Summary

Trump’s popular vote share has fallen below 50% to 49.94%, with Kamala Harris at 48.26%, narrowing his margin of victory.

Trump’s share of the popular vote is lower than Biden’s in 2020 (51.3%), Obama’s in 2012 (51.1%) and 2008 (52.9%), George W. Bush’s in 2004 (50.7%), George H.W. Bush’s in 1988 (53.2%), Reagan’s in 1984 (58.8%) and 1980 (50.7%), and Carter’s in 1976 (50.1%).

The 2024 election results highlight Trump’s narrow victory and the need for Democrats to address their mistakes and build a diverse working-class coalition.

The numbers also give Democrats a reason to push back on Trump’s mandate claims, noting most Americans did not vote for him.

    • @[email protected]
      link
      fedilink
      English
      18 months ago

      Usually, “mandate” used to mean overwhelming support from the majority. If these percentages hold up, donvict has a plurality. Even if he had a bare majority with Kamala and him having ~1.5% delta, it’s not like it is some real mandate, either…

      • @[email protected]
        link
        fedilink
        18 months ago

        It is. If you look at his appointments it looks like he’s going to be moving as fast as he can so that’s good.

  • @[email protected]
    link
    fedilink
    508 months ago

    Wasn’t it something like he only gained about 500,000 votes from the last primary election? The reason the Democrats lost was because they lost 10,000,000 due to people just straight up not voting for Kamala by either going 3rd party, switching to Trump, or abstaining. In my opinion it wasn’t really Trump’s popularity that won him the election but more of just the Democrats lack of popularity.

    • @[email protected]
      link
      fedilink
      78 months ago

      Actually, Harris did nearly as well or better than Biden in the only states that matter, the swing states. In the ones the Harris didn’t beat Biden’s vote total, even if she had gotten it Trump would have still won the electoral college.

      In other words, no it’s not because dems didn’t vote.

    • @[email protected]
      link
      fedilink
      English
      358 months ago

      Democrats lack of popularity, coupled with active voter suppression tactics in numerous states, four straight years of misinformation campaigns designed to decrease voter turnout and/or drive them to third parties maliciously, and most critically, no more covid lockdowns allowing people the free time to vote. People working full time wage jobs that are most likely to vote more blue are, quite intentionally, not financially allowed to vote in person due to work scheduling; 2020 was an outlier year.

      • @[email protected]
        link
        fedilink
        English
        5
        edit-2
        8 months ago

        OR, wait for it, it might be because Democrats absolutely suck at winning elections. It might be because no one likes them. And all that might be because they’re total fucking failures at governing.

        “But muh libs have done such wonderful things and the GOP is the devil!”

        SELL it to us then.

        “But LOGIC!”

        No one votes on logic. Sales class, before lunch, “People buy on emotion.”

        Your post is exactly why libs so always fucking lose. Jesus, just say it out loud, “We lost because my pussy hurts!”

        • @[email protected]
          link
          fedilink
          68 months ago

          You should seriously consider running for office. You might have the energy and wherewithal to reshape the liberal party into something halfway worthwhile 🤌

  • @[email protected]
    link
    fedilink
    1188 months ago

    To be clear, because the headline I think is a bit misrepresentative. Trump still has over a million more votes than Harris. He just no longer has over 50% of the votes cast.

    It’s like 49% Trump, 48% Harris, 3% Other. So Trump still won the popular vote.

    This isn’t a “the Electoral College screwed us” situation. He still “won” the popular vote. He just didn’t win a “majority” of the votes cast.

    • @[email protected]
      link
      fedilink
      238 months ago

      Yep. And as much as I’d like to blame 3rd party voters, even if they all voted Harris to giver her the majority, she’d have still lost due to electoral college.

      I will absolutely blame the non-voters though. And the 3rd party voters still get part of the blame.

  • NeoToasty
    link
    fedilink
    148 months ago

    Democrats need to stop wasting time by challenging the results of this election in any way. We’re going to be under the control of a party that waives facts and truths so it doesn’t matter.

