(08-03-2022 09:17 AM)RiceLad15 Wrote:  Also, where did the 20% rise in registered voters claim come from?

I think you're trying to read vastly too much into my comments... which I have repeatedly said I am not going to verify because I don't care enough to....

You said... in 2016 we had 90+% of registered voters vote... so 90+% on 2020 isn't a surprise...

From memory... roughly 30mm or so more votes were cast in 2020 than 2016... so if the percentage turnout didn't really change... your words... then registrations must have gone up by roughly 30mm... 30mm/150mm = 20%. For the purpose of my belief, this is close enough.

You then sort of do what I accused Good of doing. I don't really care if the census says things have grown every year.... because 2020 wasn't like every other year... which is my point. There is plenty of reason to suspect that 2020 would have been LOWER than 2016 because of the pandemic... and not just things being more shut down, but deaths and hospitalizations and a lack of ability to band together for most things..... and if it rose, that the rise would be LOWER than in the recent past. 90% of 'get out the vote' and 'voter registration' drives were unavailable in 2020.... and they had to do something else.

That is what makes sense in my mind, and that isn't remotely what I've seen.... and as I said... don't come to me with 'dems were more motivated than ever before' because Reps votes went up by almost as much... and also don't tell me that 'we made it easier but no corners in security were cut' because if that were possible, many states would have done it before and not needed a pandemic as an impetus.

If you want to prove something to me, feel free. That's what I'm essentially suggesting that Good's sources do... but I don't really care.

but don't come after me with pedantic stuff like this... I really don't care enough to go to the effort to be exact... and I've essentially made your overall point with him for you... so you're welcome.

Well, if inaccuracies and bias are the problems with GoodOwl, I guess all of you leftists have given up on anything and everything the MSM says.

But I see little of the attitude of "It's from the MSM? I am not even going to bother to read it. 97% of that stuff is trash."

If you guys want to debunk what GO or anybody says, debunk it, don't ignore it.

(08-03-2022 09:32 AM)OptimisticOwl Wrote:  If you guys want to debunk what GO or anybody says, debunk it, don't ignore it.

I get this on some levels... but doing such things is part of being human. When 'the bad guy' tells you a story, you are not apt to believe them, even if they are telling the truth.... and if they say something that you know for a fact can't be true and is pertinent to their point... then it taints their entire story.... and it becomes vastly too much work to investigate every other one of their claims.

Remember, that we're speaking to people whose baseline is 'your side, bad'... and we can be the same way... One truly bad apple (piece of information presented as fact) really can taint the whole barrel... especially to someone looking for bad apples.

I don't think GO is on 'the other team'... but I feel strongly that 'the other team' is going to do precisely what I would.... and worse, not less. SOME of the other team (like our team) is going to dismiss it all. I can often see through it as you suggest, but would be vastly less likely to give a leftist that deference once they came with outlandish claims as facts.

(08-03-2022 09:32 AM)OptimisticOwl Wrote:  Well, if inaccuracies and bias are the problems with GoodOwl, I guess all of you leftists have given up on anything and everything the MSM says.

But I see little of the attitude of "It's from the MSM? I am not even going to bother to read it. 97% of that stuff is trash."

If you guys want to debunk what GO or anybody says, debunk it, don't ignore it.

LOL... sounds like an excellent use of my time! Wade through his garbage links and garbage studies? No thanks... I've waded through enough of them over the last year to understand exactly where he is coming from.

(08-03-2022 09:41 AM)Hambone10 Wrote:  and if they say something that you know for a fact can't be true and is pertinent to their point...

Like "The President is a Russian puppet"?

(08-03-2022 09:41 AM)Hambone10 Wrote:  

(08-03-2022 09:32 AM)OptimisticOwl Wrote:  If you guys want to debunk what GO or anybody says, debunk it, don't ignore it.

I get this on some levels... but doing such things is part of being human. When 'the bad guy' tells you a story, you are not apt to believe them, even if they are telling the truth.... and if they say something that you know for a fact can't be true and is pertinent to their point... then it taints their entire story.... and it becomes vastly too much work to investigate every other one of their claims.

Remember, that we're speaking to people whose baseline is 'your side, bad'... and we can be the same way... One truly bad apple (piece of information presented as fact) really can taint the whole barrel... especially to someone looking for bad apples.

I don't think GO is on 'the other team'... but I feel strongly that 'the other team' is going to do precisely what I would.... and worse, not less. SOME of the other team (like our team) is going to dismiss it all. I can often see through it as you suggest, but would be vastly less likely to give a leftist that deference once they came with outlandish claims as facts.

Even though I know CNN/MSNBC to be biased, I still listen.

