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Talk to people. This is actually fairly common. Many people don't follow politics closely enough to make informed decisions about ballot questions, and plenty of others simply don't care. Lots of people couldn't name the mayor of their town, their US Representative, or even their Senators. Plenty of people will go there to vote for one thing and ignore the rest because they either don't know or simply can't be bothered.
If I recall reading correctly, I think the average for this is about 1-2% of voters per state. I know there's some controversy because that number is higher in battleground states, but these are Trump voters we're talking about here, and I could easily see them turn out in droves for their god-king and ignore the rest of the ballot, because the only thing they cared about was getting Trump back into office. No reason for a Trump voter to do that in California, because it isn't going to matter. Pennsylvania is a completely different story, which is probably why we're seeing it happen so much in battleground states.
It's wildly worse than you think. The number of bullet ballots in swing states is around 5-12% of the total vote counts. It's a statistical anomaly that ONLY exists in the swing states. Other things to consider:
There's odd, and then there's statistical improbability. We're boarding on fucking bizarre, and it's shocking that people aren't making a bigger deal than this.
Really agree with your final statement. I've been saying since the day after the election that it's fucking weird how quickly it was accepted that he won after they tried to steal it last time and for the last couple years have been openly bragging that they had better plans this time and Trump repeatedly telling his voters that they don't need to bother, he has the votes already, they don't have to bother voting.
I'm not saying it was stolen. I have no evidence it was (none that it wasn't either), but the fact that everyone just accepted it, immediately, without even trying to look into the possibility is incredibly disappointing.
I like how Jon Stewart put it this week:
"Republicans rely on loopholes, while Democrats rely on norms."
His whole thing this week was begging the Democrats to fight, to start getting dirty, throwing punches, to basically just not roll over.
But he kept reiterating the Dems need to get over the norms, they need to stop relying on the norms. He cited the hypocrisy of not approving Garland, but rushing through Amy Coney Barrett, and showed how the Dems brought McConnell's own words to the floor of the Senate.
"And thus, Amy Coney Barrett, head hung, was forced to return to her homestead in-- Wait, what's that? They didn't give a fuck?!"
Or the Parliamentarian not allowing something Biden proposed to move forward, and Biden just rolled over. "Oh, uh, we didn't know about that rule."
I'm incredibly disappointed too, they're supposed to fight for us, regardless of circumstances, and we get... The response we get. I completely agree the GOP and Trump were telling us they were going to steal it, and had precedent that clearly tried to last time, and the Dems just... Accepted it. The GOP launched dozens of lawsuits and recounts over handfuls of ballots, but the Dems have just moved on despite these statistical anomalies.
Not a great way to maintain your already waning support among your voting base: telling them they need to fight and support them in their fight, and then they just stop fighting.
This we knew was going to happen long ago, but I do not recall any reports of those threats impacting operations or vote counts.
This is where we get into dangerous territory. You cannot claim there were issues with tabulation software or any of the other technical issues I've heard bandied about, to the point where every state went significantly redder, while still saying that our elections are free, fair, safe, and secure. Because it allows Trump and MAGA to beg the question: If it happened in 2024, who's to say it didn't happen in 2020? Who's to say it won't happen again in 2028? Go down this path, and good luck being able to convince anybody that our elections are or were close to legitimate ever again.
Polls haven't gotten Trump right in 10 years. If you're still looking at polls when discussing Trump, that's the first thing you're doing wrong.
Sometimes, longshots pay off.
It's pretty simple. Take a look at what the vote tabulation total says, then take a look at how many people showed up to the polls. The numbers should be equal, down to the ballot. And remember, all 50 states went redder. If there was a problem, surely someone in a blue state would have. You can't be that far off without it showing up somewhere, and if nobody noticed that preliminary counts were off, that again points to a systematic failure of our election system across the country.
Nobody noticed the internet traffic of whatever supposed hackers manipulating the system in real time? Not a single district noticed counts that didn't match poll attendance? That's the thing. Even if you are 100% absolutely correct, that means that either our systems are so bug-ridden that it could be off by millions of votes, or so insecure that they can be infiltrated and manipulated by hackers without a trace. There are numerous fail-safes to ensure integrity up and down the process, and if the counts are off by that much, that means multiple protections across all 50 states failed, meaning that the election integrity we've been professing we have for the past four years doesn't exist.
I honestly think Elon Musk hacked the voting machines with STarlink
None of the security experts are thinking that though. Nor does any of the aggregated data support such a hypothesis at the moment. Is it possible? Sure, but I would be hesitant to believe anything without substantial evidence.