Deliver us now from shitty polling intended to get people writing about polls.
“Rigged” in this context can mean that the respondent thinks
the process favors one general sort of candidate over another
there are shady figures in burglar masks making off with ballots
the party exerts too much control
the party exerts too little control
it’s what the pollster wants to hear
the party is fine but the state conducts elections in ways I don’t like
a particular candidate the respondent was thinking of in a particular race is untrustworthy and so his or her wins are suspicious
the process is fair and appropriate but nevertheless technically “rigged” because it is not some hypothetical pure national plebiscite
the political system itself is “rigged”
there’s nothing in particular that seems wrong, but I’m trying to register my distress that my candidate is not doing as well as I’d like, and this is the closest I’ll get to a chance to do that in this poll
my/your party is fine, but your/my party’s nomination process is “rigged”
I am four years old and I like it when mommy says “goddamn nuisance calls” and lets me mash the buttons on the phone
In the year 2016, this question works about as well to divine public opinion as penicillin does to cure MRSA, and for the same reason: we have developed resistance to that kind of weak-ass shit. For crying out loud, they put scare quotes in the damn question.
Harding’s corruption (relative to the standards of the day) was something between an open secret and a general scandal even before he died, although you’re right that the full measure of it had to wait until he wasn’t around to play defense anymore.
What DID have to wait until long after his death to be revealed was what a damn playa he was with the ladies, and I do not mean Mrs. Harding. Any president can have an affair. It took Warren Mothafuckin’ Harding to give us secret love letters like this:
“If I had you today, I’d kiss and fondle you into my arms and hold you there until you said, ‘Warren, oh, Warren,’ in a benediction of blissful joy. …Wouldn’t you like to get sopping wet out on Superior — not the lake — for the joy of fevered fondling and melting kisses? Wouldn’t you like to make the suspected occupant of the next room jealous of the joys he could not know, as we did in morning communion at Richmond?”"
The whole primary/caucus system is just bullshit made up by the Republican and Democratic parties. They made the rules and they can change them however they want. None of it is in the constitution.
The only reason they have primaries and caucuses is propaganda and publicity.
While I don’t believe elections are rigged in the traditional sense, I definitely believe illegal/unethical things are done by 3rd parties to help influence the outcome.
The statistical evidence is pretty overwhelming… https://richardcharnin.wordpress.com/category/2016-election/
From 1988 through 2008 the probability of America presidential elections being fair are about 0.0000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000005.
Workday elections, partisan districting, ridiculously long voting queues, difficult voter registration, tight restrictions on postal voting…none of these things are accidental or inevitable. But way too many Americans act as if they were.
Again: I live in a country with near 100% voter turnout. Elections are on weekends, postal voting is trivially easy, I have never had to wait more than ten minutes to vote and I have never lived outside walking distance of a polling booth. These things are not hard to do…unless your ruling class actively decides not to do them.
My state is all vote by mail so not all of the US is stuck with the same set of problems. People still actively choose not to vote though even with it being as simple as dropping an envelope in a mailbox (and paying postage, naturally).