(08-03-2022 09:31 AM)Hambone10 Wrote:  

(08-03-2022 09:17 AM)RiceLad15 Wrote:  Also, where did the 20% rise in registered voters claim come from?

I think you're trying to read vastly too much into my comments... which I have repeatedly said I am not going to verify because I don't care enough to....

You said... in 2016 we had 90+% of registered voters vote... so 90+% on 2020 isn't a surprise...

From memory... roughly 30mm or so more votes were cast in 2020 than 2016... so if the percentage turnout didn't really change... your words... then registrations must have gone up by roughly 30mm... 30mm/150mm = 20%. For the purpose of my belief, this is close enough.

You then sort of do what I accused Good of doing. I don't really care if the census says things have grown every year.... because 2020 wasn't like every other year... which is my point. There is plenty of reason to suspect that 2020 would have been LOWER than 2016 because of the pandemic... and not just things being more shut down, but deaths and hospitalizations and a lack of ability to band together for most things..... and if it rose, that the rise would be LOWER than in the recent past. 90% of 'get out the vote' and 'voter registration' drives were unavailable in 2020.... and they had to do something else.

That is what makes sense in my mind, and that isn't remotely what I've seen.... and as I said... don't come to me with 'dems were more motivated than ever before' because Reps votes went up by almost as much... and also don't tell me that 'we made it easier but no corners in security were cut' because if that were possible, many states would have done it before and not needed a pandemic as an impetus.

If you want to prove something to me, feel free. That's what I'm essentially suggesting that Good's sources do... but I don't really care.

but don't come after me with pedantic stuff like this... I really don't care enough to go to the effort to be exact... and I've essentially made your overall point with him for you... so you're welcome.

I see your overall point here, but when numbers get thrown at, I don't find it pedantic when there are disagreements about said numbers. Imagine if someone had said there was a 90% growth in voter turn out - it wouldn't be pedantic to point out that the purported increase was complete bunk.

Another example of where debating a number isn't pedantic is your comment that I've bolded. Deaths due to COVID, were not appreciably high enough to have an impact on voter turn out - we reached 500,000 deaths by Feb 2021 - that's less than 0.3% of the total vote in the presidential election.

And so if we get down to what the actual increase was, we can then look at historical data AND election year conditions to see if those numbers seem suspect. So if reality is that there was a 10% increase in participation, does that seem too high?

You point out that COVID was present, but you then ignore that many, many states implemented ways to increase voter turnout and mitigate COVID - states that were both blue and red. It also ignores that we should expect to see some increase due to population growth.

If we had not seen any changes to voter access, then I think a 10% increase might be a compelling stat that begs the question - what gives? We would expect less people to turn out because of fear of catching CVOID. But with the full picture, a 10% increase doesn't seem sketchy.

(08-03-2022 09:50 AM)OptimisticOwl Wrote:  

(08-03-2022 09:41 AM)Hambone10 Wrote:  and if they say something that you know for a fact can't be true and is pertinent to their point...

Like "The President is a Russian puppet"?

Exactly. If you have the facts, you don't need comments like that (without compelling proof)

(08-03-2022 09:52 AM)OptimisticOwl Wrote:  Even though I know CNN/MSNBC to be biased, I still listen.

Sure... but you aren't the target for my admonitions to Good.

(08-03-2022 10:04 AM)RiceLad15 Wrote:  I see your overall point here, but when numbers get thrown at, I don't find it pedantic when there are disagreements about said numbers. Imagine if someone had said there was a 90% growth in voter turn out - it wouldn't be pedantic to point out that the purported increase was complete bunk.

Except I didn't say anything like that.... so I fail to see why you came at me as if I had.

Quote:Another example of where debating a number isn't pedantic is your comment that I've bolded. Deaths due to COVID, were not appreciably high enough to have an impact on voter turn out - we reached 500,000 deaths by Feb 2021 - that's less than 0.3% of the total vote in the presidential election.

Which totally ignores the 'fear', much less the millions of infected and in hospitals. Statistically almost NOBODY had died during the height of the pandemic... when voter registration would be going on and even voting... but we still were scared enough as a nation or state to close down a lot of services and make those who could work from home, do so.

You seem to think I meant that millions of voters had died... which I didn't remotely say. This is all about 'being discouraged from acting as we always have'... and 'not being able to access the myriad of ways that we have always gone about encouraging registration and voting'... with restrictions in place that were strong enough to crush the economy... but apparently not enough to discourage voters or registrations??

Quote:And so if we get down to what the actual increase was, we can then look at historical data AND election year conditions to see if those numbers seem suspect. So if reality is that there was a 10% increase in participation, does that seem too high?

Based on the above, maybe.

