Okay this will probably not be popular but I am what I consider a good faith conservative so I'll answer your points in reverse order.
1st: "Every group that has looked into it" and "widespread". First at this point I don't trust many of the groups and institutions, because I have repeatedly over the past 4 years seen various groups act in a concerted manner to try and slander, libel and misrepresent trump while trying to drive people to be angry and irrational about. There have been multiple I've seen things reported that I've said to myself. "Okay if Trump really said that then I am way off of supporting him" but then I go look at the actual remarks and it is radically different from what he said. Any else remember a 2 week news cycle on whether or not cofeve was a racist dog whistle? Ultimately at the end of this my faith in mant previously authoritative institutions has been shaken.
Also I don't know anyone that is claiming "widespread" voter fraud, no one believes there was "widespread" voter fraud in this election it was targeted specific voter fraud at particular places and counties is the contention. Everyone knew going into this what states needed to be won for biden to win. Many of these states were decided by less than 10,000 votes.
In response to your contention about being against making it easier to vote. The fact of the matter is that the more room for error in the voting process the less likely people are to trust the outcome. If we imagine for a second we lived in a non-Covid world right now and there everyone voted like normal do you believe as many people would doubt the veracity of the election? Ultimately I consider integrity of the election to be of higher value than ease of access, because it doesn't matter who gets to vote if no one trusts the process.
Again you asked how could a good faith conservative believe this. This is how, I could be wrong I could be off, but that is how I see things right now. Maybe that'll change but for right now that's how I reconcile being good faith and conservative.
> I don't know anyone that is claiming "widespread" voter fraud
This makes it very hard for me to take your claim of good faith seriously. Yes, perhaps the exact word "widespread" did not come out of Donald Trump's mouth, but there can be no doubt in anyone's mind (if they are indeed dealing in good faith) that Donald Trump has in fact been consistently and emphatically -- and, most important, falsely -- alleging wide spread voter fraud. Try doing a web search for "trump claims wide spread voter fraud" if you don't believe me.
This summer, in PA, a judge of elections pleaded guilty to stuffing ballot boxes for democrats in exchange for cash.[0]
Maybe it’s an isolated incident, really.
The media response that “there is no evidence of fraud” shifted to “no widespread fraud” at some point in last three years. I remember noting the appearance of the new qualifier. That rhetorical shift was their own nuance in the face of recurring anecdote.
But let’s accept that - no widespread fraud. The concern - regardless of Trump or this election - is over a critical mass of fraud in counties that are won by narrow margins.
“Widespread” has never been a requirement of the good faith critique of voter fraud.
So when you hear the catchphrase “no evidence of widespread fraud” realize that it signals buy-in to a straw man argument which talks past the issue at hand.
> The media response that “there is no evidence of fraud” shifted to “no widespread fraud” at some point in last three years.
What a blatant red herring.
The media did no such thing. What "the media" did was listen to the Trump campaign's empty claims about having lost the election to this magical massive widespread wave of voter fraud, and proceeded to ask the Trump administration for evidence of this massive widespread wave of voter fraud they were complaining about.
Asking a source to substantiate their bold claims, or fact-check them, is now passed off as media manipulation?
And let's be honest here: if Trump is complaining about tens, if not hundreds, of thousands of votes being either fabricated or destroyed, how is a typo in a projection or a postman failing to deliver the mail any substance to that gargantuan claim?
You read the volume of news I do day after day and you’ll find some humor in how the common vocabulary morphs in unison across the channels, and it’s notable when it happens. “Widespread fraud” is right there with “mostly peaceful”.
But again, why spend your time arguing that there’s nothing to see here rather than advocating for improving the transactional integrity of the voting process? And surely you must see those problems even if you trust that politicians don’t leverage them. Which of those pursuits do you think will be more effective in countering the distrust people have in the system? Which one do you think is ultimately healthier for the country? Saying, yes, I see why you would be concerned, let’s work to fix the integrity of the process so those concerns are addressed, or saying the all-to-frequent anecdotes mean nothing and we should have faith that the political machine is inherently trustworthy?
> You read the volume of news I do day after day and you’ll find some humor in how the common vocabulary morphs in unison across the channels, and it’s notable when it happens. “Widespread fraud” is right there with “mostly peaceful”.
