NYT: There’s no evidence to support claims that election observers were blocked from counting rooms

Posted on June 9, 2021 by Luke Ford

New York Times reports Nov. 7, 2020:

On Twitter and in interviews, President Trump and his supporters have alleged that his campaign observers were blocked from ballot-counting rooms, hindering their ability to witness and report several instances of what the Trump campaign has baselessly claimed was widespread election fraud that has marred the results.

“THE OBSERVERS WERE NOT ALLOWED INTO THE COUNTING ROOMS,” Mr. Trump alleged in a tweet on Saturday. “BAD THINGS HAPPENED WHICH OUR OBSERVERS WERE NOT ALLOWED TO SEE.”

The charge was without any basis in fact, and was, in reality, contradicted by several of Mr. Trump’s own legal filings.

In cases that his campaign brought in Nevada and Pennsylvania — one dismissed, the other pending — it acknowledged that its observers were indeed present in the counting rooms. His lawyers were, rather, asking the courts to force election officials to allow Mr. Trump’s observers to get even closer views of the counting activity.

A judge in the Nevada case dismissed the bid, ruling that Mr. Trump’s lawyers “failed to prove” that local election officials “interfered with any right they or anyone else has an observer.” In the Philadelphia case, the Trump campaign succeeded in forcing city elections officials to allow observers to be up to six feet from counting tables, as opposed to the roughly 20-foot observation line officials had previously set. But during a hearing for a federal version of that suit on Thursday, Judge Paul Diamond of the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania pressed a lawyer for Mr. Trump on whether the campaign’s observers did, in fact, have access to the facility. The lawyer said, grudgingly, that there were “a nonzero number” of people in the room. (In the interest of expediting the case, Judge Diamond pushed the Philadelphia board to agree to an expanded number of observers.)

A case the Trump campaign brought in Chatham County, Ga., was, in fact, based on a Trump observer’s allegation that he had seen workers count some 53 ballots that weren’t valid — a thin charge that the observer could not support in court; the judge threw out the suit on Thursday.

Mr. Trump and his allies have seized on photographs of election workers at one point using cardboard to block windows of a large counting room inside the TFC Center in Detroit, alleging that workers there were covering up nefarious activity.

In fact, The Detroit Free Press reported, the cardboard was meant to block the view of boisterous protesters outside the room who were trying to photograph and video the workers handling ballots with sensitive personal information about voter preferences. At the time, The Free Press reported, there were 134 Republican observers inside the counting area, along with a similar number of Democratic observers.

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EXPLAINER: Why poll watcher complaints don’t amount to fraud

Posted on June 9, 2021 by Luke Ford

From the AP, Nov. 14, 2020:

President Donald Trump’s legal allies have launched a flurry of lawsuits arguing that widespread fraud could have been committed because its poll watchers didn’t get proper access to the voting process. Most of those lawsuits have been dismissed over lack of evidence of election fraud.

Trump has tried to argue that there is a link between some of the complaints of partisan poll watchers and the results of the election, which was won by Democrat Joe Biden. But there has been no credible information to validate his assertions. In fact, both state and federal officials have praised the 2020 election as safe and secure.

WHAT IS A POLL WATCHER?

A poll watcher is a partisan appointee who monitors voting or ballot counting to help ensure their party gets a fair shot. They are not supposed to interfere in the electoral process, except to report issues to party officials or polling place authorities, and are typically required to register in advance with the local election office.

Tasked this year with monitoring a record number of mail ballots, poll watchers are designated by a political party or campaign to report any concerns they may have. With a few reports of overly aggressive poll watchers, election officials said they were carefully balancing access with the need to minimize disruptions and social distance concerns over the coronavirus pandemic. In many places, they were ordered to stand 6 feet away.

Monitoring polling places and election offices is allowed in most states, but rules vary and there are certain limits to avoid any harassment or intimidation.

WERE TRUMP’S POLL WATCHERS DENIED ACCESS?

The Trump campaign said from the beginning that Republican poll watchers were being improperly denied access to observe the counting of ballots. Not so, countered election officials in key battleground states, who said rules were being followed and they were committed to transparency.

In Pennsylvania, for example, state election officials said poll watchers were certified in every county. Republican lawyers acknowledged in court that they had observers watching polls and mail-in ballots being processed.

In Michigan, a Trump campaign lawsuit included assertions from their observers that poll workers rolled their eyes when viewing votes for Trump, wore masks or clothing supporting the Black Lives Matter movement or appeared to double-count ballots. Other lawsuits claimed poll watchers were temporarily denied access in some locations, but there has been no evidence to back it up. Nor was there evidence of votes being miscounted out of political bias. And most of the litigation alleging this has been dismissed.

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‘No, Georgia election workers didn’t kick out observers and illegally count ‘suitcases’ of ballots’

Posted on June 9, 2021 by Luke Ford

Politifact writes about the most talked about example of purported fraud in the 2020 election:

A video presented by Rudy Giuliani and promoted by the Trump campaign purports to show Georgia election workers illegally counting suitcases full of ballots after election observers had been told to leave. The video itself doesn’t prove this claim.

Georgia election officials, including Republican voting system implementation manager Gabriel Sterling, publicly disputed claims that the video shows fraudulent activity.

