Rumors, conspiracy theories, and disinformation about "millions of missing votes" and voting machine fraud
Rumors, conspiracy theories, and disinformation about "millions of missing votes" and voting machine fraud
Please don't amplify conspiracy theories!
The reality is that it always takes time for some states to count all the votes; when these rumors started ramping up, there were over ten million uncounted ballots in California alone. But, many people don't know that this is how things always work. So, with emotions high in the aftermath of the election, disinformation purveyors are taking advantage of the opportunity to get well-intentioned people to help amplify conspiracy theories.
If you see allegations of "millions of missing votes" or voting machine fraud, please don't amplify them! Instead:
-
If it's somebody you know, send them a private message letting them know that they're unintentionally amplifying a false rumor.
-
If it's not somebody you know, report it to the moderators as disinformation.
I'm only wondering about the statistically improbable break between the state where they voted all Dems downballot but then swapped to Trump just for President.
This is so statistically unlikely, having one or two states this way would be improbable as hell, but (I am not claiming this is true) there are apparently many instances where this happened.
I'm not sharing any of this stuff I see but so far this is the one that got my eyebrow raised.
Missouri voted to legalize abortion again. Then elected the man who will get it banned nationally. Previously we voted to reduce dark money etc in local elections. And in the very next election repealed those restrictions again. People are fucking ignorant. Those in the state of misery doubly so.
Montana voted red all the way down except to protect abortion. Just last year they had kids argue to the state Supreme Court that they have rights when it comes to the environment, and they won.
I have no idea what is up or down anymore
I fully believe that the Rs pulled some sort of shady shit with ballots. For them 'every accusation is a confession' is an immutable law.
It doesn't matter, though, because the people who could do anything about it are on his team.
Completely agree. They said for months they had a better plan, Trump and Johnson had their little secret, elections have taken days in the past several yet this one ends almost immediately.
I completely believe that it could be legit, but I absolutely think that they managed to do something. And as you said, doesn't fucking matter even if they did.
I had suggested to people before that if you are not going to vote for President, at least vote down the ballot for local people and don't discard the whole election. Voting Democrat but then for Trump does seem very odd.
That actually makes a lot of sense. Trump didn't get significantly more votes than he got in 2020. Harris just got way less than Harris.
It's true that downballot Dems ran ahead of Harris in most states. Why do you think it's statistically unlikely? Polls ahead of the election showed downballot Dems were more popular than Harris. Republicans focused most of their negative campaigning on Harris. Biden's very unpopular and she didn't try to distance herself from him (I'm not saying that she should have, I'm just observing that she didn't). Sexists and racists were less likely to vote for Harris.
That's assuming that all Trump supporters vote down ballot. I've been reading that a non-negligable percentage of Trump voters just voted for president and left down ballot races blank. Considering Trump only won the swing states by tiny percentages, a small percentage of Trump voters leaving blank the rest is easily enough to sway it
For instance, if we look at Wisconsin senate, we see that Tammy Baldwin has almost exactly the same number of votes as Harris (only a couple hundred more), but Eric Hovde shows less substantially votes than Trump got
Results with ~99% reported:
Donald Trump: 1,697,769
Kamala Harris: 1,668,082
(And about 40k for third party)
Vs senate
Tammy Baldwin: 1,668,545 [+436 from Harris]
Eric Hovde: 1,641,181 [-56,615 from Trump]
If the downballot candidate hasn't been actively assisting genocide and hasn't been very publicly celebrating that, it probably helps with getting votes.
Not gonna argue this point because both candidates for President were staunchly pro Israel.
So they vote for the non-genocide down-ballot, and different, even more vocal, genocide support on the top?
That's what doesn't compute. It 100% would make sense if they said to hell with it and switched party affiliation across the board, that would be consistent even if you argue their logic. But this is internally inconsistent.
Just accept the fact that the elections were functioning as intended with some expected hiccups as they so have every big presidential election. I had to get my ballot cured in 2016, it wasn't a conspiracy, just people doing the best they can.
There's no massive voter fraud, no machines flipping their shit. Just shitty fucking Americans as per usual.
Yep. The only real election fuckery is fox news, christianity and russia poisoning people's minds.
Hey! Give Elon a little credit! He tried so hard!!!
Good point, thousands of ballots being destroyed and forged definitely isn't voter fraud
This is ludicrous. If someone is claiming their vote has not been received or counted I'm absolutely going to amplify them and make sure they're contacting the proper authorities.
Sure, if it's somebody you know or trust who's saying this, then it's not disinformation; agreed about helping them contact election officials and/or other authorities, and if you think it's useful to amplify it, then I'm not trying to talk you out of it.
If it's not somebody you know or trust, then amplifying it is quite possibly helping out a disinformation campaign.
And in any case, amplifying individual claims is very different from the unsupported claims about "millions of missing votes", and that's what I am trying to talk people out of.
So every single report of blue ballots being stolen and burned is just a lie then?
Even if they turn out to be a Russian troll, just trying to sow discord among the American public?
Oh so when millions of accounts come out of nowhere to praise Orange Julius, call Kamala a genocider, and back Jill Stein those are real, but when someone with a credible web presence and years of posting history across various platforms claims their absentee ballot hasn't been received* they're a Russian troll? Get fucked.
"check to see if the information is accurate" is better advice.
