Many of the hard-core sympathizers haven't heard anything else than all the allegations of fraud and stealing. This works when the psychopath in chief commit these crimes himself, and then projects it to the next unsuspecting victim. Thus the feelings are real, but the real fraud is the criminal cult leaders. Since people believe feelings, or feel to validate thoughts, this works all too well!

While I have no way of knowing if that's true, it's not too hard to take a few flaws in how our perception works[0] and a starting point to get to believing in widespread election fraud.

1. I'm a Republican because of policy X.

2. I'm a person that thinks carefully about facts and reason.

3. Trump is the Republican candidate -> President.

4. I voted for the Republican. I must have done that because of #2 (and not just #1.)

5. Trump speaks the truth - he speaks for the people, people like me.

6. Trump believes election fraud is a problem. Combine #4 and #2 and the linked perceptual flaws of selective focus, imagining that election fraud could happen, allowing myths/stories to guide my responses to the things I read... plus I'm carefully thinking about facts and reason, and I voted for Trump, and most of the people in my social network also voted for Trump... it must be the plurality of the nation. My peers are also carefully thinking about facts and reason, and I'm sure the news networks I follow do as well...

This is super simplified and skipping about a thousand steps, and yet, it's really not hard to see almost anyone getting somewhere they never thought they'd end up after years of reading and listening to mostly facts that agree with what Trump tells his believers.

That's probably easier to believe happened than "I want to be an extremist and I want to violently attack Congress when they attempt to certify an election, even though it was a legitimate election."

[0] https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/pieces-mind/201208/f...

That's likely true for some. But many people do belive there was fraud. I think there were some very suspect things about the election. But I read Article II, and the 12th amendment. The congress is directed to count the Electoral votes submitted by the states. It's basically ceremonial, unless there is no majority in the Electoral vote. There is a process defined for that situation. There is not a word about challenging the votes as submitted. Mike Pence was absolutely right.

There may or may not have been fraud in any of the states. But once they certify their Electors, that's it as far as I can see. I honestly don't know if there is a remedy even for clear fraud if the state goes ahead and certifies the results. In theory a state doesn't even need to hold a public vote. The legislature could just appoint the Electors. The founding fathers clearly wrote the constition to give the power of electing the president to the states. Allowing any level of the federal government to override that seems to be a conflict of interest.