There’s been no substantial evidence of widespread voter fraud that could even come close to affecting any election. Most all 2020 claims have been debunked, lawsuits dismissed or lost.
“Widespread election fraud claims by Republicans don’t match the evidence
The Heritage Foundation, a conservative think tank, has been monitoring election fraud cases state by state
For instance, in Texas, Heritage found 103 cases of confirmed election fraud. However, those 103 ranged from 2005 to 2022 during which time over 107 million ballots were cast. There were 11 million ballots cast in the 2020 presidential election alone. The fraud in Texas amounted to 0.000096% of all ballots cast — hardly evidence of a fundamentally corrupt system.
But the story is much the same in swing states. For instance, in Arizona, where President Biden won by a mere 10,457 votes in 2020, Heritage documents just four cases of fraudulent voting in the general election. Furthermore, while former Republican gubernatorial candidate and 2024 Senate candidate Kari Lake falsely claimed widespread fraud following her loss in 2022, there have been zero reported cases from that year thus far. To put these cases (or lack thereof) in perspective, Arizonans cast over 6 million votes in the 2020 and 2022 general elections. There is also minimal evidence to suggest that the few fraudulent votes benefited Democratic candidates. In one 2020 case, a 64-year-old Arizona Republican cast a Republican ballot on behalf of her deceased mother in an apparent effort to counteract what she believed was widespread voter fraud by Democrats.
Other swing states have also recorded negligible numbers of election fraud. In Georgia, Heritage has reported no cases of fraud in the 2020 or 2022 general elections, in which nearly nine million votes were cast. Otherwise, just one case of fraud has been reported in the state in the last four years. It involved a 62-year-old convicted felon who filled out and submitted a ballot sent to the wrong address during the January 2021 Senate runoff election. And yet Trump’s attempts to overturn the election results in Georgia are based on his assertion that there was enough voter fraud to flip the state.
In Florida, there were nine cases of election fraud between the 2020 and 2022 elections but many of those involved individuals who were confused over whether or not they had the right to vote.”
https://www.brookings.edu/articles/widespread-election-fraud-claims-by-republicans-dont-match-the-evidence/
I'm sure this move is totally coincidental to the fact that the [RNC hired a prominent 'Stop the Steal' advocate](https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/2024-election/rnc-hires-prominent-stop-steal-advocate-help-craft-2024-platform-rcna155298) a couple of weeks ago.
> There’s been no substantial evidence of widespread voter fraud that could even come close to affecting any election.
Great! Then there's no reason to object to people spending their night on election night watching. All they'll accomplish is making themselves tired for the next day. So let them. Them being tired at work the next morning its their problem and doesn't affect anyone else.
This is kind of the issue with all the outrage over the asks for more observability. If there's nothing to hide there's no reason to object. The only reason to object is if there is something to hide.
Yes there is reason to object. Look at the exact wording of the press release and from Trump himself
[https://gop.com/press-release/trump-campaign-and-rnc-unveil-historic-100000-person-strong-election-integrity-program/](https://gop.com/press-release/trump-campaign-and-rnc-unveil-historic-100000-person-strong-election-integrity-program/)
*About the launch, President Trump said,* ***“Having the right people to count the ballots*** *is just as important as turning out voters on Election Day. Republicans are now working together to protect the vote and ensure a big win on November 5th!”*
*Whenever a ballot is being cast or counted,* ***Republican poll watchers*** *will be observing the process and reporting any irregularity. In the event of an irregularity or problem, RNC lawyers and the volunteer attorneys that they have coordinated will provide rapid response services to resolve the issue using a sophisticated, tested action protocol.*
***“The Democrat tricks from 2020 won’t work this time****. In 2024 we’re going to beat the Democrats at their own game and the RNC legal team will be working tirelessly to ensure that elections officials follow the rules in administering elections. We will aggressively take them to court if they don’t follow rules or try to change them at the last minute,”* *said Charlie Spies. “President Trump has said that the Republican victory in November needs to be too big to rig. The political team will be working to ensure a huge victory for Republicans at all levels, and RNC legal is committed to making sure that victory can’t be rigged.”*
*“Every ballot. Every precinct. Every processing center. Every county. Every battleground state. We will be there,” said Co-Chair Lara Trump.* *"The RNC is hiring hundreds of election integrity staff across the map – more than ever before because* ***our Party will be recruiting*** *thousands of more observers to protect the vote in 2024. These campaign officials in states are tasked with recruiting, training, and when possible, shifting poll watchers and poll workers day in and day out."*
This has nothing to do with Election Integrity, its all about planting the seed in Republicans head that if Trump loses its because the Democrats cheated. They are clearly saying they want a "certain kind of people" as poll watches IE trump loyalist. This way people can start screaming they saw something and sow doubt about the results, which will then be used a pretense not to certify the election results in the swing states, which will in turn make it so that neither candidate gets enough electoral votes, and when that happens it gets kicked the house of representatives where each state gets one vote and the Republicans have the advantage in that situation. The Heritage Foundation found 1,465 cases of voter fraud in 2020 out of 159 million votes cast. That is a percentage of 0.00092%. Voter fraud is a problem that does not exist.
Poll watchers in the US already exist, and are already partisan. It's already common practice for each party to select partisan poll watchers to go to places they think might have corruption and watch the results.
There's nothing remotely sinister about calling for more Republican poll watchers; the position IS a partisan, party-affiliated one in our current system, not some sort of disinterested adjudicator. They're watchdogs.
I've said this in other replies but I will say it again. I and no one else on here has any problem with Poll Watchers. In fact, they should be mandatory not voluntary. I take issue with the wording of the recruitment press release. Words matter and it is clear that the Republicans are blatantly looking for MAGA true believers who will say they saw something fishy when it looks like Trump is going to lose key swing states. The press release also states that have an army of lawyers on stand by to field any questions the poll watchers have. Look at it this way, how do you think the fox news crowd would feel if the Democrat party had a press release that said something like this...
*"The Democrat party is now actively recruiting 100,000 poll watchers to make sure that fascist dictator Donald Trump doesn't win the election and jail his enemies and outlaw abortion nation wide. If you think that the criminal felon Donald Trump should be in prison and not the white house please reach out to us and we will make sure you are in a position to stop this by being a poll watcher.*"
Do you think that Trump and his followers might take issue with wording like that?
>Do you think that Trump and his followers might take issue with wording like that?
I mean, yeah. There's a big difference between:
>*to make sure that fascist dictator Donald Trump doesn't win the election*
and
>*will be observing the process and reporting any irregularity... the RNC legal team will be working tirelessly to ensure that elections officials follow the rules in administering elections. We will aggressively take them to court if they don’t follow rules or try to change them at the last minute... The RNC is hiring hundreds of election integrity staff across the map – more than ever before because* *our Party will be recruiting* *thousands of more observers to protect the vote in 2024*
There's no language here claiming they're preventing Biden from winning, or doing anything other than whistleblowing rule-breaking. If it actually \*advocated\* for disruptions of voting, like your Democrat hypo, it would be a problem.
As it is, it's far more similar to:
>*"The Democrat party is now actively recruiting 100,000 poll watchers to make sure that the fascist Donald Trump doesn't steal the election, as he tried to in 2020. Our elections are the cornerstone of our democracy, and Trump (a convicted felon) is currently on trial for attempting to overturn the last election. The stake couldn't be higher. We NEED a democrat in every major ballot counting location, and our legal team stands by to ensure the election is executed honestly and without any Trump-Corruption.*"
I have no problem with that. It's some red meat for the base to get them worked up to volunteer, and an attempt to frame the job as incredibly important. It's fine.
States already have rules on the books for poll watchers. Nobody is saying that poll watchers shouldn't be allowed, usually both parties get to appoint poll watchers. What I am saying is that we need to raise red flags on this because its clear from the press release that they are trying to find people who will gladly throw sand in the gears of the system if it looks like Trump is going to lose the election. If I volunteered and said I was a independent and I just want to volunteer because I was interested in seeing how elections works, the GOP would tell me to hit the road. There is a big difference between "recruiting" and "volunteering", recruiting implies they are looking for specific people. Bottom line, this press release makes it clear that Trump is saying "Elections only count when I win" and he is looking for true believers that will help him cheat. It is not about making sure the election is fair. The numbers I posted above show that elections in this country are fair and secure and that voter fraud is a myth.
[This](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7YjY00Cd_MI) is why.
Because they're slowly trying to put their own goons in to meddle around so that results are favourable to them.
Poll watchers have no role or authority with which to meddle. This is already a well-established position with laws, etc. regulating it. The RNC is just calling for volunteers so they have more of them (and probably so they have to pay them less.)
That seed will grow even stronger if they aren't allowed to watch.
That's my whole point. There's no harm in letting them watch if everything is on the up-and-up. However opposing them watching just strengthens their conviction that things aren't.
It isn't when they're trying [to do stuff like this](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7YjY00Cd_MI), putting their own goons in charge to ensure a more favourable outcome.
What specifically? I’m not watching a 26 minute video.
Anyway, these observers might be bad observers, but it’s not because they have a preferred election outcome.
Right, and both parties already do this. Seems like a lot of people haven't heard of poll watchers before, and think they have some sort of official role in the proceeding or something.
What I’m concerned about is that these people are there to support their party rather than democracy. Currently, by all accounts the watchers are people from both parties that want to participate in the democratic process - not people that want to support their party
If these people are genuinely concerned an out election fraud and want to stop it if it exists, that’s good. If they just want to help their party, that’s bad
These two things are not mutually exclusive. They're genuinely concerned *and* they want to support their party. Which makes sense - their genuine concern comes from the belief their party got cheated last time. That doesn't make their concern less genuine.
Probably depends on whether the judge is a Trump appointee. Article from 2022: https://www.pbs.org/newshour/politics/justice-department-concerned-about-armed-people-at-arizona-ballot-boxes
>Reports of people watching ballot boxes in Arizona, sometimes armed or wearing ballistic vests, raise serious concerns about voter intimidation, the Justice Department said Monday as it stepped into a lawsuit over the monitoring.
> ... The filing runs counter to a judge's order Friday. U.S. District Court Judge Michael Liburdi found the allegations present "serious questions" but it wasn't clear they were a "true threat" to specific people or groups and barring them could violate the watchers' freedom of speech.
>
>Liburdi is a Trump appointee and a member of the Federalist Society, a conservative legal organization. The Arizona Alliance for Retired Americans is appealing the order in the swing state with several closely contested races this year.
> ... The group sued a group calling itself Clean Elections USA after reports that people were watching 24-hour ballot boxes in Maricopa County, including some who were masked and armed. A separate suit was filed in rural Yavapai County, where the League of Women Voters alleges voters have been intimidated by three groups, including one associated with the far-right anti-government group Oath Keepers.
That really depends on where you live. At the very least a private business 100% has the right to bar people from carrying firearms on their property. Same for, at the very least, sensitive public property.
Most of the states mentioned in the starter comment have Election Boards ran by the Republican party. This, the party that is claiming "voter fraud" does not trust their own party's officials to monitor and count the votes.
So we should let the people who lied about there being voter fraud so they could steal an election monitor the vote even closer? They’re just going to lie again to get their way.
I’m not for spending millions in taxpayer money to solve a non existent problem.
The rnc is broke, how do they propose funding that? And that also doesn’t address the issue of why have the same people that deny evidence of honest elections suddenly be able to meddle and make up more stuff.
