Maybe they should. Something needs to restore faith in the process. If we lose that, we lose everything. And a not-small minority believe that the election was fradulent. There's always a fringe that feels that way, but it seems to be growing.
They're complaining about votes being counted in states run by Republicans when both Republicans and Democrats are watching the count.
Trump formed a committee to find voter fraud and for years it failed. It silently disbanded. The heritage foundation has researched voter fraud too, and it has found little to no evidence.
If that doesn't satisfy them, what will? You're basically saying we have to convince a group of people that fucking unicorns and dragons don't exist.
> Philadelphia successfully removed GOP observers from the tabulations rooms
Don't repeat disinformation. This never happened.
Poll watchers were required to stand 10 feet away to protect workers from COVID-19. The court ruling required that they be allowed to stand 6 feet away.
I've seen conflicting reports about this but I'm not going to argue the point. I can certainly see why 20ft would be a problem.
It seems to me the counting authority should have set up some 4K CCTV gear, and/or 4K webcams on an internal network, for the duration. The pandemic gave them ample warning that physical distancing measures would be required.
The earlier post's premise--as pushed by Trump over Twitter--that Republican poll watchers were specifically targeted for exclusion, however, is factually wrong.
There was a lawsuit filed by the Trump with regards to the distance requirements for safe viewing of vote counting. The judge overturned a lower court decision on what safe distances would be, and enabled observers to observe from 6 feet instead of 10.
The first source listed corroborates this story (although I haven't found any primary sources or what the exact contents of the complaint were, abcnews seems to be the source that most outlets are referencing https://abcnews.go.com/Politics/pennsylvania-judge-permits-c...).
There doesn't seem to be any truth to observers being removed from any tabulation rooms (or at least I can't find any trustworthy sources). The second source, while claiming this in the headline, is also just referencing the complaint discussed earlier and has twisted that into the headline.
Faith is eroding in the American electoral process because the Republican party has been working very hard both to undermine the process and to spread propaganda to the effect that the process is untrustworthy.
People could have more faith in the process without more legal cases like Florida 2000 (which kept Gore out of the White House despite him winning the vote in Florida), the Brooks Brothers Riot[0] and its 2020 replicas, the 2019 Georgia governors race (where the Republican candidate was also the secretary of state responsible for counting the votes; needless to say, there were 'irregularities.'), pervasive efforts to prevent demographics that historically do not vote Republican from voting[1], manipulation of the postal service to disenfranchise likely Biden voters[2], the continuing myth of 'voter fraud' that the GOP spreads[3] to justify disenfranchisement, and the constant drumbeat of 'it's rigged if I don't win' emerging from Trump's Twitter account and replicated by Facebook and other right-wing media outlets.
There's no clear way to restore faith in the electoral process without removing disdain for democracy from the Republican Party's DNA.
The Republican party was under a consent decree to prohibit it from attempting to prevent minorities from voting, but once enough Republican justices were installed on the supreme court the consent decree was terminated. The court also voided the most effective parts of the voting rights act, which further allowed the GOP to suppress voter turnout among demographics likely to vote Democratic.
The preponderance of partisan, Republican, judges on the supreme court is very much part of the problem.
Faith is eroding in the American electoral process because the Democratic party has been working very hard both to undermine the process and to spread propaganda to the effect that the process is untrustworthy. [See the Russia hoax that was propagated and still believed to this day].
Take a step back, take a deep breath, and remember that issues are more complicated than "my team good, your team bad."
Co-ordinated Russian election interference was investigated by Trump's own Justice Department. They didn't find any. That sounds like democracy working to me.
Or perhaps we shouldn't investigate foreign election interference?
At least read the Wikpiedia summary of the Mueller Report[0] if you don't have the time to read the whole document.
The 'Russia hoax' produced multiple criminal charges, both of Russians for interfering in the 2016 election, and of several Americans for obstructing the DoJ's attempts to investigate the possibility of people in the Trump orbit conspiring with the Russian government.
It has been factually established that Russia interfered with the 2016 election. The only question -- which cannot be answered because people in the Trump orbit lied to investigators and concealed evidence -- is whether the Trump campaign actively conspired with Russian entities beyond Trump openly asking for their help to access H. Clinton's 'emails.'
Take a step back, take a deep breath, and remember that some issues are a lot clearer than intentionally obfuscatory Republican narratives make them out to be.
This election is about as far from a clear mandate as you can get, with Democrats (barely) winning a presidency but not the senate and losing ground in the house.
They're just believing what their information-circle is saying. They're not looking at things themselves. For instance, in the discussions I've seen of the Right talking about fraud, they've not mentioned the shenanigans of the USPS not delivering mail that arrived on time (WaPo yesterday had a story IIRC).
They need to believe. So they follow those that help them do so.
The reverse of that is likely just as true; people that are happy Biden won, have no concern if there was fraud, just like those that wanted Trump to win would not question him winning.
You're probably right. I'm not a fan of Trump, and I'm not sure how I'd feel if I found out that there was truly fraud and the election belonged to Trump.
But I am in favor of investigating all (legitimate) allegations of fraud, not just the ones that DJT wants to investigate. And counting all ballots.
This is probably the new normal. Republicans have learned a thing or two of after four years of claims about Russia stealing the election. Both sides will work overtime now to delegitimize winners whenever possible.
