Besides being false, conspiracy theories about voting machines are a distraction.

What actually happened: Every major institution in the US coordinated to abruptly change voting procedures and filter the information that voters could access. https://time.com/5936036/secret-2020-election-campaign/

Translation: They filed lawsuits to get judges to make unprecedented changes to voting procedures without any new laws passed by the legislature.

These procedures were abruptly implemented and confused people. If you want to change voting laws, you can't do it like that.

I'm sure that the tech companies genuinely believed that they were informing the public and fighting disinformation when they stopped people from being allowed to share the Hunter Biden story.

There was no introspection about whether they should be the ones to decide.

Remember: Florida completed its voting on Election Night. Other states could have done it too, and there would be fewer conspiracy theories.

The PR campaign should have been pressuring states to fix their counting, not telling Americans that taking weeks to count is acceptable.

Unprecedented use of mail ballots were literally a Democratic strategy.

Does that make the election "rigged"? No, but it introduces a longer chain of custody, an extra layer of complexity, and more opportunities to screw up. New York is still counting!

This is the money quote. And again, no votes were changed by voting machines.

So let's not use the word "rigged."

What do you call a "well-funded cabal" that attempts to "control the flow of information"? Remember, these are Time's words in praise of the operation.

"Corrupting the voting process in key states" is not defined, but it presumably means "not changing the preexisting voting laws."

Remember: Ohio and Florida have had TONS of mail voting for yeras, and don't have these issues.

Time doesn't bother to explain the difference between deliberate planning of election procedures and the chaos in places like New York.

Note how they lump multiple things together:
- Protective equipment (good!)
- Informing voters of their options (good!)
- Abruptly changing voting procedures via a lawsuit (controversial)

"15 million people in key states"

Whatever this is, it's not a neutral "Everyone should vote" message. Who were the 15 million? How were they identified? What was their partisan affiliation?

Because the group itself is openly not neutral: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Voter_Participation_Center

It's not a "rigged" conspiracy theory to point out that when voting procedures change so suddenly, the outcome of the election will change as well.

Coordinated censorship in the name of "policing disinformation" is BY FAR the most pernicious aspect of this whole thing.

When you affect what ppl are allowed to see, you'll affect their beliefs.

Big tech assumed unprecedented power to filter what people freely choose to share.

This part is reasonable. The only issue is whether voting should be so complicated that you need a $20 million PR campaign to teach people about it.

Like I said before: What's better than teaching people to wait a few weeks for election results is fixing your election procedures so they don't have to wait a few weeks for election results.

Be like Florida.

This is implied to be a neutral voter participation effort, but it's really just describing techniques for getting out the vote in areas that are likely Democratic voting.

Why is the Chamber of Commerce issuing ANY statement about election procedures?

Emphasizing for the millionth time: Not rigged, just weird.

In an article talking about the importance of being patient about vote counts, it's ironic to see the premature call of Arizona as a success. This doesn't instill confidence.

Biden won by 0.3%, and the person who made the call was fired.

I believe that Joe Biden got more votes than Donald Trump in Michigan.

But there were many stories of insufficient transparency around the voter counters. If you want to instill trust, you have to let people see what's going on.

On one hand: Sure, go ahead and say that the vote count should be certified.

On the other hand: The following paragraph engages in conspiracy theories about how Trump will rig the election.

Not mentioned in this piece: "I know that everyone here will soon be marching over to the Capitol building to peacefully and patriotically make your voices heard."

TIME's quote: "very special"

Actual quote: "We love you. You're very special. Go home."

They twisted a call for peace into a call for violence.

What kind of reforms?

The narrative coming after the Capitol riot is that we were THIS close to the fall of democracy.

Too much storytelling, not enough reality.