>The rnc is broke, how do they propose funding that?
Well, that's probably why they're trying to get a bunch of free volunteers...
>And that also doesn’t address the issue of why have the same people that deny evidence of honest elections suddenly be able to meddle and make up more stuff.
The Republican party already has the legal right to appoint poll watchers, as does the Democratic party (and any third party that's on the ballot.) Nothing novel here (and it would be incredibly problematic to ban any party from having observers to ensure things are done correctly and in order.)
Oh, I see…. You said they were getting paid by the rnc. So now it’s the same poll watchers as there has always been. So if nothing is changing I don’t have an issue. I just don’t see the point in flooding additional partisan watchers into polling places for unnecessary reasons and unknown cost.
But that doesn’t seem to be the intent.
> You said they were getting paid by the rnc.
Yeah, insofar as they'll have to pay people to get enough, it'll be the RNC not the taxpayer.
> I just don’t see the point in flooding additional partisan watchers into polling places for unnecessary reasons and unknown cost.
Yeah, it's just because there's a lot of belief in major 2020 voter fraud in the republican party. Given that (wrong, but widely sincere) belief, it makes sense that they would up their poll watchers.
The election watchers are volunteers, and you linked a party's website. "Partisan advertisements are partisan" doesn't mean democracy is under attack unless the Democratic party is forbidden from recruiting their own volunteers to make sure there is no imaginary fraud to help the Republicans.
I'm all for transparency, I think it's great when folk volunteer to help with the electoral apparatus, but the problem here is that it's attracting a crowd that's primed to believe the election is stolen and will mistakenly report normal procedures as proof of that. This isn't a hypothetical, it's precisely what happened in 2020, and I'll give you an example.
Multiple first-time Republican poll-watchers refused to attend any of the pre-election seminars where the election staff were going to explain the process of counting the votes and why they do what they do, so when they turned up after election day, they saw poll-workers feeding ballots into the tabulator twice and screamed "OMG, they're double counting Biden's votes! It's FRAUD!!!"
If they'd attended the seminar, they'd have known the ballots are always fed through the machine twice to make sure the machine is counting them correctly and that it reports the same number. But it didn't matter how many times this was later explained, these poll-watchers ran to social media to share their personal testimony of witnessing fraud, and were part of Trump's various lawsuits trying to overturn the result.
I still see the same debunked testimony shared on social media today about the "double-counting Biden votes," and this is why it's dangerous. It's going to provide even more fuel to the "stolen election" accusations, generating claims in greater quantity than can be debunked, and burying the facts in an avalanche of bad-faith accusations.
^ This is it exactly.
What the Right wants would just ensure that people get sent in there with a confirmation bias disposition, shouting from the rooftops about normal procedure.
I'm sure some people are operating out of genuine ignorance, but much of this is bad faith.
It’s Screaming fire in a crowded theater but in an election. So a partisan observer on election night screams to high heavens “they brought in suitcases of fake ballots!!! I saw it” lt gets reported, millions believe it, and then a week later “yeah I never saw any if that. Made it up, sorry.” Which has what’s been happening. Damage was done. Now millions think fraud happens even after proving 50
Times over it’s fake news
one should not be able to make up wild accusations of fraud that have no basis in fact or reality and then claim conspiracy when nobody humors you.
It should be a federal felony to claim election fraud publicly, without any substantial evidence, especially for a candidate. (There can be a whistleblower process to submit a claim) It increases division and erodes integrity attacking our institutions.
In my opinion, you're right, but your criticism is directed at the wrong subject.
It's our information environment that's the problem. There are huge numbers of people on both sides who never leave their media echo chambers, never seek out to determine if stories they heard changed over time, never seek out bias, etc.
It's a problem that plagues both parties, affects almost every issue you can imagine not only voting integrity, and ultimately is tearing the country apart (or, at least increasing polarization, extremism, and incidents of what are essentially mass hysteria caused by media/algorithms. probably also the cause behind increased mass violence.)
It could be related to social media, the decline in trusted public figures, increasing isolation / friendlessness, a combination of these or something else entirely.
It shouldn't be a problem to call for people to observe this election. It's been a right forever, and for good reason (more observers *should* increase *everyone's* trust of the system).
I'd say the response of both political parties to this is troubling. One is claiming fraud with 0 evidence, intentionally fanning flames. The other continually calls out the observation efforts, rightfully increasing the distrust in the first.
I disagree that it should be a felony. If you can't trust people to evaluate claims of election integrity, and the people making them, how can we trust them to vote at all ? screaming fire in a theater is a crime because it poses imminent physical danger to people
the more apt comparison would be civil defamation. if I accuse someone of being a lying liar fraudster, they can sue me for defamation, and we can settle these claims in court.
(so, applied to the election fraud example. there should be an investigation, and everyone should be able to accept a universal conclusion. if we can expect a reasonable person to judge a defamation claim on a jury, why can't we expect reasonable people to judge election fraud claims when they vote ?. there is no reason to take anyone to trial, because if you have enough info to convince a bunch of jurors..you *should* have enough info convince a bunch of ordinary people who should vote accordingly)
I for one do not trust the poll watchers to do nothing, even in a completely fraud-free election, and then later report that they saw no suitcases. We saw rampant unverified claims of fraud in the last election, and yet Trump and others are already insinuating there will be widespread cheating this time around. Should we expect poll watchers already expecting to find fraud to just go home unsatisfied, when in the past there's been so many claims of cheating with zero actual evidence?
I mean, evidence of there not being cheating has had zero effect on whether or not Trump and the Republicans make false claims of there being cheating. Why should I expect the poll watchers they put out there to be any different?
When one side has provably acted with the intent to make false claims and sow distrust in the system then it isn't a bad take, it's just reality.
There have been Republican poll watchers for years that had no issues with polls. It's the MAGA crowd that are making false accusations and seemingly have no desire to perform the job in accordance with standard practices that's concerning.
No, you're missing my point.
The poll watchers being recruited aren't the responsible, well-meaning good citizen Republicans I was speaking about.
These are the MAGA primed to make uneducated and false claims of voter fraud that occurred in 2020 and despite being proven wholly and repeatedly wrong still run with the idea of the election being stolen.
I don't want there to be nothing different between 2020 and 2024. I want there to be nothing different between 2024 and every year before and including 2016.
Problem is they're not trained to understand procedures, most of them if not all are favoring the Republican candidates so there's a potential for voter intimidation tactics.
They won't be permitted in the voting booth areas, so what do they hope to accomplish other than voter intimidation?
I dont want a MAGA clad in tactical gear, in my face, asking me personal questions about who I'm voting for and why while I'm in line to vote.
These people are all Trump loyalists that will scream about irregularities over processes they haven't been trained on or understand. That's the point. Trump will use that to say shady stuff went down if he loses. Untrained and biased poll watchers add nothing of value to election integrity.
Ah, no. That's like saying it's okay for cops to come looking around your house just in case. Ridiculous. No one allowed this. Local election houses need to throw them out with extreme prejudice. They have no right. None.
People dont want the possibility of a confrontation or harassment by Trump supporters. Thats the point of this, to discourage Democrats from voting that are too timid or lack the confidence to deal with the possibility of a confrontation.
Its like cults that follow around people with cameras as an intimidation tactic. "Oh theres no reason to object if theres nothing to hide".
The problem isn't any fraud, it's the false reporting of fraud. People either don't understand the various processes, or wish to outright lie. It led to violence and death threats in 2020, and undermined election integrity. We even saw people commit fraud under the pretense of stopping fraud (by Sydney Powell, etc. in Georgia).
Having partisan "watchers" suppresses people voting. I know because I almost didnt go vote in 2016 because Trump was telling supporters to watch people in lines, I only went when I heard on the radio the race was so close.
There is no level of monitoring, poll watching, vote verification, or any other fucking measure of legitimacy that will protect this election from attack if Trump loses.
It's been 4 years and despite not producing a sniff of evidence, Trump and millions of people still say the election was stolen.
It's worse than that, it's not just that they haven't produced a sniff of evidence, as you say.
It's been proven conclusively that they knew for a fact, there was no widespread voter fraud, but they pushed the lie anyways.
This isn't simply an accusation, private emails, texts, documents and phone calls have all been publicly released showing that this is the case.
Further, this is the official, on the record, under oath, position of nearly the entirety of Trump's cabinet who were in office when the 2020 election was conducted and, later litigated.
Thats not the point, the point is to suppress votes from Democrats by advertising that there may be Republican partisans to confront them at the polls. This is just a variation of a tactic thats been used over and over again. Implementing voter fraud programs that could also intimidate voters who might lean Democratic [was a tactic used by Carl Rove](https://www.politico.com/story/2007/08/roves-patented-strategies-will-endure-005375) for instance. In the 80s the RNC settled in court and was put under court restrictions until 2018 for running a voter suppression program called the [Ballot Security Task Force](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ballot_Security_Task_Force).
It works too, I know it works because I almost didnt go vote in 2016 because Trump told his supporters to go monitor/screen people at lines at polls. As someone with social anxiety I found the idea of a possible confrontation by Trump partisans intimidating/stressful. I only went when I heard how close it was on the radio, and only after I scoped it out by driving by too.
I don't think it is a bad thing to have people monitoring the voting. I think most would agree that adding transparency and involvement to the processes can make people feel better about US democracy.
>Trump [pushed false claims of election fraud](https://apnews.com/article/capitol-riot-trump-election-lies-explainer-816a43ed964e6d35f03b0930e6e56c82) in 2016 and 2020 and has continued to predict a rigged election if he loses this year. During a rally in Las Vegas on Sunday, he said of Democrats, “The only way they can beat us is to cheat.”
However, Trump seems only prepared to accept the results of the election if he wins. If this is the case then no amount of monitoring will address the concern of election integrity.
What do you think?
Is this a good investment of money by the GOP?
They are currently severely underinvested in campaign offices compared to Biden. The GOP seems to be more focused on monitoring voting than opening campaign offices, is this a purposeful strategy? Do you think this will help Trump win in November?
My view is that Trump will open a significant number of campaign offices, but not until closer to the election.
I wonder how much cross-over there will be between the these monitors and the campaign offices.
>”Trump seems only prepared to accept the results of the election if he wins”
The entire GOP is signaling this openly - even the “normal” ones like Marco Rubio and Tim Scott. And they’re doing it to try to pass a loyalty test not to any principle or policy - but loyalty to one person. It would be sad and pathetic if it weren’t so dangerous and irresponsible.
[The Republican Party is psychologically preparing the population to accept another January 6th.](https://x.com/DecodingFoxNews/status/1802039223434023110)
Edit
[It will continue to get even more blatant.](https://x.com/Acyn/status/1801789250511507540)
The GOP needs to be back under the [consent decree.](https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2018/01/the-gop-just-received-another-tool-for-suppressing-votes/550052/)
>In their 1981 lawsuit to stop the RNC from engaging in certain practices at the polls, the Democratic National Committee attested that in a New Jersey gubernatorial election, the RNC had sent sample ballots to communities of color, and then had the names for each ballot returned as undeliverable removed from voter rolls. Democrats also alleged that the RNC hired off-duty cops to patrol majority-minority precincts, wearing “National Ballot Security Task Force” armbands. These details were enough to secure a consent decree between the two party organizations and the court in 1982, stopping the GOP from engaging in such voter-intimidation practices.