Quote:You point out that COVID was present, but you then ignore that many, many states implemented ways to increase voter turnout and mitigate COVID - states that were both blue and red. It also ignores that we should expect to see some increase due to population growth.

No I don't at all... That is precisely my point and I've even said so... that all these things we did to increase registration... if they didn't open us up for more fraud, why weren't they in place BEFORE?? It's not as if the Pandemic created the ability to vote remotely and we didn't have that possibility before.

The closest I can think of was iirc, Washington state... which took 10 years to cull the rolls and study online voting... and lots of other places put that in place in 10 weeks with no vetting because of COVID.

Quote:If we had not seen any changes to voter access, then I think a 10% increase might be a compelling stat that begs the question - what gives? We would expect less people to turn out because of fear of catching CVOID. But with the full picture, a 10% increase doesn't seem sketchy.

And now is where you're starting to go into the same ideas as Good... and chastised me for doing.

10% is a number that you came up with off the top of your head... It's not remotely a fact... yet it is now being used by you to dispute my numbers as if it is remotely a fact... when you clearly agree that a lower turnout would generally be expected... and then ignore the very 'fraud' that some of these actions that were taken to offset those impacts might have encouraged.

No, 10% off the cuff doesn't sound like an unreasonable number.... High to me, but not off the bell curve of possibilities...

but the vote difference between 2020 and 2016 wasn't 10%.... and we KNOW that.

Trump got 11mm more votes in 2020 than 2016 which is around 20%, and Biden got 15mm more votes than Hillary which is more than 20%

So given the above, why does my 20% claim (which was off the cuff) set your alarm bells off, but your 10% (also off the cuff) seems perfectly reasonable??? I know there's more to it than these simple numbers, but you're not dealing in facts any more than Good's source is, yet you feel confident in shutting my comments down??

(08-03-2022 11:06 AM)Hambone10 Wrote:  

(08-03-2022 09:50 AM)OptimisticOwl Wrote:  

(08-03-2022 09:41 AM)Hambone10 Wrote:  and if they say something that you know for a fact can't be true and is pertinent to their point...

Like "The President is a Russian puppet"?

Exactly. If you have the facts, you don't need comments like that (without compelling proof)

(08-03-2022 09:52 AM)OptimisticOwl Wrote:  Even though I know CNN/MSNBC to be biased, I still listen.

Sure... but you aren't the target for my admonitions to Good.

(08-03-2022 10:04 AM)RiceLad15 Wrote:  I see your overall point here, but when numbers get thrown at, I don't find it pedantic when there are disagreements about said numbers. Imagine if someone had said there was a 90% growth in voter turn out - it wouldn't be pedantic to point out that the purported increase was complete bunk.

Except I didn't say anything like that.... so I fail to see why you came at me as if I had.

Quote:Another example of where debating a number isn't pedantic is your comment that I've bolded. Deaths due to COVID, were not appreciably high enough to have an impact on voter turn out - we reached 500,000 deaths by Feb 2021 - that's less than 0.3% of the total vote in the presidential election.

Which totally ignores the 'fear', much less the millions of infected and in hospitals. Statistically almost NOBODY had died during the height of the pandemic... when voter registration would be going on and even voting... but we still were scared enough as a nation or state to close down a lot of services and make those who could work from home, do so.

You seem to think I meant that millions of voters had died... which I didn't remotely say. This is all about 'being discouraged from acting as we always have'... and 'not being able to access the myriad of ways that we have always gone about encouraging registration and voting'... with restrictions in place that were strong enough to crush the economy... but apparently not enough to discourage voters or registrations??

Quote:And so if we get down to what the actual increase was, we can then look at historical data AND election year conditions to see if those numbers seem suspect. So if reality is that there was a 10% increase in participation, does that seem too high?

Based on the above, maybe.

Quote:You point out that COVID was present, but you then ignore that many, many states implemented ways to increase voter turnout and mitigate COVID - states that were both blue and red. It also ignores that we should expect to see some increase due to population growth.

No I don't at all... That is precisely my point and I've even said so... that all these things we did to increase registration... if they didn't open us up for more fraud, why weren't they in place BEFORE?? It's not as if the Pandemic created the ability to vote remotely and we didn't have that possibility before.

The closest I can think of was iirc, Washington state... which took 10 years to cull the rolls and study online voting... and lots of other places put that in place in 10 weeks with no vetting because of COVID.

Quote:If we had not seen any changes to voter access, then I think a 10% increase might be a compelling stat that begs the question - what gives? We would expect less people to turn out because of fear of catching CVOID. But with the full picture, a 10% increase doesn't seem sketchy.

And now is where you're starting to go into the same ideas as Good... and chastised me for doing.

