This question resolves to YES if the 2024 United States presidential election is stolen from the rightful victor, and NO otherwise. For the purpose of this question, a US presidential election is said to be stolen if the presidential ticket that clearly received a sufficient number of legal votes to secure themselves an electoral college majority ends up being denied the presidency by the inauguration date for reasons other than personal choice, illness, or death. I will consider a candidate a "rightful victor" if they would have won a majority in the electoral college if states followed the ordinary rules. A sufficient number of faithless electors to flip the result will also be sufficient to trigger a positive resolution. For context, I do not currently consider any prior US presidential election to have been stolen, including the 1800, 1824, 1876, 2000 and 2020 elections (though I could change my mind on this historical question if provided more evidence).
Clarification [7/9/2022 12:38 PM]: For the purpose of this question, the "ordinary rules" of assigning electoral votes refers to a clearly defined standard outlined prior to the casting of ballots, which does not allow states to arbitrarily reject their own popular vote.
Clarification [8/22/2023 1:14 PM]: Voter fraud in sufficient numbers to change the result of the election can resolve this question positively, but the evidence must be clear and strong. By default, I will be skeptical of claims of fraud, but I will consider the evidence carefully before resolution. I will defer to following sources of evidence in order of priority: (1) a convergence of highly credible witnesses, such as election officials and observers, (2) a wealth of documents or statements revealing an explicit, overt plan to rig the election backed by powerful actors, (3) an analysis from election experts, especially those who are well-regarded for their balanced, or neutral political stances, (4) circumstantial evidence of any kind.
Foreign interference in the US election can be used to resolve this question positively if the interference was decisive, and had a direct, material effect on how election workers counted the votes. If, for example, foreign governments flood US social media with propaganda, but do not directly physically interfere with how the votes are counted, then I will not consider the election to be stolen. Foreign interference can also be used to resolve this question positively if foreign agents overtly and physically coerce voters to secure a particular outcome, for example if the United States is invaded and occupied by a foreign power.
Voter suppression cannot be used to resolve this question positively, as it is difficult to define precisely. However, voter suppression that takes the form of either widespread voter fraud or large-scale foreign interference may count for positive resolution, as outlined above.
Note to predictors: I have updated the resolution of this question to clarify how I will determine whether sufficient voter fraud took place, and how foreign interference in the election could trigger a positive resolution. In both cases, I require strong evidence of an overt, successful attempt at rigging the election. Moreover, the foreign interference must either decisively alter how the ballots are counted, or take the form of widespread physical coercion, for example if the United States is occupied by a foreign power.
The closest to being stolen was 2000, but even making a case for that one is hard.
@mistersplice That's the opposite of stolen. Trump attempted to incite people, he failed.
(The article is very biased and overdramatic though)
@ShadowyZephyr there hasn’t been an article where people freely admit to being incited. if the outcome was different and trump supporters claimed to have “fortified” the election, there would have been RIOTS
@mistersplice Yeah, and there WERE riots. What's your point?
Anyways, the key difference between fortifying and stealing is that stealing involves rigging the votes. in a way that doesn't represent the people. Although the article is very biased, and the people were motivated to make Biden win, maybe not necessarily to protect accuracy of the votes, it had that outcome nonetheless.
@ShadowyZephyr the point the article makes is that “fortifying” and rigging are the same thing. people in actual riots don’t usually stay within the velvet ropes, but your mind is already made up
@mistersplice It very much does not make that point, in fact, it makes the opposite point. The votes represented the people, the election was not stolen. Claiming that Trump somehow could've won back 3.5% votes if these guys didn't try to stop him from overturning the result is nonsense.
@mistersplice Are you claiming the 2020 election was stolen? I'm confused what you're trying to argue. There is a pretty clear difference between fortifying (making sure result is closer to what people want) and stealing (making sure result is farther from what people want). Even if their motivation was to make Biden win, they DID end up fortifying the election.
2020 election was about as stolen as 2016 election was.