    The Democrats need to be re-worked entirely. The reason why they failed this year is like how they failed in 2016. They focused on the whole “TRUMP BAD!” wagon and expected that to carry them. That’s great…as a platform. But it was all that they mostly had. Platforms aren’t any good if you can’t build off from them and that’s what the Dems didn’t do.

    I know and understand that if Harris had a full year of campaigning instead of a handful of months, maybe she could’ve had a better shot and a better understanding of how she’d turn this country around. But, she fell into the same trap as Clinton did and that’s why she lost. She wasn’t the entire reason, the Dems had a part in that too collectively, but a part of the reason.

    You cannot just scream “THAT MAN BAD” without backing it up and without promise of how you’ll do things right - for everyone. Emphasis on ‘everyone’ because there apparently are some groups that Harris and the Dems failed on and lost their votes. That’s important.

    Right now, Democrats need to seriously reconstructure.

    And I hope that within the first year of this fascist’s term of how much shit they’d have to sit, watch and fight over on. That by the 2026 mid-terms, that they get their heads out of their fucking asses.

    • @[email protected]
      link
      fedilink
      1
      edit-2
      8 months ago

      I’m sorry but what timeline are you in? Harris barely focused on the fascism at all (I forget if she even said the actual word. Maybe twice?), and provided a shit ton of specific policy proposals that would have directly helped the working and middle classes. People can’t blame anyone but themselves if they chose to ignore her.

      Comments like this make me feel like I’ve lost my mind. Where have you been for the past 6 months?

    • NoneOfUrBusiness
      link
      fedilink
      28 months ago

      I know and understand that if Harris had a full year of campaigning instead of a handful of months, maybe she could’ve had a better shot and a better understanding of how she’d turn this country around.

      I think she’d have dug herself into a deeper hole, if anything. That’s what she did with the time she had available.

    • @[email protected]
      link
      fedilink
      18 months ago

      Maybe if Harris had become the candidate via a primary election, instead of the DNC skipping that election to simply nominate her candidate, she would have had a better chance.

    • @[email protected]
      link
      fedilink
      18 months ago

      there apparently are some groups that Harris and the Dems failed on

      That’s every group except for republicans, who voted Trump anyway.

    • HellsBelle
      link
      fedilink
      English
      58 months ago

      The first line of the summary starts with …

      Trump’s popular vote share has fallen

      • JackbyDev
        link
        fedilink
        English
        108 months ago

        He still has more than Harris. I’m not thrilled about any of this, I just don’t see any sort of significance of being under 50% when we already don’t use the popular vote for anything meaningful. If it drops below Harris’s, then that’s worth talking about.

    • KillingTimeItself
      link
      fedilink
      English
      28 months ago

      i think in presidential elections in order to “win” you need at minimum a 51% vote. Otherwise you don’t actually win, but i could be mixing some shit up lol.

      Voting is fucking weird.

  • Rentlar
    link
    fedilink
    66
    edit-2
    8 months ago

    58% of the deciding power with just under 50% of the vote?

    This might be a catalyst for states to sign the NPVIC. Pennsylvania started the process to sign on this week in legislature.

    Perhaps in the past, swing states enjoyed the attention they got.

    Now, I have a feeling voters are frustrated from getting way too much attention with mailers, calls, texts, illegal lotteries, news stories, events. As a bonus, voters in swing states are and will be getting outsized blame for electing the returning rapist-in-chief. Anyways a potential silver lining in the impending sea of shit.

    • @[email protected]
      link
      fedilink
      English
      38 months ago

      Think about the NPVIC critically for a moment. What would you have done if your state voted for Harris, but some agreement your state legislators made forced your state’s EC votes to go to Trump? Suppose the margins were narrow enough that your state’s EC votes were the deciding factor.

      I would be contacting my state representatives and governor immediately, demanding they withdraw from that compact before the EC votes are cast in December.

      Trump voters would make similar demands of their state if the situation were reversed.

      The NPVIC will never actually affect an election, because the participating states would almost certainly withdraw long before it did.

      • Rentlar
        link
        fedilink
        3
        edit-2
        8 months ago

        There was some misinformation like that spread about Colorado this year, where more people voted Harris but the state assigned their electors to Trump. Only would happen if the compact is in force.

