Dana Milbank: The election really was rigged

[ginnyinWI]

A voting scandal of epic proportion tilted this election. The scam involved millions of people.

No, I’m not talking about the recount the Clinton campaign joined in Wisconsin and may seek in Michigan and Pennsylvania. Hillary Clinton and her aides were correct before, when they said voting fraud is rare. The recounts won’t change the election’s outcome. And after rightly criticizing Donald Trump for saying he might not honor the election results, Clinton and her aides, who admit they have no evidence of skullduggery, risk looking hypocritical.

Neither am I talking about Trump’s outlandish and baseless claim that millions of non-citizens and dead people voted illegally. That’s as absurd as his preelection claims that the voting system was “rigged.”

Both distract from the real scandal, which is happening in plain sight. Millions of would-be voters didn’t participate because of obstacles designed to discourage them. The hurdles were, thanks to a 2013 Supreme Court ruling invalidating key parts of the Voting Rights Act, largely legal. And they arguably suppressed enough minority voters to cost Clinton the election.

Not anything new, but this is where the focus, IMO, should be aimed!

https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/the-election-really-was-rigged/2016/11/29/c2ed58d8-b666-11e6-a677-b608fbb3aaf6_story.html?utm_term=.d7be6de4fd1a&wpisrc=nl_opinions&wpmm=1

[yallerdawg]

1. This serves the Republicans.

Who now control almost all of America.

Which is why each and every election matters everywhere.

Whatever they throw up, we must overcome.

[Fast Walker 52]

5. yep-- let's all pledge solidarity to defeating this horrible excuse for a political party

[SHRED]

2. Voter suppression is number one

Recounting votes does not address this.

[NewJeffCT]

19. agree - and, over the next 4 years

every state that has a Republican legislature and/or governor is going to make it more difficult to vote for young people/students and minorities. And, since Antonin Scalia is going to be replaced by a William Pryor or similar, those laws will likely be held up if they get appealed to the SCOTUS

[SHRED]

23. Republican lock down

[meadowlander]

37. Voter suppression isn't going to be addressed by a Trump administration.

If those voter suppression laws were legally enacted, then you can't legally reinstate any of those votes. And the Supreme Court isn't going to overturn them anytime soon if they haven't already.

The only way to address voter suppression is to get a democratic congress in in 2018 and to tackle the problem at the state level.

In the meantime, we can actually recount the votes to ensure that the totals were accurate and the machines weren't hacked.

[Blue Idaho]

3. I'm not a big fan of Milbank

But even a stopped clock is right twice a day. He (among many others) are rightly pointing to the actions of republicans who are scheming to make voting not only harder for some, but downright impossible.

[Fast Walker 52]

6. he's actually been really good lately. He had a piece yesterday about Trump being in thrall to

Alex Jones that was spot on.

[Blue Idaho]

7. Really?

Well, I guess I need to give him another look then. Thank you for pointing that out!

[Fast Walker 52]

12. here

https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/trumps-news-source-alien-lizards-fluoride-mind-control-and-voter-fraud/2016/11/28/c0326c26-b5a0-11e6-b8df-600bd9d38a02_story.html?utm_term=.082955acf3ef%3Ftid%3Dsm_fb

[Blue Idaho]

14. Thanks! nt.

[hueymahl]

4. Agreed!

Voter suppression is and was a major factor.

[mopinko]

8. imho, this is our central failure.

the central failing of the democratic party. we let this shit slip by. we let them win the war for our democracy.

between the electoral college and these laws, the vulgarians have won. again. and again. in one state after another. while dems pulled their puds thinking all they had to do was spend more money on gotv.

several of these laws were struck down at the last minute, and i was sorta hoping we would have something close to a true plebiscite.
so even tho we cast the majority of the votes, not just for president, but for many seats in congress and state houses as well, many who should have won will not be seated in january.

the clinton campaign spent a boodle on gotv. they spent a lot on voter registration in the long slog of this campaign. but still this happened.

how much longer are we going to let these parasites eat away at our body politic? and loot our country?

one of my fave of the buttons i used to make was-
step 1- steal the election
step 2- steal everything

and so it goes.

