Putin says past U.S. elections were rigged

(Reuters) - Russian President Vladimir Putin, running for a new six-year term in an election that his opponents say is a parody of democracy, said on Tuesday that past U.S. elections had been rigged by postal voting.

“In the United States, previous elections were falsified through postal voting … they bought ballots for $10, filled them out, and threw them into mailboxes without any supervision from observers, and that’s it,” Putin said, without providing evidence.

jordanlund,
@jordanlund@lemmy.world avatar

“In the United States, previous elections were falsified through postal voting … they bought ballots for $10, filled them out, and threw them into mailboxes without any supervision from observers, and that’s it,”

Problem - That’s not the way vote by mail works.

  1. You register to vote and place a signature on file.
  2. You get your ballot in the mail and vote.
  3. You put the ballot in the mailing envelope and sign the back of the envelope.
  4. When the ballot is returned, they compare the signature on the envelope with the signature on file, if it matches, the ballot is set aside for counting.
  5. If there’s a PROBLEM:

A) Missing signature
B) Signature doesn’t match
C) Ballot damaged or unreadable
D) Ballot already recorded as present

The ballot gets returned to the voter for correction, assuming there’s enough time for it to be corrected.

What Putin describes wouldn’t work, because the fake ballots either wouldn’t have a signature, wouldn’t have a valid signature, or wouldn’t correspond to a registered voter.

TigrisMorte,

Plus no one is allowed to supervise your ballot entries.

jordanlund,
@jordanlund@lemmy.world avatar

The supervision is the signature comparison, just like in person voting where you’d go in, sign the register, and they’d compare that signature to the one on file.

TigrisMorte,

"filled them out, and threw them into mailboxes without any supervision from observers" Where does that suggest it is the signature involved? The signature is compared before Voting when Voting in person and after the office receives it when Voting by Mail. It makes no sense that lil' dictator pootie meant the signature in his statement.

jordanlund,
@jordanlund@lemmy.world avatar

Valid ballots have signatures matching the registered voter casting the ballot.

In Putin’s scenario, there are no signatures, the ballots are not associated with registered voters, and as such would be rejected at the polling location.

TigrisMorte,

That is not involved in the supervision of filling them out nor posting them. Both those things happen before or after, not during.

jordanlund,
@jordanlund@lemmy.world avatar

Nobody supervises the filling out of ballots, that’s an entirely private matter.

The only supervision that happens is the comparing of signatures and that happens both at in person and vote by mail voting.

TigrisMorte,

Which is indeed what I stated from the beginning. Well done catching up.

Jiggle_Physics,

Won’t matter, he is speaking directly to MAGAs, and they already believe that this is the truth

henfredemars,

You know how the Nigerian prince scams intentionally use terrible English to filter out the stupid ones?

Half the people you come across are below average. Technology has made it exceptionally effective to target the dumb and vulnerable.

DigitalNirvana,

Bingo! Thank you for taking the time to write that up.

elephantium,
@elephantium@lemmy.world avatar

A lie spreads worldwide before the truth contradicting it can be typed, unfortunately.

nexguy,
@nexguy@lemmy.world avatar

Just like Trump lies, Putin requires that there be no evidence to support his claims. Imagine if Trump actually tried to prove his claims with evidence… it would fail. Even if one ended up true that would be worse as then people would expect him to prove things with evidence in the future.

DrRatso,

I fail to see why it would not work though? Instead of paying 10$ for an empty ballot from a registered voter you pay 10$ for an empty ballot from a registered voter and and their signed envelope?

Like I am not saying this happened, because 10$ ballot sales would probably have made the news around the election, I doubt 10$ buys silence. But like I fail to see how this is impossible?

jordanlund,
@jordanlund@lemmy.world avatar

You can’t get that done in enough bulk to sway the election without getting caught.

DrRatso,

Of course, that was my point with 10$ doesn’t buy silence. Top comment simply seemed to imply that buying blank mail-in ballots is impossible which for sure doesn’t seem to be. I could even see some nut at least trying to buying say 5-10, but ironically I think a Trump supporter is more likely to try to pull this.

jordanlund,
@jordanlund@lemmy.world avatar

Obtaining blank ballots isn’t the trick, it’s obtaining blank ballots attached to valid, registered voters with a signature on file and matching the signature.

