This is because I have yet to see any honest attempt to refute the claims that have been made.
Refutations in the media generally boil down to "its been dismissed by dozens of judges and is therefore baseless".
Very rarely have I seen the media try to address specific claims.
The courts likewise generally have dismissed on procedural grounds and not merits. The rulings that have looked at the merits provide very limited rationale for their findings. The claims are dismissed as baseless conspiracy theories without explaining why. It does not provide confidence that the claims were honestly considered.
AG Barr likewise has not provided any transparency into his investigation. It does not appear there even was an investigation. Again, it does not inspire confidence.
Media likes to tour the cybersecurity official's statement that "this was the most secure election in history". They fail to mention that he was specifically referring to electronic threats, and not fraud or other irregularities.
When you take all of the above into context, the media doesn't feel like they need to address the claims being made. The claims have already been addressed, they say.
But they haven't. There are hundreds of testimonies illustrating that entire counting centers were behaving contrary to law. There are reports that adjudicated ballots were fraudulently assigned to Biden, and the challenges were ignored. By law, challenges have to be recorded, and they weren't. It was escalated to supervisors and their supervisors who also ignored. Again, by MI law, challenges have to be recorded. Its not something where discretion comes into play. The fact that fraud was happening and the people running that election center were ignoring challenges is evidence, to me, of widespread election laws being broken, if not fraud.
In court, their testimony has been dismissed as either hearsay (but won't let them testify in court) or just dismissed as wild conspiracy theories.
The substance of their claims have not been addressed.
Then you have things like the State Farm video in GA.
What happened there may be legitimate but it looks suspicious as he'll and the SOS's explanations do not make sense.
We are told repeatedly that they did not tell the observers that counting was done for the night.
But that is contrary to:
1. The affidavits of the observers
2. 3+ media outlets reporting that night that counting there was put on hold
3. The video which shows the woman telling people to leave
4. The SOS's own explanation for why ballots were placed under a skirted table.
For #4, the SOS said that election officials placed ballots under the table because they thought counting was done for the night.
He wants us to believe that the election officials thought counting was done, but the observers were to have just left on their own accord?
He should just admit that a mistake was made and they were told to leave. It wouldn't be a big deal, but covering it up makes it worse.
Then of course the ladies are on video running the ballots, with no observers late at night, repeatedly being tabulated 3 times. I don't think the SOS ever did explain that part, and it happened at the same time there was a massive spike in Biden votes.
It might be a coincidence and be fully legitimate. But the lack of transparency and investigation does not inspire confidence.
There are many categories of claims being made:
1. Constitutional issues of SOS/gov acting outside authority
2. Poll watchers not allowed to do their job
3. Individual observations of fraud and ignored challenges
4. Dead people voting, nonresident voting, etc
5. Statistical anomalies
6. Hacking
Number 6 is baseless as I haven't seen any evidence of hacking.
Number 5 is suspicious but doesn't prove anything by itself.
Number 4 happens in every election. Probably not enough to flip but hard to say with general lack of transparency.
Numbers 1, 2, 3 do have a legitimate basis and are fairly well documented, and account for 100s of thousands of possibly illegal votes.
Right or wrong, agree or disagree, these are serious issues that need transparency and resolution.
Sweeping them under the rug as wild conspiracies does nothing except create division and distrust.
In the plaintiff's prayer for relief, one of the reliefs requested was that illegal ballots be thrown out (illegal ballots, meaning ballots counted in a manner that did not comply Michigan Election Code)
The judge however has determined that the requested redresses would not be available, because it would disenfranchise voters. Because of this, she would not be able to provide redress "Even assuming that Plaintiffs establish injury-in-fact and causation under this theory".
This was one of the main reasons for the opinion. There were other reasons (e.g. laches). The issue of redress / equal protection, however, was repeated several times in the judgement.
