[1] http://s3.amazonaws.com/uploads.democrats.org/Downloads/DNC_...
This sort of system maybe worked better early in the days of the US but with our two very entrenched parties, all of this serves to prevent any third party becoming a viable option.
Both parties are corporations and are part of the problem. They circled the wagons when Ross Perot scared the shit out of them in 92, and the League of Women Voters withdrew from doing the debates because of how unfair they were becoming.
http://www.theroot.com/dnc-fraud-lawsuit-is-the-biggest-stor...
It wouldn't surprise me if there are a number of campaign-inspired lawsuits. That doesn't mean any of their claims are found to be true by a court.
You're suggesting that the DNC colluded with Clinton against Sanders, yet Sanders is not a part of this lawsuit. Sounds more like spin from the right to me.
What the DNC leaks show is also the messiness underbelly of virtually any campaign. You can call it collusion, but I'd say it's the DNC doing their job to try to get an electable candidate on the ballot. The RNC did the same thing - they just failed this time.
Had the Trump team's email leaked in the same way, I suspect the election would have gone the other way.
> And he did this by winning more popular votes in key states
And you said:
> This is incorrect. In one case, Trump won the election by very narrowly winning more popular votes in key states.
What exactly is "incorrect" again? So just because he won by a small margin, that win doesn't count? I don't even like Trump but this is really outrageous. Please take a second to think about what you're saying. I don't even know what you consider as "correct".
It's hard to conceive of what could be in Trump team email that would be more damaging than some of the things that Trump said that were known before the election. Such as:
"I could stand in the middle of 5th Avenue and shoot somebody and I wouldn't lose voters"
and
"Grab ’em by the pussy. You can do anything."
And that's just the tip of the iceberg. It seems like Trump said something outrageous every other day.
If Trump's email had him directing his underlings to cooperate with the Russians to hack the DNC, then maybe that would have hurt. But maybe that wouldn't have been sufficient. Maybe there would have needed to be a video attachment with Trump saying exactly that? Not just words?
Seriously. Outside of evidence of Trump specifically directing people to cooperate with Russia to commit felonies, what email could have been sufficiently damaging to Trump?
OTOH, the "but Hillary" argument seemed to trump everything else, so ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
> Moscow’s influence campaign followed a Russian messaging strategy that blends covert intelligence operations—such as cyber activity—with overt efforts by Russian Government agencies, state-funded media, third-party intermediaries, and paid social media users or “trolls.”
3rd party candidates in FL in 2000 and MI, PA, and WI in 2016 were the spoilers for the whole nation. Don't be an idealistic, naive American voter, be a pragmatic voter!
Yes I know the electoral college is racist, and we need to abolish it.
In any case, shaming people because they voted for a candidate who they felt best represented their views goes against the very idea of representative democracy.
These 3rd party voters could have abstained or voted for another 3rd party or went Republican, but they didn't. They could have traded their vote to someone in a safe state (https://www.nytimes.com/2016/09/16/opinion/anti-trump-republ...), if Hillary was their 2nd preference. If not, go ahead, vote for 3rd party candidate who could be a spoiler and has no chance of winning.
Again, I am not saying that don't vote for 3rd party candidates anywhere.
There is no equivalence between Trump and Hillary, and if Voting for Hillary in a non-safe or safe state would have been a wasted vote, pity the 65 million who voted for her.
I was a California resident at the time. My vote was about as close to irrelevant as one can get; California's electoral votes haven't turned red since Reagan.
Even if I had moved to Nevada by then (that is: a few months before I actually did), I would have had zero regrets voting for Johnson. Neither Trump nor Clinton deserved my vote, simple as that.
"There is no equivalence between Trump and Hillary"
There is plenty of equivalence between two corrupt and most-likely-actually-criminal sociopaths. There's also plenty of equivalence between two presidential campaigns that went out of the way to present a "if you're not with me, then you're against me" mentality and alienate every supporter of the other candidate.
Importantly, and more specifically, both candidates' campaigns utterly alienated me as a voter simply because I did not precisely align with their "one true policy" or whatever. Neither candidate gave me any reason to vote for them, and every reason to not vote for them.
