2mo ago

Claims in 'Duty to Warn' Letter to Harris Alleging Compromised Election Are Misleading, But Still Alarming

www.snopes.com Claims in 'Duty to Warn' Letter to Harris Alleging Compromised Election Are Misleading

Its writer alleged, "In my view it is a near certainty the results have been changed at a scale which reversed the [2024] U.S. presidential election."

Here you go, a "real" source. He said there were more bullet ballots than there likely really are, but there's still a really suspiciously high number of them. How is this not at least worth investigating?

News @lemmy.world

fukhueson @lemmy.world

2mo ago

Claims in 'Duty To Warn' Letter to Harris Alleging Compromised Election Are Misleading

www.snopes.com /news/2024/11/21/stephen-spoonamore-letter-harris/

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What seems more likely, 1) A vast conspiracy involving the Trump campaign, a group of hackers, Elon Musk and various employees at his super PAC, along with countless other shadowy actors in a cabal that supposedly hacked the vote—an elaborate plot divined by one guy who has gotten nearly every data point verifiably wrong and has provided zero evidence for his related claims, yet somehow “got it right.” Or, 2) A small number of Trump voters simply didn’t care or know much about other offices or candidates and just voted for Trump and left the rest blank?
Right.
It’s genuinely sad to watch people grasp at conspiracy theories like this. Conspiratorial thinking is strongly correlated with feelings of insecurity, low agreeability, narcissism, intolerance of uncertainty, a lack of control, fear, and tendencies toward confirmation bias and proportionality bias. So while it’s not entirely surprising to see some on the left indulging in this kind of thinking—just as Trump supporters did and do—it’s still disappointing to witness.
- Within every election, there is a certain number of bullet ballots to be expected. The norm falls around 1-2% or so, with an expected margin of error. ~~Every swing state (and ONLY swing states). Hit around 5-12%.~~ The percent of bullet ballots has drastically gone down. I think the percent was so hi due to early counts in the week after the election.
  There were 57 bomb threats that targeted ballot counting stations. All in swing states.
  In pretty much every swing states, Trump won the Presidency, but Democrats won pretty much every other down ballot race?
  The polls were pretty much correct for the swing states..... except for the Presidency?
  There's coincidences and then there's fucking Looney Toons levels of improbability.
  I'm not a conspiracy theorist, but considering all that, you don't think a single investigation should occur?
  
  The Trump campaign was heavily courting low-propensity, low-information voters. The bulk of spending was in swing states. People who are more likely to cast bullet ballots are low-propensity, low-information, and/or single-issue voters. All I'm getting from your argument is that the Trump campaign was effective in their strategy.
  So, go ahead and investigate, but the result will almost certainly be that the election was secure.
  The sad truth is that there are many disengaged, low-information voters who were swayed to vote for Trump.
  
  There weren’t that many bullet ballots, did you not read the source?
  
