4 ms·

The whole reason people think it's fraud is because the media led people to think that Hillary couldn't possibly lose. When she lost, people started looking for

The whole reason people think it's fraud is because the media led people to think that Hillary couldn't possibly lose. When she lost, people started looking for an explanation.

rincebrain 10y ago
I'd posit that Trump making noise about the election being rigged beforehand also contributed to this perception.
pavlov 10y ago
The result of the popular vote reflected the media's interpretation of pre-election polls: she won by a strong margin, millions of votes. Trump still won the presidency thanks to the peculiar American system that emphasizes the mostly arbitrary state lines over popular representation. Because the results of a single state can swing the total so wildly out of proportion with the state's population, doing recounts against the paper trail (which otherwise would never get looked at) seems like a reasonable thing to do.
- akvadrako 10y ago
  The electoral college is not some new information the media wasn't aware of, so it doesn't make sense to say it explains their story about how she couldn't lose.
- davrosthedalek 10y ago
  The popular vote is meaningless. Everybody knew the system. There is no incentive to vote in states-not-perceived-as-swing-states. It's not clear from this election who would have one a straight up popular vote. Also: The voting system America has is an important step to protect minority groups, that is, small population states. Maybe the winner-takes-all in the states has to be modified.
  - SomeStupidPoint 10y ago
    The president is meant to represent the populace more closely than it does, as should the House. The Senate is meant to protect less populace states. Really, the problem is capping the number of representatives at around 450. We should have something like 1000-3000 members of the house, which if distributed by population would fix most people's problems with the electoral college. Basically, Congress got selfish and broke the balance of power for the country to entrench their own, and now the states that don't do much have too much say, and basically slow the country down.
  - JadeNB 10y ago
    > minority groups, that is, small population states. I'm not sure that this synonymy is justified.
- briandear 10y ago
  How do the results of a single state swing the total "so wildly out of proportion with the state's population"? The Electoral College is exactly based on a state's congressional representation. California has more people, thus more electoral votes. Each electoral vote represents roughly 700,000 people within a state. While state lines are arbitrary, states are not: they represent a sovereign entity within the United States much like Belgium is a sovereign state within the EU despite Belgium having arbitrary borders. To think otherwise is to fail to understand what the United States is: a federal system with divisions of power allocated by the Constitution. The interests of the people of Louisiana are vastly different than those of New York -- the system represents that reality. The more interesting question is if we would have this discussion if Hillary had won? Popular vote does not determine the presidency -- that has been true since the beginning; it isn't like anyone was robbed. If Trump had lost and Breitbart had conducted some statistical analysis to prove that the vote was rigged, it wouldn't even make it on Hacker News. Every election one side or another tries to justify their losses but rarely does such a justification ascend to high art as it is apparently doing here. Ultimately the bottom line is that the media state-by-state predictions were wrong and now there is hand-wringing to rationalize it. National polls are meaningless yet we continue to subscribe to their irrelevance.
  - redler 10y ago
