Laying the groundwork for claiming fraud

The nasty guy is again ranting that vote by mail is rigged, that millions of mail-in ballots will be sent from foreign countries. Hunter of Daily Kos discusses an article by Philip Bump in the Washington Post that explains all the reasons why that can’t happen.

* Millions of such ballots would not go undetected.

* It requires knowing ahead of time which states are close.

* It requires knowing ahead of time who didn’t vote.

One might manage this for a handful of voters, but not millions.

Miles Parks of NPR also fact checks the nasty guy. As part of his story he talked to Jennifer Morrell, an election consultant, who said:

Ballots are built unique for each election. Each jurisdiction will normally have dozens to hundreds of unique ballot styles. Proofs for each ballot style are reviewed and tested to ensure the ballot scanners will read those ballots and only those ballots. Even ballots created on that system from a previous election cannot be read.

You would need to replicate all of these elements exactly and do it for the 10,000-plus jurisdictions and hundreds of thousands of unique ballot styles within the U.S.

Hunter wrote:

In claiming [vote by mail is rigged], Trump is only seeking to sow distrust in the election results and stoke possible violence if his voters do not come out on top. For Trump and his Republican House and Senate allies, it is just another day of undermining American democracy and violating his oath of office for self-gain. Or for the sake of emotionally coping with another draining weekend.

It will be a case of who will people in the base believe – the nasty guy or NPR?

In June the nasty guy is laying the groundwork for claiming fraud in November’s election. He is chipping away at voter confidence.

Anne Applebaum tweeted a response to the nasty guy’s tweet:

Who needs the Russians anymore? The American president himself is launching Kremlin-style conspiracy theories designed to undermine faith in democracy, break trust, create division.

If he can't win, he'll burn the whole country down instead.

George Carrillo replied:

It’s really appalling to hear the President so openly and unabashedly use tactics like these. This is the stuff of dictators and despots. Even if he loses he will leave a long stain on American democracy, trust in institutions and integrity.

As did Dave McKinnon:

I think we can expect the postal ballots to be stuffed with vary many obviously fake Dem votes, done deliberately by teamTrump, so that they can be "spotted" and held up as apparent evidence.

This morning David Greene of NPR talked to Manisha Sinha, professor of American history at the University of Connecticut about toppling statues of those who weren’t a part of the Confederacy. Is it possible to go too far? What about Ulysses Grant or George Washington? Both owned slaves. Sinha replied that there’s a difference between a Confederate, who fought against the US, and Grant, who fought for the US and also owned slaves at one point. The first should be removed. The second should stay, but with context.

With that in mind Leah McElrath quoted tweets from Shaun King, here’s part of it:

Yes, I think the statues of the white European they claim is Jesus should also come down. They are a form of white supremacy. … All murals and stained glass windows of white Jesus, and his European mother and their white friends should also come down.

McElrath responded:

This is what attempting to sabotage a social change movement looks like.

He’s literally out here encouraging people to tear down churches.

Don’t trust people who engage in accelerationist rhetoric under the guise of racial awareness language.

It’s a trap.

Naturally, Fox News started talking about Black Lives Matter’s war on Christianity.