Claim: As of 2024, elections in the U.S. are free and fair.

From usa.gov: "The Electoral College decides who will be elected president and vice president of the U.S. Learn who is involved and how the process works.
In other U.S. elections, candidates are elected directly by popular vote. But the president and vice president are not elected directly by citizens. Instead, they are chosen by "electors" through a process called the Electoral College."


The Electoral College was never a perfect system. The details of how it works came from a compromise between doing a democratic popular vote or deciding the presidency in The House of Representatives. Over time the laws surrounding The Electoral College, and how it's used in each state, have been changed in an attempt to make it more fair. That isn't exactly what's happened though and most of the original intent behind it has changed. For instance, it never assumed there would be political parties. The first step to the electoral college is that The State has political parties select candidates to be electors. This takes the control out of  the hands of the people, or anyone who the people chose to represent them. Something that was never intended by either side of the debate that created the electors. Adding to the chaos, the constitution doesn’t actually outline the way in which The States pick their electors. The Founders made a lot of assumptions about what would happen, and couldn’t plan for many of the ways in which society developed. This has resulted in creating a Frankenstein's Monster that chooses who will run the country for 4 years. There is no real way to have a fair election right now. We technically don’t even know how to.

Research by Computer Science  Dept of Rice University in 2003

- Computer scientists have been warning of the security shortcomings of electronic voting systems, sparking controversy
- code for these systems have been closed-source, and not certified by any third-parties - which the vendors assert is necessary for security. not allowing for study by gen pop
- Recently (circa2003), source code purported to be by one of these major mfgs of the voting systems was leaked on the internet - same MFG's product was used during Georgia's state-wide elections in 2002, after which Maryland paid them 55.6mil to deliver touch screen voting systems.
- unique opportunity for study of the source code demonstrates fallacy of closed source argument.
- analysis show the voting system is far below the most minimal security standards applicable in other contexts

1) unauthorized privilege escalation
2) incorrect use of cryptography
3) vulnerabilities to network threats
4) poor software development processes
ex: common voters can cast unlimited votes without being detected by any mechanisms within the voting terminal
5) even the most serious outsider attacks could be discovered WITHOUT the source code. Outsiders can do serious damage

In Sum: electronic voting must be carefully considered due to it's inherent flaws

States have different rules to restore voting rights for felons. Since each state make their own rules, this is inharently UNFAIR. 

Many states have recently enacted laws that make it easier or more difficult to vote. This could result in a larger number of fraudulent votes or potentially disenfranchise certain groups of voters. 

Broken machines. I haven't watched the documentary but a friend who works in the insurance industry did a random effects study and determined that the probability of the measured change in voting distribution under dominion machines was <0.05 for multiple samples.

Turns out that there could be some 19 million US residents with a felony conviction, so relative disenfranchisement of this group could significantly affect elections, and that effect could be directed based on how it is done and in which stages.

This is a summary of many of the investigations (that actually were completed unlike many court cases that never even made it to trial due to 'lack of standing'.  

Courts (and discovery) are not the arbiters of truth. Quite the opposite  - they simply want to find a way out of making tough choices so they  usually punt - like "you don't have standing' is a great way to avoid  taking a case.  They tend to do the 'politically correct' thing rather  than the right thing.  When the whole system is corrupt, you don't get  fair outcomes, you just reinforce the bad.

In this article it cites numerous judicial experts (from both sides of  the aisle) who admit that our judicial system is corrupt and broken.

Many states have recently enacted laws that make it easier or more difficult to vote. This could result in a larger number of fraudulent votes or potentially disenfranchise certain groups of voters.

The electoral college helps to ensure that presidential candidates can't just focus on the highest populations to get votes. 
When using the electoral college even issues that are not prevelent in metropelean areas are given weight and a voice. 

tldr: Trump and others filed 62 lawsuits claiming election fraud in the 2020 election, and so far none have ruled in his favor. In fact, the electronic voting systems have filed defamation suits against his team and others making claims of election fraud. This all seems to suggest that the 2020 election was at least fair in terms of voting process.

Quotes from Wikipedia:

"After the 2020 United States presidential election, the campaign for incumbent President Donald Trump and others filed 62 lawsuits contesting election processes, vote counting, and the vote certification process in 9 states... Nearly all the suits were dismissed or dropped due to lack of evidence or lack of standing, including 30 lawsuits that were dismissed by the judge after a hearing on the merits. Among the judges who dismissed the lawsuits were some appointed by Trump himself."

"Only one ruling was initially in Trump's favor: the timing within which first-time Pennsylvania voters must provide proper identification if they wanted to “cure” their ballots. This ruling affected very few votes, and it was later overturned by the Pennsylvania Supreme Court."

"Dominion Voting Systems brought defamation lawsuits against former Trump campaign lawyers Sidney Powell and Rudy Giuliani, each for $1.3 billion. Smartmatic brought a defamation lawsuit against Fox Corporation and its anchors Lou Dobbs, Maria Bartiromo, and Jeanine Pirro as well as Giuliani and Powell for $2.7 billion."  <The fact that they brought defamation suits means they opened themselves up to discovery, which seems to indicate they had nothing to hide.

Tufts has aggregated research from ANES and CCES that shows that independently conducted exit polling consistently matches the official vote totals. Even in cases of the widest discrepancies, the difference is too small to shift any but the closest elections.

"The role of a poll watcher is to observe and monitor the election, without violating voter privacy or disrupting the election." Having independent poll watchers helps to ensure election integrity. 

"Often, political parties, candidates, or issue groups supporting or opposing a ballot measure are permitted to appoint watchers." 

^source for the second quote: https://www.eac.gov/sites/default/files/electionofficials/QuickStartGuides/Poll_Watchers_EAC_Quick_Start_Guide_508.pdf

USA Corruption Perceptions Index is 69, 24th in the world. So you can't argue US elections are not free and fair without implying many other countries are not either.