[dhill926]

34. you said it....

[Javaman]

9. I have this plan.

Anytime anyone gets a Social Security card, you are automatically registered to vote.

just my two cents.

[ginnyinWI]

11. Or a birth certificate.

Of course you have to be of age, but it is the irrefutable proof of citizenship, isn't it. And naturalized citizens would get another form of voter ID when they become citizens. We have to beat them at this game.

Seniors are another category of disenfranchised: no longer driving, they need to be encouraged to get a state issued ID ahead of election day, and go vote.

[Sunlei]

15. Senior American citizens all receive their ss benefits, that should be enough ID to vote.

[pangaia]

35. Not for long I'm afraid

[Fast Walker 52]

13. In Oregon and now California (I think) they have automatic voter registration

where you are automatically registered when you turn 18

[Ligyron]

22. Hence heavily Democratic Legislatures.

or is it visa versa?

[Fast Walker 52]

24. Dem legislatures out in such measures which help keep Dems in power

Meanwhile the right stays in power by suppressing the vote and spreading disinformation.

[Hekate]

10. KnR

[Coyotl]

16. "And they arguably suppressed enough minority voters to cost Clinton the election."

This should be the lead sentence, not an "And ..." clause.

And it cost the nation a democracy, much greater loss than what it cost Clinton is what it cost the global family, every last one of us. I guess this shouldn't be an "And ..." clause either!

[mountain grammy]

18. BINGO!

[McCamy Taylor]

17. And yet another journalist-penguin jumps into the shark infested water, representing the WaPo

Does this mean the WaPo and the NYT are in a battle to see which will spearhead Watergate 2016?

[world wide wally]

20. Now voter supression will become entrenched in the USA.

Not to mention how the courts will be stacked with unfriendly judges.

[Wounded Bear]

21. I hope this gets some play...

it's about 20 years late in the reporting of it. It is far from a new problem.

[Yo_Mama_Been_Loggin]

25. Good editorial

[blue sky at night]

26. I don't freaking buy it...

if a citizen gave a shit about their country they would do A N Y T H I N G it takes to vote. I am sick of hearing lame ass excuses about how I can't vote because the mean men won't let me. THEY DON'T really give a shit!!!!

[pnwmom]

27. Millions of voters had their registrations purged and millions of others

arrived to vote and found out their ID's were inadequate -- the same IDs that were perfectly fine last time. Others found their polling places had been changed and were sent from place to place looking for where they should be voting.

None of those things happened to you so it's easy for you to cast blame.

[blue sky at night]

30. oh dear............

what's a voter to do?????????? how about finding all of that out in J U L Y or A U G U S T not freaking N O V E M B E R....no EXCUSE!

[pnwmom]

31. Did you check your voter registration before you went to vote?

The vast majority of people don't.

[blue sky at night]

33. I did do that...

and I voted absentee...it is so easy, but oh dear, poor voters! The vast Majority people are now fucked beyond belief!

[bdamomma]

40. I voted absentee too

well I live out of the country and yes it is very easy to do.

[lagomorph777]

45. Nice troll but many of the purges were perpetrated DAYS before the election

when it was impossible to get them fixed.

[meadowlander]

38. I think the point

is that it's 2016 - why is anyone in the US expected to spend four hours standing in line to do anything? There is no technological reason why voting can't be secure, painless and accessible to everyone, just like the most important civic duty in our country should be. The only reason voting is so inconvenient is because some people have deliberately made it that way to stop other people from voting.

Republicans have systematically worked to deprive people of their right to vote by understaffing polling places in minority neighbourhoods, by not providing accessible places to vote, by trying to prevent voting by making the hours inconvenient, by purging voter rolls in democratic districts, by spreading misinformation about how people can vote, etc.