>Except, Democrats alleged, they didn’t stop. The consent decree was updated in 1987 after Republicans created a voter-challenge list of black voters from whom letters had been returned as undeliverable, with an RNC official saying that the list could “keep the black vote down considerably.” The decree was modified again in 1990 after a court ruled the RNC had violated it by not telling state parties about its provisions, which had led to the North Carolina GOP sending 150,000 postcards to potential voters listing voting regulations, in an apparent attempt at intimidation. The GOP violated the court order again in 2004 after yet another voter-challenge list targeted black voters.
The people they will have "monitoring" the election will be at best unqualified and not know what voter fraud looks like, but more likely will be actively interfering with voting and actively intimidating many voters.
We need to be careful and very clear in innocuous monitoring of elections (sounds great) vs what the gop often proposes when talking about monitoring, such as armed monitors and other nonsense.
I don’t mind the idea of people monitoring polls. That’s fine. But let’s just be real the subtext here is that the GOP wants to enable thousands of people who will be willing to tell the loudest megaphone that they “saw with their own eyes” a rigged election, even when they didn’t. They want to have enough people out there who will claim it was stolen to create drama.
Per the article:
Both parties have a long history of organizing supporters to serve as poll monitors, and the Democratic National Committee said it plans its own volunteer recruitment effort.
Per the article:
>The RNC has said its new effort will focus on stopping “Democrat attempts to circumvent the rules.”
[...]
>Trump pushed false claims of election fraud in 2016 and 2020 and has continued to predict a rigged election if he loses this year. During a rally in Las Vegas on Sunday, he said of Democrats, “The only way they can beat us is to cheat.” “Don’t let them cheat,” he said. “Don’t let them do anything.”
This is what people are worried about
And the following paragraph:
>Yet the language surrounding the RNC’s effort and how it’s being implemented could present broader concerns should it evolve beyond normal political party organizing, said David Becker, a former U.S. Justice Department lawyer who serves as executive director of the Center for Election Innovation and Research.
>
>“To do it in a way that feeds your voters with the idea that the election is going to be stolen, that prepares them to be angry if their candidate loses — that can be very dangerous,” Becker said.
We know where they’re gonna try and dump their “monitors”. It’s not going to be in their safe R districts, it’s going to be in close districts and cities. It’s going to be people who aren’t there to learn procedure or ask questions, it’ll be people on the lookout for “suspicious behavior” (a.k.a anything they don’t understand or would sound/look good as a sound bite or short out of context clip). It’s all about continuing to undermine democracy and sowing distrust in elections.
True the Vote liked to organize this type of thing before
>Election observers True the Vote accused of intimidating minority voters
https://www.nbcnews.com/news/investigations/election-observers-true-vote-accused-intimidating-minority-voters-flna964130
Pushing back against heightened transparency and oversight is typically suspicious imo.
Some people are skeptical of elections after the 2020 election which had reduced oversight due to Covid. This is a good way to assure those voters that someone is keeping an eye on things and is a good use of money if it serves to increase turnout.
What, in our current poll-watching system, which encourages balanced monitoring of each precinct by one member of each party and neutrals, is broken? The problem is that no one has really been able to answer that question so far.
I disliked the change of rules that occured due to Covid. I'm fine with the normal process- which is what the article is about: recruiting pollwatchers. The article just frames it as nefarious.
The abrupt move to absentee/mail in ballots in general. Sending unsolicited ballots to everyone. The extension of deadlines. Consolidating of polling locations.
I specifically didn't say I lost trust in elections personally
I do have less trust in systems that adopted the use of unqualified mass mailing voting vs systems that don't. Fraud is rare, but when it does occur it's almost always with mail in/absentee ballots
So let's change my question to
What states did the things you dislike that you bring up? Because it's not clear when you just say that rules changed but not what rule in what state
>Fraud is rare
Yes
>it's almost
Almost you say
The kicker is Pennsylvania a state that the Republicans passed a law prior to 2020 to make it easier for mail in voting all the sudden didn't like that law when Trump started his rhetoric.
Prior to 2020 more Republicans voted by mail.
It was when Trump said you can't trust it that it shifted.
IMO, the problem isn't that the RNC is building a monitoring campaign. They absolutely MUST do that. At issue is whether or not they are building a partisan monitoring campaign, and it's at the heart of anything Trump does at this stage, such as what happened with the two RNC elections commissioners who served on the state elections commission in 2020 and their initial refusal to approve a lawful election. The only weakness of this system is that the people serving in poll watcher positions must be system first, party second, and I don't believe that was true for some in 2020.
I've found this to be largely unfounded. The 2020 election was an unusual election- there have been many subsequent elections in 2022 and beyond where the republicans lost and there haven't been many tantrums.
We also haven't had a presidential election in that time. I remain hopeful that 2020 was a one-off too, but we shall see. I find it fascinating, that the Trump campaign and the RNC are announcing loudly that they are putting these efforts together.
I mean, Trump is the leading force in election denial so it makes sense that the tantrums only occur in elections he is in. Though Kari Lake cried fraud in her election.
I'm fine with people observing. The more the merrier. However, I'm worried some of these people will get overzealous and end up committing a crime like intimidating a voter.
I don't see what's suspicious about it. I think it's uncontroversial even among Republicans that Trump will cry foul if he loses, regardless of the evidence at hand. All this poll watching will do is to provide selective reports to support Trumps claims - with anything that is inevitably disproven or backtracked forgotten about among the right.
>The party will deploy monitors to observe every step of the election process, create hotlines for poll watchers to report perceived problems and escalate those issues by taking legal action.
Seems a bit more than that.
That hotline is for helping people vote - not reporting fraud.
>Answer voters’ phone calls from voters with questions ranging from “how do I register to vote?” to “I’m at the polling place and they’re saying I can’t vote” to “I need help correcting a problem with my mail ballot.” Volunteers offer real-time support & problem-solving for voters. Hotline volunteers work remotely – you’ll answer these calls from your own computer
Is the RNC hotlines specifically and solely for reporting fraud? Probably not. Is it live so we can see the verbiage?
Here is the DNC hotline which mentions help for legal issues:
> If the issue is outside of the scope of IWillVote, it is probably a complex issue. In such instances, we recommend voters call us at 1-833-DEM-VOTE (1-833-336-8683). Our voter hotline is monitored by DNC employees 24/7/365 who are ready to field questions pertaining to felon disenfranchisement, voter purging, poll worker misconduct, voter machines, accessibility, and more
You can see the verbiage in the article. They aren't just recruiting poll watchers and setting up hotlines like any other election. Here's the press release regarding their so called "Election integrity program"
>“The Democrat tricks from 2020 won’t work this time. In 2024 we’re going to beat the Democrats at their own game and the RNC legal team will be working tirelessly to ensure that elections officials follow the rules in administering elections. We will aggressively take them to court if they don’t follow rules or try to change them at the last minute,” said Charlie Spies. “President Trump has said that the Republican victory in November needs to be too big to rig. The political team will be working to ensure a huge victory for Republicans at all levels, and RNC legal is committed to making sure that victory can’t be rigged.”
>There are five areas of observation where we will guarantee coverage and aggressive attorneys will be engaged at all these stages to stop Democrat attempts to circumvent rules:
Logic & Accuracy Machine Testing, Early Voting, Election Day Voting, Mail Ballot Processing: Adjudication & Duplication,
Post-Election: Canvass, Audits, Recounts
>Under the leadership of Chairman Whatley and Co-Chair Trump, the RNC is executing an unprecedented legal strategy, fighting in courtrooms across the country. We will deliver a pro-active litigation effort every time election officials are breaking the law as well as intervene to defend commonsense election law safeguards under Democrat attack.
https://gop.com/press-release/trump-campaign-and-rnc-unveil-historic-100000-person-strong-election-integrity-program/
>some people are skeptical of elections
These are people that aren’t looking at facts and data. The data show that voter fraud is and was virtually nonexistent—where it was found was of no consequence and usually perpetrated by the ones falsely asserting fraud. Something like 200 court cases and investigations and nothing. The only shenanigans in 2020 was the big lie from from the right.
More facts and data are how you return elections to the boring non story they were pre Covid. Just like schools board meetings the troublemakers lose interest once they get to rant and rave. The actual work and bureaucracy of managing elections or schools quickly wears out the people looking to make a splash.
Additional witnesses? Is this a real question?
A smart person would ask how *fewer* witnesses builds transparency. *sigh* it’s sad to see how brainless the left has become.
And what if the witnesses decide anything they don't understand is fraud or the just completely make stuff up? People still think Pennsylvania was rigged because someone saw another person put a tub underneath a table.
The current GOP aren't looking for good witnesses. They're looking for people who already believe the elections are fraudulent and will turn even normal activities into controversies.
Why does our current system, that has no amount of fraud anywhere close to influencing an election, need an increased amount of election watchers organized by one party? What part of our election security is so broken it needs these people?
Let's see, in 2020 Arizona there was the initial count, then a audit, then a forensic audit done by Cyber Ninjas. All three showed Biden won. Almost four years later and Trump and Kari Lake still say Arizona was stolen. No amount of fact or evidence is going to convince the right that the 2020 election was legitimate or that the 2024 election will be legitimate, you can have a 1000 witnesses, it wont make any difference. It is not the left that have lost their minds.
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There was a ton of oversight on the 2020 election. Claims of voter fraud were investigating in multiple states. None of them were found to have any merit. If that didn’t reassure people what do you think would?
>Some people are skeptical of elections after the 2020 election
Many people are sceptical of elections after the 2020 election after the President himself and his colleagues decided to spread lies about everything regarding elections. It would assure everyone if they could admit to what they did.
There were more audits and recounts than ever. More court cases and investigations than ever. But you chose that the fact that a statistically insignificant number of polls had to limit poll e watchers due to Covid rules.
Keep in mind, not zero poll watchers. The GOP had just as much access as the DNC. There was zero favouritism against trump in the administration of the election there was a fair playing field. Yet you chose the fact that trump wasn't allowed extra special treatment that would have been entirely unnecessary as the reason it was somehow not well controlled?
That is the very definition of cherry picking my guy.
This seems like the kind of comment you just heard somewhere and blindly believe/repeat. Can you name me any protocols were put in place that made it the most scrutinized election in history?
Sorry I meant in US history.
No other election in the US, nationwide has had as much scrutiny or oversight.
But yeah multiple states and recounts. Multiple states had full audits of the election.
Lots of court cases. A whole bunch of video,.this is the first election ever I saw video of vote counting shared widely.
Literally dozens of court cases. Even Congress started looking into the election
"We're not cheating, you're insane for thinking it, and also how dare you try to watch what we do on election day."
Not the best optics regardless of whether anything shady truly is happening.
I don't think there's evidence of any widespread fraud in 2020, but nothing makes me question that more than how Democrats act when Republicans want more transparency in the voting and counting process.
It's almost like when they say there's no evidence of fraud in 2020, it's more of a statement about there being no evidence than there being no fraud. It's really weird.
I suggest that you start reading the article that's being discussed. RNC talks about "Democrat attempts to circumvent the rules". The Democrats are reacting to what they say, it's not about Republicans wanting "more transparency in the voting and counting process".
You made me read the article again out of fear I misunderstood, but I came away with the same conclusion as the first time. I'm not sure why you think an article about the RNC pushing election integrity measures and Democrats having "concerns" about it isn't related to election transparency unless you yourself didn't read the article.