        Thing is though, as it stands with the EC, neither party gives a shit about Colorado in elections as a 54/44 split is treated as a “given” for the Dems. With a national popular vote, every blue vote in Colorado or Washington, would matter just as much as a red vote in California, same as a blue vote in Oklahoma or a red vote in Montana.

        Sure, people will try to call their reps and sue if they think their state could flip the result when EC doesn’t match the popular vote result. Those processes tend to take a long time that the chances of reversing it before January are slim. This election, it would have gone to Trump either way since he had a plurality of votes. Is it really fair that only 7 or 8 states of 50 had over 90% of the campaign visits, and nearly half had none?

        • @[email protected]
          link
          fedilink
          English
          18 months ago

          You don’t have to convince me of the merits of bypassing the EC.

          You do have to convince me that the NPVIC will remain in effect after one election. Yes, repealing something like this generally takes time, and probably longer than the 5 weeks or so between the election and the day the EC votes are cast. But they don’t have 5 weeks. They have the entire election cycle.

          The only way it stays in effect is if it has no effect. If it would ever change the outcome of an election, it will be repealed by every state compelled to flip its votes.

          • Rentlar
            link
            fedilink
            1
            edit-2
            8 months ago

            Are you certain? I do see the possibility of a state attempting to repeal it after the popular vote going the way they didn’t want and perhaps it would only live for one election cycle. I’m just not sure that every state that could overturn it would want to do so, given that a campaign under a national popular vote would mean that there would be far more attention paid to places outside of Pennsylvania and the select handful of swing states. Both campaigns want to see all of America improve in their speeches, not just the midwest and sunbelt battlegrounds, but their campaign actions aren’t representative of that within the EC.

            E: Oh and if the 2028 and/or 2032 election has a result where popular vote and EC are aligned when the compact is first in force, there will be much less momentum to overturn it in the following election even if they differ.

            • @[email protected]
              link
              fedilink
              English
              1
              edit-2
              8 months ago

              given that a campaign under a national popular vote would mean that there would be far more attention paid to places outside of Pennsylvania and the select handful of swing states.

              Under popular vote, candidates will run to the urban centers, and completely ignore the rural populace.

              NPVIC creates Panem.

              That’s hyperbole, of course, but exaggeration for purposes of demonstration.

              • Rentlar
                link
                fedilink
                1
                edit-2
                8 months ago

                There’s no perfect solution, but the fact there will be more campaigning in urban centres is not an indictment of the popular vote system. Rural centers don’t have to be excluded, campaign resources can be more spread out to them than before.

                Example: Sure, maybe Trump wouldn’t have visited Butler, PA without EC but they are the few rural areas that would benefit at the expense of small towns in every other state. Instead, you would have Republican outreach to the red states that are perennially overlooked, Trump visiting Redding to get out the vote there, Harris campaign in CO and the PNW. Puerto Rico, US territories and DC would have actual importance instead of the whole discussion being around “what does insulting the entirety of Puerto Rico mean for Pennsylvania?”

                • @[email protected]
                  link
                  fedilink
                  English
                  28 months ago

                  Can you honestly tell me that you would support your state casting their EC votes for Trump, even though a majority of your state voted for Harris?

                  Can you honestly say you expect the citizenry of every state to put the will of the nation ahead of their own? Ahead of their neighbors? I mean, most of these states are already using all sorts of shady methods to keep “undesirable” people from voting. The last president went so far as to attempt a coup, and his supporters loved him for it.

                  Do you honestly believe they’re going to tolerate their state voting against their professed wishes?

                  Would you actually tolerate your state going against its own voters?

                  The best that the NPVIC could possibly accomplish is to allow a simple majority of the Supreme Court the opportunity to appoint the presidential candidate they prefer.

  • @[email protected]
    link
    fedilink
    368 months ago

    It sucks that the Dems don’t bother with a recount, even if it’s still the same result. Republicans wanted recounts just about everywhere they could in 2020. Instead they just say “welp, looks like we lost. Here’s the keys to the kingdom.” Do some due diligence and have a damn recount.

