I know that Harris put up zero fight about it. I infer that she believed it to be legitimate.

That's not definitive, to be sure. But it's sufficient for me to believe that we did this to ourselves. Now all we can do is figure out how we're going to get through it.

Maybe I'm too optimistic, but I think actual election fraud, big enough to steal an election, would be too big to miss.

Yes, it might only take a small number of votes in the right place, but either you somehow know the right place, or you have to move a lot of votes.

There's a reasonable discussion to be had along the lines of 'these guys seem to be doing everything they whine about', but could they get a big operation done without a) bragging openly about it, b) leaving a big trail, or c) having a falling out with a conspirator who then tells all.

Adding on, certainly gerrymandering and voter supression laws affect voting results, but I have trouble calling that stealing an election.

Points B and C are believable. Constant headlines about screw ups like the signal chats and sloppy handling of data from doge

Trump did thank that "very popular guy. He was very effective. And he knows those computers better than anybody. All those computers, those vote counting computers, and we won Pennsylvania in a landslide." If Biden or Obama had said something like that the nation would be in uproar.

https://www.youtube.com/live/kdvpXxXVyok?si=XALuK7No9-PLQBAr...

Also consider the circumstantial evidence of Musk illegally promising to pay people (via lottery) to vote, and then using the defense that the lottery was actually rigged.

If nothing else, that establishes a willingness to tamper with elections.