Poll: Half of America Believes Presidential Elections 'Rigged'

The real reason for this problem is that the election is run state-by-state. If we did the primaries all at once, this wouldn’t be an issue, but it’s done the way it is because until the latter part of the 20th century, it would have been impossible to do it any other way.

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They do not, however, need to be called ‘motherfuckers’.

Isn’t that how new Americans get made?

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And yet they continue vote for members of these corrupted parties instead of independent or alternative parties…

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But if they don’t vote for a lizard, the wrong lizard might get in!

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Came here to say this. Whatever percentage thinks the actual presidential elections is rigged is a very, very different question and likely features very, very different demographics. The primaries are most certainly “rigged”, in the sense that they are designed to elevate factors other than just popular vote over the selection process. The presidential elections are messy, stupid, archaic, and occasionally anti-democratic, but they are not really “rigged”.

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The better question would be, 'who is it rigged for?'
The answer would always be the other candidate who you don’t want to win.

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Out of America having a failing electoral system and people calling one another curse words on the internet, you have chosen the more difficult problem to solve.

I guess so. :expressionless:

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Well, from the outside looking in it seems like about 100% of non-Americans are fairly sure your system is rigged.

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There are no absolutes outside of math.

From wikipedia:

In probability theory, one says that an event happens almost surely (sometimes abbreviated as a.s.) if it happens with probability one. In other words, the set of possible exceptions may be non-empty, but it has probability zero.

It’s sometimes hard to find absolutes within math.

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To be fair, that seems fudged to fit reality.

I find “almost surely” (and the corresponding “almost never” for probability zero) to be some of the most hilarious terms in math, but they don’t mean anything like what they sound like they would mean in English. It’s just that in math you have infinity just hanging out, waiting to mess up your assumptions about what zero means.

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Although when Trump says it, what he really means is, “I don’t understand how the primary system works because I’ve surrounded myself with people who don’t know anything. But I want it to work this way, and it’s not.”

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Why not do away with primary elections altogether?

Have candidate selection be closed to party members or individuals chosen by party members. And by “party members” I don’t mean those that have declared a party affiliation with the county registrar’s office.

All political parties should be able to set the rules by which their candidates are selected, and set rules about who gets to have input in those selections, and no public financing should be provided to run those selections. And if you want input in Party X’s selection of a candidate, you’d need to get involved with Party X. Maybe you want input in Party X’s selection and Party Y’s selection – meet the rules for both parties and you get a voice in two places.

The primary process legitimizes the notion that we have a “two party system” with the illusion that it is “democratic” and represents “the will of the people”.

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That is how Presidential candidates used to be selected - and it still is how it is done for some minor parties. The large parties moved away from it because they thought they could pick better candidates to win the general election if they got some voter input.

However, it is nearly impossible to have someone vote for a Presidential candidate and have them not think they are deciding the race, but rather giving input. Well, I mean we might be able to if we used polls instead of voting.

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" The results echo complaints from Republican front-runner Donald Trump and Democratic challenger Bernie Sanders that the system is stacked against them in favor of candidates with close ties to their parties – a critique that has triggered a nationwide debate over whether the process is fair."

So, here’s the thing. Its a Party process, whereby the Party selects its candidate. Not the American people, the Party. Of course it favors insiders! The insiders are the people at the head of the party, and they are going to push the candidates that they know. You want to change the system? Don’t just complain, get involved. If Bernie’s supporters really want a Political Revolution, they’ll get active in the Democratic Party and change it from the ground up. There’s plenty of room for that, as there is a chronic shortage of low level operatives that are needed to make the organization work. Fill up those lower ranks, and in a few years those people will move up, and become the insiders setting the policy of the Party. How do you think that the Tea Party came to dominate local Republican politics? It was by getting involved, and staying involved.

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Trump’s criticism was more accurate than folks give him credit for. Our delegate system is far from democratic. I have thought for years that it is so Byzantine it should probably be scrapped. Yes, me and the Donald are like each other on this issue: the system is rigged. Don’t get me wrong, I still feel the Bern with Sanders and Clinton. But Trump is like a broken clock and comes up correct a few times as well…

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Of course, if the primary system was more democratic, Trump would be doing worse…

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It never occurred to me that it might not be rigged. Just as an example- HRC. Does anyone think that if she or her minions can come up with a way to rig things in their favor, that they would not do it? And with the kind of cash that she has access to, and the loyalty of her minions, I expect she could probably get it done. I assume that goes for any or all of the candidates.