    • @[email protected]
      link
      fedilink
      5
      edit-2
      8 months ago

      I do have problems with Democrats simply handing power to fascists that have literally told us that they will end our Republic on day 1… However, at this point, I think recounting at the level you’re talking about would be a waste of time. Even if it changed the results, Republicans wouldn’t accept it.

      • @[email protected]
        link
        fedilink
        18 months ago

        I agree it’s a waste of time now, but loke the Wednesday or Thursday afternoon election, they should’ve put the wheels in motion.

    • @[email protected]
      link
      fedilink
      English
      128 months ago

      Those kind of things have to be done in every single district and costs millions of dollars. Unless there’s a probable chance, it’s probably better to save the cash and use it for something that could get results in the future

    • Queen HawlSera
      link
      fedilink
      English
      268 months ago

      The problem is Republicans are heartless, but Democrats are spineless.

      • @[email protected]
        link
        fedilink
        1
        edit-2
        8 months ago

        Democrats are heartless genocidal freaks, and hardly “spineless” they just don’t care. It’s a party of billionaires. I have no idea how you can unironically believe this ethos that they’re all a bunch of bleeding hearts but are just too scared, quivering in their boots to act but they all mean well… apparently! No, they just never fight for those values you want them to fight for because their party does not represent those values, and pretending they do at this point… I have a bridge to sell you.

        • Queen HawlSera
          link
          fedilink
          English
          18 months ago

          I have no idea how you can unironically believe this ethos that they’re all a bunch of bleeding hearts but are just too scared, quivering in their boots to act but they all mean well… apparently

          Because that’s what they are, soft-willed bleeding hearts

          • @[email protected]
            link
            fedilink
            18 months ago

            No, they are not, they are incredibly wealthy millionaires whose campaigns are bought and paid for by billionaires. The Democrat party is actively supporting an ongoing holocaust, an industrial scale genocide and ethnic cleansing of millions of people from their homeland. The idea that these people are all secretly saints who are just too scared to act on it is such a completely ridiculous belief. They do not do moral things because they are not moral. They are not saints. They simply do not represent those values. You elect a party that openly believes X and then claim they don’t do Y because they’re too scared to do it. No, they don’t do Y because they don’t represent Y, they represent X. Democrats are by no means in any way “soft-willed.” Whenever it comes to something they actually believe in, they are very good at rallying the votes to get it passed, such as when they are passing something in favor of the military industrial complex or the Israel lobby.

    • @[email protected]
      link
      fedilink
      18 months ago

      Democrats like losing because they only disagree on Republicans on like 2 issues and their funding is great when Republicans are in power.

    • @[email protected]
      link
      fedilink
      288 months ago

      Nope.

      Some liberals will say that he won’t be able to claim a mandate. Doesn’t matter. He will.

      • @[email protected]
        link
        fedilink
        88 months ago

        Seriously, how far does that excuse get anyone? “Well everyone didn’t vote for him so whatever” and he says “Yeah they did 🥴” and proceeds to do whatever tf he wants anyway ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

      • JaggedRobotPubes
        link
        fedilink
        English
        18 months ago

        It’s still good to know he doesn’t have one, be able to prove it, and say it a lot all over the place with the receipts in hand.

        • @[email protected]
          link
          fedilink
          28 months ago

          I think this type of thinking is dealing with Trump the wrong way. Censoring him is pointless. He’s going to say what he wants until it isn’t useful and then pivot. He’s going to do what he wants regardless of what he says.

          Don’t take him literally. Take him seriously. Defend at the points of real vulnerability. Counter at the right times. Sow discord and distrust in his hapless helpers and incompetent ranks.

          Play to win.

    • @[email protected]
      link
      fedilink
      48 months ago

      I mean his vote share went down, he still has more votes than kamala.

      So they don’t need to say anything he still won the popular core

  • @[email protected]
    link
    fedilink
    1668 months ago

    The fact that a majority of voters did not want Trump to win makes me simultaneously feel happy (that I’m not surrounded by idiots) and more depressed (that the Electoral College has screwed us AGAIN!)