10% is a number that you came up with off the top of your head... It's not remotely a fact... yet it is now being used by you to dispute my numbers as if it is remotely a fact... when you clearly agree that a lower turnout would generally be expected... and then ignore the very 'fraud' that some of these actions that were taken to offset those impacts might have encouraged.

No, 10% off the cuff doesn't sound like an unreasonable number.... High to me, but not off the bell curve of possibilities...

but the vote difference between 2020 and 2016 wasn't 10%.... and we KNOW that.

Trump got 11mm more votes in 2020 than 2016 which is around 20%, and Biden got 15mm more votes than Hillary which is more than 20%

So given the above, why does my 20% claim (which was off the cuff) set your alarm bells off, but your 10% (also off the cuff) seems perfectly reasonable??? I know there's more to it than these simple numbers, but you're not dealing in facts any more than Good's source is, yet you feel confident in shutting my comments down??

I did not make the 10% number up off my head - I spoke about it earlier after look at the data and provided the source for it. The number of registered voters increased by about 10%. I think I caused some confusion by swapping the turnout with voter registration in my head (my mistake), but we had both been talking about registered voters before.

And I’m not trying to come after you, but rather the idea you’re promoting that says that focusing on the numbers is pedantic. I think when numbers are thrown out by others, there is an air of fact and legitimacy to them. So when people misrepresent them, I don’t find it pedantic to call out the error, especially if that larger point being made relied on the numbers being presented. The big point remains to me, that when someone uses a distinct value to make a point (as in, these numbers don't match like GoodOwl does), the problem isn't the person pointing out the error in the numbers and thus the outcome, but rather the person using the number incorrectly.

If I’m misunderstanding your point, please let me know.

edit: added some items for clarity.

(08-03-2022 11:06 AM)Hambone10 Wrote:  [quote='RiceLad15' pid='18356405' dateline='1659539044']

Quote:You point out that COVID was present, but you then ignore that many, many states implemented ways to increase voter turnout and mitigate COVID - states that were both blue and red. It also ignores that we should expect to see some increase due to population growth.

No I don't at all... That is precisely my point and I've even said so... that all these things we did to increase registration... if they didn't open us up for more fraud, why weren't they in place BEFORE?? It's not as if the Pandemic created the ability to vote remotely and we didn't have that possibility before.

The closest I can think of was iirc, Washington state... which took 10 years to cull the rolls and study online voting... and lots of other places put that in place in 10 weeks with no vetting because of COVID.

Quote:If we had not seen any changes to voter access, then I think a 10% increase might be a compelling stat that begs the question - what gives? We would expect less people to turn out because of fear of catching CVOID. But with the full picture, a 10% increase doesn't seem sketchy.

And now is where you're starting to go into the same ideas as Good... and chastised me for doing.

10% is a number that you came up with off the top of your head... It's not remotely a fact... yet it is now being used by you to dispute my numbers as if it is remotely a fact... when you clearly agree that a lower turnout would generally be expected... and then ignore the very 'fraud' that some of these actions that were taken to offset those impacts might have encouraged.

No, 10% off the cuff doesn't sound like an unreasonable number.... High to me, but not off the bell curve of possibilities...

but the vote difference between 2020 and 2016 wasn't 10%.... and we KNOW that.

Trump got 11mm more votes in 2020 than 2016 which is around 20%, and Biden got 15mm more votes than Hillary which is more than 20%

So given the above, why does my 20% claim (which was off the cuff) set your alarm bells off, but your 10% (also off the cuff) seems perfectly reasonable??? I know there's more to it than these simple numbers, but you're not dealing in facts any more than Good's source is, yet you feel confident in shutting my comments down??

I thought the bolded deserved its own discussion.

Some states pre-pandemic had impressive voter turnout methods being implemented. Most notably, Colorado had an extensive mail in ballot program. So when you ask, why weren't these methods in place BEFORE COVID? The answer is both - in some places they were in place and they weren't a priority previously.

I think to some really local changes in Texas during COVID the exemplify how COVID itself caused legislators and government to look at the current rules and regulations and adjust them as needed to respond to the pandemic. Pre-COVID you couldn't purchase a cocktail to go from a restaurant, but specifically to address the issues created by COVID Texas changed the law. Multiple states, red and blue, saw the potential issues with voter turnout that we've both acknowledged, and wanted to address their impacts. They previously hadn't for the same reason Texas hadn't previously allowed to go cocktail sales - they hadn't thought it was needed and so it wasn't a priority.

COVID created a need to make voting less of an intense process where you had to wait in line next to other people and vote in booths inside. So many states adjusted their processes to account for COVID.

