Meanwhile in Oregon, we have paper ballots to provide a non-electronic chain of custody. We mail them in and have drop boxes so we don’t have to miss work. It’s the state of the art, and cheap, and inclusive. But no… the rest of the country needs polling stations and Diebold. Why? To enable both suppression and fraud.
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The entire idea of “third parties” needs to go. There can be A third party, but they can’t all be “third”. People need to call them what they are - they are simply other parties. I don’t pretend to know how many US parties there are, but I know it isn’t two, nor is it three.
My understanding is that voters are removed if they are inactive for a period of four years. It is also my understanding that they can file provisional ballots if they are removed but show up at the polling place and effectively get re-enrolled. People can also be removed if they are convicted of a felony, or move to another district/state. So while it’s not clear why these folks were removed, it doesn’t necessarily mean that they weren’t able to vote, or that there was any impropriety - we’ll have to wait for an investigation to see.
That said, New York politics is so corrupt I wouldn’t be surprised if there was something nefarious going on. In particular, the fact that Brooklyn is the home borough of NYC Mayor Bill DeBlasio, who is feuding with NY Governor and known slimeball Andrew Cuomo, might suggest a possible motive. Reducing Brookllyn’s influence in city and state politics could undermine BDB, and delivering fewer votes for Hillary than expected would certainly be an embarrasment for BDB, who is a former campaign manager for Hillary. Or it could be the opposite - maybe BDB, who has some ethical issues of his own, arranged the purge thinking that somehow it would hurt Bernie more.
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Third Parties are today’s Fifth Beatles.
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Not to mention––Fivethirtyeight forecasted 56.3% vs 41.3%, and Clinton ended up getting 58%, according to CNN. But those forecasted numbers only add up to 97.6%–if you take 56.3% of 97.6%, you get… 57.7%.
It’s not like 538 is always right, but if this was an example of election hacking, it was a spectacularly ineffective one done in an incredibly risky way.
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[Let me preface this to say that some of this comment addresses points you raised @waetherman, which is why it’s a reply, but a lot of it goes to the general discussion, so this comment isn’t really set up as a disagreement.]
See, I generally don’t buy the Bernie suppression theories because often these sorts of shenanigans are artefacts of things like Republican Secretaries of State who’ve been incompetent or neglectful. It’s difficult to determine if there’s any way for the party to really know if a Dem is going to support Bernie or Hillary and which votes to suppress. There’s been a lot of documented evidence of Republican attempts to suppress turnout and things like voter ID laws tend to prove that they’re in the business of keeping Dems from voting.
In this particular case, there is a sense that there was definitely shenanigans because Brooklyn lost enough votes to make a difference for the borough (is that the right term, NYCers? I’m from the rest of the country.) That Bernie didn’t at least carry the one part where he could count on a lot of support, by all accounts due to inability to vote, raises suspicion among a lot of people. I personally tend to think it’s a coincidence that accidentally favored Clinton.
HOWEVER (And this is a big however (note the all-caps)): Part of the problem here is that not everyone got to cast even a provisional ballot. A lot of poll workers exchanged the request for one with blank stares. These were people who were registered Democrats who could not even attempt to cast a vote that could maybe be looked at at a later date.
I don’t have a problem with people saying Hillary won NY because the votes were there. I DO have an immense problem with people being okay with it because their side won. If this is a democracy at all, then whether or not a person gets to cast a losing vote that makes no difference, is absolutely a distinction that makes a difference. I don’t like the flippancy with which this is treated like a nuisance complaint. If you think Dems are having issues in Arizona and NY now, wait till the general and see how upset you’ll be then. Whether this was malfeasance or incompetence, I do think we could all stand to be a lot more outraged about it. Bear in mind that Bernie called for investigations early on with some minority (possibly none) of the precincts reporting. This has nothing to do with sour grapes and everything to do with whether or not we’re going allow disenfranchisement.
I especially think we need to have a discussion (and a national consensus) on what we do when there are election irregularities. This is important. It was important a long time ago when Bruce Schneier wrote this in 2006.
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Absolutely. I agree that it very well might be a clerical problem, or totally justified “purging,” but I also recognize that it is very possible that there was something else at work, and that it absolutely should be investigated no matter who won. This is especially true because of the possible disenfranchisement on a city and state level, as well as in the national election process. This isn’t something that should be treated in a flip manner at all.
