationship with Him, our neighbor, and those whom he has given authority to we wouldn’t be in this situation. The Church has failed to represent the lawful nature character and heart of God. Lawlessness is rampant.&quot; Anyhow, look him up on Twitter.If you Google this story you&#x27;ll see this dude got a fair bit of media exposure. I&#x27;d say more than I&#x27;d expect. So much for &quot;the media doesn&#x27;t report on this&quot;.We also have some mystery Arizona law firm involved here. So what&#x27;s the story exactly in how this specific person got involved with this specific law firm? I&#x27;d follow that lead but I sort of got an idea about who is involved here.Just because we have a signed affidavit doesn&#x27;t mean its true...This guy (or rather these lawyers) did have their day in court: <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.clerkofcourt.maricopa.gov&#x2F;records&#x2F;election-2020&#x2F;cv2020-015285" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.clerkofcourt.maricopa.gov&#x2F;records&#x2F;election-2020&#x2F;...</a> and the Justice offers a lengthy and educated opinion on the issue as a whole (basically while there might have been some irregularities there is no way they would have changed the outcome of the elections). And man, there is a lot of minutes&#x2F;paperwork here.Is this your best evidence of fraud? I think it&#x27;s pretty thin.Also please vote in your elections, it impacts all of us.

Here&#x27;s what I can say from where I sit as someone who did not vote in this election.For the sake of intellectual honesty, I&#x27;ll post this on my main account. Strong odds it doesn&#x27;t go well, but transparency is worth striving for.I have seen [3,4,5]quite a bit of evidence that there was at least some fraud taking place, and that the evidence of that fraud has been suppressed. Whether the fraud was enough to change results, no clue. I have also seen people attacking the character of everyone presenting or talking about said evidence, rather than addressing the actual content of the claims.The above is concerning, but it doesn&#x27;t lead me to believe an election was stolen. However, the narrative that&#x27;s being played out is that Joe Biden, a 78 year old segregationist who was crucified publicly by his now running mate Kamala Harris for those policies, and who basically didn&#x27;t campaign or hold rallies, and who has [0]received most of his money from the &#x27;upper class&#x27;, won nearly 12 Million more votes than Barack Obama in 2008. He did this while [1]winning in substantially fewer counties than Barack Obama.However, most importantly, the majority of the lawsuits have [2]not been addressed based on their merits but have instead been dismissed based for procedural reasons (e.g. legal standing, injury). As a result, there has not been a transparent process through which the evidence that has been presented has been addressed.One would expect that these dismissals, and the evidence presented would have become major news. That has not happened, and that leaves people who have seen some of the evidence or who have heard about it feeling concerned.Now, I&#x27;m hesitant to bring up the Hunter Biden story because the media narratives on it are hyper-polarizing. But, many of the claims about the contents are true and some (many?) of the videos and emails have been leaked. This story was smothered by social media, just like the election-related concerns. This has led to a complete eradication of trust in the media as a whole by a huge portion of the population.- PERSONAL OPINION -The issue is not what happened, the issue is that we have become divided. Until we have more transparency we will not see people coming back together. There is no way to fix the division until the concerns of both sides can be addressed publicly, transparently, and without media (including social media) interference. Seeing videos of raw footage being marked as misinformation by twitter eradicates whatever trust people had in them.This election cycle, and the way the media is operating, reminds me of the way we found ourselves in the middle east. Everyone knew([6,7]except our allies) there were WMD&#x27;s until there weren&#x27;t.[0] <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.bloomberg.com&#x2F;graphics&#x2F;2020-election-trump-biden-donors&#x2F;" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.bloomberg.com&#x2F;graphics&#x2F;2020-election-trump-biden...</a>[1] <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.usatoday.com&#x2F;story&#x2F;news&#x2F;factcheck&#x2F;2020&#x2F;12&#x2F;09&#x2F;fact-check-joe-biden-won-most-votes-ever-and-fewest-counties&#x2F;3865097001&#x2F;" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.usatoday.com&#x2F;story&#x2F;news&#x2F;factcheck&#x2F;2020&#x2F;12&#x2F;09&#x2F;fac...</a>[2] <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.politifact.com&#x2F;article&#x2F;2020&#x2F;dec&#x2F;10&#x2F;donald-trump-has-lost-dozens-election-lawsuits-her&#x2F;" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.politifact.com&#x2F;article&#x2F;2020&#x2F;dec&#x2F;10&#x2F;donald-trump-...</a> (CTRL+F &quot;lawsuits been disposed&quot;)[3] <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.clerkofcourt.maricopa.gov&#x2F;Home&#x2F;ShowDocument?id=1896" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.clerkofcourt.maricopa.gov&#x2F;Home&#x2F;ShowDocument?id=1...</a>[4] DISCLAIMER I am aware of the bias of the individual presenting, but the content is what is important here. <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;youtu.be&#x2F;XH9ihoLi1NA" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;youtu.be&#x2F;XH9ihoLi1NA</a>[5] <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.youtube.com&#x2F;user&#x2F;veritasvisuals" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.youtube.com&#x2F;user&#x2F;veritasvisuals</a>[6] <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.newyorker.com&#x2F;magazine&#x2F;2003&#x2F;03&#x2F;31&#x2F;who-lied-to-whom" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.newyorker.com&#x2F;magazine&#x2F;2003&#x2F;03&#x2F;31&#x2F;who-lied-to-wh...</a>[7] <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;en.wikipedia.org&#x2F;wiki&#x2F;Niger_uranium_forgeries" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;en.wikipedia.org&#x2F;wiki&#x2F;Niger_uranium_forgeries</a>

Are there people here on HN that believe the election was stolen? I haven&#x27;t seen any evidence, most of the lawsuits haven&#x27;t borne fruit either. However, I also recognize that there may be blindspots&#x2F;biases.I&#x27;d really like to hear from anyone who believes this, to present a cogent argument. I promise not to attack. I want to hear the argument from the other side. I also beseech the rest of HN to please refrain from attacking anyone who is doing so.

U.S. Capitol Locked Down Amid Escalating Protests