Officials said that there was never an instruction for observers to leave, and that there were no suitcases full of ballots. The bins in the video were standard ballot containers, and the footage shows what officials described as the normal tabulation process.

* Nobody was ever told to leave, [Frances Watson, the Georgia secretary of state’s chief investigator] told Lead Stories. But some observers exited after the election workers responsible for opening the envelopes and verifying the ballots had finished their job and started taking off for the night.

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Shifting identification: A theory of apologies and pseudo-apologies

Posted on June 9, 2021 by Luke Ford

Joshua M. Bentley published in 2015:

Highlights:

Apologies let offenders identify with victims and distance themselves from offenses.

Apologies let third parties identify with offenders but not with the offenses.

Pseudo-apologies let offenders distance themselves from their offenses and victims.

When third parties are at odds with victims, offenders may prefer pseudo-apologies.

Three case studies illustrate situations in which pseudo-apologies are effective.

* Based on an extensive literature review, Boyd (2011) identified four deflective strategies that may masquerade as apologies. Dissociation is the attempt to avoid responsibility for an offense. Diminution refers to downplaying the severity of an offense. Dispersion is a way of suggesting that others are also guilty of an offense. Finally, displacement means apologizing for the wrong offense.
Shepard (2009) suggested that simulated atonement resembles the rhetoric of atonement (Koesten & Rowland, 2004) but is insincere. In additional to apologizing, an offender may try to shift the blame or downplay the seriousness of an offense. Simulated atonement can be successful when an offense lacks salience for the audience or when situational factors make the audience more likely to support the offender.
Gruber (2011) noted that pseudo-apologies are often issued under public pressure when an offense receives news coverage. Involving the public creates complications that distract from the real issues surrounding an offense. Instead of just making amends to the victim, offenders must try to appease any number of other parties who have their own agendas.
In Gruber’s words, “it appears that the more the speaker is viewed as attending to the needs and/or interests of parties other than the offended party, the greater the detriment to his [sic] apology” (p. 102). Tavuchis (1991) also worried that the introduction of third parties “interferes with the normal unfolding of the process” (p. 51) and Kampf (2009) cautioned, “sometimes the main goal of indirect participants is to humiliate the wrongdoer” (p. 2259) rather that heal the rift between offender and victim.

Other reasons offenders issue pseudo-apologies instead of genuine apologies may include concerns aboutliability (Hearit, 2006), ego (Tavris & Aronson, 2007), or reluctance to give political ammunition to one’s opponents (Kampf, 2009). Indeed, Eisinger’s (2011) analysis of public apologies by members of the U.S. House and Senate found that politicians who issued denials or pseudo-apologies were more likely to be reelected that those who issued genuine apologies.

From an ethical standpoint, genuine apologies may be more desirable than pseudo-apologies. However, pseudo-apologies appear to be more effective at repairing one’s image in certain situations. The next section integrates the concepts of identification (Burke, 1969), cognitive balance (Heider, 1946), and co-orientation (Newcomb (1953) to explain this phenomenon.

* Balance theory helps explain how apologies work. When offenders commit offensive acts they become identified with those offenses automatically. Victims are naturally dissociated from the offense, and will therefore feel dissociated from the offender, as well. However, when offenders successfully dissociate themselves from their offenses through the rhetorical act of apologizing, victims can identify with offenders again. As discussed previously, this dissociation from the offensive act and identification with the victim may happen through changing attributions, creating empathy, or providing therapeutic effects, but the rhetorical act of apologizing is the symbolic ritual that triggers these processes.
If offensive acts are committed in public (or made public through the news media)these offenses often have ramifications beyond just the victims and the offenders. Customers, voters, audience members, or other third parties may also be offended by the acts of organizations or public figures. Coombs (2012) described these third parties as either potential victims (i.e., those who could have been hurt by an offensive act) or voyeurs (i.e., those who are merely watching to see how the offender responds). These third parties may seek dissociation from an offender to avoid being identified with the offensive act and/or because they identify with the victim. Boycotts and protests are examples of how third parties may dissociate themselves from organizations or pubic figures in order to dissociate from an offense and identify with a victim. Boycotts and protests are also used to pressure organizations into changing behavior (i.e., dissociating from an offense). Such activity is consistent with Newcomb’s (1953) prediction that one member of a relationship will often try to change another member’s orientation toward an object as a way of restoring symmetry or balance.
Apologies are a rhetorical tool for shifting identification away from offenses and toward victims or third parties. When public figures offer genuine apologies they dissociate themselves from their offenses and agree with victims and third parties that the offense was wrong. Balance theory suggests this agreement will produce a natural identification between offenders, victims, and third parties. In particular, this agreement allows third parties to identify with offenders without also being identified with the offense.

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Ethnic/Racial, Religious, and Demographic Predictors of Organ Donor Registration Status

Posted on June 9, 2021 by Luke Ford

Seems like a good proxy for citizenship (a la you would expect the core of a society to be more pro-society than the fringe). From this 2017 study: “Race/ethnicity, religion, and educational attainment were significant predictors of ODRS. Non-Hispanic whites (NHWs) were most likely to be registered as donors, with no significant difference between NHWs and Asians or Pacific Islanders. Non-Catholic Christians were most likely to be registered donors, followed by Catholics, practitioners of American Indian/Native American traditional religions, and Hindus, with Buddhists the least likely to register.”

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