For the most part, the judgement does not address the actual claims being made. Below is one of the few quotes where she does address the actual claims:
> For example, the closest
> Plaintiffs get to alleging that physical ballots were altered in such a way is the
> following statement in an election challenger’s sworn affidavit: “I believe some of
> these workers were changing votes that had been cast for Donald Trump and other
> Republican candidates.”9
The above statement, as far as I can tell, is just factually not true. The plaintiffs do allege that physical ballots were altered in a fraudulent way. See the section: "Election Officials Added Votes and Removed Votes from “OverVotes”.
> A majority vote within Texas cannot deprive any in the minority of the protection of the US Constitution
In a lot of people's opinions, that ship sailed long ago. The Constitution has long been ignored and minorities have long been deprived of the protection of the US Constitution. One of the driving factors behind US secession movements is to restore the protections that were supposed to be upheld in the US Constitution.
> a negotiation process which might lead to a separation, including territorial or other accommodation to the minority that wishes to remain affiliated with the US
This is entirely reasonable. I am certainly not opposed to populations within Texas to exercise their own right to self determination to stay with the US.
I understand that can get messy but it's the morally appropriate way to approach this problem.
> a potentially transitory majority
If you want to make the case that 60-70%+ of the popular vote should be required, I would think that a reasonable opinion.
What isn't reasonable, however, is the current outright ban on secession. Even if 100% of Texas were to want to secede it would not be allowed to do so, without going through the impossible hoops needed to do so "legally".
It's a sad state in America when judges dismiss legitimate claims as being "wild, nonsensical" for literally no reason except partisan politics, and 50% of the country is OK with that.
> You're missing a fundamental point: anyone can make wild, nonsensical claims. it is not for the judge to "refute" them, it is for the plaintiff to substantiate them.
The affidavits were not "wild, nonsensical claims". The judge just ignored the dozens of affidavits entirely.
On this issue, the judge cited exactly 1 affidavit from the defense, with the defense's testimony that they weren't allowed to enter due to it being at capacity. (2 affiants, 1 affidavit)
First - even if that testimony is true, it does not address the plaintiff's legitimate complaints that:
1) Republican poll watchers were illegally being removed from their positions
2) Republican poll watchers who were removed, were being replaced with Democrat poll watchers
3) As a result of the above, tables were illegally having 2 Democrat observers
The judge did not even try to address the above claims
At all.
Just ignored them completely.
Because the defense had 1 affidavit that was barely remotely related to the claims the plaintiff was making.
The Trump campaign has stated a belief that this was organized from the top down. I am not in agreement with that. I do not think there was some conspiracy from the top to commit fraud. I think the fraud happened at an individual level.
This kind of fraud doesn't require any kind of "conspiracy". Her story involved only a couple of individuals, and I don't think they at any point gathered together to conspire to commit fraud. It just happened to occur that way.
For the specific claim that we are discussing (poll challengers being kicked out at TCF), his ruling does not address the substantial number of affidavits that were provided.
The only place in the document where he addresses the meaningful observation issue, is in page 8, where he considers just one of the plaintiff's affidavits. Many affidavits on this issue were provided, with testimony to the effect that Republican observers were not allowed to do their job, kicked out, and they were not allowed to replaced. There is testimony that the Republican observers that were removed, were replaced with Democrat observers, resulting in many tables having 2 Democrat observers at the same table, and no Republicans.
The vast majority of the issued in these affidavits were not addressed by the judge. The closest that Judge Kenny came to addressing the above is with the below quote from page 8:
> Democratic party challenger David Jaffe and special consultant Christopher Thomas in their affidavits > both attest to the fact that neither Republican nor Democratic challengers were allowed back in during > the early afternoon of November 4th.
First off, this is 2 affidavits, compared to the dozens of affidavits that were provided by the plaintiff.
Second, it doesn't address at all the issue of Republican observers being kicked out. It only addresses the issue of observers not being allowed back in. It also does not address the imbalance of Democrat/Republican observers.
For this specific claim that we are discussing, dozens of affidavits simply were not addressed. This judge, as did the judge prior, simply ignored the vast majority of affidavits without addressing them. And then labelled the entire case as "not credible".
Again - we are discussing a specific claim (by your suggestion), so I would very much like to see where these specific claims/affidavits are deemed "not credible."
