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Electoral College and Election Fraud
- ldjkfkdsjnv 3y ago[flagged]
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- lolinder 3y ago> Anyone writing anything about election fraud without mentioning this is dishonest. This is extremely overstated.
- ldjkfkdsjnv 3y agoNo its not. The election data from the 2020 election is completely different from the 2016 election. The whole concept of bellwether counties basically disappeared.
- kemotep 3y agoOr maybe people changed how they voted? People who didn’t vote in 2016 voted in 2020, thus changing how that county voted. Is that not the point of voting?
- lolinder 3y agoI'm not saying things haven't changed, I take issue with these words: "anyone... anything... dishonest". That kind of sweeping derogatory generalization makes a great hot take, but isn't high in intellectual honesty or curiosity. There are plenty of reasons besides dishonesty why someone may not think to mention that a specific method of election fraud is less feasible than it once was, and accusing them all of dishonesty is over the top.
- ldjkfkdsjnv 3y agoIf youre an expert in political science, you know that mail in voting changes the dynamics and likelihood of election fraud. So writing an article on election fraud without mentioning it is leaving out information
- slillibri 3y agoGiven that there are five states that are entirely mail-in voting, there should be data worth citing. Can you provide any citations for your assertions?
- acjohnson55 3y agoThe logic seems reasonable. Nonetheless, the electoral college system is insane at this point in history.
- xulres 3y agoThe most staggering aspect of the entire US political landscape in the past few years is the glaring lack of sincere efforts to address the multitude of issues that have accumulated over time... the continued existence of gerrymandering is truly mind-boggling.
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- lotsofpulp 3y agoThere was a very comprehensive bill put forth that was short a handful of votes. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Build_Back_Better_Plan https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Build_Back_Better_Plan There was lots of back and forth and attempts at cajoling representatives to vote for it, which did end up with a watered down version being passed. I do not see how one could conclude there was a “sincere lack of effort”.
- pwillia7 3y agoHow about the sincere lack of progress?
- jrockway 3y agoWhat's the opposite of pro? Con. What's the opposite of progress?
- lotsofpulp 3y agoSounds like a meaningless, ill defined question given that the USA is not a monarchy. And given that a compromise bill was passed, so there was some progress.
- baryphonic 3y agoGerrymandering probably doesn't affect outcomes much.[0] I know gerrymandering seems wrong, but every shape for an equal-population electoral district is more or less arbitrary, and some will inevitably be biased in favor of one party over another at the time it's drawn. [0]https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/its-probably-not-possible-to-end-gerrymandering/ https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/its-probably-not-possib...
- manuelabeledo 3y agoThe US could have electoral colleges and get rid of the winner takes all system.
- monero-xmr 3y agoCompared to recent issues in Germany and the UK, the American political system once again seems wise. Real change is difficult by design, there are only 2 parties, and the separation of powers prevents a president from being radical. I wouldn’t get rid of the electoral college because it seems to be part of the mystery that makes the US political system so successful.
- manuelabeledo 3y ago> ... and the separation of powers prevents a president from being radical Did you somehow miss 2016-2020?
- pwillia7 3y agoWould this still be true if corruption wasn't so rampant (Gilded Age 2) right now? Am I wearing rose colored glasses, or are there other times in history here and in other places, where the rule of law was either worshipped or feared by everyone enough to stamp out bad actors, or at least seek to, across parties? Has it really _always_ just been kayfabe[1] and no moral rules apply if I don't get caught? 1:https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kayfabe https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kayfabe
- cykotic 3y agoThe U.S. Constitution is a document that forms the basis of governance and at its heart is an anti-democratic sentiment. The writers of Constitution did not want a monarch or a democratic nation. They wanted power in more hands than occurred in England but not too many more hands. What we have today, 200+ years later, is a system in which North Dakota’s 800,000 residents get 2 senators and 1 representative and Washington, D.C.’s residents get none. A representative from California represents around 50% more people than one from North Dakota. There are major structural power imbalances in the U.S. that someday will have to be dealt with. We have crazy things like one senator preventing hundreds of people from being promoted in the Military. The system needs a rewrite (along with the rules of the Senate).
- freitzkriesler2 3y agoThis is by design and is why America is a coast to Coast empire and not a small collection of states. When that changes, the republic ends. As for a senator blocking military promotions, that's a different matter entirely.
- cykotic 3y agoI acknowledged that it was by design. Obviously I’m aware of this fact. The design isn’t working anymore. What worked back then doesn’t now. There are major power imbalances in the political structure of the U.S. Such imbalances can never go on too long. At some point there will need to be a restructuring. That can be either by force or peacefully. I wrote that the Senate rules need to be adjusted. Senate tradition is part of the political structure of how the U.S. government works at the federal level. It’s not just the Constitution that needs a rewrite. Your claim that this is why the U.S. is a coast to coast nation isn’t supported by history. You need to demonstrate that in the absence of the system of government created by our founders that there wouldn’t be a coast to coast nation where the U.S. is. There are lots of examples of expansive empires being created from a collection of smaller states that don’t involve systems of governance that the U.S. has.
