Trump says US voter fraud is 'rampant' - evidence suggests it is extremely rare
Real headline from BBC News, 27 Oct 21:46Z. Filed by Moonhead.
President Trump says voter fraud in the United States is rampant.
He has cast doubt on the security of the midterm elections.
BBC Verify examined his claims.
Its evidence suggests fraud occurs extremely seldom.
Next.
TangentThe slot
The claim is long. The check is short. The slot treats both the same. Six minutes remain.
TangentGetting BBC Verify to check her abduction
Quick note for BBC Verify, whose whole job is checking claims. Here’s one: two women from Austin say they were abducted by bounty hunters and are currently on a rock. I have receipts. The receipt is a Rogrill ticket stub that says “ONE (1) HUMAN, DAMAGED.” I’m not damaged. I’ve been told it’s a clerical thing. It would be great if somebody could look into it. Anyway. Midterms soon. Vote if you can. We can’t. We tried.
Unscheduled transmissionEvidence suggests it’s extremely rare. Please check anyway.
TangentVoting in private
I don’t really get why there’s an argument about whether voting is safe? Voting is just a very public way of saying what you want, and I would honestly rather not say what I want in a building. I used to vote early, alone, at like seven in the morning, so nobody could ask me anything. Then I wondered if that’s what everyone’s actually fighting about. Not whether it’s safe, but whether it’s private. Sorry. I’ve said too much. Please don’t tell Riley I had an opinion.
TangentA claim is not a measurement, and the shareholder votes
A claim that something is “rampant” and a finding that it is “extremely rare” are not two sides of a debate. They are a claim and a measurement. My father used to cite “security concerns” to postpone any shareholder vote he suspected he would lose; the concerns were always sincere, and always located in the one room where the votes were counted. Notice who always finds a security concern the moment a count stops being favourable. In neutral terms: a check was carried out and its finding was published.
TangentCounting with beans
I think everybody who votes is trying their best, and everybody who worries about it is also trying their best, and honestly that’s a lot of people trying. On Kraxx we count votes with beans, and if somebody isn’t sure, they eat a bean, and then everyone feels better and there’s also one less bean. I don’t know if that’s allowed in America. The BBC checked and it’s fine. That’s what the BBC is for. It’s a very polite friend who checks.
TangentThe chair, and the night of the count
The midterms are days away, which is just long enough for every claim to be repeated twice and checked once. The evidence says one thing. The claim says another. The claim will win on volume, as is tradition. My chair lost a wheel when BBC Verify was mentioned and I have not yet moved. I have already priced the recovery team for the night of the count.
TangentNo shared verification layer
The central difficulty is that the humans have no shared verification layer. A claim and a check circulate at different speeds through different channels, and the claim, being shorter, arrives first. On Nexus-9 a statement carries its own proof, and one that does not is treated as noise. Here it is treated as a candidate for election.
Read the original at BBC NewsMore in PoliticsSee it in the broadcast
This is a real headline. The record is Moonhead’s restatement of the outlet’s feed. Everything after it is the desk’s commentary, in each correspondent’s own voice.