The Election is Rigged; Just Not in the Way Donald Trump Claims

Nov. 07, 2016

Donald Trump's repeated assertions that this year's election is "rigged" accept snowballed to the point where the billionaire is at present the outset major party nominee in history to not agree to abide by the results of an American ballot. Trump'south assertions are startling for a number of reasons, not least of which is that the foundation of our democracy is the peaceful transition of ability when the will of the people demands it. But the most shocking thing is that he's admittedly, 100 percentage right: This election is rigged.

Simply it's not rigged against him—and not just because information technology's hard for anything to be rigged confronting a straight, white, male billionaire from New York City. Information technology'south rigged against the American people, particularly poor and non-white Americans, just like every other election in American history has been.

It's easy to point to historical means in which American republic was a game played on a grossly tilted playing field. At our founding, only white male person property owners could vote. No surprise, then, that only white male property owners held office. Eventually tenants were immune to vote, then minorities (to varying degrees based on when and where they lived), and then women, then young adults, and so African Americans in the South (over again). In fact, there take been so many advances in suffrage during our nation's history that it'south easy to look at the landscape and believe that we've enfranchised every single eligible person who could possibly claim a right to it.

The trouble is that our oppression of voters didn't go away; it just went into the shadows. While the days of George Wallace, the infamous Alabama governor who openly declared  "segregation now, segregation tomorrow, segregation forever" are over, voter oppression continues to this very day. We may claim to no longer tolerate poll taxes and literacy tests, but nosotros still have completely unnecessary and unjustified restrictions on voting that diminish and restrict the ability of the poor—specially poor, urban minorities—to exercise the well-nigh cardinal correct in our democracy.

Gerrymandering

Gerrymandering is the worst culprit of racial oppression since Jim Crow. Although we've written about this in greater item earlier , this practice is so nefarious that information technology bears revisiting.

Every 10 years, states have to redraw their political districts to account for the most contempo Census data. Gerrymandering is the deed of drawing those lines for purely political reasons. The trouble is that land legislatures similar ours get to redraw their ain districts, so the political party in control redraws them to disenfranchise their political opponents. Here's what I wrote back in Feb:

Pennsylvania is a great (ok, terrible) example of gerrymandering. In 2014, in that location were about 4 million registered Democrats and well-nigh 3 million registered Republicans. You would expect, and then, that Democrats would accept a bulk in the land House of Representatives. If all held according to averages, the state House should have something like 116 Democrats and 87 Republicans.  But, thanks to gerrymandering, it's practically flipped, with simply 84 Democrats and 119 Republicans.

But it's non simply political parties that get injure. White politicians  have used tricks similar gerrymandering and at-large districts to go along the number of minority elected officials well below what they should be . And, here in Pennsylvania, it's no coincidence that the virtually egregiously-gerrymandered districts are in urban areas. The trouble is and so bad nationwide that President Obama and former Chaser General Eric Holder are going to lead a campaign to brand redistricting more fair after the 2022 Census.

The solution is so simple that information technology'due south almost painful. Computers can quickly, easily, and seamlessly redraw districts that are fair and meaty without bias. Quite bluntly, information technology's outrageous that our legislators (and our courts) allow paw-drawn, ruddy-picked districts to proceed to exist. The just possible reason is that they want to continue to dilute and suppress poor and minority votes.

Voter registration

Another pillar of Jim Crow voter oppression was the refusal to let African Americans register to vote. Past putting barrier after barrier in their way, southern Whites made it practically impossible for African Americans to register, and therefore made it impossible for them to vote birthday. And, to this day, voter registration is made every bit difficult as possible for exactly the same reasons.

Voter registration requires proactive steps on the part of citizens. They have to showtime know that they have to actively register. And so, they take to make certain they register early enough to be allowed to vote in the next election. Here in Pennsylvania, they take to know that they have to register as a Republican or Democrat in order to have a meaningful voice in primary elections. They have to understand that registering to vote doesn't affect any other legal rights they may have in other states. And, when people move, they somehow forfeit their eligibility to vote just considering they have a new address; so people who motion have to know that they take to re-annals.

While the days of George Wallace are over, voter oppression continues to this very mean solar day. Nosotros still have completely unnecessary and unjustified restrictions on voting that diminish and restrict the power of the poor—especially poor, urban minorities—to exercise the nigh key correct in our democracy.

This system is completely ridiculous. Voter registration should be automatic. There are perfectly practiced reasons to require citizens to vote in the commune in which they live; but figuring out where a person lives isn't rocket scientific discipline. Think near all of the government agencies that know about a person's accost by the time they plough xviii: schools; the DMV; the IRS, likewise as state and local taxation agencies; the list goes on. And the longer a person lives, the more authorities agencies they'll interact with, including utility companies. At that place is no good reason why those agencies shouldn't automatically register people to vote, like they exercise in v states already. None. It should be exceedingly rare for a person to need to fill out a new voter registration form. Voter registration drives should be a affair of the by, a discarded relic of a bygone era of overt racial oppression.