That sounds nice. I’d like to go there some time.
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How was it dodgy math? They used solid, real, or well-known priors (voting statistics in the primary and suppression statistics) in addition to some reasonable heuristics, hypothesized an outcome, and concluded that systematic suppression hypothesis could be safely rejected. Seems fine with me.
Why is arguing that it wouldn’t have changed the outcome mean they are against democracy? They aren’t arguing they should have been suppressed nor that the system is good or fair. I wouldn’t go too all-out Ad Hominem here.
I think anyone who had read their argument would have concluded that they’re working within a system of uncertainty and not discounting it. It’s worse to pick the outcome that fits a particular narrative (systematic and purposeful suppression) and bias the statistics (or who’s using them) to fit said narrative.
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And this is an excellent reason for people to take time out to volunteer to work at ones local polling place. They need people to do this.
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Because human behaviour is volatile and unpredictable. When people get a sense that their vote doesn’t count–because the polling station is under staffed, the queues are hours long and no one can find your details–they might decide not to bother next time. Suddenly, they are apolitically, disengaged not worthy of politicians attention. Keep it going for a few generations and you might actually explain the current state of American Politics.
And because of this
https://www.aclu.org/files/VRATimeline.html?redirect=timeline-history-voting-rights-act
Because somehow I do not believe that the residents of 5th Avenue have to put up with the same shenanigans as the good people of Brooklyn. If you can’t see what is wrong with making voting difficult, especially making it more difficult in certain parts of the country / to certain sections of the population than your understanding of US history is really limited.
Oh and another thing, in a country where where voter turnout is teetering between 50% -60% (and that is on a good day) surely, it is the duty of every elected politician and every government official to make the voting process run smooth as butter…
And Finally, I vote in the London Borough of Hackney (which is pretty analogous to Brooklyn in its social makeup). Five years ago I and a few fellow residents had to stage a minor revolt to assert our right to vote. Because there were not enough polling stations and staff and although people had been standing in line since before 9pm they were unable to vote by 10pm, when the polling station closed. The staff were flexible enough and in the end allowed every one to vote after we made a fuss, but it did take quite a bit of arguing. In Hackney my vote doesn’t really matter, thanks to undemocratic first past the post system and the enormous Labour majority, but I still wanted to vote and should I have been denied that right by same incompetent Labour Council, I would have been even less prepared to accept the farce of a democracy they run in these parts.
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The Two Party System is broken.
People count.
Let’s bio-register this via our thumbprints on our phones, i.e. government-given cell phones, where we vote via prints, no parties needed, just ideas, leadership, and time.
I think you’re answering a different question than the ones I asked.
It’s OK that you don’t like the results, and it’s true voter suppression is a very serious issue. Especially in the south (where Clinton won), and with minorities in general (who support her), and poor / elderly (who also support her).
So this all goes back to the same thing: there really isn’t very much support for the hypothesis from Sanders supporters that this effected the results. Yes, it was wrong. Yes, they need to fix it. But these last 2 don’t support the hypothesis.
I don’t think the irregularities changed the outcome of the primary. I do think they were connected with the primary. I have voted many times in my present district, and things were definitely different this time around. Maybe it was just a reflex occurring at a lower level, but something was going on.
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That’s a feature, not a bug.
The reek of Tammany Hall still lingers on here in New York.
While I agree with this, in general, it would have had no effect on this situation. The volunteers can only go by what’s on the voter roles.
Some phone video of the stupid broken election infrastructure would be good.
May be different in NY, but in my state, use of cameras is prohibited in polling places.
I didn’t write a single word about not liking the results or whether or not the rigged system favoured Sanders or Clinton. I merely stated that it is irresponsible if / when government officials tolerate a system which disenfrachises any section of the population.
As regards to the UK, the situation where I wrote. The real issue is first pass the post, the disdain voters are held in, the under-resourcing of the democratic process is merely a side show–although an illustrative one.
Sure. My point was that understaffing probably doesn’t help. But I suspect that doing this is like being on a jury - it’s an important aspect of living in a democracy that many people have no interesting in actually doing.
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