“Ballot stuffing” would require a lot more than sneaking in a suitcase of ballots which, to be clear, video surveillance shows is NOT what happened here. The number of ballots needs to match the number of votes cast according to the voter rolls. Is your theory that someone requested 18,000 ballots to registered voters at 18,000 different addresses and then returned them with matching signatures and also somehow ensured that none of them tried to vote themselves, which would have been immediately flagged?
In all seriousness I think you should volunteer to be an observer for the next election and you will see how crazy this sounds.
> “Ballot stuffing” would require a lot more than sneaking in a suitcase of ballots
Actually it would not require more. Sneaking in ballots that do not each correspond to one legal voter's actual vote would be technically and functionally sufficient.
> which, to be clear, video surveillance shows is NOT what happened here.
Can you refer to the chain of custody that provides evidence that these are legal ballots? Can you share the part of the video that proves these are legal ballots?
> The number of ballots needs to match the number of votes cast according to the voter rolls.
I'd need to see how these numbers were verified and what oversight was present. These ballots could have been added to the entries on the voter rolls when they were introduced into the counting facility. Without a proper chain of custody, we don't know. With suspicious behavior on film, we should investigate.
> Is your theory that someone requested 18,000 ballots to registered voters at 18,000 different addresses and then returned them with matching signatures and also somehow ensured that none of them tried to vote themselves, which would have been immediately flagged?
No, my "theory" is that the chain of custody for these ballots (the ones hidden under the table and counted in the middle of the night sans (R) observers) has not been presented as evidence, therefore it is normal for people to wonder if they are legitimate ballots. I don't need to theorize anything else in order to have legitimate concerns about election integrity.
> also somehow ensured that none of them tried to vote themselves, which would have been immediately flagged?
flagging doesn't do much when the flags are dismissed and the suspicious conduct explained as "just normal activity."
> In all seriousness I think you should volunteer to be an observer for the next election and you will see how crazy this sounds.
I think it would drive me nuts to witness misconduct, report it, swear to it in an affidavit, then hear three months of people denying my personal experience on the basis of claims by talking heads.
> how crazy this sounds.
There are a lot of disturbing things about election 2020, but somehow one of the worst is this attitude that I'm crazy if I think someone might do something illegal or unethical to sway an election, or am not convinced by the evidence-free attestations of persons who seem unable to entertain another person's perspective.
I don't think you're crazy, but I think your theory is extremely implausible based on how elections are administered and ballots counted. I sincerely think you would benefit from being a part of the process next time around -- it's kind of fun and you learn a lot.
I'm not sure it's helpful to keep going point by point, but this started because you said the video wasn't adequately explained. An observer says she was ordered to leave the room even though some counting continued. Other people in the room (including other Republicans) describe it differently. Investigators who watched the tape say it doesn't look like anyone was told to leave, but there's no audio on the tape. I'm not sure you're going to get much more of a definitive answer than that.
But there's just a massive gap between "ballots were briefly recounted on video without Republican observers" and any sort of fraud. The tape shows the ballot boxes involved were supposed to be there. And it would require a truly impressive conspiracy to manifest thousands of bogus ballots into the process at this point. It just isn't plausible.
> I think your theory is extremely implausible based on how elections are administered and ballots counted. I sincerely think you would benefit from being a part of the process next time around -- it's kind of fun and you learn a lot.
This is kind of like when footage of Wilder-Fury came out and Fury "appeared" to have something wrong with his gloves that would have been a violation of the rules. The internet was abuzz with theories about whether he had "cheated." Teddy Atlas went on a podcast and said "its impossible" for him to have cheated or had gloves that were out of regulation. Why did he say this so confidently when he wasn't even there? He generalized from other fights he had participated in, and assumed that things must have occurred the same way in Wilder-Fury because that's what he expected. This is what you're doing. You have no way of knowing that the process was respected in this case, which is why its interesting that you're so confident that it must have been respected. If we have reasons to be that confident, we should probably share them. But the quality of evidence used to dismiss concerns here is worse than the quality of the evidence that created those concerns.
> An observer says she was ordered to leave the room even though some counting continued. Other people in the room (including other Republicans) describe it differently.
Yeah, there are different accounts of what happened. Thats a red flag, it indicates that someone may be trying to hide something. Thats another reason to investigate.
> Investigators who watched the tape say it doesn't look like anyone was told to leave, but there's no audio on the tape.
Interesting how easily they draw conclusions based on no evidence.
> I'm not sure you're going to get much more of a definitive answer than that.
Then there's a problem with election integrity that hasn't been addressed.
> But there's just a massive gap between "ballots were briefly recounted on video without Republican observers" and any sort of fraud.
The gap is actually not that large, and if we presume that people who want to compromise an election are not idiots, we can easily understand that this is pretty much exactly what ballot stuffing would look like if we had a video of it.
> The tape shows the ballot boxes involved were supposed to be there.
That hasn't been supported with evidence, the investigator's report, or the chain of custody. It's just an assertion of fact by a person who wasn't there. If the ballot boxes were supposed to be there then it probably was a terrible idea to hide them under a table since it creates the appearance of impropriety and they are apparently unable to relieve that appearance by presenting evidence.
> And it would require a truly impressive conspiracy to manifest thousands of bogus ballots into the process at this point.
Not at all, it would merely require a few motivated participants to corrupt the process by introducing fraudulent/illegal ballots and running them through the machine. It would be even easier if they did it in the middle of the night, when (R) observers had left.
In all seriousness I think you should volunteer to be an observer for the next election and you will see how crazy this sounds.