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Culture War Roundup for the week of October 21, 2024

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There is a very obvious innocent explanation of the "ballot dump", which was trailed by both sides before the election - as in the Trump campaign was saying "there is going to be a late break to Biden because they are stealing the election", and the Biden campaign was saying "there is going to be a late break to Biden and Trump will wrongly claim that it is evidence of fraud." The root cause is that (unusually) there was a large partisan gap between postal and in person votes, because fear of COVID-19 was a partisan issue.

In states which can't open postal votes early (which includes all the key swing states in 2020), in-person votes are counted faster than postal votes, because the envelope opening, signature verification etc. all take time and have to be done before you can count the ballots. [In states which do open postal votes early, the postal votes are counted faster than in-person votes because after opening but not counting them they are neatly stacked, all right-way-up etc. As a result Texas and Florida both looked competitive in the early stage of the count until the in-person votes started coming in].

In states where in-person votes are counted at precinct level and postal votes are counted at county level (which is most states, but I don't have a list handy), the in-person votes dripple in over the course of hours, whereas the postal votes come in in big lumps - especially when a big metropolitan county like Fulton or Wayne posts a batch of postal votes.

Everyone who was paying attention, including Trump, knew that there would be a late break to Biden in key swing states for these innocent reasons. Trump "knew" (in the legally and morally relevant sense) that the "ballot dump" was not evidence of fraud, even if his supporters didn't.

He also "knew" that the Dominion voting machines lie was false - the version of the story he was running with involved claims about the ownership of Dominion which were contradicted by the public record. (Smartmatic had Venezuelan connections, Dominion didn't).

I don't think that Trump "knew" that the gish gallop of hinkiness that the right-wing internet started putting together within hours of the close of polls would not find enough dodgy ballots to throw the election into question because I don't think anyone knew that at the time. But he did know that it was a gish gallop - that if he wanted to get it adjudicated in the time available (based on his behaviour, I don't think he did) he would need to be clear and focussed about what he was alleging (he wasn't). When Trump tries to take his best evidence of fraud to a sympathetic audience, you get something like that Trump-Raffensperger phonecall. Trump's people are trying as hard as they can to make specific allegations of fraud which Raffensperger can admit or refute (Trump himself is not helping), Raffensperger's people are saying "We already investigated that - there is an innocent explanation that we can show you offline." and Trump is saying "Oh no you didn't."

That isn't what a co-operative fact-finding process looks like, or even an adverserial one conducted in good faith. I have worked for unethical bosses (Fortunately, not for much longer than the duration of a contractual notice period), and Trump's end of that call sounds like a boss trying to get a subordinate who is slow on the update to falsify documents. "NASA needs to know that the O-ring is clean." "But I checked, and it's burnt half-way through." "Who do you believe, the boss or your lying eyes." "Excuse me?" "I need you to be a team player." etc.

The root cause is that (unusually) there was a large partisan gap between postal and in person votes, because fear of COVID-19 was a partisan issue.

Also situations like a homeless-support NGO that apparently provides mailing services for every single homeless person in Philly, and there's some (conspiracy thinking)(honest questioning)(take your pick) about ballots from sources like that.

Here is where this explanation breaks down. They stopped counting (no one could really say why). Then very early in the morning the next day there is massive vote dump. So either they stopped counting when they were 95% of the way there (which doesn’t make sense) or for some reason they refused to release the already known vote total.

Of course there are innocent explanations but the behavior was quite odd. Also the Dem discussion on red mirage can equally be explained as the Dems planned on potentially gaming the vote so they told everyone about the red mirage so that when they cheated they could say “we told you about the red mirage.” Just like the IC prebunked the true Hunter Biden story.

You can come up with any number of scenarios that are theoretically plausible, but they're all just conjecture, not evidence. Suppose I have an argument with Smith on Tuesday night. The next morning, I get up to go to work and my car won't start. I sue Smith alleging that he broke into my garage when I was asleep and damaged my car so it wouldn't start. I don't produce any evidence of a break-in. I don't produce any evidence that Smith was anywhere near my house in the relevant time frame. I don't produce any evidence that the vehicle's failure to start was the result of tampering. I don't specify what is preventing the car from starting (battery, fuel system, electrical system, starter, etc.) How seriously should my allegations be taken? I've outlined a plausible scenario, but I haven't provided any but the most general details and I haven't provided any evidence. This is the level the Trump fraud allegations were operating on. Actually, this is above that level, because here there's at least an identifiable person I'm making allegations against. The Trump situation is closer to me getting into an argument with an unidentified Home Depot employee and alleging that someone who works for the company must have done it.

Also the Dem discussion on red mirage can equally be explained as the Dems planned on potentially gaming the vote so they told everyone about the red mirage so that when they cheated they could say “we told you about the red mirage.”

Except this makes little sense. If this were planned months in advance, one would think they wouldn't need to stop counting. Fake ballots could have been ready to go from the outset, not manufactured over the course of a week following the election.