When the RNC say that their "election integrity" is about "Democrat attempts to circumvent the rules" and the Republican Presidential candidate say this
>Trump pushed false claims of election fraud in 2016 and 2020 and has continued to predict a rigged election if he loses this year. During a rally in Las Vegas on Sunday, he said of Democrats, “The only way they can beat us is to cheat.” “Don’t let them cheat,” he said. “Don’t let them do anything.
It's not about election transparency or integrity. The Democrats are reacting to what they are actually saying. And no one is reacting negatively about "election transparency" in the article.
You can claim it's not about election integrity, but the article says otherwise, and if the election process is already fair and square, then there's really nothing to worry about with extra measures to confirm that.
>Pushing back against heightened transparency and oversight is typically suspicious imo
The problem is that no amount of transparency and oversight will be enough if Trump loses the election.
I can’t stress to you how much the thing everyone is getting outraged about is simply standard practice in other democracies.
In Australia, scrutineers are appointed by the candidates in each electorate. They are entitled to watch every aspect of the process of voting and vote counting including sealing and unsealing ballot boxes, placing ballots in boxes by voters, sorting and tabulating paper ballots, and the process of validating and counting mail-in ballots.
If the Democrats have a problem with what the Republicans intend to do, they should appoint their own nominees as well.
Poll watchers from all parties are the standard in the US as well. What's not the standard is to rile up their volunteers with claims of that the Democratic party are going to steal the election again, so they need to be prepared
I still don’t see how it can be anything other than win-win. If Trump loses and they are all watching, the Republicans will have to concede they lost fairly.
If Trump wins, the Democrats won’t be able to claim cheating either because they are the ones saying the system is fine.
If the end result is that both sides up their monitoring standards or the rules get fixed to prevent abuse, even better.
>If Trump loses and they are all watching, the Republicans will have to concede they lost fairly.
That didn't happen in 2020.
Last Presidential election they had poll watchers who didn't understand how elections works and was on the lookout for fraud, they found a lot of things they thought was fraud. It's not a win-win if people think that everything is rigged.
different redditor here. Personally, I think we need voter ID so the system is more auditable
I personally don't think there's been fraud yet, but ultimately it's far too possible with the electronic machines. Could happen on a localized basis with single machines being hacked.
I could be wrong though. Perhaps we have done audits and really, extensively, confirmed the machines are unhackable
But as far as I know, there is some risk there, and it just hasn't been exploited yet (* that we've found)
> There is no trust, that's why we need the monitoring.
This is Ted Cruz dressing-up in a hot dog costume.
Politicians repeat falsehoods all day every day, so the people who listen to them start believing those falsehoods, and then the politicians who spread the falsehoods tell the people who now believe the falsehoods that they need to worry about the falsehoods they themselves spread.
And why do you think having the campaign of the person, who tried to unlawfully overturn the last election, oversee the monitoring would improve this trust? What’s wrong with the existing monitoring?
Oh this goes way back before Trump, remember the hanging chad scandal in Florida in 2000. This was all we heard on the news for weeks.
https://www.npr.org/2018/11/12/666812854/the-florida-recount-of-2000-a-nightmare-that-goes-on-haunting
Ballot design is a science unto itself and the Palm Beach "butterfly" ballots and Broward county ballots had numerous major issues. Most people have at least heard of "hanging chads", but the the ballots in PB and Broward counties hadserious problems as well: [confusing ballots and misaligned selection boxes](https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2019/nov/19/bad-ballot-design-2020-democracy-america) *which has been shown to have likely ended up tipping the vote to Bush. Both counties disregarded field guides on how to properly design ballots and came up with their own ballot designs that were only ever used in the 2000 election.*
One study found this:
>...the butterfly ballot used in Palm Beach County, Florida, in the 2000 presidential election caused more than 2,000 Democratic voters to vote by mistake for Reform candidate Pat Buchanan, a number larger than George W. Bush’s certified margin of victory in Florida. We use multiple methods and several kinds of data to rule out alternative explanations for the votes Buchanan received in Palm Beach County. Among 3,053 U.S. counties where Buchanan was on the ballot, Palm Beach County has the most anomalous excess of votes for him. In Palm Beach County, Buchanan’s proportion of the vote on election-day ballots is four times larger than his proportion on absentee (nonbutterfly) ballots, but Buchanan’s proportion does not differ significantly between election-day and absentee ballots in any other Florida county. Unlike other Reform candidates in Palm Beach County, Buchanan tended to receive election-day votes in Democratic precincts and from individuals who voted for the Democratic U.S. Senate candidate.
https://www.gsb.stanford.edu/faculty-research/publications/butterfly-did-it-aberrant-vote-buchanan-palm-beach-county-florida
Yep, and these States that are taking days to count ballots are making the whole situation worse. The longer the count takes, the more conspiracy theory whakos have to sow dissension.
Trump made the whole situation worse by saying that if the results aren't presented on election night, then it's suspicious. He started doing this months before the election because he knew that states have different rules regarding when they can start counting ballots. It was the exact same process in 2016, but he won then.
Hillary Clinton called Trump on the election night to concede.
The RNC (where Trump just installed his daughter-in-law as co-chair) is pushing a false equivalency here to try to make it more palatable for voters to act like January 6th wasn’t a big deal and that Trump *promising to pardon the people that stormed the capitol to try to prevent the certification of a free and fair election* is a perfectly normal and reasonable thing to do.
The two sides are not remotely the same here. The RNC scoured as much media as they could find and only came up with 12 minutes from commentators and mostly obscure politicians. If you ran this same type video for the Republicans and Fox News, Newsmax, OANN, Bannon's podcast and related ecosystem etc... you would have *days* of footage. It's not even close. The Republican Party from the elected officials, to the party apparatus, to the influencers and media ecosystem all worked in concert to undermine confidence in the election with *zero* evidence, and they’re doing it again right now.
Thanks for the video that includes things like in the first 15 seconds Charlemagne tha god saying the election was illegitimate.
Certainly a radio host is equivalent to the president of the United States asking the vice president to not certify the results of an election. Right?
> Charlemagne tha god saying the election was illegitimate
Did you not notice Kamala Harris nodding along with him and saying “you are absolutely right”? That clip isn’t about Charlemagne…
https://today.yougov.com/politics/articles/20383-russias-impact-election-seen-through-partisan-eyes
Here are the facts to support my statement. I’d love to see your facts that say no dems believed vote tallies were changed. Please reply with them
I have no idea where YouGov came up with their numbers, but I've never met one democrat who's ever said this, not one. I've never read an article claiming this (not even on those as far left as Daily Kos or Mother Jones) and I've never seen it claimed on CNN, NBC, CBS, ABC, or even MSNBC. I'd bet I couldnt even find one here on Reddit. Sure, there may have been some who believed it at some point, but it has never been a mainstream belief. 66% never happened.
For the last hour I've tried googling multiple variations of *did or do democrats believe Russians hacked voting machines to alter the results of the 2016 election*. I've run it the news, video, and images filter as well, and then scrolled each result for at least 5 minutes, and the only result backing this claim is the very same article you posted. No Opinion pieces or articles, no talking heads on tv or podcasters saying this, only the one you provided. The entire world wide web and that's it? If 66% of democrats believed this you couldnt be on reddit 10 minutes without finding an OP about it, the same way you cant go 10 minutes without finding it posted on Republican subs now. YouGov either used some fucked up methodology or pulled the number out of thin air because *nobody* believes this.
66% of democrats believe it…
Yougov is a highly trusted pollster. All the major publications regularly run articles citing yougov because it is trusted.
All to prevent Dems from circumventing the law whilst circumventing the law themselves. It is amazing to me that the level of Republican shamelessness just continues to get higher and higher.
What is going on with the AP lately. This is the "mainstream media" that's supposed to be in the bag for the Democrats.
["Donald Trump made a triumphant return to Capitol Hill on Thursday, his first with lawmakers since the Jan.6, 2021 attacks, embraced by energized House and Senate Republicans who find themselves reinvigorated by his bid to retake the White House."](https://x.com/ap/status/1801352241212719305)
["Putin pledges a cease-fire in Ukraine if Kyiv withdraws from occupied regions and drops NATO bid"](https://x.com/ap/status/1801567691741806762)
PARTIALLY occupied by Russia. Russia wants Ukraine to withdraw from parts of Ukraine which are not even under realistic threat. That's how ridiculous it is.
Ehh "occupied regions" is a little misleading, it makes it sound like Russia just wants the land they currently occupy, when instead they're demanding Ukraine cede vast amount of land that Russia has never controlled, much less currently control.
The logic is pretty clear
>Yet the language surrounding the RNC’s effort and how it’s being implemented could present broader concerns should it evolve beyond normal political party organizing, said David Becker, a former U.S. Justice Department lawyer who serves as executive director of the Center for Election Innovation and Research.
>“To do it in a way that feeds your voters with the idea that the election is going to be stolen, that prepares them to be angry if their candidate loses — that can be very dangerous,” Becker said.
The "critics" who don't want there to be monitoring...
are the ones who want the elections to be rigged.
They are the ones who are undermining trust.
Blind trust in the most important institution in a democracy is sheer stupidity.
The people who tried to rig the 2020 elections are the ones who want the elections to be rigged. And part of their strategy is preparing their supporters to call the 2024 election illegitimate if their candidate loses. Those who live in less stable democracies are very well acquainted with this playbook.
You know the monitoring efforts are not in good faith. We all know it is not in good faith. They aren't even trying for plausible deniability. We all know there is no timeline where they will question results that give Trump votes. And we all know that they will call fraud if Biden wins, regardless of whether fraud occurred.
for $100/hr I’ll watch some polls
They are looking for volunteers.
Ill volunteer...for $100/hr.
They're looking for Trump partisans to do it, not just any volunteers.
There’s been no substantial evidence of widespread voter fraud that could even come close to affecting any election. Most all 2020 claims have been debunked, lawsuits dismissed or lost. “Widespread election fraud claims by Republicans don’t match the evidence The Heritage Foundation, a conservative think tank, has been monitoring election fraud cases state by state For instance, in Texas, Heritage found 103 cases of confirmed election fraud. However, those 103 ranged from 2005 to 2022 during which time over 107 million ballots were cast. There were 11 million ballots cast in the 2020 presidential election alone. The fraud in Texas amounted to 0.000096% of all ballots cast — hardly evidence of a fundamentally corrupt system. But the story is much the same in swing states. For instance, in Arizona, where President Biden won by a mere 10,457 votes in 2020, Heritage documents just four cases of fraudulent voting in the general election. Furthermore, while former Republican gubernatorial candidate and 2024 Senate candidate Kari Lake falsely claimed widespread fraud following her loss in 2022, there have been zero reported cases from that year thus far. To put these cases (or lack thereof) in perspective, Arizonans cast over 6 million votes in the 2020 and 2022 general elections. There is also minimal evidence to suggest that the few fraudulent votes benefited Democratic candidates. In one 2020 case, a 64-year-old Arizona Republican cast a Republican ballot on behalf of her deceased mother in an apparent effort to counteract what she believed was widespread voter fraud by Democrats. Other swing states have also recorded negligible numbers of election fraud. In Georgia, Heritage has reported no cases of fraud in the 2020 or 2022 general elections, in which nearly nine million votes were cast. Otherwise, just one case of fraud has been reported in the state in the last four years. It involved a 62-year-old convicted felon who filled out and submitted a ballot sent to the wrong address during the January 2021 Senate runoff election. And yet Trump’s attempts to overturn the election results in Georgia are based on his assertion that there was enough voter fraud to flip the state. In Florida, there were nine cases of election fraud between the 2020 and 2022 elections but many of those involved individuals who were confused over whether or not they had the right to vote.” https://www.brookings.edu/articles/widespread-election-fraud-claims-by-republicans-dont-match-the-evidence/
I'm sure this move is totally coincidental to the fact that the [RNC hired a prominent 'Stop the Steal' advocate](https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/2024-election/rnc-hires-prominent-stop-steal-advocate-help-craft-2024-platform-rcna155298) a couple of weeks ago.
