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Bi-Weekly Discussion - Was the 2016 Election Rigged? (Part 1)

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Brian B.
Bi-Weekly Discussion - Was the 2016 Election Rigged? (Part 1)

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We're currently hosting our discussions at Café Walnut, not too far from our summer We're currently hosting our discussions at Café Walnut, not too far from our summer meeting spot in Washington Square Park. The cafe is near the corner of 7th & Walnut in Olde City. The cafe's entrance is below street level down some stairs, which can be confusing if it's your first time. Our group meets in the large room upstairs.

Since we're using the cafe's space, they ask that each person attending the meetup at least purchase a drink or snack. Please don't bring any food or drinks from outside. If you're hungry enough to eat a meal, they have more substantial fare such as salads, soups & sandwiches which are pretty good and their prices are reasonable.

The café is fairly easy to get to if you're using public transit. With SEPTA, take the Market-Frankford Line & get off at the 5th Street Station (corner of 5th & Market), and walk 2 blocks south on 5th and then turn right on Walnut Street and walk 1 block west. With PATCO, just get off at the 9th-10th & Locust stop and walk 3 blocks east. For those who are driving, parking in the neighborhood can be tough to find. If you can't find a spot on the street, I'd suggest parking in the Washington Square parking deck at 249 S 6th Street which is just a half block away.

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WAS THE 2016 PRESIDENTIAL ELECTION RIGGED?

PART 1 - THE DOMESTIC SHENANIGANS

INTRODUCTION:

This discussion will address a variety of claims that the U.S. presidential election of 2016 was somehow rigged, hacked, or fraudulent in some way. We'll address each claim in turn and try to differentiate irrational conspiracy theories from more plausible scenarios.

(Note: Initially, I wanted to tackle the charges that the Trump campaign colluded with Russia, but these charges are complex enough that I've decided to bump all of the material on Russian interference in the 2016 election to our next meetup.)

This is our second meetup where we're addressing a political science topic that can superficially seem related to conspiracy theories but is actually dealing with more nuanced & plausible forms of political coordination. The first time we did this was our discussion back in September on the "Deep State". Check out the first section of the outline for that meetup, where we covered two useful sets of conceptual tools -- Michael Shermer's "Conspiracy Detector Kit" and Carl Sagan's "Baloney Detection Kit":
https://www.meetup.com/Philly-Skeptics/events/240273022/

As we discussed in our last meetup, it's generally a good idea for laypeople to defer to the expert consensus in empirical fields, and for this discussion that means political science. I found a poll of over 1,500 American political scientists -- the Bright Line Watch survey -- taken in Feb. 2017 in which they were asked a variety of questions about what they think is "important or essential to democracy" and whether or not "the U.S. mostly or fully meets this standard". There's 19 criteria in the poll, but as far as those that directly relate to elections, about 87% of political scientists think we have mostly "fraud-free elections", 68% think we meet the standard for suppressing "political violence", but only about 38% say we have "equal voting rights". Only about 25% say "votes have equal impact", but as a whole they don't seem to see it as quite as critical to democracy as the other criteria. (Only about 42% of political scientists think the U.S. meets the criteria of "no foreign electoral influence" which we'll discuss next time.) http://brightlinewatch.org/results-from-the-bright-line-watch-u-s-democracy-survey/

I've looked into the aspects of the 2016 election being discussed by political scientists in the December 2017 issue of the journal "Statistics and Public Policy", and I noticed that although they were covering lots of different topics, none of the political scientists mentioned anything about the 2016 election being rigged or marked by widespread fraud. Of the issues we'll discuss this time, the only one that was mentioned was the Comey letter's negative impact on the Clinton campaign. See Andrew Gelman's blog for links to these articles - Gelman mentions the Comey letter in Point #15 of his article, linked first:
http://andrewgelman.com/2017/12/22/19-things-learned-2016-election-2/

Below, I've tried my best to square the various allegations of election rigging with the best available research from political science. As you can see, I've linked a lot of articles from two "data journalism" sites, Vox & FiveThirtyEight. One could argue that these sites I've linked have a liberal bias, which I think is accurate, but the bias isn't severe and they tend to make empirical arguments rather than op-ed pontification. And as you can see below, despite their leftward slant, they've done a decent job pushing back on some allegations typically made on the political left.