"2nd preference"
I had no second preference. If I did have a second preference, it might as well have been Mickey Mouse.
"vote trading"
Oh yeah, and make my vote even more worthless than it already is.
(Of course, vote trading as a California resident would've been an upgrade no matter what, but now that I live in Nevada, it'd be entirely irrational to want to dilute the power of my individual vote any further than it already is).
http://www.salon.com/2016/12/15/the-electoral-college-born-o...
Also, if a democratic candidate is your 2nd preference, and you're in a non-safe state, and you don't trust vote trading, you should most likely not vote for a spoiler candidate, and vote for your 2nd preference democratic candidate. If a democrat isn't your 2nd preference, go ahead, do what you want.
The mechanics of the electoral college make this much pragmatism and tactical voting necessary for any American voter I'm afraid.
The voting is not the problem, the two party system, that effectively discounts any vote thats not R or D, is.
No excuse to not do it until the electoral college is abolished.
Percentage increase is less relevant with Trump on the ballot, compared with the raw votes that swung the electoral college.
I am not saying don't vote for 3rd parties. I am saying if you're in a non-safe state for your 2nd preference, do vote trading with someone in a safe state or vote for your 2nd preference who has a better chance of winning. If you vote trade, your 3rd party candidate will still get the same percentage of votes nationwide, and your 2nd preference will actually win.
The combination of mass incarceration, the racist electoral college as it is, and the the demographics of the country make it seem likely that some pragmatic and tactical voting in non-safe states will go a long way for Democrats, at least that seems to be the lesson from the past two decades. Hacking the electoral college anyone?
No, not by definition. There's all sorts of other reasons why Clinton could get fewer votes. Clinton has just been trying to blame every reason except those that blame her campaign.
The real question isn't "what could have cost her a fraction of a percentage point here and there?", but instead "why was such a razor edge to begin with?"
You're ignoring that Trump on the ballot meant any Libertarian was going to get a bump. Any other republican, and their winning margin would've been bigger, or Hillary would've won and we wouldn't be having this conversation.
It shouldn't have been close, but the last few elections have been, with the popular vote winner losing the electoral college twice and Kerry coming within ~30 EVs. Do you have a solution for divided media, inequality, climate change, and citizens united, that is simpler than vote trading or making people realize voting for their 2nd preference might just be worth it to hack the electoral college? I'd love to hear it.
There's no data that this that case. You just keep stating it like it's a fact.
In all three cases, the difference between Hillary and Trump was less than what the 3rd party candidates got and what Jill Stein alone got. Given what I've said before, and what happened in 2000 in FL, trying to convince people of actually voting for their 2nd preference (Hillary) or vote trading in such states makes almost as much sense as blaming the Clinton campaign itself (definitely deserves the most blame), Russia, and any number of other reasons why Hillary lost.
It's a part of the puzzle, again, given that this is the 2nd time this happened.
These issues probably affected presidential democratic turnout in these states as much as any other issue affecting the statewide or national campaigns. Also, millennial turnout was down from 2012 according to exit polls. Not sure how much to believe exit polls. Total turnout was up by little in MI and PA in 2016 compared to 2012, and it was down in WI.
https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2016/11/08/us/politics/e...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_presidential_ele...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_presidential_ele...
Generally speaking "hacking the election" doesn't refer to this, and instead refers to information operations by Russian linked groups. Indeed, there were no credible public allegations of actual voting machine hacks or even attacks until the "Reality Winner" leaks.
I'd note that on a website called "Hacker News" it should be pretty clear that "hack" can refer to many, many thing.
In either case, Trump won the election because he won more electoral votes than Hillary. And he did this by winning more popular votes in key states. It’s that simple. The Democrats had an unappealing candidate who ran a weak campaign in key states. And lost.
What the DNC leaks do show, however, is that the Democrats ran a fraudulent primary election where they colluded with the Clinton campaign and suppressed any opposition from the left. This resulted in an unpopular candidate in the general election, and a public even more untrusting of the Clintons and the process. The Democrats needs to look in the mirror instead of playing to fears of Russian boogeyman.