Outside of this specific claim we are discussing, I'm curious if you think this woman is similarly "not credible"? The issue that she is outlining seems pretty illegal to me with very little room for interpretation. Other witnesses made similar claims as well.
> For the specific claim made above (Biden and Trump both filled in, going to Biden), if I recall it was one of the witnesses during the Michigan legislature hearing.
Specific claim:
During the counting at the TCF Center in Michigan, Republican poll watchers were denied their legal right to meaningful observation. This resulted in many hours of counting without oversight, with hundreds of thousands of ballots counted during this time. This was in violation of state law:
That link mostly addresses Texas lack of standing to challenge PA's elections, which I am in agreement with - Texas does not have standing here. I would be more interested in a source that addresses the specific claims being made in the Texas lawsuit. I reference the Texas lawsuit only as a useful document, as it has a fairly well summarized list of complaints for each state.
> I've seen the quality of such that you provide elsewhere in this thread, I don't see the point in you doing this again.
No problem. I am genuinely interested in seeing an honest refutation of the claims being made by these witnesses. The judges haven't provided that. The media most certainly hasn't. From the replies on HN here, only 1 or 2 people have attempted to provide constructive information. The rest, very similar to yours, is primarily ad hominem and casual dismissal.
If you do have something productive to add, that would correct my perspective in a constructive way, I am genuinely eager to hear it.
I watched the entirety of the Michigan legislature hearing. I heard the affiants speak. Each one provided testimony with a consistent pattern: the Republican poll observers were harassed, kicked out, and not allowed to do their job. This would be in direct violation of state law (http://www.legislature.mi.gov/(S(d3swxbgf3srsrnw20ak5uthw))/...).
Nowhere in the judgement does the judge address the affidavits. The footnote for that statement (6) just calls it a "conspiracy theory" without addressing the substance of the affidavits at all.
This is generally the case for most of the judgements I have read. Other judgements are denied based on technicalities/standing.
Not a single judgement I have read has addressed the actual substance of the affidavits that have been provided.
> It's up to the charlatans filing the frivolous lawsuits to "PROVE" their claims
This is true. It is up to them to prove it.
> I've already provided you with links and citations, but you're ignoring them, so I'm not going to waste my time on that again, since you're arguing in bad faith, and have already proven you won't read them anyway.
The first link is an ad hominem attack. The substance of the second link is summarized by the below quote from that link:
"As election law expert Richard Hasen put it about the Texas filing, "This is a press release masquerading as a lawsuit. ... What utter garbage. Dangerous garbage, but garbage."
That link was entirely missing in substance and provided no useful information, it just called the lawsuit "garbage" without providing any detail.
The third link (youtube) was likewise missing in substance and was very similar in substance/style as the second link.
I didn't realize you were expecting a response to these links, as they have no meaningful substance.
If you can provide a link with meaningful substance, that counters the specific claims being made in the Texas lawsuit, or any other election lawsuit, I would like to see it.
> If you support states rights so much, then why do you support Texas interfering in other states rights, or does it only go one way?
I actually don't think Texas should be interfering in other states elections. The reason I posted a link to the Texas lawsuit, is that the document very well summarizes the evidence that is available in the various states.
If Texas loses that lawsuit because the judges determine that "Texas has no business interfering with other states elections", that would be a positive outcome for me.
If it's fine with you, I'll disregard the rest of your post as it was based on a faulty assumption, and seems to be getting off topic. If you have anything productive to add please do so, but I would prefer if you stay away from the ad hominem attacks / strawman arguments.
Thanks for the links. I have reviewed the first link some weeks back. From what I can tell, the judgement falls under the "casual dismissal" category. Aside from the fact that the judgement is loaded with clearly biased editorializations, it doesn't provide adequate justification for its findings. As an example:
> Challengers are allocated one per respective party or organization to each counting board.5
> The only challenger right specifically listed with respect to absent voter ballots is to observe the
> recording of absentee ballots on voting machines. M.C.L. § 168.733(1)(e)(i) (“A challenger may
> do 1 or more of the following: … Observe the recording of absent voter ballots on voting
> machines.”) This requirement was met at all times.6
"This requirement was met at all times". How was this finding reached? The footnotes referenced (5,6) does not provide any indication to how this was reached. Yet, this finding is in direct contradiction to the affidavits that were provided. On what evidence was this finding based?