I would love is all good ideas were implemented before someone thought that they were needed :D

(08-03-2022 12:07 PM)RiceLad15 Wrote:  I did not make the 10% number up off my head - I spoke about it earlier after look at the data and provided the source for it. The number of registered voters increased by about 10%…

And I’m not trying to come after you, but rather the idea you’re promoting that says that focusing on the numbers is pedantic. I think when numbers are thrown out by others, there is an air of fact and legitimacy to them. So when people misrepresent them, I don’t find it pedantic to call out the error, especially if that larger point being made relied on the numbers being presented.

Second thing first... I didn't say focusing on the numbers was pedantic... Once again, I'd really appreciate it if you wouldn't REPEATEDLY put words in my mouth that I didn't say... especially when I'm essentially arguing against someone on 'my side' of the aisle, which you often claim never happens....

What I said is that it is pedantic to debate specific numbers with someone who is clearly speaking in generalities.... My specific quote was... .....Again, I'm not going to go to the effort of verifying it because I don't care that much at this point, but.....

I'm CLEARLY speaking in generalities.

When I follow that up as I did with... From memory... roughly 30mm or so more votes were cast in 2020 than 2016... so if the percentage turnout didn't really change... your words... then registrations must have gone up by roughly 30mm... 30mm/150mm = 20%. For the purpose of my belief, this is close enough.

I am CLEARLY not trying to make the sort of specific claims that you are.

I will note another fallacy of your argument at me... your 'example' was me saying a 90% increase in voter turnout... That's not what I said... I actually ACCEPTED your earlier comment that turnout in 2016 was over 90% so it should not be surprising that 2020 was ALSO over 90%....

Damn lad... the whole reason I said you were taking that number off the cuff is that I didn't want you to think I was trying to corner you on a number... but it seems that you WANT to be cornered.... so okay....

You quite literally asked for this....

Yes, I don't believe for one moment that during the height of a pandemic where the entire nation was to some degree shut down, that 'traditional' voter registration increases and turn-out would have REMOTELY been within normal limits....

and neither do you because you said specifically that...
"If we had not seen any changes to voter access, then I think a 10% increase might be a compelling stat that begs the question - what gives?"

and the entire argument from the right is that these changes to voter access allowed people to vote who shouldn't have been able to vote... whether that was people who didn't qualify or people who weren't who they said they were or any of a number of other possibilities, I don't know... but by your own admission, the ACTUAL rate of increase in participation could have reasonably been vastly higher than even your 10% number, because we would only be guessing at how many people wouldn't have voted because of the pandemic but did because of the changes. What if the pandemic would have resulted in a 30% drop in participation?? If so then even a 'flat line' from the last election in terms of vote counts would mean a 30% increase. Just pulling 30 because it isn't 10 or 20 and want to avoid confusion.... I have no idea how big that number could have been... and neither do you.

You're essentially assuming in your minutia argument here that the changes in rules resulted in something close to a 1:1 reversal of covid fears and that 10% is a pretty normal increase in voter participation... and you have ZERO basis to support that belief.... because you can't begin to estimate what sort of impact COVID would have had without those accommodations.

So yes, if you want to have a pedantic argument about things that nobody can possibly verify, have at it hoss. I've got better things to spend my energy doing than that... like trying like HELL to be polite to you while you repeatedly ignore or misrepresent what I say.

Like when you say I ignore all the changes that were made to address the access issues, and it is obvious that it is these changes that many believe lead directly to the fraud... like the ballot collectors.

(08-03-2022 12:07 PM)RiceLad15 Wrote:  I think when numbers are thrown out by others, there is an air of fact and legitimacy to them.

Do you mean like the numbers shown in this?

because 97% of the data/studies that he posts have obvious ridiculous errors based in bias and nobody wants to go spelunking down that other 3% to see if there are less-obvious errors contained therein.

(08-03-2022 12:31 PM)Hambone10 Wrote:  

(08-03-2022 12:07 PM)RiceLad15 Wrote:  I did not make the 10% number up off my head - I spoke about it earlier after look at the data and provided the source for it. The number of registered voters increased by about 10%…

And I’m not trying to come after you, but rather the idea you’re promoting that says that focusing on the numbers is pedantic. I think when numbers are thrown out by others, there is an air of fact and legitimacy to them. So when people misrepresent them, I don’t find it pedantic to call out the error, especially if that larger point being made relied on the numbers being presented.

Second thing first... I didn't say focusing on the numbers was pedantic... Once again, I'd really appreciate it if you wouldn't REPEATEDLY put words in my mouth that I didn't say... especially when I'm essentially arguing against someone on 'my side' of the aisle, which you often claim never happens....

What I said is that it is pedantic to debate specific numbers with someone who is clearly speaking in generalities.... My specific quote was... .....Again, I'm not going to go to the effort of verifying it because I don't care that much at this point, but.....