    • @[email protected]
      link
      fedilink
      English
      196
      edit-2
      8 months ago

      It’s a lack of majority not a lack of plurality. Harris is still trailing Trump by 3m votes or so (and 1.6%), Trump is just not above 50% after further votes have been counted. So this isn’t an electoral college steal

      • @[email protected]
        link
        fedilink
        English
        638 months ago

        Yeah, but even if Kamala wins the popular vote, this is going to be the closest a republican has gotten in…

        Decades?

        Maybe longer?

        But the DNC is going to latch onto this and try to claim if they had moved just a little more right they’d have won.

        Regardless of what happens, the DNC will always say the answer is moving to the right.

          • @[email protected]
            link
            fedilink
            5
            edit-2
            8 months ago

            “Poor me, my constitutes don’t like that I am not representing them in government. Corporate lobbiest, you’ve done nothing but shower me in money, won’t you tell me what Americans really want?”

        • @[email protected]
          link
          fedilink
          English
          58 months ago

          Regardless of what happens, the DNC will always say the answer is moving to the right.

          This isn’t borne out by trending or statements. What kind of crystal ball are you smoking?

          • @[email protected]
            link
            fedilink
            128 months ago

            Two examples: ran on being humane to migrants and continued title 42 three years into the Biden term and proposed a draconian new immigration law.

            Ran on reforming the police, flooded them with money.

          • Queen HawlSera
            link
            fedilink
            English
            178 months ago

            They were told they abandoned workers, and somehow heard “What if we betray Transpeople?”

            • @[email protected]
              link
              fedilink
              28 months ago

              Corporations fund the big name democrats and their campaigns. These same corporations benefit greatly from Republican wins. They are buying intentionally ineffective democrats who are unincentivized to either win races or appeal to worker interests as they are typically directly at odds with these big bankrolling corporations.

              I am not saying every democrat is paid for or every democrat is ineffective or democrats as a whole are an entirely bought and paid for organization, but what I am saying is that enough of the prominent enough democrats legitimately are financially disincentivized from helping the people they’re supposed to represent so as to effectively gum up the works of the whole machine.

              • Queen HawlSera
                link
                fedilink
                English
                58 months ago

                Well at least they’re getting roasted for it, I mean in this link the aide who said that was fucking fired over it. Yeah it said he resigned, but when you get up enough you aren’t “fired” you’re “asked to resign”

                • @[email protected]
                  link
                  fedilink
                  4
                  edit-2
                  8 months ago

                  Oh no, you’re reading that wrong. The aide resigned in protest to Rep. Moulton’s comments. The article also quotes Rep. Tom Suozzi. Moulton is also in the House Equality Caucus, which is supposed to be protecting LGBTQ rights. I’m not sure how they square that with his comments that fundamentally misunderstand the process for transgender kids though. His comments show a fundamental misunderstanding of scholastic sports, human physiology, and hormone blockers. Which you think 2 of the 3 would be required reading for that caucus…

    • @[email protected]
      link
      fedilink
      English
      70
      edit-2
      8 months ago

      FPTP should get FAR more attention as the culprit for this situation. Sure, the electoral college caused Kamala to lose (or whatever) but if we had a true democracy, there wouldn’t be only two possible parties to choose from.

      FPTP

        • @[email protected]
          link
          fedilink
          78 months ago

          It could give people opportunities to vote for third parties without feeling like they’re throwing away their vote

          • @[email protected]
            link
            fedilink
            28 months ago

            Okay so you go with what system?

            Let’s say the breakdown of votes looks the same as the Swedish breakdown. There will be more people that voted for a different candidate than the red one (Social Democrat).

            This then requires a run off system like france, or a ranked choice, which is also fine to propose, but you can’t hold up a visual of a parliament and say the system is so much better, when we talk about one singular office.

            The post compared two things that have different end goals

            • JaggedRobotPubes
              link
              fedilink
              English
              4
              edit-2
              8 months ago

              Any system where your vote is a list instead of a checkbox.

              That way in 2016 you can vote for Bernie as 1, and if he loses, you can vote for Hillary by putting her as 2. You don’t have to give up your moonshot to get your safety net.

              Great video on the problems with first past the post, with links to some other videos discussing better systems: https://youtu.be/s7tWHJfhiyo

        • @[email protected]
          link
          fedilink
          English
          288 months ago

          FPTP applies to ALL political offices in a country that uses it.