You’d have to do that by the thousands to flip an election and it would only take one person going “I already voted? What do you mean I already voted?” to rumble it.

Even if we just counted ballots with no verification, which we don’t, you’d end up with overcounts which we know did not happen. “Hey, this county only has 5,000 registered voters, how did we get 30,000 ballots?”

DrRatso,

The point is you offer someone who registered for mail in to simply sell you their ballot along with a signed envelope. I would vager doing this for a few votes would be fairly easy. Certainly plenty of poor voters would easily sell a vote. Idk about 10, but for 20-50 bucks? For sure. I would imagine someone selling a vote would be less likely to come forward in some respect too, so if you target the right people, at some minor scale you would even get away with it no problem.

Yes this is obviously not happening, not at scale anyway, and certainly not enough to flip the election. But the idea that this is particularly hard in itself, let alone impossible, is absurd.

jordanlund,
@jordanlund@lemmy.world avatar

Oh, yeah, small scale voting fraud has always been a thing.

When we first set up vote by mail 23 years ago, Republican operatives got the bright idea to set up fake ballot drop off locations. The idea was go to Democratic heavy areas, collect the ballots, then just throw them away.

They were arrested. LOL.

Last election cycle there were multiple reports of people doing double voting for family members, they also got caught.

So when small scale stuff like this gets exposed and prosecuted, the idea that fraud on a scale big enough to turn an election would go un-noticed is just laughable.

Yewb,

I love the logic pivot on people who in the 90s thought russia was just straight up evil are now looking at them as the bastion of conservative ideals…

Go move to Russia boys, oh you don’t want to? Why not they apparently have it all figured out.

xmunk,

Source: Trust me bro Trump.

Theprogressivist,
@Theprogressivist@lemmy.world avatar

And watch MAGA eat this shit up.

jas0n,

This 100%. The Russian propaganda to right wing talking heads pipeline is just so painfully obvious.

gibmiser,

Why would putin lie about such a thing? I’m going to blindly believe him since it confirms my existing beliefs.

meco03211,

I mean, he does know a thing or two about rigged elections.

echodot,

I don’t know, technically killing your opponents isn’t really rigging the election.

Rigging an election is something subtle, and Putin doesn’t really do subtle. They don’t even bother to make their murders look like accidents anymore.

PugJesus,
PugJesus avatar

MAGA and tankies. I'd say strange bedfellows, but honestly, they're not that different beyond what shade of red they prefer to be painted.

rockSlayer,

Is the tanky in the room with us right now?

PugJesus,
PugJesus avatar

Considering we're on Lemmy? In all likelihood, yes.

rockSlayer, (edited )

Well, I gotta say that you’re the first person I’ve encountered that didn’t immediately feel shame for randomly bringing up a totally irrelevant political faction after that question. I suppose the next question is, what do you consider a tanky? Anyone left of democrats? Or do you have a more specific definition in mind?

Edit: downvote me all you want, but this is a legitimate question. I’m a type of anarchist that advocates for mutual aid, industrial unionism, and a complete decentralization of power. I’ve been called a tanky because I support tenant unions.

cmbabul,

I’m literally standing in the position you described and no one has ever called me a tankie, if you think China and the USSR were/are positive forces for common people, want to accelerate the collapse of the US, and/or have Anakin Skywalker tendencies (“then they should be made to”) you’re a tankie. If not you most likely aren’t a tankie

rockSlayer,

Do you consider Michael Parenti a tanky?

cmbabul,

Never heard of him so I couldn’t say one way or the other

rockSlayer,

Fair enough I suppose. He’s a historian and political activist, and one of the most prominently published marxists in the later half of the 20th century. He wrote classics like Democracy for the Few, Black Shirts and Reds, A People’s History of Ancient Rome, Against Empire, To Kill a Nation, and many more. He was one of the faces of protest against the Vietnam War, and broke off his friendship with Sanders because Bernie supported the bombing of Yugoslavia.

boredtortoise,

How does he view something like China or Stalin?

rockSlayer,

He hasn’t written or given many speeches about those topics from what I’ve seen, so I couldn’t say for certain.

boredtortoise,

OK, too bad. They’d be quite telling

cmbabul,

I just realized I have one of his books in my audible library, I’d counter recommend The Philosophy of Social Ecology by Murray Bookchin and The Dawn of Everything by David Graeber and David Wengrow, based on the ideas you described two comments ago I think you’d get a lot out of both

rockSlayer,

I’ll have to check them out, honest to goodness I love expanding my understanding of political philosophy.