I don't know what you were trying to say, but you said nothing if substance. It reads like a red herring that desperately tries to conflate the world begging the Trump campaign to substantiate any of their myriad of claims regarding their so-called massive nation-wide wave of voter fraud, which succeeded their initial absurd and ridiculous announcement of having won the election, with other propaganda tropes.
> But again, why spend your time arguing that there’s nothing to see here rather than advocating for improving the transactional integrity of the voting process?
The only problems that can be fixed are those which exist in the realm of reality.
Where is the massive wave of voter fraud that supposedly robbed Trump of his election? If that problem really exists, shouldn't you be worried about getting to know the evidence of its existence in order to ensure the same thing doesn't happen again?
Because otherwise these wild election fraud claims jus sound like a desperate red herring fabricated by a childish irresponsible man who decided to throw a tantrum instead of admitting defeat.
> This summer, in PA, a judge of elections pleaded guilty to stuffing ballot boxes for democrats in exchange for cash.[0]
A single individual is hardly evidence of "widespread fraud". If you want to play dueling anecdotes, I'll see your PA and raise you Republican vote tampering in North Carolina [1].
None of this is relevant to the substance of my comment, however, which is that I have a hard time seeing how anyone dealing in good faith can honestly say that they "don't know anyone that is claiming widespread voter fraud" [emphasis added].
Your anecdote reinforces the critique of fraud and I welcome it.
The argument is to increase the integrity of elections, not offset fraud by one side with fraud by the other and call it even.
There are a lot of anecdotes of fraud, and they keep coming up, enough to undermine the integrity of our elections (as evidenced).
If this was an issue of financial accounting in an organization, I’d wager your behavior pattern would be different - the recurring anecdotes would indicate a substantial risk that needs to be mitigated by putting controls in place to ensure the integrity of the accounts.
Instead, in this instance we are being told not only to look the other way, but are being told recurring anecdotes of abuse don’t warrant substantial procedural changes and improvements in accountability.
As Glenn Greenwald said the other day, this situation is either by choice or ineptitude. But it’s not a non-issue.
> There are a lot of anecdotes of fraud, and they keep coming up, enough to undermine the integrity of our elections (as evidenced).
Two data points is not "a lot" in a country with 150 million registered voters.
If there were actual evidence of enough voter fraud to move the needle, the Trump administration's law suits would gain some traction, particularly after four years of packing the courts with friendly judges. But they aren't [1]. Hell, not even Fox News is taking this seriously any more [1].
You think the anecdote I listed and the one you listed represent the totality?
This has been a recurring conversation for decades, and the fact that it’s inflamed in the last few cycles points to the fact that it’s getting worse, not better.
Look, the weak controls that were in place on this process are evidently broken in some critical locations - denying poll watchers entry, political material outside polling places, ballot chain of custody issues. So what controls we did have, weak as they were, were clearly not functioning in many critical locations, as evidenced by videos and court testimony over the last week. Without confidence that the controls are working, the results become suspect, especially when the mistakes appear aligned in one direction. This is what the auditing world would call a material deficiency. It’s that simple - how do you restore faith in the process when people won’t just take your word for it? This is a problem set with known solutions.
Forget this election and the outcome you want to see, Biden’s the president barring something crazy - but there’s a systemic problem here that’s getting worse (let’s say relative to the 2000 fiasco).
We still aren’t conversing, as a nation, about how to bring more integrity to the process to allay the very real concerns half this country has. The institutional narrative is that there is no problem. To then willfully deny that this disagreement really matters forestalls the conversation. We’ll see how this ages, but the answer here isn’t for one side to just shut up. The answer is to take meaningful steps to demonstrate that the process has integrity. Videos of poll workers denying poll watchers access don’t create an appearance of integrity. Denying observation of the ballot counting process also doesn’t support the integrity of the results.
> You think the anecdote I listed and the one you listed represent the totality?
Probably not. But I don't see any evidence that the problem extends beyond a few isolated incidents.
> the weak controls that were in place on this process are evidently broken in some critical locations
That is far from evident to me. And your claims are not evidence.
> there’s a systemic problem here that’s getting worse
Claims are not evidence.
> the very real concerns half this country has
The concern may be real, but the problem isn't. It just isn't. (Voter suppression is a real problem. But fraud is not.)
The real concern is (or at least should be) that half the country has lost touch with reality to the extent that a demagogue can make them spend so much mental energy trying to solve a problem that doesn't actually exist.
