site banner
naraburns  nihil supernum  1d ago (text post)   13613 thread views

U.S. Election (Day?) 2024 Megathread

With apologies to our many friends and posters outside the United States... it's time for another one of these! Culture war thread rules apply, and you are permitted to openly advocate for or against an issue or candidate on the ballot (if you clearly identify which ballot, and can do so without knocking down any strawmen along the way). "Small-scale" questions and answers are also permitted if you refrain from shitposting or being otherwise insulting to others here. Please keep the spirit of the law--this is a discussion forum!--carefully in mind.

If you're a U.S. citizen with voting rights, your polling place can reportedly be located here.

If you're still researching issues, Ballotpedia is usually reasonably helpful.

Any other reasonably neutral election resources you'd like me to add to this notification, I'm happy to add.

13
Top Bottom Old Controversial Comments
Jump in the discussion.

No email address required.

Saw this tweet:

"Florida counted all its votes in about an hour. Fraud is a choice."

It's hard to disagree.

Given how this election is going, I'm guessing that states with red governors and state houses will make securing elections a top priority. Even a fraud rate of just 1 or 2% can be incredibly impactful.

Yeah, I've seen similar sentiments. Isn't there some scheme in Florida where every county counts their votes and shows their hand near simultaneous? And as soon as these measures were put in place, wouldn't you know it, Florida went inexplicably solid red.

It just seems obvious to me — if A goes before B, then it gives B a chance to cheat

I don't get it. If B went first, it couldn't cheat?

It wouldn’t know by how much it needed to cheat.

This is only relevant for 1960's Illinois-style ballot rigging, which isn't how modern election fraud is done. In 2020, the plausible fraud allegations related to postal votes (illegal ballot harvesting in Dem machine cities being the one made most noisily, but there were also claims of large-scale manufacture of postal votes that hadn't been touched by electors). And in 2024, the fraud allegations that were being teed up to go if Trump lost mostly related to large-scale voting by non-citizens. For both of those techniques the work is done before polls close. (The time to inject bogus postal votes is at the postal vote opening stage after which postal votes are subject to the same chain of custody as in person votes - injecting postal votes once counting of paper in-person votes has started is Illinois-complete).

I don't think there is major voter fraud in the US, but the fraud that is least unlikely is postal ballot harvesting. If you're doing that right, it is all done before polling day.

What is this place?

This website is a place for people who want to move past shady thinking and test their ideas in a court of people who don't all share the same biases. Our goal is to optimize for light, not heat; this is a group effort, and all commentators are asked to do their part.

The weekly Culture War threads host the most controversial topics and are the most visible aspect of The Motte. However, many other topics are appropriate here. We encourage people to post anything related to science, politics, or philosophy; if in doubt, post!

Check out The Vault for an archive of old quality posts. You are encouraged to crosspost these elsewhere.


Why are you called The Motte?

A motte is a stone keep on a raised earthwork common in early medieval fortifications. More pertinently, it's an element in a rhetorical move called a "Motte-and-Bailey", originally identified by philosopher Nicholas Shackel. It describes the tendency in discourse for people to move from a controversial but high value claim to a defensible but less exciting one upon any resistance to the former. He likens this to the medieval fortification, where a desirable land (the bailey) is abandoned when in danger for the more easily defended motte. In Shackel's words, "The Motte represents the defensible but undesired propositions to which one retreats when hard pressed."

On The Motte, always attempt to remain inside your defensible territory, even if you are not being pressed.


New post guidelines

If you're posting something that isn't related to the culture war, we encourage you to post a thread for it. A submission statement is highly appreciated, but isn't necessary for text posts or links to largely-text posts such as blogs or news articles; if we're unsure of the value of your post, we might remove it until you add a submission statement. A submission statement is required for non-text sources (videos, podcasts, images).

Culture war posts go in the culture war thread; all links must either include a submission statement or significant commentary. Bare links without those will be removed.

If in doubt, please post it!


Rules


Recommended Posts And Communities

Recommended Realtime Chats