this post was submitted on 10 Nov 2024
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171
Rumors, conspiracy theories, and disinformation about "millions of missing votes" and voting machine fraud (privacy.thenexus.today)
submitted 1 month ago by [email protected] to c/politics
57 comments fedilink hide all child comments
 

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.

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[–] ocassionallyaduck 61 points 1 month ago (17 children)

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.

[–] Eldritch 45 points 1 month ago (1 children)

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 And in the very next election repealed those restrictions again.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.

[–] [email protected] 33 points 1 month ago (1 children)

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.

[–] [email protected] 8 points 1 month ago (1 children)

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.

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[–] [email protected] 12 points 1 month ago (1 children)

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.

[–] WoodScientist 1 points 1 month ago

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.

[–] [email protected] 9 points 1 month ago

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.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago)

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]

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[–] inclementimmigrant 34 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago) (2 children)

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.

[–] ifGoingToCrashDont 18 points 1 month ago (1 children)

Yep. The only real election fuckery is fox news, christianity and russia poisoning people's minds.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 month ago

Hey! Give Elon a little credit! He tried so hard!!!

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[–] alekwithak 31 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago) (4 children)

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.

[–] [email protected] 7 points 1 month ago (1 children)

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.

[–] EndlessApollo 1 points 1 month ago

So every single report of blue ballots being stolen and burned is just a lie then?

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[–] [email protected] 29 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago) (2 children)

"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:

https://www.turnto23.com/politics/america-votes/pennsylvania-election-officials-tackling-challenges-to-mail-ballots

purged voter rolls:

https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/supreme-court/supreme-court-allows-virginia-purge-noncitizens-voter-rolls-ahead-elec-rcna177673

https://www.cnn.com/2024/09/20/politics/attempts-to-purge-voter-rolls-increase-as-election-nears/index.html

[–] MimicJar 4 points 1 month ago

"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.

[–] [email protected] 0 points 1 month ago (1 children)

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.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 1 month ago

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.

  1. we're not sure how much of the rainforest corporations have destroyed.

  2. We know that corporations have certainly destroyed large parts of the rainforest.

  3. 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.

[–] [email protected] 14 points 1 month ago

"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.

[–] [email protected] 13 points 1 month ago

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

[–] EndlessApollo 10 points 1 month ago (1 children)

Only conservatives are allowed to claim election fraud, even if the evidence is literally incontrovertible that republicans stole it. Nice

[–] [email protected] 7 points 1 month ago (5 children)

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 ...

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[–] recapitated 8 points 1 month ago (1 children)

I got in line to vote. It was a very short line.

[–] recapitated 12 points 1 month ago (3 children)

I don't know why so many people are hurt by this statement. The turnout was abysmal.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 month ago (1 children)

One reason people might be annoyed by this is because it sounds like you don't realize how many people had to wait in four-hour long lines.

Anyhow, turnout wasn't abysmal, it looks like be down a bit from 2020's record numbers.

[–] recapitated 2 points 1 month ago (1 children)

Thanks for the perspective. I guess I got in at a good time, and I didn't hear any reports of long lines in my area.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 month ago

Yeah, a lot depends on where you live. Check out these lines. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4wmMobN4AVw And they're far from the worst! I just did a search on "four hour voting lines" and it happened in Chicago, New Jersey, UC Irvine, Northeast Ohio ...and that's just the first page of search results.

[–] GeneralEmergency 2 points 1 month ago

A guilty conscience

[–] GladiusB 1 points 1 month ago (1 children)

Because all of you sick fuckers don't even keep your kids home when they go to school. Then I gotta share a common space with the same people? Nah. I'm good. I vote by mail so I don't get exposed to your cooties.

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[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 month ago (1 children)

Man this election was so cooked it came with a side of fries and two sachets of ketchup fml

[–] JesusSon 3 points 1 month ago (1 children)

How so?

I'm not picking I fight, I just want to know your thoughts on it.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago)

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 ~~illych~~ putin. 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.

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