Further, the judgement states:
> Even Plaintiffs’ “material” allegations could not possibly support their causes of action. If
> each and every one of the allegations were true (they are not true), at most, they relate to a small
> number of ballots, that could not possibly change the outcome of the election.
This is just factually not true, based on the number of hours of lack of meaningful observation, which would be hundreds of thousands of votes. Again, there is no indication in the judgement how this finding was reached.
THANK YOU however for providing these links. I have not yet looked at the other two and I will review them with the attention they deserve.
> "This court has no authority to take away the right to vote of even a single person, let alone millions of citizens."
That's his opinion and he's entitled to it, but it's not a universal truth that illegal ballots can't be thrown out. Judges have thrown out ballots before. Judges have even thrown out elections even after the candidate is sworn into office.
> Perhaps it's merely a partisan tactic.
Make no mistake about it, this is a hugely partisan issue. The "Left" is convinced beyond doubt that Trump is trying to overturn the election. The "Right" is convinced beyond doubt that the election was a fraud.
When the truth of a subject is determined largely by what party you associate with, it's pretty clear to me that there aren't any objective parties in this discussion.
I don't vote (its against my code of ethics; see Voluntaryism) and I don't associate with any party, so I believe I am about as objective as you can reasonably expect to find on this topic.
> "mountains of it!" rather than specifics is hand-waving gish-galloping stuff.
I'm happy to provide evidence to anything I've claimed.
Most of the evidence I have heard is from the many hours of testimony I have watched from the state legislature hearings (PA, MI, GA, AZ). Links can be found online.
Most of my information has come from watching the many hours of state legislature hearings (PA, MI, GA, AZ). I don't have a link readily available but they should be easy enough to find if you look.
There have been a few witnesses in these hearings that have been debunked. For example one lady testified that people were voting in MI without identification. Which is perfectly legal. A bit disconcerting, but legal. Other witnesses have provided wild speculation (e.g. Smartmatic hacking) with indeed no evidence.
The vast majority of the witnesses at these hearings, however, do seem to be legitimate complaints. It seems odd to me, that a reasonable person, after listening to their testimonies, would not at least have some doubts regarding the integrity of the election.
Whether it's the constitutional issues regarding signature matching in PA, or the poll watchers being thrown out in MI, or the many other issues at hand, it seems that at least one of these reasons would be cause for concern. And these aren't small issues - they could potentially affect hundreds of thousands of ballots.
So when people say that there is "no evidence" - I am a little bit shocked, surprised, at how quickly these claims are dismissed. Usually people point to the judges' casual dismissal, as justification for their own casual dismissal. Very rarely have I seen much effort made in actually investigating the claims that have been made. Actual investigation into these issues have been limited at best, and done with the strict intent of "debunking" rather than trying to get to the truth.
( Please be considerate with the downvotes. I am a new user and the negative karma is causing rate limits, effectively censoring me from this discussion. I am trying to have reasonable, constructive discourse. )
Maybe it just seems this way, but it seems like it's been a very long time since a US President has not started any new wars.
I agree with you - it is a point in his favor that he's at least trying to pull out of these wars.
I think it was 2 years ago, he announced he was pulling out, and the media instantly went into panic mode, calling the actions reckless, attacking his decision.
So I will give credit where credit is due. He's at least trying to pull out of the wars.
> All you've proven is that you're "unquestioning", which is why you're parroting disproven lies.
I have not seen any evidence that these claims have been "disproven". I would be very interested in this evidence if you can provide a link/citation, if they provide counter-evidence to the specific claims being made in the document.
> Funny how Texas, which has historically been so concerned about "States Rights" (a euphemistic dog whistle for the right to own slaves)
I am a Texan and a supporter of states rights. More specifically, I am a supporter of individual rights. I believe that the federal government has too much power and this power should be returned to either the states, counties, or individuals.