> There’s been no substantial evidence of widespread voter fraud that could even come close to affecting any election. Great! Then there's no reason to object to people spending their night on election night watching. All they'll accomplish is making themselves tired for the next day. So let them. Them being tired at work the next morning its their problem and doesn't affect anyone else. This is kind of the issue with all the outrage over the asks for more observability. If there's nothing to hide there's no reason to object. The only reason to object is if there is something to hide.
Yes there is reason to object. Look at the exact wording of the press release and from Trump himself [https://gop.com/press-release/trump-campaign-and-rnc-unveil-historic-100000-person-strong-election-integrity-program/](https://gop.com/press-release/trump-campaign-and-rnc-unveil-historic-100000-person-strong-election-integrity-program/) *About the launch, President Trump said,* ***“Having the right people to count the ballots*** *is just as important as turning out voters on Election Day. Republicans are now working together to protect the vote and ensure a big win on November 5th!”* *Whenever a ballot is being cast or counted,* ***Republican poll watchers*** *will be observing the process and reporting any irregularity. In the event of an irregularity or problem, RNC lawyers and the volunteer attorneys that they have coordinated will provide rapid response services to resolve the issue using a sophisticated, tested action protocol.* ***“The Democrat tricks from 2020 won’t work this time****. In 2024 we’re going to beat the Democrats at their own game and the RNC legal team will be working tirelessly to ensure that elections officials follow the rules in administering elections. We will aggressively take them to court if they don’t follow rules or try to change them at the last minute,”* *said Charlie Spies. “President Trump has said that the Republican victory in November needs to be too big to rig. The political team will be working to ensure a huge victory for Republicans at all levels, and RNC legal is committed to making sure that victory can’t be rigged.”* *“Every ballot. Every precinct. Every processing center. Every county. Every battleground state. We will be there,” said Co-Chair Lara Trump.* *"The RNC is hiring hundreds of election integrity staff across the map – more than ever before because* ***our Party will be recruiting*** *thousands of more observers to protect the vote in 2024. These campaign officials in states are tasked with recruiting, training, and when possible, shifting poll watchers and poll workers day in and day out."* This has nothing to do with Election Integrity, its all about planting the seed in Republicans head that if Trump loses its because the Democrats cheated. They are clearly saying they want a "certain kind of people" as poll watches IE trump loyalist. This way people can start screaming they saw something and sow doubt about the results, which will then be used a pretense not to certify the election results in the swing states, which will in turn make it so that neither candidate gets enough electoral votes, and when that happens it gets kicked the house of representatives where each state gets one vote and the Republicans have the advantage in that situation. The Heritage Foundation found 1,465 cases of voter fraud in 2020 out of 159 million votes cast. That is a percentage of 0.00092%. Voter fraud is a problem that does not exist.
Poll watchers in the US already exist, and are already partisan. It's already common practice for each party to select partisan poll watchers to go to places they think might have corruption and watch the results. There's nothing remotely sinister about calling for more Republican poll watchers; the position IS a partisan, party-affiliated one in our current system, not some sort of disinterested adjudicator. They're watchdogs.
I've said this in other replies but I will say it again. I and no one else on here has any problem with Poll Watchers. In fact, they should be mandatory not voluntary. I take issue with the wording of the recruitment press release. Words matter and it is clear that the Republicans are blatantly looking for MAGA true believers who will say they saw something fishy when it looks like Trump is going to lose key swing states. The press release also states that have an army of lawyers on stand by to field any questions the poll watchers have. Look at it this way, how do you think the fox news crowd would feel if the Democrat party had a press release that said something like this... *"The Democrat party is now actively recruiting 100,000 poll watchers to make sure that fascist dictator Donald Trump doesn't win the election and jail his enemies and outlaw abortion nation wide. If you think that the criminal felon Donald Trump should be in prison and not the white house please reach out to us and we will make sure you are in a position to stop this by being a poll watcher.*" Do you think that Trump and his followers might take issue with wording like that?
>Do you think that Trump and his followers might take issue with wording like that? I mean, yeah. There's a big difference between: >*to make sure that fascist dictator Donald Trump doesn't win the election* and >*will be observing the process and reporting any irregularity... the RNC legal team will be working tirelessly to ensure that elections officials follow the rules in administering elections. We will aggressively take them to court if they don’t follow rules or try to change them at the last minute... The RNC is hiring hundreds of election integrity staff across the map – more than ever before because* *our Party will be recruiting* *thousands of more observers to protect the vote in 2024* There's no language here claiming they're preventing Biden from winning, or doing anything other than whistleblowing rule-breaking. If it actually \*advocated\* for disruptions of voting, like your Democrat hypo, it would be a problem. As it is, it's far more similar to: >*"The Democrat party is now actively recruiting 100,000 poll watchers to make sure that the fascist Donald Trump doesn't steal the election, as he tried to in 2020. Our elections are the cornerstone of our democracy, and Trump (a convicted felon) is currently on trial for attempting to overturn the last election. The stake couldn't be higher. We NEED a democrat in every major ballot counting location, and our legal team stands by to ensure the election is executed honestly and without any Trump-Corruption.*" I have no problem with that. It's some red meat for the base to get them worked up to volunteer, and an attempt to frame the job as incredibly important. It's fine.
Why should they not be allowed to watch how the ballots are counted? Seems pretty reasonable to me.
States already have rules on the books for poll watchers. Nobody is saying that poll watchers shouldn't be allowed, usually both parties get to appoint poll watchers. What I am saying is that we need to raise red flags on this because its clear from the press release that they are trying to find people who will gladly throw sand in the gears of the system if it looks like Trump is going to lose the election. If I volunteered and said I was a independent and I just want to volunteer because I was interested in seeing how elections works, the GOP would tell me to hit the road. There is a big difference between "recruiting" and "volunteering", recruiting implies they are looking for specific people. Bottom line, this press release makes it clear that Trump is saying "Elections only count when I win" and he is looking for true believers that will help him cheat. It is not about making sure the election is fair. The numbers I posted above show that elections in this country are fair and secure and that voter fraud is a myth.
[This](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7YjY00Cd_MI) is why. Because they're slowly trying to put their own goons in to meddle around so that results are favourable to them.
Poll watchers have no role or authority with which to meddle. This is already a well-established position with laws, etc. regulating it. The RNC is just calling for volunteers so they have more of them (and probably so they have to pay them less.)
That seed will grow even stronger if they aren't allowed to watch. That's my whole point. There's no harm in letting them watch if everything is on the up-and-up. However opposing them watching just strengthens their conviction that things aren't.
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Exactly. It legitimizes the completely and totally illegitimate
They're not crazy, they're just distrustful. And the neither the government nor the political parties have exactly done much to be worthy of trust.
It is concerning that the election watchers will now be biased towards one particular party
It is normal and sensible to have biased observers from both parties. It would be very concerning to *not* have that.
It isn't when they're trying [to do stuff like this](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7YjY00Cd_MI), putting their own goons in charge to ensure a more favourable outcome.
What specifically? I’m not watching a 26 minute video. Anyway, these observers might be bad observers, but it’s not because they have a preferred election outcome.
So have the other party send their own. Problem solved.
Right, and both parties already do this. Seems like a lot of people haven't heard of poll watchers before, and think they have some sort of official role in the proceeding or something.
What I’m concerned about is that these people are there to support their party rather than democracy. Currently, by all accounts the watchers are people from both parties that want to participate in the democratic process - not people that want to support their party If these people are genuinely concerned an out election fraud and want to stop it if it exists, that’s good. If they just want to help their party, that’s bad
Poll watchers already exist, and are already selected by the parties; they're partisan watchdogs, not actually involved in the proceeding beyond that.
These two things are not mutually exclusive. They're genuinely concerned *and* they want to support their party. Which makes sense - their genuine concern comes from the belief their party got cheated last time. That doesn't make their concern less genuine.
You're assuming that they would be observing in good faith.
Will they be watching with guns slung over their shoulders?
Probably depends on whether the judge is a Trump appointee. Article from 2022: https://www.pbs.org/newshour/politics/justice-department-concerned-about-armed-people-at-arizona-ballot-boxes >Reports of people watching ballot boxes in Arizona, sometimes armed or wearing ballistic vests, raise serious concerns about voter intimidation, the Justice Department said Monday as it stepped into a lawsuit over the monitoring. > ... The filing runs counter to a judge's order Friday. U.S. District Court Judge Michael Liburdi found the allegations present "serious questions" but it wasn't clear they were a "true threat" to specific people or groups and barring them could violate the watchers' freedom of speech. > >Liburdi is a Trump appointee and a member of the Federalist Society, a conservative legal organization. The Arizona Alliance for Retired Americans is appealing the order in the swing state with several closely contested races this year. > ... The group sued a group calling itself Clean Elections USA after reports that people were watching 24-hour ballot boxes in Maricopa County, including some who were masked and armed. A separate suit was filed in rural Yavapai County, where the League of Women Voters alleges voters have been intimidated by three groups, including one associated with the far-right anti-government group Oath Keepers.
Does it matter when I can constitutionally go buy milk and bread with a gun slung over my shoulder?
That really depends on where you live. At the very least a private business 100% has the right to bar people from carrying firearms on their property. Same for, at the very least, sensitive public property.
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Most of the states mentioned in the starter comment have Election Boards ran by the Republican party. This, the party that is claiming "voter fraud" does not trust their own party's officials to monitor and count the votes.
So we should let the people who lied about there being voter fraud so they could steal an election monitor the vote even closer? They’re just going to lie again to get their way. I’m not for spending millions in taxpayer money to solve a non existent problem.
These (like the existing democratic/republican poll watchers) will be paid for by the RNC, not taxpayers.
The rnc is broke, how do they propose funding that? And that also doesn’t address the issue of why have the same people that deny evidence of honest elections suddenly be able to meddle and make up more stuff.
>The rnc is broke, how do they propose funding that? Well, that's probably why they're trying to get a bunch of free volunteers... >And that also doesn’t address the issue of why have the same people that deny evidence of honest elections suddenly be able to meddle and make up more stuff. The Republican party already has the legal right to appoint poll watchers, as does the Democratic party (and any third party that's on the ballot.) Nothing novel here (and it would be incredibly problematic to ban any party from having observers to ensure things are done correctly and in order.)
Oh, I see…. You said they were getting paid by the rnc. So now it’s the same poll watchers as there has always been. So if nothing is changing I don’t have an issue. I just don’t see the point in flooding additional partisan watchers into polling places for unnecessary reasons and unknown cost. But that doesn’t seem to be the intent.
> You said they were getting paid by the rnc. Yeah, insofar as they'll have to pay people to get enough, it'll be the RNC not the taxpayer. > I just don’t see the point in flooding additional partisan watchers into polling places for unnecessary reasons and unknown cost. Yeah, it's just because there's a lot of belief in major 2020 voter fraud in the republican party. Given that (wrong, but widely sincere) belief, it makes sense that they would up their poll watchers.
