Trump’s Efforts to Impose Federal Authority Over Elections See Mixed Results ⁠65%

By Ashley Dowdney⁠72% Eli Kronenberg⁠80%

7/15/2026, 6:46:00 AM

BS Summary: This article contains 30 faulty reasoning types, including Appeal to Authority, Negativity Bias, and Unattributed Quote, with Biased Writer Voice as the most egregious example at 24.9% saturation with 120 hits. Analysis detected 945 faulty-reasoning hits from 482 analyzed words, generating a BS Score of 59.4% and a BS Rank of ⁠65% (7,300 of 20,447 articles). This article is worse (more manipulative) than 64.30% of the article peer group.

After a series of legal defeats that frustrated President Donald Trump’s attempts to overhaul state election procedures ahead of the November midterm elections, Trump doubled down in dramatic fashion. 
Empowered by the Supreme Court’s recent ruling that upheld his authority to fire independent agency officials without cause, the president last week dismissed two Democratic members of the Election Assistance Commission (EAC), a bipartisan federal agency that helps states with election logistics and security, and allowed the remaining member, a Republican, to resign. 
Statements like this are a smokescreen “States that fail to use the free national program for political reasons undermine voter confidence that elections are secure and accurate,” he said. ..... 
No. 
Voter confidence has been eroded by a constant barrage of Republican nonsense. 
Most recent election fraud has been a few incidents where a political operative submitted forms that he or she signed him or herself - whether a registration or application for a ballot. 
Many/most have been caught. 
You beat me to it. 
No one has “undermine(d) voter confidence that elections are secure and accurate,” than one Donald J. 
Trump. 
If states don’t comply, 20 percent of the federal anti-terrorism funding grants, which fund everything from protecting large crowds to cybersecurity, could be withheld. 
We're seeing more and more of this. 
When the Federal Government taxes the citizens of all the states but only serves some of the states... 
I think there's a Boston Tea Party like lesson in there somewhere. 
I'll share the rule of thumb that I use in my conversations with my more MAGA family members: "Extraordinary accusations require extraordinary proof." 
"I was watching the election returns come in and there were a bunch of Democrat votes that came in at 2 AM and that just didn't feel right," is not proof. 
If you want the federal government to take over elections, I want to see proof of the harm you're solving, and so far there is none. 
(Unless the "harm" you're actually trying to solve is "Democrats win too many elections.") 
The state of North Carolina has long used voting machines thst record a voter’s choice. 
Voters can see for themselves the candidates they chose. 
The last election we had a paper ballot that we fed into a machine. 
I don’t see why that is an improvement. 
I have worked elections for years and in the last four years I have started saying as I tell our voters to choose a ballot (blank ballots are not given to voters but they may choose one from the signed blanks on the table) and remind them that when they are finished they should take a minute to read their paper ballot as they will be able to clearly see for whom they voted. 
It's a paper ballot. 
I'm making a point. 
Some of them get it! 
