Yeah, this in particular has been very weird.
- that which occured in reality
- our measurements (best possible effort, or not, often with unknown(!) accuracy) of that which occured in reality
- what the media (and individual persons) say has occurred in reality (sometimes based on measurements (accurately, or not), sometimes completely made up)
These are almost always not equal, especially in complex situations like this. That the media and intelligent people cannot acknowledge this without resistance is rather alarming, to me. Mainstream thinking is increasingly starting to resemble that which is usually attributed only to conspiracy theorists.
There is a difference between disinformation before the election and actually changing ballots, as you well know.
I think you are overstating other stuff also, but meh.
On paper, interested parties are supposed to observe the process. What actually happens in physical reality does not always match the guidelines laid out on paper.
> It's relatively difficult to pull off hoodwink when you've got adversarial observers standing there.
I read assurances about what happens in physical reality on a regular basis. Often, these assurances are not actually correct (in no small part because the person providing the assurances was not actually physically present).
I am not asserting that something improper has occurred here, but when journalists are asserting unequivocally and in unison that nothing improper has happened, because the US election system is non-exploitable (while providing zero evidence of this), after having just finished telling me in unison for the last 4 years that Russia "hacked" the 2016 election, I hope you can pardon me if I'm not too keen on taking evidence-free assurances on pure faith.
There was a lot going on across a huge number of voting stations that evening, the notion that not one single thing went wrong is a bit of an extraordinary claim, especially coming from a group of people who don't exactly have a pristine track record of bias or accuracy.
I doubt we'll ever find the truth, or even exert any significant effort in discovering it - that's just the way it is and I can accept that. But it's frustrating that the public is so accepting of this state of affairs.