          Using the presidency in this graphic would have been a very poor choice to display the difference between the two. Comparing 1 result with another result on a scale of 1 person would not have the pedagogical weight that the Congress graphic does.

          • @[email protected]
            link
            fedilink
            28 months ago

            Yes, and you abolish FPTP and now you elect a president how? I’m interested in your proposal, because it’s incomplete to say get rid of FPTP… Otherwise top vote getter, who gets maybe 30% of the vote leads the country which is also an abomination as 70% didn’t vote for that person.

            Abolishing FPTP requires doing something else on top of it, ranked choice or run off would be better than the highest count.

        • @[email protected]
          link
          fedilink
          68 months ago

          You can do it in a multitude of ways. The French for instance elect their president by voting twice, the first time they vote for their favorite candidate (and the parliament), the second time they vote for either of the two candidates that got the most votes (a run off)

          There are other ways, like ranked voting, or you could look up parliamentary republics for an alternative form of government.

          Read up on what happens in the rest of the world, at this point, we, as a human species, have tried pretty much everything

          • KillingTimeItself
            link
            fedilink
            English
            18 months ago

            the simplest fix for states would be to adopt something like what maine and nebraska have, since they have vastly more representative turnout compared to FPTP.

            Wouldn’t be perfect, but would basically kill any chance of republican DEI in the fed ever again lol.

      • @[email protected]
        link
        fedilink
        168 months ago

        Yeah does it really make that much of a difference in terms of “being surrounded by idiots” whether 51% of the people around you are idiots or 49%? Sure, I’d prefer the 49% scenario, especially if there’s an election happening, but you’re still surrounded by idiots.

        • Boomer Humor Doomergod
          link
          fedilink
          English
          208 months ago

          The fact that Trump could get elected at all, let alone twice, is proof that there’s too many idiots to want to participate in normal society

      • @[email protected]
        link
        fedilink
        English
        58 months ago

        Typical liberal cope.

        “We KINDA won!”

        Face it y’all. Democrats and liberals are a LOSING block. FAILURES.

        I’ll continue to vote straight D, because it’s the only choice I got. Fucking losers and failures.

    • @[email protected]
      link
      fedilink
      258 months ago

      He still had more of the popular vote than Harris, it was just they were both less than 50% due to 3rd party votes. So neither had a “majority” of the vote.

      So he still would have won, even under a purely popular vote based system.

      • Pennomi
        link
        fedilink
        English
        108 months ago

        Another thing it means is that if we had ranked choice voting, those 3rd party votes would be the deciding factor in who won the presidency.

        • @[email protected]
          link
          fedilink
          58 months ago

          If we had ranked choice and got rid of the electoral college*

          A lot of those third party votes are in solid red or blue states where it wouldn’t matter. Also a lot of the third party votes this time was for rfk and the libertarian Oliver, who wouldve probably went to trump so the outcome would probably be the same.

  • @[email protected]
    link
    fedilink
    208 months ago

    Since when has reality made any difference at all to Trump?

    He doesn’t believe he has a mandate because the numbers add up that way, so he’s not going to believe he doesn’t because they don’t. He believes he has a mandate because he’s the bestest and smartest and most perfect president ever in the history of ever. And he’s never going to stop believing that.

    • @[email protected]
      link
      fedilink
      68 months ago

      It makes a big difference to him, personally. He’s a walking ego, and the fact that the American people aren’t in a majority behind him will gnaw at him.

      It means fuck all in any practical way. At best, the country isn’t quite as giving into fascism as we thought. That’s the best I got, and it ain’t much.

  • ObjectivityIncarnate
    link
    fedilink
    368 months ago

    This is major league copium. The fact is that Trump’s opponent got way more votes in 2020 than in 2024, and had the blue turnout in 2024 equaled what it was in 2020, he would not have won in 2024. Period.

    • @[email protected]
      link
      fedilink
      English
      98 months ago

      Yeah I’m really not sure why these conversations are still going on. It’s painfully clear that Dems lost this election because of voter turnout.

    • @[email protected]
      link
      fedilink
      58 months ago

      At this point it’s just sad to see the impotent denial of facts of some people. He won the election and the popular vote. End of story.