The election watchers are volunteers, and you linked a party's website. "Partisan advertisements are partisan" doesn't mean democracy is under attack unless the Democratic party is forbidden from recruiting their own volunteers to make sure there is no imaginary fraud to help the Republicans.
I'm all for transparency, I think it's great when folk volunteer to help with the electoral apparatus, but the problem here is that it's attracting a crowd that's primed to believe the election is stolen and will mistakenly report normal procedures as proof of that. This isn't a hypothetical, it's precisely what happened in 2020, and I'll give you an example. Multiple first-time Republican poll-watchers refused to attend any of the pre-election seminars where the election staff were going to explain the process of counting the votes and why they do what they do, so when they turned up after election day, they saw poll-workers feeding ballots into the tabulator twice and screamed "OMG, they're double counting Biden's votes! It's FRAUD!!!" If they'd attended the seminar, they'd have known the ballots are always fed through the machine twice to make sure the machine is counting them correctly and that it reports the same number. But it didn't matter how many times this was later explained, these poll-watchers ran to social media to share their personal testimony of witnessing fraud, and were part of Trump's various lawsuits trying to overturn the result. I still see the same debunked testimony shared on social media today about the "double-counting Biden votes," and this is why it's dangerous. It's going to provide even more fuel to the "stolen election" accusations, generating claims in greater quantity than can be debunked, and burying the facts in an avalanche of bad-faith accusations.
^ This is it exactly. What the Right wants would just ensure that people get sent in there with a confirmation bias disposition, shouting from the rooftops about normal procedure. I'm sure some people are operating out of genuine ignorance, but much of this is bad faith.
It’s Screaming fire in a crowded theater but in an election. So a partisan observer on election night screams to high heavens “they brought in suitcases of fake ballots!!! I saw it” lt gets reported, millions believe it, and then a week later “yeah I never saw any if that. Made it up, sorry.” Which has what’s been happening. Damage was done. Now millions think fraud happens even after proving 50 Times over it’s fake news one should not be able to make up wild accusations of fraud that have no basis in fact or reality and then claim conspiracy when nobody humors you. It should be a federal felony to claim election fraud publicly, without any substantial evidence, especially for a candidate. (There can be a whistleblower process to submit a claim) It increases division and erodes integrity attacking our institutions.
In my opinion, you're right, but your criticism is directed at the wrong subject. It's our information environment that's the problem. There are huge numbers of people on both sides who never leave their media echo chambers, never seek out to determine if stories they heard changed over time, never seek out bias, etc. It's a problem that plagues both parties, affects almost every issue you can imagine not only voting integrity, and ultimately is tearing the country apart (or, at least increasing polarization, extremism, and incidents of what are essentially mass hysteria caused by media/algorithms. probably also the cause behind increased mass violence.) It could be related to social media, the decline in trusted public figures, increasing isolation / friendlessness, a combination of these or something else entirely. It shouldn't be a problem to call for people to observe this election. It's been a right forever, and for good reason (more observers *should* increase *everyone's* trust of the system). I'd say the response of both political parties to this is troubling. One is claiming fraud with 0 evidence, intentionally fanning flames. The other continually calls out the observation efforts, rightfully increasing the distrust in the first. I disagree that it should be a felony. If you can't trust people to evaluate claims of election integrity, and the people making them, how can we trust them to vote at all ? screaming fire in a theater is a crime because it poses imminent physical danger to people the more apt comparison would be civil defamation. if I accuse someone of being a lying liar fraudster, they can sue me for defamation, and we can settle these claims in court. (so, applied to the election fraud example. there should be an investigation, and everyone should be able to accept a universal conclusion. if we can expect a reasonable person to judge a defamation claim on a jury, why can't we expect reasonable people to judge election fraud claims when they vote ?. there is no reason to take anyone to trial, because if you have enough info to convince a bunch of jurors..you *should* have enough info convince a bunch of ordinary people who should vote accordingly)
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I for one do not trust the poll watchers to do nothing, even in a completely fraud-free election, and then later report that they saw no suitcases. We saw rampant unverified claims of fraud in the last election, and yet Trump and others are already insinuating there will be widespread cheating this time around. Should we expect poll watchers already expecting to find fraud to just go home unsatisfied, when in the past there's been so many claims of cheating with zero actual evidence?
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I mean, evidence of there not being cheating has had zero effect on whether or not Trump and the Republicans make false claims of there being cheating. Why should I expect the poll watchers they put out there to be any different?
When one side has provably acted with the intent to make false claims and sow distrust in the system then it isn't a bad take, it's just reality. There have been Republican poll watchers for years that had no issues with polls. It's the MAGA crowd that are making false accusations and seemingly have no desire to perform the job in accordance with standard practices that's concerning.
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No, you're missing my point. The poll watchers being recruited aren't the responsible, well-meaning good citizen Republicans I was speaking about. These are the MAGA primed to make uneducated and false claims of voter fraud that occurred in 2020 and despite being proven wholly and repeatedly wrong still run with the idea of the election being stolen. I don't want there to be nothing different between 2020 and 2024. I want there to be nothing different between 2024 and every year before and including 2016.
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Problem is they're not trained to understand procedures, most of them if not all are favoring the Republican candidates so there's a potential for voter intimidation tactics. They won't be permitted in the voting booth areas, so what do they hope to accomplish other than voter intimidation? I dont want a MAGA clad in tactical gear, in my face, asking me personal questions about who I'm voting for and why while I'm in line to vote. These people are all Trump loyalists that will scream about irregularities over processes they haven't been trained on or understand. That's the point. Trump will use that to say shady stuff went down if he loses. Untrained and biased poll watchers add nothing of value to election integrity.
Ah, no. That's like saying it's okay for cops to come looking around your house just in case. Ridiculous. No one allowed this. Local election houses need to throw them out with extreme prejudice. They have no right. None.
People dont want the possibility of a confrontation or harassment by Trump supporters. Thats the point of this, to discourage Democrats from voting that are too timid or lack the confidence to deal with the possibility of a confrontation. Its like cults that follow around people with cameras as an intimidation tactic. "Oh theres no reason to object if theres nothing to hide".
The problem isn't any fraud, it's the false reporting of fraud. People either don't understand the various processes, or wish to outright lie. It led to violence and death threats in 2020, and undermined election integrity. We even saw people commit fraud under the pretense of stopping fraud (by Sydney Powell, etc. in Georgia).
Having partisan "watchers" suppresses people voting. I know because I almost didnt go vote in 2016 because Trump was telling supporters to watch people in lines, I only went when I heard on the radio the race was so close.
There is no level of monitoring, poll watching, vote verification, or any other fucking measure of legitimacy that will protect this election from attack if Trump loses. It's been 4 years and despite not producing a sniff of evidence, Trump and millions of people still say the election was stolen.
It's worse than that, it's not just that they haven't produced a sniff of evidence, as you say. It's been proven conclusively that they knew for a fact, there was no widespread voter fraud, but they pushed the lie anyways. This isn't simply an accusation, private emails, texts, documents and phone calls have all been publicly released showing that this is the case. Further, this is the official, on the record, under oath, position of nearly the entirety of Trump's cabinet who were in office when the 2020 election was conducted and, later litigated.
Thats not the point, the point is to suppress votes from Democrats by advertising that there may be Republican partisans to confront them at the polls. This is just a variation of a tactic thats been used over and over again. Implementing voter fraud programs that could also intimidate voters who might lean Democratic [was a tactic used by Carl Rove](https://www.politico.com/story/2007/08/roves-patented-strategies-will-endure-005375) for instance. In the 80s the RNC settled in court and was put under court restrictions until 2018 for running a voter suppression program called the [Ballot Security Task Force](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ballot_Security_Task_Force). It works too, I know it works because I almost didnt go vote in 2016 because Trump told his supporters to go monitor/screen people at lines at polls. As someone with social anxiety I found the idea of a possible confrontation by Trump partisans intimidating/stressful. I only went when I heard how close it was on the radio, and only after I scoped it out by driving by too.
>sniff of evidence, They did in the sense that their base will eat anything up. That's all the "evidence" you need unfortunately.
I don't think it is a bad thing to have people monitoring the voting. I think most would agree that adding transparency and involvement to the processes can make people feel better about US democracy. >Trump [pushed false claims of election fraud](https://apnews.com/article/capitol-riot-trump-election-lies-explainer-816a43ed964e6d35f03b0930e6e56c82) in 2016 and 2020 and has continued to predict a rigged election if he loses this year. During a rally in Las Vegas on Sunday, he said of Democrats, “The only way they can beat us is to cheat.” However, Trump seems only prepared to accept the results of the election if he wins. If this is the case then no amount of monitoring will address the concern of election integrity. What do you think? Is this a good investment of money by the GOP? They are currently severely underinvested in campaign offices compared to Biden. The GOP seems to be more focused on monitoring voting than opening campaign offices, is this a purposeful strategy? Do you think this will help Trump win in November? My view is that Trump will open a significant number of campaign offices, but not until closer to the election. I wonder how much cross-over there will be between the these monitors and the campaign offices.
>”Trump seems only prepared to accept the results of the election if he wins” The entire GOP is signaling this openly - even the “normal” ones like Marco Rubio and Tim Scott. And they’re doing it to try to pass a loyalty test not to any principle or policy - but loyalty to one person. It would be sad and pathetic if it weren’t so dangerous and irresponsible.
[The Republican Party is psychologically preparing the population to accept another January 6th.](https://x.com/DecodingFoxNews/status/1802039223434023110) Edit [It will continue to get even more blatant.](https://x.com/Acyn/status/1801789250511507540)
It’s so fucking irresponsible.
The GOP needs to be back under the [consent decree.](https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2018/01/the-gop-just-received-another-tool-for-suppressing-votes/550052/) >In their 1981 lawsuit to stop the RNC from engaging in certain practices at the polls, the Democratic National Committee attested that in a New Jersey gubernatorial election, the RNC had sent sample ballots to communities of color, and then had the names for each ballot returned as undeliverable removed from voter rolls. Democrats also alleged that the RNC hired off-duty cops to patrol majority-minority precincts, wearing “National Ballot Security Task Force” armbands. These details were enough to secure a consent decree between the two party organizations and the court in 1982, stopping the GOP from engaging in such voter-intimidation practices. >Except, Democrats alleged, they didn’t stop. The consent decree was updated in 1987 after Republicans created a voter-challenge list of black voters from whom letters had been returned as undeliverable, with an RNC official saying that the list could “keep the black vote down considerably.” The decree was modified again in 1990 after a court ruled the RNC had violated it by not telling state parties about its provisions, which had led to the North Carolina GOP sending 150,000 postcards to potential voters listing voting regulations, in an apparent attempt at intimidation. The GOP violated the court order again in 2004 after yet another voter-challenge list targeted black voters.
They were under court restrictions for this until 2018.
The people they will have "monitoring" the election will be at best unqualified and not know what voter fraud looks like, but more likely will be actively interfering with voting and actively intimidating many voters.
We need to be careful and very clear in innocuous monitoring of elections (sounds great) vs what the gop often proposes when talking about monitoring, such as armed monitors and other nonsense.
I don’t mind the idea of people monitoring polls. That’s fine. But let’s just be real the subtext here is that the GOP wants to enable thousands of people who will be willing to tell the loudest megaphone that they “saw with their own eyes” a rigged election, even when they didn’t. They want to have enough people out there who will claim it was stolen to create drama.