  Right, you’re not a conspiracy theorist—you’re just “asking questions” and urging people to “do their own research.” Where have we heard that before? While you throw around baseless accusations about the Harris-Trump election, the reality is this: there’s no credible evidence to support claims of widespread fraud. Swing states have robust systems for verifying results, and the election process is overseen by bipartisan officials, including both Democrats and Republicans who vouched for its integrity. Demanding "just one investigation" isn’t about seeking the truth; it’s about refusing to accept the outcome.
  I know you you're unlikely to read let alone comprehend this post—just like you didn’t read the article you’re twisting—but for anyone else stumbling across your nonsense, this is the reality: your claims are bullshit. They're not just wrong, they’re embarrassingly, demonstrably wrong based on the very data provided for you in the article to which you are responding. Let’s go through the numbers you’ve clearly ignored.
  You say there were “5-12% bullet ballots” in swing states, but the data in no way supports that claim. Take North Carolina: out of 5,722,556 ballots cast, 5,592,243 included votes in the governor’s race. That means just 130,313 ballots didn’t—a mere 2.3%, not your laughable “5-12%.” Arizona? Of 3.4 million ballots cast, only 81,673 didn’t include votes for the Senate race—about 2.4%, again miles below your inflated, made-up conspiracy numbers. Nevada? The difference was 23,159 ballots out of nearly 1.5 million—a negligible 1.6%. Interesting. On average that's... basically right where you said it should "normally" be.
  Bullet ballots in battleground states are rare, but they’ve always existed, especially in contentious elections. And they've always been higher in battleground states. Swing-state voters tend to focus on the presidency when the stakes are high, which is common knowledge to anyone who understands voting behavior. Your numbers? They don’t exist.
  As for your implication that it’s “improbable” for Trump to win the presidency while Democrats do better down-ballot, I hate to break it to you, but racism and sexism is a much simpler, proven explanation with data to support it. Polling had consistently shown that Harris faced deep resistance, even among Democrats, with much of it rooted in gender and racial bias. Voters who rejected Harris while supporting other Democrats weren’t casting "impossible" ballots—they were reflecting prejudices that have been documented for decades. You don’t need a vast conspiracy to explain why Kamala Harris lost; you need to look at exit polls and confront the ugly reality of American history and culture
  The bomb threats on Election Day, which you seem desperate to weave into your narrative, were investigated by the FBI and found to largely be hoaxes originating from Russian email domains. These threats, while reprehensible, had no impact on the election's integrity and were not linked to any domestic conspiracy. The idea that they were part of a grand scheme to disrupt the “chain of custody” or facilitate hacking is pure fantasy, unsupported by a shred of evidence. If anything, they reflect an attempt to intimidate voters and officials, not to alter outcomes. Clinging to this as proof of fraud is the hallmark of conspiracy theorists: taking unrelated incidents and spinning them into a baseless, implausible story when reality doesn’t fit their worldview.
  And this is exactly where your conspiratorial thinking falls apart. Rather than accept straightforward, evidence-backed explanations—strategic voting in swing states, voter sexism, or even the simple fact that Trump remains popular among many, indeed a majority of, voters in this country—you leap to shadowy plots and grand conspiracies. This is textbook conspiracy logic: inflate normal patterns into anomalies, ignore the data that contradicts you, and demand investigations into “questions” you’ve invented yourself. It’s bad-faith reasoning at its worst.
  Your entire argument isn’t skepticism; it’s denial. You’re not interested in the facts—if you were, you’d see how consistently they dismantle your claims. This isn’t about election fraud. It’s about your refusal to reckon with reality.
  She lost. Get over it.
  
  Whew. I did, in fact, read it.
  There was no need to be rude in your post about it.
  Turns out the numbers are still being updated. They've gone up about since you posted (and funny enough, Trump no longer has above 50% of the vote - i.e. the mandate of the people). I'll admit that I was getting my information from Stephen Spoonamoore, and that the data does not match up with the current results. I went and pulled the numbers as well and it looks like it's even lower than what you found based on comparison to Senate data. However, I'm not a security specialist, nor am I a data analyst. I was deferring to people that have more experience than me.
  That said, I'm not saying that it was rigged - I am however saying that a bunch of weird shit happened, and I'm hoping that someone looks into deeper JUST TO BE SURE. It looks like Pennsylvania is actually doing a recount - if they come back with nothing, I'll shut up about it. And yes, it's entirely skepticism, I'm not in denial about Trump winning.
  I don't get why there's such a hesitation about being sure of something. It's like smelling smoke, and being told to stfu about there being a fire...that everything is working as intended. Like, do I have "evidence" of there being a fire? No, but....why tf wouldn't we just establish that nothing is on fire, just to be on the safe side.
  I 100% agree that none of the things suggested are "evidence," but without some sort of investigation, no one will ever actually be able to get any evidence.
  If you actually wind up responding, try not to strawman me this time as some sort of election denier, "do your own research" kook. I didn't do that to you, did I?
  
  Yeah fair enough. I think I was responding in tone more to the OP and other desperate conspiracy theorists who are clinging to the hope, against all evidence, that the election was somehow stolen from the democrats. Given Republicans now will have majorities in the house, senate, state legislatures, supreme court, governorships, and will control the executive branch -- not to mention the anticipated purge of federal agencies and loyalist-stuffing -- I find it very important that democrats level with themselves instead of looking for excuses.
  While it's true Trump lost an absolute majority, the republican candidate still beat the democratic candidate by about 2.5 million votes, with about 98.9% votes counted. And, as you noted, recounts in some counties and states are occurring, and the FBI has been, and as far as I know still is, investigating questions and concerns about the election being hacked since at least August.
  That said, I take your point, and I'm sorry for being so derisive in the tone of my response. I appreciate your level-headed reply.
  
