Wikipedia, bastion of ... some unknown level of bias ... in some direction ... summarizes the Heartland Institute thusly:
"The Heartland Institute is an American conservative and libertarian public policy think tank known for its rejection of both the scientific consensus on climate change and the negative health impacts of smoking."
Libertarian, now that's an angle I will give the benefit of the doubt to. But conservative, that's got a pretty narrow focus these days, and I would not put it past them to cook the books on a poll pretty seriously in order to chase down the conclusion they want, which is unequivocally "there was massive fraud".
If you chase that link just a little, it goes straight to heartland.org , where the original "article" is posted, plus at least three additional "articles" written with the same alarmist tone, each pointing back to the first. Crucially, there is absolutely no information provided about HOW the survey was conducted, whether by calling people, stopping people on the street ... or just by putting up a web page on their own site and dumping the link into their own office chat group. It also makes zero mention of WHERE these people are, which is a bit of a smoking gun itself, in that the only way to even pretend to collect results without having the slightest idea where your respondents are is by using an anonymous online form. Two egregious strikes against this information being legitimate. And third, zero reference to any kind of tabular data, and zero reference to who specifically conducted the poll or the preparation of the results.
So, long story short, this is indistinguishable from outright, deliberately fabricated bullshit.
Which makes it a hard sell, claiming that since approximately 200 people in their "results" helped someone else fill out a ballot, there must have been approximately eleven million fraudulent votes in the last presidential election. (140,000,000 votes x 0.40 voted by mail x 0.20 supposed frauds) Which is exactly the conclusion they (and their screen-shotted Trump social media tirade) dive for, with zero hesitation.
So, which would I be more likely to accuse of fraud? The entirety of the national election apparatus ... or the fucking Heartland Institute?
Also, as far as I can tell, the election was not decided by "40,000 votes across multiple swing states," unless you do some serious tinkering with the definition of a "swing state". The margin in Florida alone, the epitome of a swing state, was 370,000 votes.
Credits & Style Info
Talk Politics. A place to discuss politics without egomaniacal mods
![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png){kind=small}
(no subject)
Date: 20/12/23 19:03 (UTC)"The Heartland Institute is an American conservative and libertarian public policy think tank known for its rejection of both the scientific consensus on climate change and the negative health impacts of smoking."
Libertarian, now that's an angle I will give the benefit of the doubt to. But conservative, that's got a pretty narrow focus these days, and I would not put it past them to cook the books on a poll pretty seriously in order to chase down the conclusion they want, which is unequivocally "there was massive fraud".
If you chase that link just a little, it goes straight to heartland.org , where the original "article" is posted, plus at least three additional "articles" written with the same alarmist tone, each pointing back to the first. Crucially, there is absolutely no information provided about HOW the survey was conducted, whether by calling people, stopping people on the street ... or just by putting up a web page on their own site and dumping the link into their own office chat group. It also makes zero mention of WHERE these people are, which is a bit of a smoking gun itself, in that the only way to even pretend to collect results without having the slightest idea where your respondents are is by using an anonymous online form. Two egregious strikes against this information being legitimate. And third, zero reference to any kind of tabular data, and zero reference to who specifically conducted the poll or the preparation of the results.
So, long story short, this is indistinguishable from outright, deliberately fabricated bullshit.
Which makes it a hard sell, claiming that since approximately 200 people in their "results" helped someone else fill out a ballot, there must have been approximately eleven million fraudulent votes in the last presidential election. (140,000,000 votes x 0.40 voted by mail x 0.20 supposed frauds) Which is exactly the conclusion they (and their screen-shotted Trump social media tirade) dive for, with zero hesitation.
So, which would I be more likely to accuse of fraud? The entirety of the national election apparatus ... or the fucking Heartland Institute?
Also, as far as I can tell, the election was not decided by "40,000 votes across multiple swing states," unless you do some serious tinkering with the definition of a "swing state". The margin in Florida alone, the epitome of a swing state, was 370,000 votes.