All the way back to bush, conservatives were ramping up removing voting machines from minority and blue districts, purging voter registrations, challenging cosmetic scuffs on ballots, and they did the same thing this election.
votes being attacked and blocked definitely happened, and thousands of votes were blocked in most states that were perfectly legal, but it doesn't stop conservatives from challenging their validity.
it doesn't have to be labeled a "conspiracy" if it is a fact.
conservatives can't win purely on numbers anymore, so they focus on dividing and disqualifying democratic voters.
blocked legal ballots:
purged voter rolls:
"check to see if the information is accurate" is better advice.
This is just great general advice for anything you read or post online. A misinformation tweet on Monday, spreads like wildfire on Tuesday, is looked at by professionals on Wednesday, a reasonable take or correction appears Thursday, and by Friday the only thing anyone remembers is the lie.
I'm reminded of "This Video Will Make You Angry" by CGP Grey, https://youtu.be/rE3j_RHkqJc
But you don't get likes or whatever by taking time to write out a well thought out opinion.
I talked about that in the article:
Don't get me wrong, multiple voter suppression techniques actually were used to keep people from voting – purging voters from rolls, felon disenfranchisement, 6-hour lines, texts with false information, voter intimidation, voter id laws, signature challenges, etc etc etc. But that's not what these conspiracy allegations are focusing on.
And I also discussed it in terms of the goals of people pushing these conspiracy theories:
focusing attention on an alleged fraud that didn't occur is a good way to divert attention from all voter suppression that really has occurred and has been steadily ramping up ever since Republicans on the Supreme Court gutted the Voing Rights Act – and got even worse this year after Republicans blocked legislation that could have provided voters and election officials with more protection.
you also mention that we don't know the extent of the voter fraud that occurred, that there certainly was voter fraud, that exaggerated claims of voter fraud are not widespread.
and then the conclusion is to be careful of "conspiracies".
that doesn't track.
-
we're not sure how much of the rainforest corporations have destroyed.
-
We know that corporations have certainly destroyed large parts of the rainforest.
-
therefore, if you hear people talking about corporations destroying too much rainforest, it might develop into a dangerous conspiracy, so report it for disinformation?
no.
voter suppression is and has been a real and significant problem, people should be aware of it. reporting hyperbolic disinformation should be a supportive paragraph to this point, not the conclusion or title, especially when violent calls to action are not a problem on the democratic side..
as you say, hyperbolic claims only manifest sporadically on a couple message boards.
that is not the same as an entire political party simultaneously claiming that their election was stolen and then violently attacking the capitol and the two should not be correlated.
-
I got in line to vote. It was a very short line.
I don't know why so many people are hurt by this statement. The turnout was abysmal.
A guilty conscience
People spent the last 4 years asking for proof in response for allegations of voter fraud and the only way to not normalize the concept of voter fraud is to continue to do just that. The only reasonable thing to do is just that.
Throughout America's history we've gotten through some pretty wild shit with nothing more than the fervent belief that the framework upon which our Republic is built can withstand the test of time so long as we are willing to defend it, and have faith that people like those were counting the votes, because most of them are
the fervent belief that the framework upon which our Republic is built can withstand the test of time
Which it clearly can't. You don't need to be a genius to figure out that the founding fathers weren't the demigods they're usually portrayed as and thus weren't able to predict 21st century problems in the 1700s.
Especially since their mechanism for changing anything fundamental has been made impossible by polarization.
Like the whole "American Dream" and trickle down economics, you'd have to be asleep to still believe that it's working.
It’s also worth mentioning that turnout percentage wise, 12m fewer votes is just 6-7%, and a turnout swing of that size is perfectly normal
"Right-wing influencers are positioning this unfounded claiming as"evidence" of election fraud in 2020"
JFC... If they did that before why the hell wouldn't they just do it again? I guess even the Democrats that "stole the election last time" just like Trump now? Much logic.
Only conservatives are allowed to claim election fraud, even if the evidence is literally incontrovertible that republicans stole it. Nice
What's the evidence you find "literally incontrovertible"?
The comparison is apt though:
-
In 2020, almost all non-partisan voting rights organizations and election experts (as well as most Republicans, despite losing) were saying that there was in fact no evidence of widespread election fraud. So conservatives claiming election fraud were seen as conspiracy theorists who were spreading disinfo (either intentionally or because they really thought there was evidence).
-
In 2024, almost all non-partisan voting rights organizations and election experts (as well as most Democrats, despite losing) are saying that there was in fact no evidence of widespread election fraud. So ...
Genuinely, are you just denying the fact that trump supporters everywhere stole and burned and forged shit tons of ballots?
-
Man this election was so cooked it came with a side of fries and two sachets of ketchup fml
How so?
I'm not picking I fight, I just want to know your thoughts on it.
Well I’m not American and not any kind of political expert so take it with a pinch of salt. My suspicion is that the republicans put their fat greasy fingers on the scales to ensure victory. That’s certainly what it looks like from the outside. Everyone knew Dunlop turnip was going to win weeks in advance. Tim Cook et al meeting with him to discuss tariffs, Bezos trying to quash the Harris endorsement. The fix was in. Musk is literally a conman with a hotline to the worlds least surprising piss enthusiast Vladimir
illychputin. It was cooked. Good and proper, top to bottom. Also election predictions guy put his reputation on the line to say Harris would win, and the only other time he’s been wrong is 2000 - less said the better. It’ll all come out.