@ShadowyZephyr I’m claiming some shady stuff happened with ballots and voting machines and a group of people intent on making sure their candidate won
@mistersplice And did this same stuff also happen in 2016? Because if your answer is NO you might as well say "I'm a Trump supporter and only want him to win"
@ShadowyZephyr I think Trump is a garbage person, but keep on believing what you already believe
@mistersplice Answer the question, did the same thing happen in 2016.
Because there were reports of shady things with ballots and voting machines and Russia was somehow involved according to Dems. Didn't change the outcome though.
@ShadowyZephyr I haven’t encountered that information, but I suspect that if they were able to steal an election the first time they wouldn’t have had issues the second time around
@mistersplice Okay after reading the whole article it does seem like it's claiming that fortifying and rigging are the same thing, I just can't believe that point was made so stupidly. Didn't expect something like that from TIME of all places.
@mistersplice What do you mean "had issues" are you claiming that said moderate Dem activists nearly failed to make Biden win?
The Dems said the same thing when Trump won in 2016 "it's rigged, he did shady stuff with polling machines, russia did it" and those claims never materialized into anything. This is normal political shenanigans. The stuff in the article is overexaggerated, people just went out and voted, and Biden won by 3.5%.
@ShadowyZephyr Biden won by 3.5% AFTER counting was paused in contentious locations where blue votes mysteriously jumped ahead of red ones
@mistersplice and, no, I'm saying if Trump had actually colluded with Russia to steal the previous election, do you think he wouldn't do it again to win the next one?
@mistersplice The counting wasn't "paused". And the reason Biden jumped ahead was due to mail-in votes. Trump told his voters not to vote by mail, and mail-in votes were counted after in-person ones.
@ShadowyZephyr there's an entire documentary about how multiple people dropped off multiple ballots each for that mail-in count. and supposedly also evidence that ballots were driven from places where they were already counted to places where they got counted again.
@mistersplice Okay, let's go through the articles.
1. The ballots were all counted though????? No new votes being reported for a bit is pretty normal in US elections, but of course Fox News would frame it like they were not doing anything useful during that time. Administrative work definitely happens.
2. Doesn't even mention the word "pause." The votes were just coming in slowly.
3. Completely wrong. Out of the 5 states mentioned, only North Carolina stopped counting at the time listed. https://www.reuters.com/article/uk-factcheck-list-statements-2020-electi/fact-check-list-of-partly-false-statements-on-the-2020-election-idUSKBN27Q2NI
@ShadowyZephyr I don't have the receipts for everything that happened during the election, but I thought pausing was known to have happened in multiple spots. those were just the first few examples from a non-google search
@mistersplice Ah yes, a poll of random people, that is completely solid, irrefutable evidence!
Tampering with poll machines may have changed a few votes, but it was not widespread, no evidence to suggest it affected the outcome in 2016 or 2020.
@mistersplice Ah yes, 2 people submitted 4 ballots on behalf of someone else! And they got convicted! I'm sure a couple of extra ballots submitted (that were probably valid anyway) changed the election results!
@mistersplice This wasn't even in 2020, nor was it related to the presidential elections, it was local elections with a lot less votes that he could influence. And then he plead guilty anyway. I'm not saying this stuff never happens, but it pretty clearly wasn't widespread enough to reverse the election result.
@ShadowyZephyr just establishing precedent. it's apparently widespread enough that more than a third of all random people polled think it's an issue
@mistersplice https://www.forbes.com/sites/trevornace/2018/04/04/only-two-thirds-of-american-millennials-believe-the-earth-is-round/?sh=916b2f57ec66
A third of American millennials aren't sure the earth is round either... I really don't see the argument for this.
@ShadowyZephyr makes it seem like certain people will do whatever they think is necessary to make sure their preferred candidate will win
@mistersplice It didn't affect the outcome though. I'd estimate 100,000 votes difference max due to fraud.
@mistersplice A poll saying 1/3 people think the election was stolen doesn't prove anything. I'm saying that people are likely to believe something if it's convenient for them. Especially when politicians always cry about it when they lose.
@mistersplice This poll also leans towards Trump voters and conservatives a lot more than you'd expect. These results differ by a lot from other similar polls.
^^^^^
@ShadowyZephyr I picked 1/3 because that was the Democrat number. It's quite a bit more if you add them all up