I can tell you, that my personal support of states rights, has absolutely nothing to do with racism.
For the specific claim made above (Biden and Trump both filled in, going to Biden), if I recall it was one of the witnesses during the Michigan legislature hearing.
If you do a search for "Exhibit 1" this will take you to the list of affidavits.
> Honestly, genuinely, do you believe your layman perspective is more valid than someone who has spent their entire life honing their craft (judges)?
In matters of law, certainly not. In matters of right and wrong, I consider myself on an equal footing as anybody else.
I've reviewed the reasons the judges have dismissed the cases. The reasons typically boil down to either:
1) Outright dismissal without giving opportunity to provide any evidence,
2) Dismissal on technical grounds (e.g. standing),
3) Dismissal from declaring the affidavits hear-say,
4) Dismissal that grants premise that election laws were not followed but this does not prove fraud
I'm not sure what the legal standards are on what determines an affidavit to be hear-say or not, but they can be submitted to a court as evidence. Thus far, no judge (as far as I'm aware) has allowed them to be provided as evidence.
Regardless of the legal implications of affidavits and the standards they must meet to be provided as evidence in court, I have seen more than enough (dozens if not hundreds) of testimonies that provide the same consistent general picture: election laws were not followed, and in a significant way.
For point #4 above, either the election laws exist for a reason, or they don't. The election laws that prevent fraud were (in my opinion) blatantly ignored, in critical Democrat areas, amounting to hundreds of thousands of votes processed without the required legal oversight.
(For the record, wasn't me who downvoted. Thanks for engaging in constructive discussion. )
> Don't be ridiculous. No other president has ever tried to overturn the results of an election like Trump.
He's trying to overturn the election, yes. Through the legal system. Isn't that the way these things should be handled?
If his case does not have merits, it will be thrown out (as it has been). A lot of people think it does has merits (right, or wrong).
The intention is not to disenfranchise anybody. His stated belief (right, or wrong), is that people were already disenfranchised by the fraud that occurred, and is seeking to remedy it through the legal system.
Simply pursuing this course of action does not make him a bad person. If you have evidence that his stated belief is disingenous - and he is indeed trying to disenfranchise people - I would be keen on seeing this.
> That's total bullshit. No it certainly isn't "unquestionable", and you have no proof of that whatsoever
To clarify, I said "to me, it is unquestionable". I understand you and many people think differently. The point of the original post is that we should try to be able to have constructive discourse on this subject - there is a huge group of people who think differently from you do, and they feel just as justified in their opinion, as you do.
If you have read Texas lawsuit and think its total BS, I would be very interested in understanding your reasoning. Reach out to me at prucomaclu [at] yahoo.com. I am genuinely curious why these claims are deemed to have no legitimacy and would like to improve my understanding of this subject.
I don't expect anyone to agree with every single point that Texas is making. But I'm just not sure how a reasonable person can dismiss it in its entirety.
In Michigan, based on testimony/affidavits:
1) The poll workers were almost exclusively Democrats.
2) It was only Republican poll watchers who were being thrown out
3) Republican poll watchers were not replaced after they were thrown out
4) By the end of the night there were only a handful of Republican watchers
5) The Democrat poll watchers would harass the Republican poll watchers until they are thrown out
6) The reasons provided to throw out Republicans were applied unevenly (Only applied to Republicans)
Again, this is based on the dozens of testimony/affidavits I've heard & read. If there is evidence to the contrary for the above claims, I haven't seen it.
> That's just not how it works. Even _granting_ the premise, it's not "You couldn't see well enough? Well let's disenfrancise a few hundred thousand people." That's not a reasonable remedy by any stretch of either common sense or law.
How should it work? It's not a fair system either to kick out all of the observers, and then claim that "no fraud happened" after kicking out everyone who was there to detect fraud.
The election laws exist for a reason and these laws were basically outright ignored.
Keep in mind, that even with the limited observation, there is testimony that points to specific cases of fraud. For example, during the duplication process, when both Biden and Trump are filled in, the vote (according to testimony) went to Biden. When a challenge was raised, the challenge was ignored. This is one example of many where challenges were raised and ignored.
