by Braxton1980 | 2025-04-14 09:04:20+00:00
I don't think taking all political affiliations into account makes sense. Let me use another poll that had a similar outcome of your poll for all political affiliations:

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A 2023 poll found that 71% of Republicans believe the election was illegitimate. [1]. The exact question in the poll was "Thinking about the results of the 2020 presidential election, do you think that Joe Biden legitimately won enough votes to win the presidency, or not? Do you think there's been solid evidence of that, or is that your suspicion only?"

All - Note legitimate Solid + suspicious = 38%

Republican - Not legitimate: solid evidence - 41% suspicious only - 30%

1. Democrats or liberals (poll allowed for either) who didn't vote for Trump or dislike him are going to say the election was legitimate regardless of evidence and outcomes of investigations. This is why I only use what Republican voters think (about 2020) as an indicator of public stupidity *

2. This poll was in 2023, after court cases and numerous state investigations/recounts. Therefore saying it's "suspicious" is as stupid as saying there is "solid evidence".

If you have a suspicion a crime occurred, then multiple investigations find nothing or show the evidence your suspicious were based were fake, and you don't change your view that's stupid.

> Which is different than asking if voting fraud changed the outcome...

That's what Trump and many of the key players on his side claimed.

> Someone who calls targeted overly aggressive culling of voter registrations fraud has something of a point..

No, they don't. They are misusing the term "fraud" in an election situation (a.k.a "election fraud) [2]. Voter/Election fraud is clearly defined by the US government [3]. Voter suppression through a legal action isn't fraud. You can claim that it's "wrong" or "immoral" but not fraud.

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The difference is clear if you look at something as either an opinion or fact. An opinion is not falsifiable.

"Widespread election fraud is why Trump lost the 2020 election" - This either happened or it didn't. It's not an opinion/judgement. [4]

"Aggressive culling of registrations caused a candidate to win/lose" - Since culling of registrations legally happens [5] whether or not it's aggressive is a judgement because "aggressiveness" is subjective.

> even if that’s a long way

It's not on the same scale because one is a crime. I think I need more to understand why you want to merge different accusations of fraud or suppression when discussing different elections.

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[1] https://www.cnn.com/2023/08/03/politics/cnn-poll-republicans... [1 Poll Document] - https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/23895856-cnn-poll-on... Page 49

[2] Wikipedia's article on Election fraud describes it better.

"Electoral fraud, sometimes referred to as election manipulation, voter fraud, or vote rigging, involves illegal interference with the process of an election, either by increasing the vote share of a favored candidate, depressing the vote share of rival candidates, or both. It differs from but often goes hand-in-hand with voter suppression. "

[3] https://www.usa.gov/voter-fraud

[4] You can say "I believe X happened" which is an opinion however this is a judgement that needs a factual base. If the evidence is fake, doesn't exist, or you were lied and you are aware of this, then you're lying about the basis for your opinion which invalidates it (imo)

[5] I'm assuming you meant legal culling

* There's similar high numbers for Democrats talking about Trump's win in 2016 though most polls ask about Russian interference helping him, which is a judgement not a lie since this did happen, but it could also be an indicator. The 2020 situation was just much more obvious because the claim by Trump is of cheating NOT influence. The lie is that Trump was directly involved and to a high degree but blah blah complicated.