    • @[email protected]
      link
      fedilink
      188 months ago

      I thought we spent four years exhaustively proving that the election cannot be stolen? How did they find loopholes after the Democrats exhaustively proved they didn’t exist?

      • @[email protected]
        link
        fedilink
        198 months ago

        It wasn’t that it can’t be stolen. We proved the dems didn’t steal it.

        This year we had lots of evidence of fraud and manipulation by Rs and like do you really think Trump and Musk would actually just play fair?

      • @[email protected]
        link
        fedilink
        108 months ago

        The biggest problem with the letters that went around is that it would require every swing state Secretary of State to stay quiet about it happening. And some of those SoS’s are die hard democracy and election people. It would also require the IT people not to leak any concerns and they aren’t known for staying quiet about systems being penetrated.

        All in all it seems like a weird thing happened but the silence is verging on Secret Government Agency with millions of domestic spies that never write a tell all book conspiracy territory.

          • @[email protected]
            link
            fedilink
            2
            edit-2
            8 months ago

            I couldn’t find anything about voting machines named Starling. There is a StarLink theory. The problem is that seems to be based on a TikTok video that was incoherent by most reports, and is no longer up.

            I get that moneyed interests could get evidence removed from a centralized social media service. But nothing in the transcript I’ve found describes a specific link from StarLink to voting machines. In fact it sounds like the person just described the basics of TCP/IP in a roundabout way to make it sound sinister. The problem is election systems are air gapped with the exception of a few highly controlled access points. Situations where that’s been compromised, (such as allowing remote work from home for election office workers) have made the news for precisely the reason that it’s rare. And the most credible criticism of election security is that the election office’s computers could be compromised and used to spread malware to machines. But that’s an inherent weakness. If the office can’t access the results, they can’t report them.

            Furthermore, there’s nothing special about StarLink that would make them a better access route. They aren’t close enough to intercept the unofficial results as a false cellphone tower, (and that wouldn’t change the official results later anyways), and any traffic going through them to attack election systems would also have to travel through modems on the ground, controlled by election officials. So destroying the satellite does nothing for covering your tracks. If you believe they can erase all traces of their traffic, then there’s no need to destroy a satellite as surely that would be even easier on a satellite controlled by a close ally.

            At the end of the day, with what we know right now, the fuck up was with the Democrat’s messaging. Not anything to do with election security.

            • KillingTimeItself
              link
              fedilink
              English
              28 months ago

              the only two significant things i’ve heard, one is pretty much confirmed.

              republicans had access illegally to source code for dominion voting machines (we know this because people were charged over it) this is also the contents of the “letter to VP harris” thing that was released a minute ago. Though it doesn’t claim fraud or anything of the nature, just calls for a recount, and establishing that no foul play happened.

              The second, and one i haven’t dug into at all, so take this at face value, is that apparently, there may have been a very large number of “bullet ballots” or ballots just voting for trump, in AZ i think. I don’t know the status of this one. Even if it’s true, it doesn’t explicitly mean voter fraud happened. It may be a tad bit suspect though.

              Those are the only two theories i’ve heard that have weight, granted i’m not following election conspiracies, because i’m a normal sane person.

              Realistically the most likely “fraud” was elon musk buying twitter.

          • @[email protected]
            link
            fedilink
            48 months ago

            I haven’t seen anything. I know Arizona for sure would be all over it. Their last three SoS elections were about keeping Maga out of the elections. The current governor is governor largely for standing up to Trump in 2020. If they thought they got hacked they would be using bullhorns to let us know.

      • @[email protected]
        link
        fedilink
        English
        168 months ago

        I thought we spent four years exhaustively proving that the election cannot be stolen?

        Wrong.

        Trump’s team claimed for 4 years that the election was stolen without evidence. We’ve spent 4 years showing that the 2020 election was not stolen, which does not mean that election fraud doesn’t exist and never will exist.

      • @[email protected]
        link
        fedilink
        English
        68 months ago

        I thought we spent four years exhaustively proving that the election cannot be stolen

        Um, hate to tell you bro, trump did cheat and steal the 2016 election (proven in court, 34 counts convicted)