“Despite the lack of conclusive evidence” — this sounds like there is some evidence. But there isn’t. Trump’s own attorney general said so. He quit his job when pushed by the president to ignore the lack of evidence and instead issue a statement that there might have been fraud.
If you’re inclined to doubt every election, did Trump win in 2016 by fraud too? Bush in 2000? Their margins were very tight and they lost the popular vote. Doesn’t that seem like a more likely situation where fraud would carry the day?
2020 was obviously a very unique election because of the mail-in voting. There are various data on that (and this is not partisan whatsoever) available here [1]. You had 40 million more absentee/mail-in ballots than in 2016, paired with what were many extremely bizarre statistical changes. To give just one example, in 2016 the percent of rejected ballots that were because a person had already voted in person was 1.3%, in 2018 it was 1.4%, in 2020 it was 13.5%!
I didn't vote for Trump and don't really have a horse in this race, but I also don't feel comfortable with mail in voting as a meaningful percent of all-votes. This is even more true as the entire country becomes more polarized and radicalized. This sort of mentality is going to motivate an increased number of people to try to cheat the system, and encourage "selective vigilance" from those involved in guaranteeing the integrity of the electoral process.
And perhaps the most important point is that in terms of how a democracy functions, whether elections are fair or not is a secondary concern to whether people think they are or not. The main benefit of a democracy for a society is stability. People looking to change their political future were able to set aside their pitchforks and pick up ballots. But when people don't think those ballots matter (even if they do), then we're back to square one.
The total rejection rate did decrease from 1% to 0.8%. I was referring to the reasons that ballots were rejected. On the page referenced, ctrl+f for "Top reasons for rejecting absentee ballots."
>If you’re inclined to doubt every election, did Trump win in 2016 by fraud too? Bush in 2000? Their margins were very tight and they lost the popular vote.
It's impossible for me say, unfortunately, because of our black-box elections carried out (mostly) on electronic voting machines that don't allow for real audits and, for the most part, don't have complete paper trails. In my opinion it is absurd to have confidence in any process that is not completely transparent.
> Doesn’t that seem like a more likely situation where fraud would carry the day?
It now seems like this is your opinion. So 100% of elections since 2000 where the opposition won are bitterly contested as illegitimate by party partisans. I'm starting to think these political parties might be the problem.
It’s not my opinion. But isn’t it objectively true that the national popular vote is much harder to fake than a few hundred votes in a specific state? That’s just the nature of organizing the effort.
So if all US elections are unreliable, surely the 2000 one is more suspect than the 2020 one.
So, by rough equivalency the same amount of either Republicans OR Democrats belive in stolen elections.
The portrayal of either party by the other is ridiculous.
Clearly it is both a common and non-partisan belief. Safely put, one in three United States Statesians don't believe in the legitimacy of elections they don't win.
Aside from the sibling comment's point, keep in mind that the 2000 election was actually decided by a court case. Regardless of how you judge this fact personally, it is at the very least bound to distort survey responses.
If you’re inclined to doubt every election, did Trump win in 2016 by fraud too? Bush in 2000? Their margins were very tight and they lost the popular vote. Doesn’t that seem like a more likely situation where fraud would carry the day?