Comment by User23 | Hacker News Reader

Comment by User23 | Hacker News Reader

Before I clicked on the link, I assumed this was yet another egregious lie. But this one really doesn't qualify. It falls squarely in the category of reasonable opinions. Let's look at the claim: "There is NO WAY (ZERO!) that Mail-In Ballots will be anything less than substantially fraudulent". Clearly the veracity of the statement rests on the word "substantially." It's inconceivable that no one ever takes, for example, an elderly relative's mail in ballot and votes it fraudulently. So for this to be a reasonable opinion, it merely has to be reasonably possible for the claim to be true.

So, let's consider if such fraud could possibly be substantial. Let's use California as an example. Registering to vote is easy, all you need is a web browser[1] and a mailing address where you reside or with a resident willing to give you ballots or ignorant that they are receiving them[2]. Also, the State of California faces an impractically large legal hurdle to reject suspected fraudulent ballots[3] so it can be assumed that most if not all will be accepted. It seems clear based on the observable facts that substantial fraud is certainly possible under the California regime. Please note I am not claiming such fraud actually happens, merely that it is easily practicable for an organization as well organized as, say, a political party. To be honest, I bet literally hundreds if not thousands of readers on this site could build "California vote fraud as as service" as a side gig. Let's disrupt the electoral process for a billion dollar valuation!

From this I conclude that while I personally disagree with the President, this particular statement is a (probably, I sure hope) incorrect opinion, not a factually incorrect statement.

[1] https://covr.sos.ca.gov/

[2] https://www.nbclosangeles.com/news/politics/more-than-80-bal...

[3] https://www.sacbee.com/news/politics-government/capitol-aler...

It's not an opinion, it's a statement. Therein lies the rub.

There is no reasonable interpretation of "There is NO WAY (ZERO!)" to mean "there may possibly be".

e: The President just helpfully tweeted out in support of my argument:

"They are saying my statement on Mail-In Ballots, which will lead to massive corruption and fraud, is incorrect"

There is evidence that mail in ballots causes more problems though. However to find unbiased information about it you have to search for articles from a time before it became political.

> Yet votes cast by mail are less likely to be counted, more likely to be compromised and more likely to be contested than those cast in a voting booth, statistics show. Election officials reject almost 2 percent of ballots cast by mail, double the rate for in-person voting.

New York times article:

https://www.nytimes.com/2012/10/07/us/politics/as-more-vote-...

To be clear, it's a prediction of the future. Let's not pretend that predictions of the future are statements of fact.

Next, Twitter will start fact checking every Bigfoot and UFO tweet.

California has been running absentee ballots for a long time. Are you saying all of them had "substantial fraud" ? If so, why didn't the President, who had control of 3 branches of govt and had a commission to prove election fraud, couldn't find any evidence ?

What I heard was that California refused to cooperate, and the commission couldn't do much without their cooperation. Though this is only a rumor I heard.

If it’s a rumor why are you repeating it.

Your are spreading false narratives. Stop.

Not a false narrative.

https://www.sos.ca.gov/administration/news-releases-and-advi...

You obviously did not even read that article.

Why not just claim that your network could not possibly be compromised despite no IDS / HIDS / AV? I'm sure there would be no evidence there, either.

What evidence of fraud would you expect? How would anyone know? And given the sophistication of fraud these days (bypassing 2fa, number porting, etc) - - how could you possibly expect zero fraud in a system whose only controls are human?

From my fact checking, I compare to nations which also allow mail-in ballots but have much more stricter and expensive measure in place to prevent fraud. If the twitter fact checkers are correct then there is no substantially risk with mail-in ballots used by California, then using more strict measures are a waste.

Sweden where I live has several conditions on mail-in ballots. 1: it is only allowed as an exception for Swedish citizen currently residing in a other country. 2: A person must identify themselve through an embassy or the digital identity system which require a Swedish bank to perform identification. The first condition limits the scope of attacks and makes large scale attacks quite visible, while the second condition is very hard to perform. If you could break into hundred of thousands of peoples bank accounts, or take control over an embassy, voting fraud is unlikely your first priority.

> So for this to be a reasonable opinion, it merely has to be reasonably possible for the claim to be true.

This position makes no sense to me, because the original statement indicates certainty. Therefore, you need to test the opposite of what you suggest, i.e. the statement can only be true if the election must contain substantial fraud.

When you negate the double negative, the claim in the tweet is:

> mail-in ballots will certainly be substantially fraudulent

Therefore if there is any chance that they will not contain substantial fraud, it is clearly a false statement.

Can confirm a similar situtation for the "Briefwahl" in Germany. The topic came up while discussing the security of electronic voting years ago. It was sobering.

>Please note I am not claiming such fraud actually happens,

Though it would be naieve to assume it does not. Internet based crime goes through incredible hurdles today to bypass 2fa and anti fraud measures which are substantially more sophisticated than what the voting system has in place.

To suggest that criminals and nation-state actors would spend enormous effort to spread misinformation and steal credit cards, but completely ignore the far easier voting system, is absurd.

(Posted this in another thread)

No what Mr. POTUS said was > There is NO WAY (ZERO!) that Mail-In Ballots will be anything less than substantially fraudulent

Translation: 100% certainty that Mail-In Ballots are substantially fraudulent

He specified a 100% certainty of substantial election fraud

I think the place where this falls apart is that he's talking about future events. It's a prediction about the future. Unless you believe he's insinuating supernatural abilities to tell the future exactly, he's just expressing his personal level of confidence about his prediction... which is an opinion.

The real problem here is calling what Twitter did a fact check. Because what Twitter did was just promote opposing opinions/predictions about the same future event. Neither side can make statements of fact about the future, they can only state their opinion and express their level of confidence in that opinion.

People are held accountable for comments on future events all the time:

- medical claims - fiduciary - threats

If a doctor tells a patient that there is no way (ZERO!) that taking “the hydroxy” will be anything less than substantially successful - do we let it slide because there is a chance it might be true?

Of course you should hold him accountable. Vote against him. What does that have to do with Twitter "fact checking" something that isn't even a statement of fact? Do you think they'll start fact checking things like statements of fact about the gender pay gap, perhaps the most debunked concept in all of economics?

If you're going to autistically parse the President's tweet, then I will gladly point you towards the word "substantial" in the President's tweet. How do you intend to gauge the President's internal thoughts regarding what he believes would be a "substantial" amount of fraud? He might feel a single bad vote is substantial.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com