PugJesus,
PugJesus avatar

Don't bother. Tankies and their apologists don't argue in good faith.

rockSlayer,

Lmao, so you’re calling me a tanky now, because I dared to ask a relevant question about your opinion?

PugJesus,
PugJesus avatar

Sorry for not falling for the "I don't know what a tankie even is here on the Fediverse, but I'm also 100% sure that they aren't a problem and you're exaggerating, pwease spoon-feed me what it means"

rockSlayer, (edited )

So you’re just going to ignore the weaponization of the word across the political spectrum to the point where it’s actually a pointless accusation?

If you think I was JAQing, I’ll dispell that right now by giving the brief history for you and others. The origin of the term Tanky is from British marxists who used it as a term to seperate themselves from other British marxists that supported the brutal crushing of a worker revolt in Hungary, and has since turned into a term (by, for, and directed at) leftists that unequivocally support totalitarianism coming from a leftist perspective. Some leftists have also expanded that meaning to be people that identify with Marxist-Leninism. Others still use it to degrade people that want a scientific analysis of the successes and failures of other socialist projects. The alt-right uses it to disparage anyone with leftist sympathies. Liberals picked it up and use it to disparage people left of liberals.

Sorry for trying to have a common understanding I guess.

FlorianSimon,

Yes, we’re going to ignore it, tankie apologist. Because it doesn’t exist. We know what we’re talking about when we use the word.

Don’t want to be called a tankie? Well, don’t be one. It’s that simple.

rockSlayer,

Common language is essential to understanding for a conversation to move forward. Case in point, I want to know what the USSR did well and I want to know what their failures were, so we can make an attempt at a better socialist experiment and prevent a Stalin from cropping up. An important part of that is seeing past the decades of propaganda and loaded language in the coverage of Western media. Seeking that kind of knowledge is known as scientific socialism. More than a few people call that “tanky”, despite not fitting the definition of “unequivocally supports totalitarianism”.

FlorianSimon, (edited )

Looking for the truth on the USSR and Russia’s socialist period is absolutely fine. What I don’t want to see here or anywhere is people making excuses for genocide under the pretext that the atrocities have been committed by reds or ex-reds. That shit is unacceptable.

The word tankie can absolutely be misattributed, yes. But it’s not a significant problem. The criticism mostly comes from good-faith, actual leftists, who have nothing to gain from smearing campaigns and know what they’re talking about.

The existence of people on Lemmy (aka tankies) cheering when innocents die because they happen to be born in the wrong country is revulsing, and a bigger issue.

rockSlayer,

I consider it’s misuse a much bigger problem than actual tankies. Tankies are a vast minority in leftist spaces, even on the Internet. They are a totally irrelevant faction to anything, especially national politics. I suppose we won’t see eye to eye here.

On the rest, I absolutely agree. I’m the active mod of !leftism and our top rule is no genocide denial. Every comment I’ve removed on the subject has been in support of Israel killing civilians, so I don’t think it has anything to do with tankies in the first place.

FlorianSimon,

If you hadn’t replied to PugJesus, this would have remained a comment among many others, and reduced the visibility of antitankie comments. Now, you’ve made this a whole thread.

Just let it slide. Don’t jump to their defense. Let the actual tankies marginalize themselves into oblivion and you’ll help solve 2 Lemmy problems at once: tankism, and abusive antitankism (since there won’t be a need for genuine antitankism anymore).

What could have been a quick “aye, fuck tankies” is creating entire threads, and makes us talk about it.

krashmo,

Aren’t you tired of conversations like this? It doesn’t matter what label any of us use to describe our political views. We don’t have the power to implement them. Those that do don’t give a fuck what we think. We’re all just yelling at the perceived other while we watch things deteriorate.

rockSlayer,

Actually, I am. I’m sick of purity tests, infighting, and a disorganized left. That doesn’t mean that I don’t have any power. I have local power; we all do. I have tactical agreement with Democrats for a progressive future, that doesn’t make me a Democrat.