Voting on Tuesday only

If you want to make something difficult for poor people to do, hither'southward a hint: Brand them practise information technology on a specific day (ideally a weekday) at a specific time (ideally during work hours) in a specific place, and just give them one chance to exercise it. Small surprise that we all the same hold our elections during work hours on i specific Tuesday in November. Pennsylvania voters have one 13-hour window in which to vote, and if yous tin can't make it then, well, too bad for you lot.

This is a problem that a lot of states have really taken significant steps to address. Merely not Pennsylvania, of class. For many, that xiii-hour window is plenty of time. We tin vote before or later on work, or we tin can roll into piece of work late or duck out early and tell our boss that we had to vote. No large bargain, correct?

Merely for people who work hourly jobs, missing a shift could be the divergence between paying rent or getting evicted. On acme of that, missing a shift could cost them their chore entirely. Single parents with children might not have the time to stand up in line at the polls. Some people might be forced to exist out of town unexpectedly on ballot day, but didn't know about it until after the absentee election deadline.

The fact is, there are real costs to voting. The more hard nosotros make voting, the higher those costs. And the people who can least afford to bear those costs are the people who often take the nearly to proceeds or lose from the outcome of an election—poor and minorities. This amounts to a poll tax, patently and simple.

Again, the solutions are unproblematic and already widely-implemented. Early voting is immune in 34 states (plus DC) , and vote-past-mail has been fully implemented in Oregon and Washington. And if for some reason we're not willing to practise that much? How about simply making election day a national holiday and making it illegal for employers to retaliate against employees if they miss work because of voting?

The 2-party organization

This year'south presidential election, perhaps more than any other, highlights the failings of a two-political party organisation. From the get-go primary all the way through the full general ballot, voters in both parties were disappointed with their options, and ofttimes forced to make strategic choices about who to vote for rather than voting for the person they truly thought was best. For example, in the Republican primary, the overwhelming majority of Republican voters wanted anyone but Donald Trump to be their nominee; merely, because they couldn't concord on a consensus alternative, Trump won land later on state with small pluralities of the vote.

It'due south like shooting fish in a barrel to run across why poor and minority communities aren't thrilled with their choices. Trump'southward rhetoric towards minorities has been the worst of whatsoever presidential candidate since George Wallace himself, leaving Clinton free to ignore those communities in her policies, safety in the knowledge that they practically take to vote for her if they even desire a shot at our side by side president caring about them. And, realistically, there's no way for anyone to build a credible tertiary-party candidate considering of the way we count votes.

Gerrymandering is the worst culprit of racial oppression since Jim Crow. Information technology's outrageous that our legislators let paw-drawn, crimson-picked districts to go along to be. The simply possible reason is that they want to go on to dilute and suppress poor and minority votes.

The full general issue with voting for third-party candidates and independents is, of form, the Ralph Nader trouble. For those of you who don't think (or chose to forget), Nader infamously siphoned votes from Al Gore in the 2000 presidential election, costing Gore both Florida and the presidency. Our two parties are so entrenched that the likelihood of a feasible third party emerging are finer nothing. So whatever vote for a third-party candidate takes a vote abroad from one of the "feasible" major party candidates. People who vote strategically will end up voting for their second choice, which isn't how democracy should piece of work.

Ranked-choice voting solves the Nader problem—and thus encourages the existence of third parties—by assuasive people to rank all candidates in order of preference. Although information technology'due south slightly more than complicated than our electric current winner-accept-all system, information technology'due south infinitely more off-white. In a ranked-choice arrangement, a candidate must win a bulk of all votes in order to win the ballot. If, after counting all of the first-choice votes, no one has a majority, and so the candidate who had the fewest starting time-selection votes sees their votes redistributed based on those voters' 2d choices. The process continues until someone crosses that 50 per centum threshold.

If we'd had ranked-choice voting in 2000, all of those Nader voters could take ranked Nader equally their top pick and Gore equally their second choice; once Nader was eliminated, those votes would have transferred to Gore, who as a outcome likely would have won the election. We're seeing something similar happen this year, as supporters of Gary Johnson and Jill Stein are slowly being drawn to either Clinton or Trump out of fright of playing the spoiler.

That'south not all

These are just a few of the ideas that could greatly expand Americans' ability to vote. There are even more, like open up primaries , lowering the voting age to 16, voting online, and creating financial incentives to vote. Implementing any one of these ideas would make our elections more fair than they currently are.

If nosotros were to create our voting arrangement from scratch, it'due south unthinkable that we would create a organization that looks like the one nosotros have. Everyone i of these flaws would have to be somehow justified. The only justification nosotros currently take is the sometime "that's the mode things have always been done" excuse. Only inertia dating back to Jim Crow is quite possibly the worst justification for any of them. So yes, Mr. Trump, the election is rigged, just like every unmarried election in American history has been rigged. It's rigged against the poor and minorities. What'due south your programme to fix it?

Photo header via Flickr

amendolaanorthems.blogspot.com

Source: https://thephiladelphiacitizen.org/the-election-is-rigged/

Share this post