Article reasoning-pattern comparisonThis article: 6.4%Ashley Dowdney: 1.4%The Dispatch: 3.5%Confirmation Bias6.4%This article: 0.0%Ashley Dowdney: 0.0%The Dispatch: 0.5%Anchoring Bias0.0%This article: 6.6%Ashley Dowdney: 3.1%The Dispatch: 1.7%Availability Heuristic6.6%This article: 2.5%Ashley Dowdney: 0.5%The Dispatch: 1.0%Representativeness Heuristic2.5%This article: 0.0%Ashley Dowdney: 0.0%The Dispatch: 0.5%Hindsight Bias0.0%This article: 0.0%Ashley Dowdney: 0.2%The Dispatch: 1.8%Overconfidence Bias0.0%This article: 3.7%Ashley Dowdney: 9.1%The Dispatch: 4.8%Framing Effect3.7%This article: 0.0%Ashley Dowdney: 0.0%The Dispatch: 0.8%Loss Aversion0.0%This article: 4.8%Ashley Dowdney: 1.0%The Dispatch: 0.7%Status Quo Bias4.8%This article: 0.0%Ashley Dowdney: 0.0%The Dispatch: 0.0%Sunk Cost Effect0.0%This article: 2.7%Ashley Dowdney: 0.6%The Dispatch: 1.6%Optimism Bias2.7%This article: 5.4%Ashley Dowdney: 1.2%The Dispatch: 2.3%Pessimism Bias5.4%This article: 18.0%Ashley Dowdney: 6.0%The Dispatch: 5.1%Negativity Bias18.0%This article: 2.9%Ashley Dowdney: 1.2%The Dispatch: 0.4%Self-Serving Bias2.9%This article: 0.0%Ashley Dowdney: 0.0%The Dispatch: 1.2%Fundamental Attribution Error0.0%This article: 0.0%Ashley Dowdney: 0.0%The Dispatch: 0.0%Actor-Observer Bias0.0%This article: 5.8%Ashley Dowdney: 3.0%The Dispatch: 0.8%In-Group Bias5.8%This article: 0.0%Ashley Dowdney: 0.8%The Dispatch: 0.4%Out-Group Homogeneity Bias0.0%This article: 0.0%Ashley Dowdney: 1.1%The Dispatch: 1.9%Halo Effect0.0%This article: 0.0%Ashley Dowdney: 0.0%The Dispatch: 0.2%Horn Effect0.0%This article: 0.0%Ashley Dowdney: 0.0%The Dispatch: 0.0%Dunning-Kruger Effect0.0%This article: 1.5%Ashley Dowdney: 0.9%The Dispatch: 1.0%Recency Bias1.5%This article: 3.3%Ashley Dowdney: 0.7%The Dispatch: 0.3%Primacy Effect3.3%This article: 0.0%Ashley Dowdney: 0.0%The Dispatch: 0.2%Blind-Spot Bias0.0%This article: 6.2%Ashley Dowdney: 4.5%The Dispatch: 1.5%Ad Hominem6.2%This article: 0.0%Ashley Dowdney: 2.0%The Dispatch: 1.0%Straw Man0.0%This article: 20.3%Ashley Dowdney: 7.6%The Dispatch: 3.7%Appeal to Authority20.3%This article: 2.9%Ashley Dowdney: 1.4%The Dispatch: 2.0%False Dilemma2.9%This article: 0.0%Ashley Dowdney: 0.5%The Dispatch: 0.9%Slippery Slope0.0%This article: 0.0%Ashley Dowdney: 0.0%The Dispatch: 0.1%Circular Reasoning0.0%This article: 8.9%Ashley Dowdney: 9.3%The Dispatch: 5.5%Hasty Generalization8.9%This article: 3.7%Ashley Dowdney: 0.8%The Dispatch: 0.1%Red Herring3.7%This article: 1.0%Ashley Dowdney: 0.2%The Dispatch: 0.1%Bandwagon1.0%This article: 9.3%Ashley Dowdney: 3.9%The Dispatch: 2.5%Appeal to Emotion9.3%This article: 0.0%Ashley Dowdney: 0.0%The Dispatch: 0.7%Begging the Question0.0%This article: 0.0%Ashley Dowdney: 0.0%The Dispatch: 1.5%Post Hoc (False Cause)0.0%This article: 0.0%Ashley Dowdney: 0.0%The Dispatch: 0.1%Tu Quoque0.0%This article: 10.2%Ashley Dowdney: 3.3%The Dispatch: 0.5%Burden of Proof10.2%This article: 1.9%Ashley Dowdney: 0.4%The Dispatch: 0.2%Appeal to Nature1.9%This article: 0.0%Ashley Dowdney: 0.0%The Dispatch: 0.3%Composition/Division0.0%This article: 6.4%Ashley Dowdney: 7.5%The Dispatch: 1.1%Anecdotal6.4%This article: 0.8%Ashley Dowdney: 0.2%The Dispatch: 0.2%No True Scotsman0.8%This article: 2.9%Ashley Dowdney: 2.2%The Dispatch: 1.7%Ambiguity (Equivocation)2.9%This article: 0.0%Ashley Dowdney: 0.0%The Dispatch: 0.0%Gambler’s Fallacy0.0%This article: 0.0%Ashley Dowdney: 0.0%The Dispatch: 0.2%Middle Ground0.0%This article: 1.7%Ashley Dowdney: 1.1%The Dispatch: 0.3%Personal Incredulity1.7%This article: 0.0%Ashley Dowdney: 0.0%The Dispatch: 0.1%Special Pleading0.0%This article: 0.0%Ashley Dowdney: 0.0%The Dispatch: 0.1%Genetic Fallacy0.0%This article: 14.7%Ashley Dowdney: 5.9%The Dispatch: 1.3%Unattributed Quote14.7%This article: 6.2%Ashley Dowdney: 5.3%The Dispatch: 0.8%Quote-first Misdirection6.2%This article: 24.9%Ashley Dowdney: 13.5%The Dispatch: 6.7%Biased Writer Voice24.9%This article: 5.4%Ashley Dowdney: 1.2%The Dispatch: 1.3%Indoctrination5.4%This article: 0.0%Ashley Dowdney: 3.6%The Dispatch: 1.5%Politically Left Leaning Bias0.0%This article: 0.0%Ashley Dowdney: 0.0%The Dispatch: 1.2%Politically Right Leaning Bias0.0%This article: 4.8%Ashley Dowdney: 1.0%The Dispatch: 6.1%Attempt to Sell a Product or S…4.8%

482 words analyzed.

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