I'm CLEARLY speaking in generalities.

When I follow that up as I did with... From memory... roughly 30mm or so more votes were cast in 2020 than 2016... so if the percentage turnout didn't really change... your words... then registrations must have gone up by roughly 30mm... 30mm/150mm = 20%. For the purpose of my belief, this is close enough.

I am CLEARLY not trying to make the sort of specific claims that you are.

I will note another fallacy of your argument at me... your 'example' was me saying a 90% increase in voter turnout... That's not what I said... I actually ACCEPTED your earlier comment that turnout in 2016 was over 90% so it should not be surprising that 2020 was ALSO over 90%....

Damn lad... the whole reason I said you were taking that number off the cuff is that I didn't want you to think I was trying to corner you on a number... but it seems that you WANT to be cornered.... so okay....

You quite literally asked for this....

Yes, I don't believe for one moment that during the height of a pandemic where the entire nation was to some degree shut down, that 'traditional' voter registration increases and turn-out would have REMOTELY been within normal limits....

and neither do you because you said specifically that...
"If we had not seen any changes to voter access, then I think a 10% increase might be a compelling stat that begs the question - what gives?"

and the entire argument from the right is that these changes to voter access allowed people to vote who shouldn't have been able to vote... whether that was people who didn't qualify or people who weren't who they said they were or any of a number of other possibilities, I don't know... but by your own admission, the ACTUAL rate of increase in participation could have reasonably been vastly higher than even your 10% number, because we would only be guessing at how many people wouldn't have voted because of the pandemic but did because of the changes. What if the pandemic would have resulted in a 30% drop in participation?? If so then even a 'flat line' from the last election in terms of vote counts would mean a 30% increase. Just pulling 30 because it isn't 10 or 20 and want to avoid confusion.... I have no idea how big that number could have been... and neither do you.

You're essentially assuming in your minutia argument here that the changes in rules resulted in something close to a 1:1 reversal of covid fears and that 10% is a pretty normal increase in voter participation... and you have ZERO basis to support that belief.... because you can't begin to estimate what sort of impact COVID would have had without those accommodations.

So yes, if you want to have a pedantic argument about things that nobody can possibly verify, have at it hoss. I've got better things to spend my energy doing than that... like trying like HELL to be polite to you while you repeatedly ignore or misrepresent what I say.

Like when you say I ignore all the changes that were made to address the access issues, and it is obvious that it is these changes that many believe lead directly to the fraud... like the ballot collectors.

Ham, you're got a rather harsh and antagonistic way of trying to be polite - your second direct response told me to not "come after you with pedantic stuff like this" when I simply asked where the 20% claim you made come from since it wasn't clear to me that you had made it up and were using it as a generic example, but rather real reason to question the election results

"and it absolutely deflects from a 20% rise in Registered voters (all of whom, plus everyone else who had been voting) voted during the heart of a pandemic that put tens of millions in the hospital and shut down most of our services. I find that hard to swallow and it is buried behind the 'funny math'."

Perhaps you felt like I threw the first stone - that's fine since tone is not easy to read on this board. But your posts were not the epitome of polite as we've gone back and forth.

(08-03-2022 12:25 PM)RiceLad15 Wrote:  I think to some really local changes in Texas during COVID the exemplify how COVID itself caused legislators and government to look at the current rules and regulations and adjust them as needed to respond to the pandemic.

And the Harris County clerk making up their version of the Texas voting law explicitly outside the law and explicitly for within Harris County.

(08-03-2022 12:25 PM)RiceLad15 Wrote:  I thought the bolded deserved its own discussion.

Some states pre-pandemic had impressive voter turnout methods being implemented. Most notably, Colorado had an extensive mail in ballot program. So when you ask, why weren't these methods in place BEFORE COVID? The answer is both - in some places they were in place and they weren't a priority previously.

I think to some really local changes in Texas during COVID the exemplify how COVID itself caused legislators and government to look at the current rules and regulations and adjust them as needed to respond to the pandemic. Pre-COVID you couldn't purchase a cocktail to go from a restaurant, but specifically to address the issues created by COVID Texas changed the law. Multiple states, red and blue, saw the potential issues with voter turnout that we've both acknowledged, and wanted to address their impacts. They previously hadn't for the same reason Texas hadn't previously allowed to go cocktail sales - they hadn't thought it was needed and so it wasn't a priority.

COVID created a need to make voting less of an intense process where you had to wait in line next to other people and vote in booths inside. So many states adjusted their processes to account for COVID.