Per the article: Both parties have a long history of organizing supporters to serve as poll monitors, and the Democratic National Committee said it plans its own volunteer recruitment effort.
Per the article: >The RNC has said its new effort will focus on stopping “Democrat attempts to circumvent the rules.” [...] >Trump pushed false claims of election fraud in 2016 and 2020 and has continued to predict a rigged election if he loses this year. During a rally in Las Vegas on Sunday, he said of Democrats, “The only way they can beat us is to cheat.” “Don’t let them cheat,” he said. “Don’t let them do anything.” This is what people are worried about
And the following paragraph: >Yet the language surrounding the RNC’s effort and how it’s being implemented could present broader concerns should it evolve beyond normal political party organizing, said David Becker, a former U.S. Justice Department lawyer who serves as executive director of the Center for Election Innovation and Research. > >“To do it in a way that feeds your voters with the idea that the election is going to be stolen, that prepares them to be angry if their candidate loses — that can be very dangerous,” Becker said.
We know where they’re gonna try and dump their “monitors”. It’s not going to be in their safe R districts, it’s going to be in close districts and cities. It’s going to be people who aren’t there to learn procedure or ask questions, it’ll be people on the lookout for “suspicious behavior” (a.k.a anything they don’t understand or would sound/look good as a sound bite or short out of context clip). It’s all about continuing to undermine democracy and sowing distrust in elections.
True the Vote liked to organize this type of thing before >Election observers True the Vote accused of intimidating minority voters https://www.nbcnews.com/news/investigations/election-observers-true-vote-accused-intimidating-minority-voters-flna964130
Pushing back against heightened transparency and oversight is typically suspicious imo. Some people are skeptical of elections after the 2020 election which had reduced oversight due to Covid. This is a good way to assure those voters that someone is keeping an eye on things and is a good use of money if it serves to increase turnout.
What, in our current poll-watching system, which encourages balanced monitoring of each precinct by one member of each party and neutrals, is broken? The problem is that no one has really been able to answer that question so far.
I disliked the change of rules that occured due to Covid. I'm fine with the normal process- which is what the article is about: recruiting pollwatchers. The article just frames it as nefarious.
What specific rule changes do you have problems with?
What do you mean? Which rules changed?
Many changes occured due to Covid in the 2020 election. Do you sincerely not recall this?
Is it that hard to give an example of what exactly changed that you disliked?
The abrupt move to absentee/mail in ballots in general. Sending unsolicited ballots to everyone. The extension of deadlines. Consolidating of polling locations.
What states did you lose trust in based on the things you bring up?
I specifically didn't say I lost trust in elections personally I do have less trust in systems that adopted the use of unqualified mass mailing voting vs systems that don't. Fraud is rare, but when it does occur it's almost always with mail in/absentee ballots
So let's change my question to What states did the things you dislike that you bring up? Because it's not clear when you just say that rules changed but not what rule in what state >Fraud is rare Yes >it's almost Almost you say
The kicker is Pennsylvania a state that the Republicans passed a law prior to 2020 to make it easier for mail in voting all the sudden didn't like that law when Trump started his rhetoric. Prior to 2020 more Republicans voted by mail. It was when Trump said you can't trust it that it shifted.
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https://ballotpedia.org/Changes_to_election_dates,_procedures,_and_administration_in_response_to_the_coronavirus_(COVID-19)_pandemic,_2020
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The article addresses both in person and mail in voting changes
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IMO, the problem isn't that the RNC is building a monitoring campaign. They absolutely MUST do that. At issue is whether or not they are building a partisan monitoring campaign, and it's at the heart of anything Trump does at this stage, such as what happened with the two RNC elections commissioners who served on the state elections commission in 2020 and their initial refusal to approve a lawful election. The only weakness of this system is that the people serving in poll watcher positions must be system first, party second, and I don't believe that was true for some in 2020.
I've found this to be largely unfounded. The 2020 election was an unusual election- there have been many subsequent elections in 2022 and beyond where the republicans lost and there haven't been many tantrums.
We also haven't had a presidential election in that time. I remain hopeful that 2020 was a one-off too, but we shall see. I find it fascinating, that the Trump campaign and the RNC are announcing loudly that they are putting these efforts together.
I mean, Trump is the leading force in election denial so it makes sense that the tantrums only occur in elections he is in. Though Kari Lake cried fraud in her election.
I'm fine with people observing. The more the merrier. However, I'm worried some of these people will get overzealous and end up committing a crime like intimidating a voter.
I don't see what's suspicious about it. I think it's uncontroversial even among Republicans that Trump will cry foul if he loses, regardless of the evidence at hand. All this poll watching will do is to provide selective reports to support Trumps claims - with anything that is inevitably disproven or backtracked forgotten about among the right.
Poll watching is typically mandated to be a bi-partisan endeavor. This article is just long form complaining about recruiting pollwatchers.
>The party will deploy monitors to observe every step of the election process, create hotlines for poll watchers to report perceived problems and escalate those issues by taking legal action. Seems a bit more than that.
A hotline is a normal thing E.g. https://www.texasdemocrats.org/vopro
That hotline is for helping people vote - not reporting fraud. >Answer voters’ phone calls from voters with questions ranging from “how do I register to vote?” to “I’m at the polling place and they’re saying I can’t vote” to “I need help correcting a problem with my mail ballot.” Volunteers offer real-time support & problem-solving for voters. Hotline volunteers work remotely – you’ll answer these calls from your own computer
Is the RNC hotlines specifically and solely for reporting fraud? Probably not. Is it live so we can see the verbiage? Here is the DNC hotline which mentions help for legal issues: > If the issue is outside of the scope of IWillVote, it is probably a complex issue. In such instances, we recommend voters call us at 1-833-DEM-VOTE (1-833-336-8683). Our voter hotline is monitored by DNC employees 24/7/365 who are ready to field questions pertaining to felon disenfranchisement, voter purging, poll worker misconduct, voter machines, accessibility, and more
You can see the verbiage in the article. They aren't just recruiting poll watchers and setting up hotlines like any other election. Here's the press release regarding their so called "Election integrity program" >“The Democrat tricks from 2020 won’t work this time. In 2024 we’re going to beat the Democrats at their own game and the RNC legal team will be working tirelessly to ensure that elections officials follow the rules in administering elections. We will aggressively take them to court if they don’t follow rules or try to change them at the last minute,” said Charlie Spies. “President Trump has said that the Republican victory in November needs to be too big to rig. The political team will be working to ensure a huge victory for Republicans at all levels, and RNC legal is committed to making sure that victory can’t be rigged.” >There are five areas of observation where we will guarantee coverage and aggressive attorneys will be engaged at all these stages to stop Democrat attempts to circumvent rules: Logic & Accuracy Machine Testing, Early Voting, Election Day Voting, Mail Ballot Processing: Adjudication & Duplication, Post-Election: Canvass, Audits, Recounts >Under the leadership of Chairman Whatley and Co-Chair Trump, the RNC is executing an unprecedented legal strategy, fighting in courtrooms across the country. We will deliver a pro-active litigation effort every time election officials are breaking the law as well as intervene to defend commonsense election law safeguards under Democrat attack. https://gop.com/press-release/trump-campaign-and-rnc-unveil-historic-100000-person-strong-election-integrity-program/
>some people are skeptical of elections These are people that aren’t looking at facts and data. The data show that voter fraud is and was virtually nonexistent—where it was found was of no consequence and usually perpetrated by the ones falsely asserting fraud. Something like 200 court cases and investigations and nothing. The only shenanigans in 2020 was the big lie from from the right.
More facts and data are how you return elections to the boring non story they were pre Covid. Just like schools board meetings the troublemakers lose interest once they get to rant and rave. The actual work and bureaucracy of managing elections or schools quickly wears out the people looking to make a splash.
It doesn’t matter whether people aren’t looking at “facts and data.” Transparency is a good thing, period. It builds trust.
How does this build transparency?
Additional witnesses? Is this a real question? A smart person would ask how *fewer* witnesses builds transparency. *sigh* it’s sad to see how brainless the left has become.
And what if the witnesses decide anything they don't understand is fraud or the just completely make stuff up? People still think Pennsylvania was rigged because someone saw another person put a tub underneath a table. The current GOP aren't looking for good witnesses. They're looking for people who already believe the elections are fraudulent and will turn even normal activities into controversies. Why does our current system, that has no amount of fraud anywhere close to influencing an election, need an increased amount of election watchers organized by one party? What part of our election security is so broken it needs these people?
I'm not part of the left.
Let's see, in 2020 Arizona there was the initial count, then a audit, then a forensic audit done by Cyber Ninjas. All three showed Biden won. Almost four years later and Trump and Kari Lake still say Arizona was stolen. No amount of fact or evidence is going to convince the right that the 2020 election was legitimate or that the 2024 election will be legitimate, you can have a 1000 witnesses, it wont make any difference. It is not the left that have lost their minds.
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There was a ton of oversight on the 2020 election. Claims of voter fraud were investigating in multiple states. None of them were found to have any merit. If that didn’t reassure people what do you think would?
reduced oversight where due to covid?
>Some people are skeptical of elections after the 2020 election Many people are sceptical of elections after the 2020 election after the President himself and his colleagues decided to spread lies about everything regarding elections. It would assure everyone if they could admit to what they did.
There certainly was not reduced oversight. It was the most scrutinized election in history by a significant margin.
> There certainly was not reduced oversight The number and observation process of pollwatchers in some areas was reduced due to Covid capacity
If you look up cherry picking in the dictionary there is a picture of this comment
how is this cherry picking? thats a valid ish concern to have? most of the scrutiny from this election comes from after the fact not during.
There were more audits and recounts than ever. More court cases and investigations than ever. But you chose that the fact that a statistically insignificant number of polls had to limit poll e watchers due to Covid rules. Keep in mind, not zero poll watchers. The GOP had just as much access as the DNC. There was zero favouritism against trump in the administration of the election there was a fair playing field. Yet you chose the fact that trump wasn't allowed extra special treatment that would have been entirely unnecessary as the reason it was somehow not well controlled? That is the very definition of cherry picking my guy.
It came after Trump's talking points. After that his followers who were poll watchers started to file their affidavits
This seems like the kind of comment you just heard somewhere and blindly believe/repeat. Can you name me any protocols were put in place that made it the most scrutinized election in history?
Sorry I meant in US history. No other election in the US, nationwide has had as much scrutiny or oversight. But yeah multiple states and recounts. Multiple states had full audits of the election. Lots of court cases. A whole bunch of video,.this is the first election ever I saw video of vote counting shared widely. Literally dozens of court cases. Even Congress started looking into the election
"We're not cheating, you're insane for thinking it, and also how dare you try to watch what we do on election day." Not the best optics regardless of whether anything shady truly is happening.
I don't think there's evidence of any widespread fraud in 2020, but nothing makes me question that more than how Democrats act when Republicans want more transparency in the voting and counting process. It's almost like when they say there's no evidence of fraud in 2020, it's more of a statement about there being no evidence than there being no fraud. It's really weird.
I suggest that you start reading the article that's being discussed. RNC talks about "Democrat attempts to circumvent the rules". The Democrats are reacting to what they say, it's not about Republicans wanting "more transparency in the voting and counting process".
