NY primary mess robbed some of their right to vote, say Sanders supporters and city officials

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Thanks to all the great New Yorkers that voted today, and especially the ones that voted Bernie!

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Oh I hadnā€™t seen that, thatā€™s now my favourite gif for at least a few days from now!

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New Yorkers are very food aggressive, now New Jersey a hand would be severed as a trophy, this I know.

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Why is this a surprise? Someone from outside the party system is trying to change things so they must be stopped. If Bernie was loud like Trump, then it would be more difficult to get away with this crap

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Clinton won 60% of the vote in Brooklyn so if the purge was focused on Brooklyn and NYC it would have reduced Clintonā€™s total vote margin (though probably not delegate count since those are handed out per district)

Since itā€™s a purge of existing voters it would probably hit Clintonā€™s voters harder since they skew older and are more likely to have long term registration as Democrats.

And generally when voters end up disenfranchised itā€™s the minorities who tend to get hit the hardest, again a solid Clinton demographic.

The only way I see it actually hurting Sanders is if the purge was focused on registered Democratic voters who hadnā€™t voted in years and were coming back to vote for Sanders.

Either way while unfortunate I doubt it made a big difference and I really doubt it was part of an actual attempt to rig the outcome.

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As in Arizona, it probably didnā€™t change the outcome, but itā€™s still wrong.

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This is officially the worst election Iā€™ve ever witnessed. The rampant corruption and underhandedness involved is starting to piss me off!
May the revolution start soon!

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I think weā€™re seeing the setup forā€¦something.

You have two candidates who are more than likely going to be locked out of their party conventions, one whose supporters tend more towards peaceful protests in the street, and the other, whose rallies frequently feature violence.

24 states do not have laws requiring their electoral college voters to vote for the popular election winner, and any sort of maneuvering can take place to achieve a tie in the month between the election and the electoral college vote. A tie in the electoral college could go to the House, who could choose their establishment Republican candidate over the popular vote. Thereā€™s a a 4-4 tie in the supreme court thatā€™s not likely to be resolved before the election. Any sort of constitutional crisis could potentially be deadlocked.

More plausibly, if a situation like Florida 2000 happens, if there are systematic problems like the 2004 voting machine scandal, there are two large groups of voters who are already pissed off thanks to the primaries who donā€™t need much motivation to take their frustrations to the streets across the nation.

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My guess? Temporary third parties. At this point itā€™s clear to two contingents of voters that there are no parties that serve their interests. Now with Trump supporters, there is a tendency to look at their propensity towards violence and assume thatā€™s where itā€™s going. In some isolated cases, maybe. The reality is that the right wing electorate has been willing to form nascent caucuses like the Tea Party that might now develop into full fledged parties. This instantly frees up the left to do the same. Our republic is actually (when you look at enfranchisement issues, campaign finance, and systemic matters like the Electoral College) a low quality democracy, so unless these things change, weā€™ll back to two parties after a while.

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Seriously? The nation that is at war for democracy across the world, doesnā€™t really need to take democracy as a process seriously? Locking out 10% of those eligible to vote is not really an issue, because you think according to some magical evidence and dodgy math that it wouldnā€™t really make a difference.

People who argue like you give democracy a bad name, and when it is powerful people, they are the ones responsible for corrupting the system. How is this markedly different from the old Communist dictatorships who skimped on the democratic process because they knew the will of the people.

Real democracy at its best has an innate element of uncertainty (if we knew what the majority wanted, voting is just wasteful) and ideally a huge element of governing by consent; i.e. accepting the legitimacy of the majority decision even if it really sucks. How can you accept a majority decision which has been arrived through a rigged process?

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Officials canā€™t resist the urge to be officious, that said, itā€™s a drop that would have made very little difference.

I think weā€™re seeing the Republican party (as itā€™s existed since the Southern Strategy) collapsing in on itself. That throws the entire two party system- which is the lowest energy state of an electoral system- into disarray. The systemā€™s unstable, and itā€™s impacting both parties. They both are restructuring, trying to find their new identity. As the Republicans run farther right into irrelevance, the Democrats are fighting- can they use their strength to fight for a progressive agenda, or do they move towards the center so that they can pick up support from alienated Republicans and keep winning elections?

The party landscape is changing. In another election cycle or two, the parties may be downright unrecognizable.

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Well, something was going on. In every election, including primaries, before this one, I got a little postcard a week or two in advance stating where my polling place was and its hours of operation. No such thing this time around. At the polling place itself, unusually sparse signage, so it might have been hard to find for new voters. I thought the differences might just have something to do with the fact that I live in a very ā€˜liberalā€™ area, that is, one likely to be the source of a lot of Sanders votes.

However, New Yorkers have repeatedly voted for nasty pieces of work like Koch and Giuliani, so I am not surprised a lot of them would go for a warmongering plutocratic apparatchik.

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And how might that revolution look to you? Are we burning the financial centers of the major cities first, or does that come later? Who goes up against the wall? How are you in hand-to-hand combat? Are we to return to a barter economy?

Boy that sounds great. Iā€™m sure a revolution will settle the problems of inequality right quick.

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I concur with this. Iā€™ve voted at the same place a couple of times, so knew where to go, but there was no signage except some pretty subtle paper signs taped up directly to the right and left of the entry door. And this was a site that is a combine elementary and middle school with many entrances, only one of which was the voting entrance. Once inside that first door, there was no signage anywhere pointing to the auditorium where voting takes place (granted, I got there about 30 mins after the polling place openedā€¦). When I went to get my ballot, the organizer was asking the volunteers at my table who they were and why they were at that table, and why no one was at their assigned tables. Some other dude said ā€œwell, weā€™re really short on volunteers this time, so we had to shuffle people around.ā€ Could all just be regular primary stuff as far as I know, but not conducive to new voters, and seems off in hindsight / context of other reports.

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I really like that analogy!

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This this this. Given that you apparently had to have missed a few election cycles before your registration got voided, this would most certainly have affected Hillaryā€™s voters more than Bernieā€™s famously younger voters. Thereā€™s no outrage on her part because she won (and it would look bad if she complained that her margin of victory wasnā€™t greater). I wish this were made clearer in the coverage.

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What is the reason given by the voter registration authorities for the purge?

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When GWB won two elections amidst widespread allegations and suspicions of vote rigging, disenfranchisement, electoral manipulation and judicial shenanigans you all had to know that future elections would be subject to the same. Itā€™s not like anything was done to prevent it happening again.

I think the US has a particularly strong national myth of being a ā€˜beacon of democracy & justiceā€™ which will carry you through another election cycle or two. But the problem with vote-rigging and election theft, not to mention the various forms of corruption that coincide with such things, is that the corrupt never know when to quit.

It will keep getting worse until the core American myth of being a special unicorn of awesome democratic values is too bogus to deny for anybody. At that point anything can happen, and it isnā€™t always good. Right now you have two outsider candidates running on pointing out that the system is broken, and making unbelievable progress that would have been unthinkable 10 years ago.

I doubt they will break through the inner ranks this time, but you can see the cycle of corruption starting to break down, which is potentially a good thing.

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