I would love is all good ideas were implemented before someone thought that they were needed :D

Purchasing a cocktail in person and walking with it and voting via internet aren't remotely the same thing. And these aren't new ideas... more on this later

(08-03-2022 12:54 PM)RiceLad15 Wrote:  Ham, you're got a rather harsh and antagonistic way of trying to be polite - your second direct response told me to not "come after you with pedantic stuff like this" when I simply asked where the 20% claim you made come from since it wasn't clear to me that you had made it up and were using it as a generic example, but rather real reason to question the election results

Well, let's start with what you didn't quote in the above..... bolded below... so that you can give context to the portion you quoted.... and let's start with when I am saying 'this'... I am AGREEING with you over someone from the right.

This... Again, I'm not going to go to the effort of verifying it because I don't care that much at this point, but if he claimed it was 66.8% of registered voters and it was really 66.8% of all people of voting age, then the left has something to deflect to to dismiss all of the other claims. I find these sorts of misrepresentations in Good's sources to be far too frequent to be simple mistakes... and it absolutely deflects from a 20% rise in Registered voters (all of whom, plus everyone else who had been voting) voted during the heart of a pandemic that put tens of millions in the hospital and shut down most of our services. I find that hard to swallow and it is buried behind the 'funny math'.

I'm not saying lad did this here... he seems to have just pointed out an example.

So I'm specifically saying that I'm not looking too hard at the numbers... and then I follow it up by saying its an example....

And for some reason, you feel that I was trying to make some specific claim???

I don't know how to help you, Lad... This is on you.

Quote:Perhaps you felt like I threw the first stone - that's fine since tone is not easy to read on this board. But your posts were not the epitome of polite as we've gone back and forth.

Saying you 'came at me' is hardly the worst thing that has been said between us, or even in this thread... and is hardly an insult to you... and I never claimed they were the epitome of polite... but Harsh and antagonistic?? Give me a break, Lad.

It's just a way of saying that you seem to object to/want to challenge something I said and are asking me to defend it, when I clearly (to me, and I would think to anyone) didn't post it as a statement of fact... but more of a generalization.

But even after I explained all this, you continued.... and STILL do... and now we're once again, not even talking about the topic.

You seem to not understand that those on the other side of this aisle have a completely different view of what is reasonable or possible or expected, with a great example being your mention of Colorado, which somewhat ignores my mention of Washington as 'places doing things'... and sort of assuming that these actions are beyond contestation in terms of fairness or security... ESPECIALLY if put in place under very unusual circumstances and in a big hurry.

No, by and large... not many places were doing these things. A few places were and a few more were talking about it, but then in just a few months, it becomes 'what we do' and you seem completely befuddled as to why someone might be skeptical of the security of such actions.

Said differently... If it were so easy to put these things in to place with so little risk of fraud etc... to the point where they are apparently beyond reasonable contestation, then why wasn't EVERY jurisdiction already doing this? And don't say that Republicans don't want that because Republicans did similar things where they had the control under Covid... which I have said already.... and SOME places that Democrats control weren't already doing it either.

As a related aside, Lad... I note that you somewhat excuse any 'offense' I may have taken by your response to the inability to read 'tone' into a post, but it certainly seems that you read a whole lot of 'tone' into my 'come at me' comment without considering any other options.

To 'come at me' in a sports reference means to challenge someone... It's not a term of derisiveness, but one of a simple challenge. You challenged me as to where the 20% number came from, and much as I took your word for the 90+% in each turn out, I took his source's word for that... especially in that it essentially matched with my eyeballs on the increase in votes.... as I demonstrated.

If the votes increase by 20% for each candidate (what my eyeballs tell me) and the turn out is similar (what you claimed) then it stands to reason that the registration to vote (more or less) increased by 20% (what he said that I also accepted). The OTHER claim.,.. which is the one I'm chastising the source over... is vastly further from what my eyeballs tell me... as it would imply something like tens of millions of fraudulent votes...

So even if there is some way that you can look at these numbers to make what they are claiming 'not be a lie' (and I'm not saying there is), then it is clearly (IMO) going to be a misleading interpretation, since it doesn't pass the smell test for me.

The 20% claim passes the smell test in terms of what I said. Even if you adjust things around and you note that there were fewer votes for 3rd party candidates and that the turnout was actually higher such that the actual number was more like 14%, or even 10%... those to me are pedantic details.... hence my use of the word. Getting lost in the minutia... choose your phrasing. Technically, depending on the actual covid impact, the number could have also been 30%

YOU apparently believe that these actions to open up voting essentially reversed the impact of COVID on the election (and then some it seems) without ANY chance of also increasing the amount of fraud... and I simply don't believe that.... because things were done so quickly.

And statistics aren't going to prove that they did directly reverse the impact of COVID since we have no idea what might have happened had they done nothing.... the best they might do is present a 'probability' model... hence I have no interest in that argument... as probability models don't include private motivations. The long shot often comes through if the jockey/owner is willing to put the resources in place to cheat well and cover it up.