I can influence local politics to have a progressive local government. With enough people doing this in their local government, we influence regions and states to be more progressive and push the country forward to a more equitable and just society. My weapon of choice is organizing a union at my work. Once we win, I’m going to organize my apartment complex. Once we win, I’m going to organize my broader community.

FlorianSimon,

No alliance is possible with cosplay communists defending genocide. It’s not about purity.

Hyperreality,

Cosplay communists.

No one who's an actual communist would support Yeltsin and the Oligarchs' friend Putin.

VikingHippie,

You’re discounting the many actual communists that are also actual idiots.

Idiots who truly believe in communism, but also think that the fascist Russian government and the equally repressive Chinese one are that.

Theprogressivist,
@Theprogressivist@lemmy.world avatar

they’re not that different beyond what shade of red they prefer to be painted.

CCP Red or Kremlin Rouge

irreticent,
@irreticent@lemmy.world avatar

Rather be a Russian

NegativeLookBehind,
NegativeLookBehind avatar

I prefer them in Ukrainian Missile Crimson

MonsiuerPatEBrown,

President for life speaks about elections being a bad thing.

thehill.com/…/505807-vladimir-putin-becomes-russi…

guyrocket,
guyrocket avatar

He should know.

BeautifulMind,
@BeautifulMind@lemmy.world avatar

Rhetoric of this sort just promotes distrust in election systems, which of course prompts demagogues like Trump to promise voters they can fix it if they gain power. The fun thing here is that the right here needs you to believe things that aren’t true in order to justify them doing a coup, the stupid thing is that stupid people take this kind of talk seriously.

But seriously, American voting is relatively secure- it’s just that where lawmakers don’t want voters deciding the ‘wrong’ way they’ve gerrymandered them into districts to prevent them doing it, and they’ve done things to strip voters of their voting rights and to suppress voting and to make it inconvenient or difficult to vote. This has been a bipartisan thing in the past, but today the GOP are the chief offenders.

Also, Putin’s Russia is in the stage of democracy where elections are an exercise in flaunting the death of democracy itself, and nobody should ever take his talk about elections as being in good faith, ever

fidodo,

There’s plenty of injustice in our voting system but it’s all out in the open. Seriously, why go through the tremendous amount of risk and effort needed to fake votes when there are plenty of ways to sway the election in broad daylight?

ivanafterall,
ivanafterall avatar

Seeing Putin Gaddafi'd is on my bucket list.

ReallyActuallyFrankenstein,

Cool story.

Why is it so hard for people to judge credibility? It’s just (1) listen to a statement, (2) ask if what a person is saying directly benefits them and (3) if it does, require evidence to believe it.

We know this is not credible because by saying it, Putin diverts attention from his own corrupt election and normalizes election fraud. So did he provide evidence? No. So it should be ignored.

Can’t we all just… Do that?

objectionist,
@objectionist@lemmy.world avatar

it’s 2024, credibility has been defenestrated

slaacaa,

“Nooo, you don’t understand. I agree with what he says, so I don’t need evidence”

  • MAGA idiots
GiddyGap,

So, Putin and Trump are on the same page…? Color me surprised.

Waluigis_Talking_Buttplug,

I mean

The Bush family rigged W’s election against AI Gore. Why did that get swept under the rug?

Maggoty,

If by rigged you mean they stole it in broad daylight and got SCOTUS to aid in that then yeah. We haven’t forgotten.

theotherverion,

Because russian elections are the most transparent ones!!

AshMan85,

He would know. He was the one providing the outside interference

echodot,

And he wouldn’t lie would he. Internationally known as being a reasonable person that he is.

God, what a stupid article, why the hell was this even reported? Oh never mind it’s Yahoo news, that’s why

acceptable_pumpkin,

$10 a ballot sounds steep. I wonder if they offered a Costco sized box for cheaper? Maybe people should look for ballots off a knock-off site.

badhops,

I saw an empty slot at my Costco where the Kirkland ballots were supposed to be

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