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Culture War Roundup for the week of October 21, 2024

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What was the 1982 case? I don’t see anything that pops up for Illinois in 1982.

And why would a seemingly isolated case be evidence of consistent fraud throughout the decades? It seems unlikely for widespread electoral fraud to be uncaught for so long; someone else in the discussion even mentioned how faked petition signatures for Obama were caught

Straight from the wiki

There were "62 indictments and 58 convictions, many involving precinct captains and election officials. The grand jury concluded that 100,000 fraudulent votes had been cast in the city ... Authorities found massive fraud involving vote buying and ballots cast by others in the names of registered voters. In one case, a ballot punched for the Democratic slate had been tabulated 198 times."[6] The case was prosecuted in November 1982 by US Attorney Dan K. Webb.[7][8][9]

That system had been ongoing from the New Deal era. It was only found out because they jobbed a single co-conspirator who blew the whistle.

This is despite there being significant investigations by the FBI and other law enforcement agencies. Now those people wouldnt investigate fraud if it punched them in the face. Feds consider such allegations low class. Much better to prosecute a guy who prayed too close to an abortion clinic.

Ah, fair enough, you’ve shifted my priors on this.

That system had been ongoing from the New Deal era. It was only found out because they jobbed a single co-conspirator who blew the whistle.

Where did you get this specific detail from? I’d like to read up on the source.

Now those people wouldnt investigate fraud if it punched them in the face. Feds consider such allegations low class.

Likewise, source on this? Because it seems the 2020 election certainly was scrutinized plenty. Why would Republicans and even Trump’s own advisers be okay with conceding the election if there was actually such widespread fraud?

Where did you get this specific detail from? I’d like to read up on the source.

I know him as "party worker from the 39th ward, 44th precinct"

https://sites.duke.edu/pjms364s_01_s2016_jaydelancy/files/2016/04/Report-of-the-Special-Grand-Jury-US-District-Court-NE-Illinois-.pdf

Likewise, source on this? Because it seems the 2020 election certainly was scrutinized plenty. Why would Republicans and even Trump’s own advisers be okay with conceding the election if there was actually such widespread fraud?

2020 was scrutinized by people without investigative power. Particularly preventative investigative power, which is basically only the FBI.

The last time I am aware of a state level organization investigating fraud in a preventative measure stance is NY, where they obtained ballots under false pretenses in all but 2 out of 63 attempts. This would have been 1/63 because they tried voting using the name of a felon who's father was working the polls.

https://www.nationalreview.com/corner/report-new-york-investigators-obtain-fraudulent-ballots-97-percent-time-john-fund/

Thanks for the sources, that is really helpful.

At this point, my remaining gripes are that Trump’s complaints about 2020 being rigged still come across as highly ad hoc. Again, if there was such massive fraud, why didn’t the rest of the Republican establishment side with Trump? If there was any evidence for fraud, surely some of the court cases in some of the states would have advanced and federal investigations would’ve come up with something, because the Democrats don’t control every part of government like that. Instead, it was pretty much unanimous consent from establishment candidates across the aisle which way the election went.

And if there’s really no way for the current level of evidence to satisfy you, then make that a core political issue. Instead, all the noise has been about how 2020 was stolen, instead of how 2024 onwards will be made more secure.

I think the pre-Trump Republican establishment has been caught up in respectability politics for most of my life and wining elections was considered non-important.

I think catching voter fraud, at the levels demanded by courts, would have required active sting operations. None were conducted. Such is the way the system is made. Ballots are instantly anonomized when cast.

Of course I prefer talking about making ongoing elections secure. Also I don't focus on 2020, as you can see, my concerns rely on things that happened before even 2016. That said, 2020 was particularly bad. Just look at signature rejection rates in major swing states. They were implausibly low.