I think you should show some more appreciation of the fact that many poor people do not have home internet access, or a car, or a stable home address where they can receive mail, or the ability to take half a day off work without going hungry. Something that you find relatively easy becomes a massive struggle when you have to do two bus transfers to get to a library (which may or may not be open during hours that work around your job schedule) just so you can print something. Add in kids and an 80 hour work week and that's just never going to happen.

Those people are the victims of a massive fraud. And it's not constructive to blame the victims of that fraud or to accuse them of not giving a shit. They do give a shit, they're just exhausted. So why not work to make things easier for them instead of tearing them down?

[kebob]

28. Too Few Permitted Votes for Hillary?

Definitely a factor, but the #1 cause of this debacle is that James Comey was given way too many votes, especially by our sorry excuse foo a news media!

[Akamai]

29. Thom Hartmann and Greg Palast have been focusing on this issue for a hell of a long time!

Dana Millbank comes late to the party, but great to have his voice at last!

"Cross-Check" by Chris Kobach disenfranchised many, many thousands of voters but the extent of the voter suppression may never be known.

As Thom Hartmann says, it would be great if the Jill Stein law suit also samples the unopened provisional ballots to see how those votes went. (Here on DU, we KNOW who the provisional ballots were cast for.)

[pnwmom]

32. Are we certain there are unopened provisional votes?

Greg Palast kept screaming about that in the California primary, but he was lying. In California, by law and practice, every provisional vote is checked, and all legitimate votes (usually 85-90%) are counted. That's part of why it takes so long to get final numbers in CA.

[mopinko]

36. some places dont count them if there are not enough to change the winner.

but if we examined them, we sure heck would find out who tried to vote and couldnt. especially since the voter is identified. we could easily check why they werent allowed to vote.

[tomp]

39. when elections are won and lost by small margins...

...we should know exactly WHY a vote is not counted or disqualified. That should be a normal part of all election results. We should be able to see if there is a disproportionate non-counting or disqualification of votes for certain groups. 10-15% is a lot of votes.

[Akamai]

43. That's not the Republican way, and that party -- not the Dems -- are whole heartedly

behind voter suppression. The only way they can win these days is through gerrymandering and voter suppression.

Listen to Republican strategists Paul Weyrich tells the truth about his party's focus on reducing the number of voters.

[yurbud]

41. if you can go to prison for voting more than once...

[yurbud]

42. you should go to prison for purging votes on false pretenses

[Bill USA]

44. "counties previously covered by the Voting Rights Act have closed down at least 868 polling places"

the Leadership Conference Education Fund, a civil rights group, found that counties previously covered by the Voting Rights Act have closed down at least 868 polling places. The closures (often without adequate notice) disproportionately affect minority voters.

[paigeatemyshoes]

46. Everyone should be automatically registered to vote.

I don't care about voter ID laws, I think that's reasonable when you consider what else we require ID's for.

But why are we not already registered to vote? I know some people, especially in the primaries, don't know if they're registered and don't show up.

[karlmarx1947]

47. Of Course: Almost No American Elections are Prima Facia Honest

I cannot think of an election from Kenedy/Nixon where Illinois may have been thrown where an incumbent wasn't running for a second term which wasn't thrown one way or another either by inadequate equipment, voter suppression, outright fraud, hacking or other methods. The reasons why this is so commonplace here in at least modern times is the stakes are very high in a Presidential Election and requiring voting is not enforced. If like Australia we required eligible voters to participate and fined people $50.00 if they didn't problems would largely evaporate other than making our creaky validation system up to date. Why people are so concerned about evident potential fraud and hacking in elections is a defect of having a President elected directly by the population when the vote is close. In a close election majority rule here means 1/2 the population approximately is disenfranchised. In a Parliamentary system the government would have to be run by a coalition and this near half of the population who voted for the minority would have a voice. The electoral college compounds the situation if you believe in majority rule. I am not sure I do but here there Trump lost by about 1-2% but not in the majority of electoral votes. Presidential System generally end in authoritarian rule at some point and I suspect the U.S. like most Latin Countries and Russia will follow suit shortly.