In general, I'm hoping this discussion not only help us rationally address some of the allegations swirling around the 2016 election, but also helps us form a more accurate picture of how elections actually function in the real world. My general sense, after reading a lot of articles while investigating this, is that the average person's idealistic view of "clean elections" as opposed to "rigged elections" is a false dichotomy. While it appears that a lot of "dirty tricks" are used to manipulate the vote, the overall effect of these tactics on the election outcome appear to be very minor & since they're done by both major parties they partly cancel each other out when it comes to a national election (state & local elections may be a different story). This would be consistent with a common finding in political science research that election outcomes tend to be consistent with the "fundamentals" and that it's hard to determine whether the campaign spending or campaign rhetoric have much effect.

All that said, I welcome dissenting opinions, and we can debate this broader issue at the end of our discussion.

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DIRECTIONS ON HOW TO PREPARE FOR OUR DISCUSSION:

The videos you see linked below are intended to give you a basic overview of the scholarly debates surrounding these issues. As usual, I certainly don't expect you to read all the articles prior to attending our discussion. The easiest way to prepare for our discussion is to just watch the videos linked first under each topic, which should take about 36 minutes total to get through. The articles marked with asterisks are just there to supply additional details. You can browse and look at whichever ones you want, but don't worry - we'll cover the stuff you missed in our discussion.

In terms of the discussion format, my general idea is that we'll address the topics in the order presented here. I figure we'll spend about 25 minutes on each section.

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I. WHAT'S THE EVIDENCE THAT THE DNC RIGGED THE 2016 PRESIDENTIAL PRIMARY FOR HILLARY CLINTON? IF THIS HAPPENED, WAS THIS RIGGING INDIRECT (HFA-DNC COORDINATION ON HIRING & BUDGET) OR DIRECT (VOTE SUPPRESSION OR VOTE TAMPERING)? WHAT'S THE EVIDENCE THAT HACKERS DOCTORED THE DNC EMAILS TO MAKE THEM LOOK WORSE?

  1. Washington Post, "Was the DNC rigged in Hillary Clinton’s favor?" (video - 1:57 min.)
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B3sQsuSg1UA

II. WHAT'S THE EVIDENCE THAT THE DNC SENT AGENT PROVOCATEURS TO INSTIGATE FIGHTS AT TRUMP RALLIES IN 2016? EVEN IF THESE FIGHTS HURT TRUMP'S SUPPORT, DOES HE SHARE RESPONSIBILITY FOR ENCOURAGING THEM?

  1. CNN, "Anderson Cooper Calls Project Veritas Action Videos 'Damning'" (video - 8:46 min.)
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MQ1qT-XtNk0

III. WAS JAMES COMEY'S LETTER ON OCT. 28, 2016 REOPENING THE INVESTIGATION INTO CLINTON'S PRIVATE EMAILS A CONSCIOUS ATTEMPT TO SABOTAGE CLINTON INSTEAD OF MERELY A CASE OF "C.Y.A."?

  1. Young Turks, "Is The FBI Trying To Manipulate The Election?" (video - 6:01 min.)
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4fgP1MUkxBQ

IV. WHAT'S THE EVIDENCE THAT THERE WAS MASSIVE VOTER FRAUD IN THE 2016 ELECTION THAT INFLATED THE VOTES FOR CLINTON? DOES THE ELECTORAL COLLEGE MAKE VOTER FRAUD MORE DIFFICULT? WHY IS THERE SO MUCH FOCUS ON IN-PERSON VOTER FRAUD WHEN MAIL-IN BALLOT FRAUD IS EASIER?

4a) John Green, "Will the US Presidential Election Be Rigged?" (video - 6:57 min.)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jUhR3ZvRj74

4b) Wolf Blitzer w/ David Becker, "Director of Pew study cited by Trump: Voter fraud just doesn't happen much" (video - 3:14 min.)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nSVL6FA5SdU

V. WHAT'S THE EVIDENCE THAT THERE WAS MASSIVE VOTER SUPPRESSION IN THE 2016 ELECTION THAT DEPRESSED THE VOTES FOR CLINTON? TO THE EXTENT THAT THIS "SUPPRESSION" IS JUST VOTER ID LAWS, WHAT'S THE EVIDENCE THAT THEY SUPPRESS TURNOUT?

  1. Brian Lehrer, "Did Voter Suppression in Wisconsin Swing the Election?" (podcast - 13:42 min, listen til 8:30)
    https://www.wnyc.org/story/did-gerrymandering-wisconsin-swing-election/
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