Posted on 08/23/2025 1:52:40 PM PDT by E. Pluribus Unum
Public perceptions about slow vote-counting lend some credence to Trump’s mail-in ballot criticism.
How did Donald Trump convince so many people that the 2020 presidential election was stolen? The question is relevant again as the president renews his campaign against mail-in ballots. “You can never have a real democracy with mail-in ballots,” he said Monday, and an executive order targeting the practice is supposedly in the works. Trump’s campaign against mail-in voting in 2020 foreshadowed his efforts to delegitimize Joe Biden’s election victory. But as two studies published last month illustrate, Trump might have been pushing on an open door. Insofar as mail-in voting leads to slow or asymmetrical reporting of election results, it can, in fact, undermine confidence in democracy.
The reason is rooted in human psychology. The first study, from psychologists at Ruhr University Bochum in Germany, observes that the early leader in a competition — “whether between sports teams, stocks, or computer algorithms” — tends to be perceived as superior. “The repeated observation of a competitor being ahead seems to leave a lasting impression on observers that is not entirely erased by the final result,” the authors explain.
Trump exploited that phenomenon in the aftermath of the 2020 election, where the later reporting of mail-in votes (as well as the later reporting of results from urban areas) contributed to a “blue shift” in favor of Biden in the hours and days after polls closed. In Georgia, “Trump was ahead early and lost his lead only after more than 99% of ballots were counted,” the paper notes.
The psychologists ran several experiments showing that the order election results are reported has a significant impact on how much people trust them. One experiment simulated an election for school representative, where votes were reported as they came in from 12 classrooms...
(Excerpt) Read more at washingtonpost.com ...
They just aren't getting their message out that mail-in ballots with no ID validation or chain of custody are perfectly safe and effective.
Okay, you created a new post. 😁👍
Let’s also pretend all the COVID outliers don’t exist and COVID was the vehicle for fraud.
It’s just our perception that Joe Biden got 81 million votes and 6 million of them all came in swing states at 4 am in the morning.
“asymmetrical reporting of election results”
So THAT’S the new word for cheating!
I perceive that as fraud
Beside ballot chicanery and machine wizardry some people truly believed (not) that non compos Joe got more votes than Obama!
Gee, maybe it was that counting was stopped in all the swing states at 10 PM, allowing the cheaters to figure out how many votes they needed to manufacture and then suspicious vote dumps came in after midnight that were miraculously 99% for Biden that made Trump suspicious. Not to mention where did Biden’s 81 million votes go in 2024? Did all those missing voters get raptured?
That’s how Biden got 20 million more votes than Obama or and previous democrat
Nope. That ain't it.
“... 20 million more votes than Obama or any previous democrat”
While winning fewer counties.
That’s how Biden got 20 million more votes than Obama or and previous democrat
I can’t believe how the movie “2000 mules” was ignored
If the Left will accept the end of mail-in voting based on this pathetic line of reasoning, well it’s ... good enough. Debate over.
And the USPS was exempted from all the covid restrictions.
How did Democrats convince the country that the 2020 election wasn’t stolen despite Biden allegedly receiving 2 million more votes than Barack Obama? Votes that disappeared in 2024 when people were watching. A Pulitzer Prize is waiting for a courageous investigative reporter willing to print the truth.
The Bellwether County results alone prove it was stolen.
I have voted in every election since Jimmy Carter (except one county election that I missed when I moved to another county and didn't meet the residency requirements). I voted absentee while I was away at college. Never any problems.
The only time anything shady has EVER happened was in 2020. I went to my district office for early voting - only to be told "You've already voted." Somebody had intercepted my mail-in ballot (I never received it) and voted it.
I had to fill out an affidavit and voted provisionally. What happened after that, I do not know and could not find out. How do they know where that mail-in ballot ended up? How can they cancel it? inquiring minds want to know.
Case in point from LA county and it’s last mayoral...
“...The contest was a virtual dead heat on Election Night. Caruso pulled slightly ahead last Thursday, but since then Bass gained a steady lead...”
Sound familiar?
BTW, if LA is so true blue, why does Deep State have to steal its elections? 🤔
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.