but how do you decide which errors would affect the outcome and which would not?

By the number of votes involved in the compromises. Which would be large enough in 2020 in key areas to have affected the results.

Next look at Zuckerbucks and illegal drop boxes and all of that monkey business. You cannot prove how many extra people voted in blue precincts because of Zuckerbucks, illegal drop boxes, ballot harvesting, 24 hour drive-through voting, and the like. Did these things affect the outcome? There’s a good argument that they did, but it will never be provable.

The effect on the outcome doesn’t need to be proven – enough votes were involved in the compromises that the election cannot be trusted. The government doesn’t enjoy the presumption of innocence that would allow them to ignore that.

Either they prove the compromises were insufficient to affect the outcome, or they must declare the election untrustworthy and invalid.

The problem with the Trump defense, is the same assumption the GOP Establishment conveniently hid behind IMO … they assumed they had to prove the effect on the outcome, instead of insisting that the compromises involved enough votes to change the outcome and therefore were prima facie evidence that the election could not be trusted … and Congress should have instead moved on to the Constitutional contingency procedure.

If the government follows sound process, with the total number of votes involved in deviations from the process (adjusted for their effect upon Electoral College results) insufficient to change the outcome, the election can be considered legit.

Otherwise it is not.

I dont know how much of the country can be salvaged after these last two years

That also shines a light on the biggest problem that Trump had in 2020. For all the evidence of monkey business, there is no proof whatsoever that the violations of election law changed the outcome, at least at the presidential level. In most states, courts made them keep track of mail-in ballots that wouldn’t have been counted but for ignoring the legal requirements. I don’t know of a single state where the number of improperly counted mail-in ballots exceeded Biden’s margin of victory. (I am aware of a State Senate race in PA where the Democrat won because of illegally counted ballots – it’s no wonder that the radicalized Republican running for Governor is a current State Senator.)

Next look at Zuckerbucks and illegal drop boxes and all of that monkey business. You cannot prove how many extra people voted in blue precincts because of Zuckerbucks, illegal drop boxes, ballot harvesting, 24 hour drive-through voting, and the like. Did these things affect the outcome? There’s a good argument that they did, but it will never be provable.

Another problem is that even if you could prove that a certain number of blue precinct people wouldn’t have bothered to vote without these extra-legal novelties, in the real world those people did vote. You’re proposing to disenfranchise them. Courts don’t like that (which is why the PA State Senate seat ended up going to the Democrat) and the general public isn’t going to like that either.

You might say that Democrats’ extra-legal shenanigans were a fraud magnet. (I agree.) Trump can’t prove enough fraudulent votes to flip any states, meaning that he can’t prove that the outcome of the election was affected. He laughably failed when he attempted to do this in court.

Next look at the Hunter Biden whitewash, which I think was probably the biggest vote-shifter of all. Sure, there are a number of polls suggesting that Trump would have won had it been known that Joe was enabling his corrupt, miscreant son (and taking a cut). There is absolutely no way to prove to effect this had on the election, though. Given the direction that the polls have failed over the last two presidential elections, do you really want to empower Democrats to nullify elections based on polls?

This is why Trump’s legal team never argued the things that Democrats actually did (i.e., ignoring election laws, couting illegal ballots, and the like). It was impossible to prove that those things affected the outcome. Instead, they argued specific instances of fraud and that Dominion voting machines switched votes. Those are things that they could have proven if they had occurred. Unfortunately, neither the specific instances of fraud argued by Trump’s team nor the Dominion theory were supported by evidence, so it was game over.

In short, changing the standard of proof from “Trump was the rightful winner” to “illegality affected the outcome” doesn’t really make a difference. There is no evidence to prove either proposition, and isn’t likely to be in the future given the means that Democrats have used.

(Finally, that doesn’t change if you shift the burden to the government. If it is impossible for a candidate to prove that illegality did affect the outcome, in any close election, it will also be impossible for the government to prove that illegaity didn’t affect the outcome – hence you’re back to chaos.)

I believe I have heard the last from liberal relatives and classmates. One cannot even broach this subject with them.

https://youtu.be/qiAx_Fs6mdQ

The 2020 election process was compromised, well beyond “minor”. Enough so that the outcome remains in doubt except in the eyes of those who wanted Trump out. Therefore no proof of actual acts of fraud are required to justify rejecting the election and moving on to the Constitutional alternative, for the compromises themselves call into question the legitimacy of the election.

The government, as an entity, does not enjoy the presumption of innocence. It has to prove that it did its job right. Proper processes, clearly adhered to, prove that case.

And doubt about the accuracy of the election is itself a source for continued chaos, so legitimate leadership should be concerned about that vector for turmoil, as much as accusations that the President is “selected, not elected”.

Now, it is incumbent upon us and our elected leaders to assure that the design of the processes assures reliability, and not get swindled into expansions of mass-mailed ballots and ballot harvesting that break the chain-of-custody, and/or limits on the total transparency of the tabulation and verification processes.

It’s like the adage that the best way to thwart counterfeiting, is to have a thorough knowledge of the legitimate product.

But we know he always is, because, ketchup.

The result would be chaos. It certainly would lead to the end of the current constitutional arrangement. If you think Democrats are upset about the Electoral College now, wait until you have to hold a majority of state US House delegations in order to win the White House. There would be a revolution.

Exactly, Neo. Process matters.

The compromises in the election processes – junk-mail voting, hasty changes in election rules, and irregular activity in counting the votes; perpetrated by judges, governors and other unauthorized parties in haste in a crisis-not-to-waste – tainted the election as much as bad police procedure taints courtroom evidence that leads to its exclusion … and the government, as opposed to its individual operatives, does not qualify for the presumption of innocence.

“Because we say so” is not sufficient.It is the job of government to proactively prove that this election was on the up-and-up, in the face of those compromises.

And there was/is an existing Constitutional process that could have been used as a remedy for the impasse caused by the compromises – but was IGNORED because too many on the Right either saw an opportunity to preserve their status quo ante by removing the man who was threatening it, or were too timid to risk being blamed for that man being “selected, not elected”. And that was reinforced by the courts ducking their duty to adjudicate the process on technicalities, for the same reasons.

The compromises are all the evidence that is needed, that this election can’t be trusted and should have been sent to the House per the Constitution to vote in a President, not merely certify a compromised election.

Of course, that would have led to Trump winning a second term, and they couldn’t validate 75 million deplorable people like that.