    In a state like Wyoming there are about 190,000 people per elector. In California or Texas it's more like 700,000. The fundamental unit of a democracy should be the citizen, not the square mile. (Cue responses that it's not at all a democracy)
    - akvadrako 10y ago
      Why do you make that statement without any argument to back it up? It's clear that equal representation per person is not universally agreed to be ideal. That's not how any federal system works. They are more like unions of states than one big government and in a union the less powerful partners deserve some protections.
      - 10y ago
- billsmithaustin 10y ago
  It is nonsensical to credit Trump's win to the Electoral College. How a candidate runs a campaign is dependent on the rules that govern the election. If you were to change the rules, the campaign would be run differently. None of us know what would have happened if the candidates had run their campaigns without the constraints imposed by the Electoral College.
zuminator 10y ago
That's not entirely true. President Elect Trump himself spent the greater part of a month prior to the election claiming repeatedly that the election was "absolutely" rigged and, if you remember, predicated his unconditional acceptance of the results on his victory. People of a conspiratorial bent were already primed by his muddying of the waters so it shouldn't be a surprise that his own upset victory would be met with challenge. Not to mention that this entire election cycle was one where bad actors from all directions took advantage of the poor discernment of the American electorate to the point where truth, innuendo, dubious claims and outright lies were given equal weight in the decision making process of many. Informational chaos has now been proven to be a winning strategy (and not just because Trump won) so why wouldn't that carry on post-election?
- JadeNB 10y ago
  > President Elect Trump … predicated his unconditional acceptance of the results on his victory. While I am no fan of the man, and have no doubt that he would fiercely have contested a loss, I don't think that it is quite as you have described it. What I remember is that he said that he would "keep you in suspense", and that he would accept the election results "if he was satisfied", never explicitly that he would only accept a victory for himself.
  - GeorgeDewar 10y ago
    A very strange thing to write as my first post, but in one of the debates Trump did indeed say he would respect the results "if I win" [1]. I think the "I'll look at it on the day" comments came a bit later. [1] http://edition.cnn.com/2016/10/20/politics/donald-trump-i-will-totally-accept-election-results-if-i-win/ http://edition.cnn.com/2016/10/20/politics/donald-trump-i-wi...
    - Freestyler_3 10y ago
      Taken out of context thats easy to conclude, but putten in context then it remains unclear. Because even then he said, that he is not going to say that he wil accept a loss, no matter what happened.
sakopov 10y ago
In my opinion the whole reason people think it's fraud is because a lot of voters seems to think we're in a direct democracy and have no understanding whatsoever what a representative democracy is, what Electorate College is and what purpose it serves. Seriously, stop a random person on the streets and ask them. Everything else is just adding fuel to the fire.
- EdHominem 10y ago
  If they think it's a fraud, they're by definition correct. The system is supposed to represent them and if they don't feel a representative democracy (hah!) does, who's to tell them otherwise? The plain fact of the matter is that the representative system was implemented for two reasons 1) necessity in a pre-industrial society 2) to actually limit the power of the people. The fact that #2 was intended to make us safer (avoid a tyranny of the masses, etc) doesn't change the fact that our government is intended not to listen to our opinions.