What I'm interested in is looking at claims of fraud and if they have merit... not 'did they happen' (as that is retrospective and I see little point in that as I said) but COULD they have happened... and if they COULD, then I'd like for us to find some way to close that hole in the system. Of course IF they happened, that's an entirely different animal, but I really see no point anymore in getting too wrapped up in that... other than to charge those people and not let them do it again. It would be months if not years before we had a conclusion on something like overturning the election or a 'special' election or whatever and we would have had another election by then.

(08-03-2022 03:27 PM)Hambone10 Wrote:  What I'm interested in is looking at claims of fraud and if they have merit... not 'did they happen' (as that is retrospective and I see little point in that as I said) but COULD they have happened... and if they COULD, then I'd like for us to find some way to close that hole in the system.

cough, cough -- 2000 Mules -- cough, cough

Seems dead on point when the question is 'could'.....

(08-03-2022 03:38 PM)tanqtonic Wrote:  

(08-03-2022 03:27 PM)Hambone10 Wrote:  What I'm interested in is looking at claims of fraud and if they have merit... not 'did they happen' (as that is retrospective and I see little point in that as I said) but COULD they have happened... and if they COULD, then I'd like for us to find some way to close that hole in the system.

cough, cough -- 2000 Mules -- cough, cough

Seems dead on point when the question is 'could'.....

I didn't want to get too deep into that either as I haven't seen it and only heard excerpts, but that is precisely what I was thinking of.

If our system can easily be 'hacked', then we need better security.... to paraphrase Lad, we shouldn't have to wait until we FIND tons of fraud to recognize that it is easily possible under a given set of rules.

(08-03-2022 09:32 AM)OptimisticOwl Wrote:  Well, if inaccuracies and bias are the problems with GoodOwl, I guess all of you leftists have given up on anything and everything the MSM says.

But I see little of the attitude of "It's from the MSM? I am not even going to bother to read it. 97% of that stuff is trash."

If you guys want to debunk what GO or anybody says, debunk it, don't ignore it.

(08-03-2022 09:32 AM)OptimisticOwl Wrote:  Well, if inaccuracies and bias are the problems with GoodOwl, I guess all of you leftists have given up on anything and everything the MSM says.

But I see little of the attitude of "It's from the MSM? I am not even going to bother to read it. 97% of that stuff is trash."

...oh heck, here they go again...sure it's easy to embody target when things are going so terribly wrong with their plans...or rather so terribly right with their plans--because, after all, the Left has shown with their policies and actions for decades and decades that it doesn't care about you or me or any regular American citizen, or any poor person or middle class person for that matter--this then is exactly what they want and crave, only more so, much more misery and disorder, and they travel on down their ill-prepared road all the more ignorant of its obvious end. They only care about control dehumanization in all its forms: slavery, murder, hopelessness, ignorance, et cetera, et cetera...the "edumakated" Leftist is among mankind's greatest of fools, for they have him right where they want him, docile, subservient, and obtuse to the point of where even they loathe, but endure him, for the sake of using him until they have exterminated him and his wholly for their own ends. That the frogs don't see, feel or smell the water boiling all around them only makes them the more pathetic, but certainly not sympathetic, for they deserve the misery they create and incessantly try to promulgate upon others...

To Lad, not very long ago squealing a near-constant whiny "where there's smoke there's fire" now silent to the flames rising ever higher around him because they are of his own celebratory chorusing, head in the sand like the O-bird he becomes (sterich, not wl) a sad example of an allegedly "edumakated" one; to the pandering greek chorus of his ilk, blithely singing their chants with a religious fervor Luther would blush at; to the MSM gleefully brothering bigly away whilst leading the rats to their inevitable doom whence they might, a few, perchance to ask "but why me?" before they take their final plunges as only then the realization of how they have been so utterly duped and abused is finally revealed to them as they follow their rings into the lava of doom.. A sad, sad exhibition the lot from what was once a parallel and wondrous institute now crushed into a ruin reminiscent of glory only in long memory... We prevail upon the spectators not to convince, for there is no convincing the leftist edumakated fool, not to entreat, for there is no heart of empathy to reach in a godless morass of ignomy and sullen remorseful disorder, but rather merely to mark for some wanderer the intuitively obvious folly that is theirs. Laugh, no 'tis too sad a comedy, theirs. Pity, no 'tis not worth the expense of tears. Disdain, admittedly tempting, but utterly useless as dunsels all they become what they are and always have aspired to be, ironically, tools of their one master, who can and deservedly should have them with and as gruel. We but mark, and mark we shall...