> The argument is to increase the integrity of elections,
I find it terribly odd that all this concern about the sanctity of the electoral process only dawn upon the Trump administration after a) realizing they were going to lose the election, b) having spent months trying to sabotage the election by mounting a campaign to reject a voting method that was known to be used primarily by the opposition.
And still, in spite of all the explicit accusations of the existence of a massive fraud campaign, they still cannot find any single shred of evidence to support it. Hell, their initial claim about their observers being barred from observing ended up being materialized in simply wanting to have their observers closer to ballot boxes.
>First at this point I don't trust many of the groups and institutions
The Trump Administration itself couldn't find evidence of widespread voter fraud.[1]
>Also I don't know anyone that is claiming "widespread" voter fraud, no one believes there was "widespread" voter fraud in this election it was targeted specific voter fraud at particular places and counties is the contention. Everyone knew going into this what states needed to be won for biden to win. Many of these states were decided by less than 10,000 votes.
The 2016 election was one of the closest elections we have ever had and it still would have required roughly 100k votes changed to change the result. This election is even less close. Biden is winning PA by 30k, MI by 150k, and WI by 20k. That alone wins it. You can ignore the close states like GA, NV, or AZ and Biden still wins. This would have needed widespread fraud in order to switch a true Trump win to a Biden win.
>The fact of the matter is that the more room for error in the voting process the less likely people are to trust the outcome.
This flows the other direction too. Voting being suppressed makes people trust the outcome less too. How can an election have integrity if people who want to vote can't? If that is the outcome of strict voting laws, shouldn't we require some higher level of evidence of voter fraud in order to justify this cost of people losing their vote?
1. The link you provide is indicating there was no voter fraud in the 2016 election not the, 2020 election.
2. As for "widespread" I think we are disagreeing on what it means, in this case you seem to indicate I am talking just about 1000s of people going out and voting multiple times, there are also concerns around counters through some means, providing a different number for the counted whether by introducing false ballots, lying about the number they counted, etc.
For example there was a machine in Detroit that read in 8,000 votes that were listed for Trump as votes for Biden [0] now that could very well be a simple technical error but it indicates how easy it is cause voting totals to not match the reality of the voting.
As for the final rejoinder, I think maybe we are having different opinions in mind as to what we are discussing. For me I fully support having many polling places that are easy to get to for many people in multiple locations and that on election day we should make it as easy as possible for people to vote; however I also think there should be tighter integrity checks on who is voting and on the counting of votes itself.
The point is you need to change hundreds of thousands of votes in order for any voter fraud to impact a presidential race. There is no evidence of anything even close to that happening in this or any recent elections.
>For me I fully support having many polling places that are easy to get to for many people in multiple locations and that on election day we should make it as easy as possible for people to vote; however I also think there should be tighter integrity checks on who is voting and on the counting of votes itself.
The first half of that goes against the policies of the Republican part and Democrats aren't going to disagree with the second half.
1st: "Every group that has looked into it" and "widespread". First at this point I don't trust many of the groups and institutions, because I have repeatedly over the past 4 years seen various groups act in a concerted manner to try and slander, libel and misrepresent trump while trying to drive people to be angry and irrational about. There have been multiple I've seen things reported that I've said to myself. "Okay if Trump really said that then I am way off of supporting him" but then I go look at the actual remarks and it is radically different from what he said. Any else remember a 2 week news cycle on whether or not cofeve was a racist dog whistle? Ultimately at the end of this my faith in mant previously authoritative institutions has been shaken.
Also I don't know anyone that is claiming "widespread" voter fraud, no one believes there was "widespread" voter fraud in this election it was targeted specific voter fraud at particular places and counties is the contention. Everyone knew going into this what states needed to be won for biden to win. Many of these states were decided by less than 10,000 votes.
In response to your contention about being against making it easier to vote. The fact of the matter is that the more room for error in the voting process the less likely people are to trust the outcome. If we imagine for a second we lived in a non-Covid world right now and there everyone voted like normal do you believe as many people would doubt the veracity of the election? Ultimately I consider integrity of the election to be of higher value than ease of access, because it doesn't matter who gets to vote if no one trusts the process.
Again you asked how could a good faith conservative believe this. This is how, I could be wrong I could be off, but that is how I see things right now. Maybe that'll change but for right now that's how I reconcile being good faith and conservative.