  These threats, while reprehensible, had no impact on the election’s integrity
  So why did the Russians do them? For lolz? Do you really think a state actor expended resources in order to have no effect?
  
  State actors expend resources that have no effect all the time. Wanting to have an effect and actually having the desired effect are two different things, as I'm sure you know from your own life.
  
  Didn't you know? If dems called out trump for stealing the election, they'd be no better than him 😇
  /s yall need to get your heads out of your asses, the election was clearly stolen and pretending otherwise won't save you from trump or make you a superior person
  
  I'm not at all sure how clear it all is, but by the Iron Law of GOP Projection, their endless bleating about rigged elections is a confession that they were doing it. Also, there's absolutely no doubt they are morally capable of election rigging. Less circumstantially, to really answer the question, we'd need to know the effect of voter-roll purges, the impact of bomb threats, of selective closure and overloading of polling places, the rate at which postal votes were declared invalid, the rate of challenges to ballots on polling day and whether there was any party skew in the results, and so forth. Many, many unknowns. Some of the anomalies are suggestive, but not conclusive. And some are bullshit. But I don't believe that the integrity of the election has been conclusively proven.
  But in a broader sense, I don't think it matters. Trump has no legitimate claim to power since he incited an insurrection in 2020, also because he attempted to subvert the election by fraud, because he flagrantly violated the Emoluments Clause, and because he is a wholly owned asset of a hostile power, regardless of how the vote went this time. And every time he violates the Constitution or basic human rights, he becomes even less legitimate. That's what matters.
  
  Wow, impressive! You managed to showcase at least five of the psychological traits we discussed in record time. I also love how you accuse me of not reading the article, while cozying up to someone who actually didn’t read it and is throwing out numbers that flat-out contradict the data in the very article you shared. But hey, they’re feeding your paranoid conspiracy, so I guess that’s all that matters, right? If only there were a term for this kind of behavior—oh wait, there is: "confirmation bias."
  Honestly, you really speedran those psychological traits. Bravo. 🤣
  
  Does it feel good putting this much effort into defending Donnie? Do you feel superior to everyone else bc you ignore obvious signs of election fraud and tampering? Or are you under the impression if you start kissing ass now he won't deport or kill you?
  
  I’ve come to understand that you are open about grappling with a way of thinking that makes it hard to let go, take accountability, and engage with reality as it is. It seems that you’ve created a kind of mental framework—almost a dreamworld—where everyone and everything is aligned against you. This tendency to assign blame outwardly, to view others through the lens of imagined hostility or hidden agendas, mirrors the patterns we often see in conspiratorial thinking. I can only imagine how exhausting it must be to live with such constant anger and frustration, feeling perpetually under siege by the world around you. This way of thinking doesn’t just keep you trapped—it compounds your sense of helplessness, fostering isolation and perpetuating the very struggles you’re trying to escape.
  What makes this even harder is how these feelings trap you in a vicious cycle. Anger and helplessness often lead to assigning blame or constructing theories that rationalize the world in negative ways. This mindset, in turn, fosters behaviors and patterns that reinforce those same feelings, perpetuating a feedback loop that’s hard to escape. The effects on your relationships must be profound. I can imagine how isolating and disheartening that must feel.
  I hadn’t realized until now just how long this has been a part of your life, consuming so much of your energy. It’s clear that these challenges have been significant for you. With that said, I’m going to step back and block you. I imagine this won't be the first time this has happened to you, and I'm not talking about Lemmy. However, I do genuinely wish you well, and I hope that one day you can confront and overcome the struggles that have held you back. Breaking free from this cycle will require immense effort and readiness, but I believe it’s possible for you to wrestle with those demons.
  When you’re ready, I suspect you’ll find you have more support around you than you might realize.
  
  My demons are trump and assholes like you who endlessly defend him and his fascism. I hope I get to do some wrestling too :3
  
  He lost. Get over it :3
- You didn't read the article did you? Or even the snopes "correction" of it? Pls do that before discounting it as fake, being wilfully ignorant about this does nobody any good
  
  🙄

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