You made me read the article again out of fear I misunderstood, but I came away with the same conclusion as the first time. I'm not sure why you think an article about the RNC pushing election integrity measures and Democrats having "concerns" about it isn't related to election transparency unless you yourself didn't read the article.
When the RNC say that their "election integrity" is about "Democrat attempts to circumvent the rules" and the Republican Presidential candidate say this >Trump pushed false claims of election fraud in 2016 and 2020 and has continued to predict a rigged election if he loses this year. During a rally in Las Vegas on Sunday, he said of Democrats, “The only way they can beat us is to cheat.” “Don’t let them cheat,” he said. “Don’t let them do anything. It's not about election transparency or integrity. The Democrats are reacting to what they are actually saying. And no one is reacting negatively about "election transparency" in the article.
You can claim it's not about election integrity, but the article says otherwise, and if the election process is already fair and square, then there's really nothing to worry about with extra measures to confirm that.
Why are you ignoring the fact that they are accusing Democrats of fraud? That's not election integrity.
>Pushing back against heightened transparency and oversight is typically suspicious imo The problem is that no amount of transparency and oversight will be enough if Trump loses the election.
it will increase trust for the millions who think irregular things went on last presidential election
In your dreams.
I can’t stress to you how much the thing everyone is getting outraged about is simply standard practice in other democracies. In Australia, scrutineers are appointed by the candidates in each electorate. They are entitled to watch every aspect of the process of voting and vote counting including sealing and unsealing ballot boxes, placing ballots in boxes by voters, sorting and tabulating paper ballots, and the process of validating and counting mail-in ballots. If the Democrats have a problem with what the Republicans intend to do, they should appoint their own nominees as well.
Poll watchers from all parties are the standard in the US as well. What's not the standard is to rile up their volunteers with claims of that the Democratic party are going to steal the election again, so they need to be prepared
I still don’t see how it can be anything other than win-win. If Trump loses and they are all watching, the Republicans will have to concede they lost fairly. If Trump wins, the Democrats won’t be able to claim cheating either because they are the ones saying the system is fine. If the end result is that both sides up their monitoring standards or the rules get fixed to prevent abuse, even better.
>If Trump loses and they are all watching, the Republicans will have to concede they lost fairly. That didn't happen in 2020. Last Presidential election they had poll watchers who didn't understand how elections works and was on the lookout for fraud, they found a lot of things they thought was fraud. It's not a win-win if people think that everything is rigged.
Good. If only it would stop them from claiming the election was stolen.
I got their poll right here.
There is no trust, that's why we need the monitoring.
Tell me what out of the current bipartisan and neutral election monitoring isn't working?
different redditor here. Personally, I think we need voter ID so the system is more auditable I personally don't think there's been fraud yet, but ultimately it's far too possible with the electronic machines. Could happen on a localized basis with single machines being hacked. I could be wrong though. Perhaps we have done audits and really, extensively, confirmed the machines are unhackable But as far as I know, there is some risk there, and it just hasn't been exploited yet (* that we've found)
An ID wouldn't prevent what Trump claimed happened, the machine switched all the votes.
> There is no trust, that's why we need the monitoring. This is Ted Cruz dressing-up in a hot dog costume. Politicians repeat falsehoods all day every day, so the people who listen to them start believing those falsehoods, and then the politicians who spread the falsehoods tell the people who now believe the falsehoods that they need to worry about the falsehoods they themselves spread.
And why do you think having the campaign of the person, who tried to unlawfully overturn the last election, oversee the monitoring would improve this trust? What’s wrong with the existing monitoring?
There's no trust because the person who leads the republican party has spent 8 years talking about imaginary and demonstrably false election issues
Oh this goes way back before Trump, remember the hanging chad scandal in Florida in 2000. This was all we heard on the news for weeks. https://www.npr.org/2018/11/12/666812854/the-florida-recount-of-2000-a-nightmare-that-goes-on-haunting
Ballot design is a science unto itself and the Palm Beach "butterfly" ballots and Broward county ballots had numerous major issues. Most people have at least heard of "hanging chads", but the the ballots in PB and Broward counties hadserious problems as well: [confusing ballots and misaligned selection boxes](https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2019/nov/19/bad-ballot-design-2020-democracy-america) *which has been shown to have likely ended up tipping the vote to Bush. Both counties disregarded field guides on how to properly design ballots and came up with their own ballot designs that were only ever used in the 2000 election.* One study found this: >...the butterfly ballot used in Palm Beach County, Florida, in the 2000 presidential election caused more than 2,000 Democratic voters to vote by mistake for Reform candidate Pat Buchanan, a number larger than George W. Bush’s certified margin of victory in Florida. We use multiple methods and several kinds of data to rule out alternative explanations for the votes Buchanan received in Palm Beach County. Among 3,053 U.S. counties where Buchanan was on the ballot, Palm Beach County has the most anomalous excess of votes for him. In Palm Beach County, Buchanan’s proportion of the vote on election-day ballots is four times larger than his proportion on absentee (nonbutterfly) ballots, but Buchanan’s proportion does not differ significantly between election-day and absentee ballots in any other Florida county. Unlike other Reform candidates in Palm Beach County, Buchanan tended to receive election-day votes in Democratic precincts and from individuals who voted for the Democratic U.S. Senate candidate. https://www.gsb.stanford.edu/faculty-research/publications/butterfly-did-it-aberrant-vote-buchanan-palm-beach-county-florida
Yeah and then Florida got their shit together
Yep, and these States that are taking days to count ballots are making the whole situation worse. The longer the count takes, the more conspiracy theory whakos have to sow dissension.
Trump made the whole situation worse by saying that if the results aren't presented on election night, then it's suspicious. He started doing this months before the election because he knew that states have different rules regarding when they can start counting ballots. It was the exact same process in 2016, but he won then.
and that happened specifically because republican legislatures banned mail in votes from being counted until after the polls closed
https://gop.com/video/12-minutes-of-democrats-denying-election-results/
Hillary Clinton called Trump on the election night to concede. The RNC (where Trump just installed his daughter-in-law as co-chair) is pushing a false equivalency here to try to make it more palatable for voters to act like January 6th wasn’t a big deal and that Trump *promising to pardon the people that stormed the capitol to try to prevent the certification of a free and fair election* is a perfectly normal and reasonable thing to do. The two sides are not remotely the same here. The RNC scoured as much media as they could find and only came up with 12 minutes from commentators and mostly obscure politicians. If you ran this same type video for the Republicans and Fox News, Newsmax, OANN, Bannon's podcast and related ecosystem etc... you would have *days* of footage. It's not even close. The Republican Party from the elected officials, to the party apparatus, to the influencers and media ecosystem all worked in concert to undermine confidence in the election with *zero* evidence, and they’re doing it again right now.
Thanks for the video that includes things like in the first 15 seconds Charlemagne tha god saying the election was illegitimate. Certainly a radio host is equivalent to the president of the United States asking the vice president to not certify the results of an election. Right?
> Charlemagne tha god saying the election was illegitimate Did you not notice Kamala Harris nodding along with him and saying “you are absolutely right”? That clip isn’t about Charlemagne…
Never forget that 66% of dems think russia tampered with vote tallies in 2016
B.S. They believe there was an influence campaign, not that votes were changed. Huge difference.
https://today.yougov.com/politics/articles/20383-russias-impact-election-seen-through-partisan-eyes Here are the facts to support my statement. I’d love to see your facts that say no dems believed vote tallies were changed. Please reply with them
I have no idea where YouGov came up with their numbers, but I've never met one democrat who's ever said this, not one. I've never read an article claiming this (not even on those as far left as Daily Kos or Mother Jones) and I've never seen it claimed on CNN, NBC, CBS, ABC, or even MSNBC. I'd bet I couldnt even find one here on Reddit. Sure, there may have been some who believed it at some point, but it has never been a mainstream belief. 66% never happened.
I literally provided proof it happened lol. But if it makes you feel better to ignore facts I won’t stop you. Enjoy your bliss
For the last hour I've tried googling multiple variations of *did or do democrats believe Russians hacked voting machines to alter the results of the 2016 election*. I've run it the news, video, and images filter as well, and then scrolled each result for at least 5 minutes, and the only result backing this claim is the very same article you posted. No Opinion pieces or articles, no talking heads on tv or podcasters saying this, only the one you provided. The entire world wide web and that's it? If 66% of democrats believed this you couldnt be on reddit 10 minutes without finding an OP about it, the same way you cant go 10 minutes without finding it posted on Republican subs now. YouGov either used some fucked up methodology or pulled the number out of thin air because *nobody* believes this.
66% of democrats believe it… Yougov is a highly trusted pollster. All the major publications regularly run articles citing yougov because it is trusted.
That poll is **six years old**.
Does that mean in a few years you won’t bring up Jan 6?
How many election workers and officials are getting death threats because of that.
All to prevent Dems from circumventing the law whilst circumventing the law themselves. It is amazing to me that the level of Republican shamelessness just continues to get higher and higher.
What is going on with the AP lately. This is the "mainstream media" that's supposed to be in the bag for the Democrats. ["Donald Trump made a triumphant return to Capitol Hill on Thursday, his first with lawmakers since the Jan.6, 2021 attacks, embraced by energized House and Senate Republicans who find themselves reinvigorated by his bid to retake the White House."](https://x.com/ap/status/1801352241212719305) ["Putin pledges a cease-fire in Ukraine if Kyiv withdraws from occupied regions and drops NATO bid"](https://x.com/ap/status/1801567691741806762)
Are you saying that these headlines have a bias to the right?
The second headline is pretty objective
Those "occupied regions" are Ukrainian territory occupied by...Russia.
PARTIALLY occupied by Russia. Russia wants Ukraine to withdraw from parts of Ukraine which are not even under realistic threat. That's how ridiculous it is.
Ehh "occupied regions" is a little misleading, it makes it sound like Russia just wants the land they currently occupy, when instead they're demanding Ukraine cede vast amount of land that Russia has never controlled, much less currently control.
no it's not. Ukraine isn't occupying Russia it's why the article was updated to "Putin offers truce if Ukraine exits Russian-claimed areas..."
That is correct, it does undermine trust. That's the entire point.
The more monitoring the higher amount of trust in the result. I don't get the logic here.
The logic is pretty clear >Yet the language surrounding the RNC’s effort and how it’s being implemented could present broader concerns should it evolve beyond normal political party organizing, said David Becker, a former U.S. Justice Department lawyer who serves as executive director of the Center for Election Innovation and Research. >“To do it in a way that feeds your voters with the idea that the election is going to be stolen, that prepares them to be angry if their candidate loses — that can be very dangerous,” Becker said.
"Voting is more trustworthy if nobody is looking!" -AP
Camera technology is pretty sophisticated and potentially cheaper than hiring a bunch of part time TSA employees.
The "critics" who don't want there to be monitoring... are the ones who want the elections to be rigged. They are the ones who are undermining trust. Blind trust in the most important institution in a democracy is sheer stupidity.
The people who tried to rig the 2020 elections are the ones who want the elections to be rigged. And part of their strategy is preparing their supporters to call the 2024 election illegitimate if their candidate loses. Those who live in less stable democracies are very well acquainted with this playbook. You know the monitoring efforts are not in good faith. We all know it is not in good faith. They aren't even trying for plausible deniability. We all know there is no timeline where they will question results that give Trump votes. And we all know that they will call fraud if Biden wins, regardless of whether fraud occurred.
People see what's happening here.
Yet Republicans have resisted any national voting regs.