- freitzkriesler2 3y agoI love having to explain the purpose of the electoral college to both ignorant Americans whose civics teachers failed them and blissfully ignorant foreigners who don't understand the nuances of America's representative democracy. During the framing of the constitution, sparsely populated states didn't want to be run rampshod by heavily populated states. The framers made the electoral college system to reduce the impact of populous states and raise the impact of less populous states so everyone gets an equal voice. Without it, you would get heavily populated states like New York and California dictating policy for the rest of the country. America isn't nor was it ever a democracy but a republic. If and when the country abolishes the electoral college is when America balkanizes. In short, it is by design. Think of it as affirmative action for less populous states.
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- lotsofpulp 3y ago> Think of it as affirmative action for less populous states. Not an overly popular policy these days, even with the Supreme Court.
- SenAnder 3y agoIt's salami slicing. Get states to join by promising them autonomy, then slowly take that autonomy away. The same is happening with the EU.
- cykotic 3y agoThe framers made the electoral college system to reduce the impact of populous states and raise the impact of less populous states so everyone gets an equal voice. Without it, you would get heavily populated states like New York and California dictating policy for the rest of the country. And what we now have is low population states thwarting the will of the majority due to their numbers in the senate. It’s a major power imbalance. Every time a Democrat is elected President Texas legislators threaten to secede. At some point California and others will also start threatening this unless the power structure is rebalanced.
- kolanos 3y agoRemember in 2020 after the election Bill Barr said there was no evidence of election fraud that could affect the outcome of the election? Well, there were apparently cases being referred to the FBI at the time that went nowhere and the public was left in the dark about them. For example, in Muskegon, MI we only just recently learned that an election worker turned in approximately 8,000-10,000 fraudulent voter registrations to the city clerk and nothing was done about it. [0] > According to the police reports, a woman who said she worked for a Tennessee-based voter registration company called GBI Strategies dropped off an unusually large batch of 8,000 to 10,000 voter registration applications in Muskegon, a traditional Democratic stronghold that had roughly 28,500 registered voters eligible for the 2020 election, including about 11,200 who voted. Now this article says this story was reported on local Michigan TV news. But did you hear about it? I sure didn't. It took someone filing a FOIA request regarding the police report to even find out what happened here. And it turns out that this case was eventually referred to the FBI and it has been crickets since. This election worker and group to my knowledge has gone uncharged. But my real question is how many more cases like this are there out there? This article says this is an example of the "system working" because this election fraud attempt was caught, but sweeping a case like this under the rug is not how I would define "Working". Is it possible there are cases that were successful in getting ballots through? Would we ever hope to hear about such cases? Given how the authorities in Michigan handled a case where they successfully prevented election fraud, I highly doubt it. [0]: https://www.bridgemi.com/michigan-government/muskegon-fake-voter-applications-probed-2020-referred-fbi-nessel-says https://www.bridgemi.com/michigan-government/muskegon-fake-v...
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- mgerdts 3y agoThis seems like it was funded by those that are benefiting from the status quo. Wisconsin had a very close election: it came down to one WI Supreme Court vote. Had that vote gone the other way, it would have been net +20 for Trump (then 296 to 242). The opposition party is nearly powerless to rein in the court or the legislature in Wisconsin due to gerrymandering.
- motohagiography 3y agoIt's likely that the effect of the internet for coordinating people has changed whether a plebiscite can be an honest signal of the will or desire of a majority. I understand that the US 2020 election secured the set of the bare minimum of electoral college votes that would override those of all other states and swing any election, and this is precisely where the challenges to the integrity of the process have been occurring. Where I live, the ruling party is using mass immigraiton as a means to change the makeup of the society so as to secure its tenure at the polls, as votes from poorer and less educated people who fall into a single identity group are cheaper to mobilize and secure. Democracy is an artifact of sovereign nations, and when a party in power can just replace inconvenient constituents by importing foreigners to support their policies, the legitimacy of the process is diminished and people start looking at challenges and alternatives. The incentives for fraud in both the electoral college system and internet enabled coordination tactics like this voter replacement strategy are so immense that I don't see national borders being the same in 20 years.
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- hprotagonist 3y agoYou can’t just “rig an election”. You would have to rig many hundreds of them, each of which have subtly different and mutually conflicting procedures. Polyculture is more robust.
- smitty1e 3y agoThe EC also increases the spread, legitimizing results in the public mind, while papering over some key points. The 2016 and 2020 Presidential contests were actually decided by a relatively small number of votes in precisely the same counties. As noted by Scott Adams in his podcast, when there is a challenge with massive payoff and relatively scant penalties for shenanigans, it is ludicrous to think that there is NOT game afoot. Anyone not calling for strongly auditable election systems and a re-emphasis on ballot security is not credible, in my view.