The whole reason people think it's fraud is because the media led people to think that Hillary couldn't possibly lose. When she lost, people started looking for an explanation.

rincebrain 10y ago

I'd posit that Trump making noise about the election being rigged beforehand also contributed to this perception.

pavlov 10y ago

The result of the popular vote reflected the media's interpretation of pre-election polls: she won by a strong margin, millions of votes. Trump still won the presidency thanks to the peculiar American system that emphasizes the mostly arbitrary state lines over popular representation. Because the results of a single state can swing the total so wildly out of proportion with the state's population, doing recounts against the paper trail (which otherwise would never get looked at) seems like a reasonable thing to do.

akvadrako 10y ago
The electoral college is not some new information the media wasn't aware of, so it doesn't make sense to say it explains their story about how she couldn't lose.
davrosthedalek 10y ago
The popular vote is meaningless. Everybody knew the system. There is no incentive to vote in states-not-perceived-as-swing-states. It's not clear from this election who would have one a straight up popular vote. Also: The voting system America has is an important step to protect minority groups, that is, small population states. Maybe the winner-takes-all in the states has to be modified.
- SomeStupidPoint 10y ago
  The president is meant to represent the populace more closely than it does, as should the House. The Senate is meant to protect less populace states. Really, the problem is capping the number of representatives at around 450. We should have something like 1000-3000 members of the house, which if distributed by population would fix most people's problems with the electoral college. Basically, Congress got selfish and broke the balance of power for the country to entrench their own, and now the states that don't do much have too much say, and basically slow the country down.
- JadeNB 10y ago
  > minority groups, that is, small population states. I'm not sure that this synonymy is justified.
briandear 10y ago
How do the results of a single state swing the total "so wildly out of proportion with the state's population"? The Electoral College is exactly based on a state's congressional representation. California has more people, thus more electoral votes. Each electoral vote represents roughly 700,000 people within a state. While state lines are arbitrary, states are not: they represent a sovereign entity within the United States much like Belgium is a sovereign state within the EU despite Belgium having arbitrary borders. To think otherwise is to fail to understand what the United States is: a federal system with divisions of power allocated by the Constitution. The interests of the people of Louisiana are vastly different than those of New York -- the system represents that reality. The more interesting question is if we would have this discussion if Hillary had won? Popular vote does not determine the presidency -- that has been true since the beginning; it isn't like anyone was robbed. If Trump had lost and Breitbart had conducted some statistical analysis to prove that the vote was rigged, it wouldn't even make it on Hacker News. Every election one side or another tries to justify their losses but rarely does such a justification ascend to high art as it is apparently doing here. Ultimately the bottom line is that the media state-by-state predictions were wrong and now there is hand-wringing to rationalize it. National polls are meaningless yet we continue to subscribe to their irrelevance.
- redler 10y ago
  In a state like Wyoming there are about 190,000 people per elector. In California or Texas it's more like 700,000. The fundamental unit of a democracy should be the citizen, not the square mile. (Cue responses that it's not at all a democracy)
  - akvadrako 10y ago
    Why do you make that statement without any argument to back it up? It's clear that equal representation per person is not universally agreed to be ideal. That's not how any federal system works. They are more like unions of states than one big government and in a union the less powerful partners deserve some protections.
    - 10y ago
billsmithaustin 10y ago
It is nonsensical to credit Trump's win to the Electoral College. How a candidate runs a campaign is dependent on the rules that govern the election. If you were to change the rules, the campaign would be run differently. None of us know what would have happened if the candidates had run their campaigns without the constraints imposed by the Electoral College.

zuminator 10y ago

That's not entirely true. President Elect Trump himself spent the greater part of a month prior to the election claiming repeatedly that the election was "absolutely" rigged and, if you remember, predicated his unconditional acceptance of the results on his victory. People of a conspiratorial bent were already primed by his muddying of the waters so it shouldn't be a surprise that his own upset victory would be met with challenge. Not to mention that this entire election cycle was one where bad actors from all directions took advantage of the poor discernment of the American electorate to the point where truth, innuendo, dubious claims and outright lies were given equal weight in the decision making process of many. Informational chaos has now been proven to be a winning strategy (and not just because Trump won) so why wouldn't that carry on post-election?

JadeNB 10y ago
> President Elect Trump … predicated his unconditional acceptance of the results on his victory. While I am no fan of the man, and have no doubt that he would fiercely have contested a loss, I don't think that it is quite as you have described it. What I remember is that he said that he would "keep you in suspense", and that he would accept the election results "if he was satisfied", never explicitly that he would only accept a victory for himself.
- GeorgeDewar 10y ago
  A very strange thing to write as my first post, but in one of the debates Trump did indeed say he would respect the results "if I win" [1]. I think the "I'll look at it on the day" comments came a bit later. [1] http://edition.cnn.com/2016/10/20/politics/donald-trump-i-will-totally-accept-election-results-if-i-win/ http://edition.cnn.com/2016/10/20/politics/donald-trump-i-wi...
  - Freestyler_3 10y ago
    Taken out of context thats easy to conclude, but putten in context then it remains unclear. Because even then he said, that he is not going to say that he wil accept a loss, no matter what happened.

sakopov 10y ago

In my opinion the whole reason people think it's fraud is because a lot of voters seems to think we're in a direct democracy and have no understanding whatsoever what a representative democracy is, what Electorate College is and what purpose it serves. Seriously, stop a random person on the streets and ask them. Everything else is just adding fuel to the fire.

EdHominem 10y ago
If they think it's a fraud, they're by definition correct. The system is supposed to represent them and if they don't feel a representative democracy (hah!) does, who's to tell them otherwise? The plain fact of the matter is that the representative system was implemented for two reasons 1) necessity in a pre-industrial society 2) to actually limit the power of the people. The fact that #2 was intended to make us safer (avoid a tyranny of the masses, etc) doesn't change the fact that our government is intended not to listen to our opinions.