What Went Down At The California Recall Election: Live Results

Oh, that’s interesting, Kaleigh. I guess I wonder how big that pretty-far-down-the-rabbit-hole group is, though. I would think it’s not nearly as big as Republican voters who believe in fraud in the abstract but aren’t trading detailed conspiracies online. And it’s that latter group that I would imagine perhaps not turning out if a candidate’s campaign tells them the result is predetermined.

This is a textbook example from a Telegram user posting in the chatroom for a QAnon influencer who has close to 100,000 followers on the chat app. This illustrates the perspective of many on the right nicely:

The thinking is that the fraud occurs in many different ways but that the audits and reviews will count the real votes, which Republicans still need to cast today so the “right” result will be revealed eventually.

It’s important to understand the mindset of many Republican voters currently, which is that fraud is a predetermined conclusion. They’re expectation is that Newsom will win but that his win will be illegitimate, and that once the fraud is exposed, Elder will be declared the “true” winner. Many are still waiting for this to happen with the 2020 election results. So (possibly accidentally) publishing a website that prematurely declares Newsom the winner wouldn’t be shocking to those voters, and they will go forward as planned while tracking any “evidence” of fraud they spot during the process of casting a ballot.