From the poll:

> a margin of error of +/- 3.1

The number of Dems you've claimed to support your position is less than the margin of error.

> 98% of Dems think election victory is legitimate

That leaves 2% of Dems that disagree. They aren't wrong in saying their stated figure includes Democratic party voters, just misleading.

> 97% think there was no widespread voter fraud

Assuming this reflects all polled people and not just Democratic party voters, then yes, 3% ≠ 1/3 and they are wrong. Assuming this figure only reflects Democratic party voters, that seems to suggest that 1% of Dems believe that there was widespread fraud, but still think the victory was legitimate.

I apologize if this was misleading, my point was to emphasize that the population involved in the "one third" proportion was not Republicans. (It's a third of Americans, not Republicans.) Thinking a third of Republicans think there was widespread election fraud would be concerning and somewhat surprising (at least to me, given "widespread fraud" is far from being in evidence) so it felt worth emphasizing that was not the population, but it in fact includes polled Democrats and Independents.

In fact, it's much worse than that: a third of Americans believe it (which shows its appeal to centrists and/or the depth of Republican belief), and if you dig into the crosstabs, the number of Independents who believe it (approx 1/3rd) and Republicans who believe it (approx 3/4ths) is quite concerning. For such an extreme question ('widespread fraud') I would have expected this to be a fringe belief. The belief that would have made these numbers less surprising would have been questions such as "do you believe there is some evidence of targetted fraud" etc. Given that I'd suspect nearly 100% of Republicans believe some form of fraud occurred. If so, the entire losing party believes they were cheated to some degree. This isn't a recipe for reduced conflict from here. It means that the radical end of the party is large enough to be meaningful, and it means that large parts of the population will be less likely to condemn actions they take given the widespread shared beliefs.

Did you read the poll?

> Do you believe there was widespread voter fraud in the 2020 presidential election, or not?

> 77% R

> 3% D

> 35% I

To feel secure that this isn't going to spill over into a conflict, we should expect to see a similarly marginal number of I's and ideally less R's (this should be a fringe belief in the Republican party, but it's not.) This question is the most extreme form of the issue, as well. (Few ought to believe widespread fraud definitely occurred, many more likely believe it’s possible strategically targeted fraud occurred, a much weaker stance but similarly dangerous.)

I'm guessing you'll just assume the I's are closet Republicans. But don't blame me if you aren't willing to face reality that this skepticism is not just going to go away through coercion.

> I'm guessing you'll just assume the I's are closet Republicans.

While this may have shifted a bit since 2019, 38% of the public identify as independents, but 13% are R-leaning independent, 17% are R-leaning, and 7% aren't leaners. [0]

If you assume leaners are exactly like partisans and further assume the non-leaners are stealth leaners split equally between the two parties, you'd predict 36% of I’s would believe in large scale fraud. If you force all non-leaners to the D side or all to R side, you get a predicted range of 28%-44%.

So, yeah, the results actually seen (35% of Is believing in widespread fraud) are very consistent with the “independent" numbers being entirely predicted by partisan bias of “independents” combined with whatever factors drive the distribution of beliefs among party identifiers, with nothing nonpartisan about “independents” on this issue.

[0] https://www.pewresearch.org/politics/2019/03/14/political-in...

No I figure independents are split. The 35% value makes me think that half of them lean liberal or progressive.

Would you agree that Independents, regardless of their internal preference, are a good barometer of centrists vs extremists? I do. And as such, we ought to want arguably 'radical' beliefs like that there was widespread fraud to be marginal in such groups if we want to feel confident it isn't something that needs addressing to avoid conflict over it.

> Would you agree that Independents, regardless of their internal preference, are a good barometer of centrists vs extremists?

No, the US distribution of political beliefs is not a unidimensional center-weighted distribution. More independents are either extremists outside the main parties on the main axis between the parties or sitting equally far off on axes orthogonal to that axis than are centrists.

And most centrists are in the neoliberal capitalist faction of one or the other for the major parties.

I meant specifically on this issue, which clearly, due to its nature, is highly partisan along R/D lines given the fairly obvious incentives to believe one way or another to gain power. Do you think on this specific issue (that the election was stolen) that Independents ought to tell us a bit about what the average, non-partisan belief is?

> Do you think on this specific issue (that the election was stolen) that Independents ought to tell us a bit about what the average, non-partisan belief

Not in any meaningful sense; largely for related limits to those discussed upthread for general centrism: research on voting behavior that has shown those who identify as independents are not particular independent, and contain an identifiable major subset as reliably partisan as those who identify with a major party.

If by “average, non-partisan belief” you simply mean the belief of the average person who doesn't identify with a major party, then, sure, you will have defined it such that independents are key. But this isn't useful information.

I guess this leads to the question of if there is any way to use polls to get a read on how apolitical observers feel on a given issue through party affiliation. It sounds like the answer you have is "no", but I guess that leaves little value in polls in issues such as this one, given the salient issue (at least, to me) is how strongly it is held by non-partisans. I guess not for this thread.

> I guess this leads to the question of if there is any way to use polls to get a read on how apolitical observers feel on a given issue through party affiliation

There is no such thing as apolitical observers.

Obviously - but partisanship isn’t a zero or one

My main criticism was claiming Dems support your position. I'm sure there are a few, but not enough to really matter.

Otherwise, I see the extended "election fraud" campaign as an excuse to squeeze out more money for Trump (bad), generate emotional support for the Georgia election (good), and help a guy in Texas get a pardon (lol).

I didn't claim Dems support this position. Beyond that, claiming that "there is widespread fraud" is "my" position, when I've stated otherwise clearly, shows more bias on your part. What makes you think I think there was widespread fraud? Perhaps you're projecting: if you defend people who are being suppressed and ridiculed, this doesn't mean you agree with them. Perhaps you are only able to imagine defending people you agree with?

I realize how what I wrote could be construed saying D's support the claim, especially if you presume I'm some kind of partisan hack trying to troll you. In fact, what I was emphasizing (poorly) was that the population sampled from which has one third of support includes Democrats and Independents, since I would have found one third of just Republicans believing there was widespread fraud to be somewhat surprising. I should have written "sampled from a population that includes Democrats and Independents" - I'd like to assume everything else I've written in this thread is evidence I'm not trying to trick anyone or score points. I am genuinely concerned at the level of dismissal, ridicule, and suppression of skeptics of the election, since the floor on this is a third of the country and history tells us what to expect when you leave that many feeling powerless to overcome a presumed deep injustice via speech, voting, and the legal system.