> You don't think it's more likely that the witnesses and affidavits they're using are subpar because that's the best they have?
I don't know why they chose to select those witnesses to depose, and not the others. Perhaps Binnall personally felt those were his strongest witnesses. Maybe the other witnesses were not available to testify (or did not want to seek out the harassment).
I don't know. Judges are fallible, as are laywers, and people.
I can only tell you what I personally believe based on the evidence/testimony I have heard & read, is that there is compelling evidence and its a legitimate case worth hearing, and should not be dismissed so casually as it has often been by the judges so far.
(Please be considerate with the downvotes. I'm a new user, and I'm trying to be constructive with my posts, yet getting rate-limited due to negative karma.)
This is because I have yet to see any honest attempt to refute the claims that have been made.
Refutations in the media generally boil down to "its been dismissed by dozens of judges and is therefore baseless".
Very rarely have I seen the media try to address specific claims.
The courts likewise generally have dismissed on procedural grounds and not merits. The rulings that have looked at the merits provide very limited rationale for their findings. The claims are dismissed as baseless conspiracy theories without explaining why. It does not provide confidence that the claims were honestly considered.
AG Barr likewise has not provided any transparency into his investigation. It does not appear there even was an investigation. Again, it does not inspire confidence.
Media likes to tour the cybersecurity official's statement that "this was the most secure election in history". They fail to mention that he was specifically referring to electronic threats, and not fraud or other irregularities.
When you take all of the above into context, the media doesn't feel like they need to address the claims being made. The claims have already been addressed, they say.
But they haven't. There are hundreds of testimonies illustrating that entire counting centers were behaving contrary to law. There are reports that adjudicated ballots were fraudulently assigned to Biden, and the challenges were ignored. By law, challenges have to be recorded, and they weren't. It was escalated to supervisors and their supervisors who also ignored. Again, by MI law, challenges have to be recorded. Its not something where discretion comes into play. The fact that fraud was happening and the people running that election center were ignoring challenges is evidence, to me, of widespread election laws being broken, if not fraud.
In court, their testimony has been dismissed as either hearsay (but won't let them testify in court) or just dismissed as wild conspiracy theories.
The substance of their claims have not been addressed.
Then you have things like the State Farm video in GA.
What happened there may be legitimate but it looks suspicious as he'll and the SOS's explanations do not make sense.
We are told repeatedly that they did not tell the observers that counting was done for the night.
But that is contrary to: 1. The affidavits of the observers 2. 3+ media outlets reporting that night that counting there was put on hold 3. The video which shows the woman telling people to leave 4. The SOS's own explanation for why ballots were placed under a skirted table.
For #4, the SOS said that election officials placed ballots under the table because they thought counting was done for the night.
He wants us to believe that the election officials thought counting was done, but the observers were to have just left on their own accord?
He should just admit that a mistake was made and they were told to leave. It wouldn't be a big deal, but covering it up makes it worse.
Then of course the ladies are on video running the ballots, with no observers late at night, repeatedly being tabulated 3 times. I don't think the SOS ever did explain that part, and it happened at the same time there was a massive spike in Biden votes.
It might be a coincidence and be fully legitimate. But the lack of transparency and investigation does not inspire confidence.
There are many categories of claims being made: 1. Constitutional issues of SOS/gov acting outside authority 2. Poll watchers not allowed to do their job 3. Individual observations of fraud and ignored challenges 4. Dead people voting, nonresident voting, etc 5. Statistical anomalies 6. Hacking
Number 6 is baseless as I haven't seen any evidence of hacking.
Number 5 is suspicious but doesn't prove anything by itself.
Number 4 happens in every election. Probably not enough to flip but hard to say with general lack of transparency.
Numbers 1, 2, 3 do have a legitimate basis and are fairly well documented, and account for 100s of thousands of possibly illegal votes.
Right or wrong, agree or disagree, these are serious issues that need transparency and resolution.
Sweeping them under the rug as wild conspiracies does nothing except create division and distrust.