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

Nov. 07, 2016

Donald Trump's repeated assertions that this twelvemonth's election is "rigged" accept snowballed to the point where the billionaire is now the first major party nominee in history to not agree to bide past the results of an American election. Trump's assertions are startling for a number of reasons, not least of which is that the foundation of our democracy is the peaceful transition of power when the volition of the people demands information technology. But the most shocking thing is that he's absolutely, 100 percent right: This election is rigged.

Just it's not rigged confronting him—and non just because it's hard for anything to be rigged against a straight, white, male billionaire from New York City. It's rigged against the American people, particularly poor and non-white Americans, but similar every other ballot in American history has been.

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

The problem 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 merits to no longer tolerate poll taxes and literacy tests, but we still have completely unnecessary and unjustified restrictions on voting that diminish and restrict the ability of the poor—particularly poor, urban minorities—to exercise the most fundamental right in our democracy.

Gerrymandering

Gerrymandering is the worst culprit of racial oppression since Jim Crow. Although nosotros've written nearly this in greater detail before , this practise is so nefarious that it bears revisiting.

Every 10 years, states have to redraw their political districts to account for the near recent Demography data. Gerrymandering is the act of drawing those lines for purely political reasons. The problem is that state legislatures like ours become to redraw their own districts, and then the party in control redraws them to disenfranchise their political opponents. Here's what I wrote back in February:

Pennsylvania is a great (ok, terrible) instance of gerrymandering. In 2014, at that place were virtually 4 million registered Democrats and about 3 million registered Republicans. You would expect, then, that Democrats would accept a majority in the land House of Representatives. If all held co-ordinate to averages, the land House should have something like 116 Democrats and 87 Republicans.  Merely, thanks to gerrymandering, it'south practically flipped, with only 84 Democrats and 119 Republicans.

But information technology's non just political parties that become hurt. White politicians  have used tricks like gerrymandering and at-large districts to keep the number of minority elected officials well beneath what they should exist . And, here in Pennsylvania, information technology's no coincidence that the most egregiously-gerrymandered districts are in urban areas. The problem is and then bad nationwide that President Obama and old Chaser Full general Eric Holder are going to atomic number 82 a campaign to make redistricting more fair later on the 2022 Census.

The solution is so simple that it's almost painful. Computers can quickly, easily, and seamlessly redraw districts that are fair and compact without bias. Quite frankly, it'southward outrageous that our legislators (and our courts) permit mitt-drawn, crimson-picked districts to keep to be. The only 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 annals to vote. By putting barrier after barrier in their style, southern Whites made it practically impossible for African Americans to register, and therefore made it impossible for them to vote altogether. And, to this day, voter registration is made as difficult as possible for exactly the aforementioned reasons.

Voter registration requires proactive steps on the part of citizens. They accept to first know that they have to actively register. So, they have to make sure they annals early plenty to be allowed to vote in the side by side ballot. Hither in Pennsylvania, they have to know that they accept to register as a Republican or Democrat in order to have a meaningful voice in primary elections. They have to sympathise that registering to vote doesn't bear upon any other legal rights they may have in other states. And, when people move, they somehow forfeit their eligibility to vote only considering they have a new address; so people who motility have to know that they have to re-register.

While the days of George Wallace are over, voter oppression continues to this very day. Nosotros nonetheless have completely unnecessary and unjustified restrictions on voting that diminish and restrict the ability of the poor—particularly poor, urban minorities—to exercise the most primal right in our democracy.

This system is completely ridiculous. Voter registration should exist automatic. At that place are perfectly adept reasons to require citizens to vote in the district in which they live; but figuring out where a person lives isn't rocket scientific discipline. Think about all of the regime agencies that know about a person'due south address by the time they turn 18: schools; the DMV; the IRS, likewise every bit state and local tax agencies; the list goes on. And the longer a person lives, the more than regime agencies they'll collaborate with, including utility companies. At that place is no good reason why those agencies shouldn't automatically annals people to vote, like they practice in 5 states already. None. It should exist exceedingly rare for a person to need to fill out a new voter registration form. Voter registration drives should exist a thing of the past, a discarded relic of a bygone era of overt racial oppression.

Voting on Tuesday but

If you desire to make something difficult for poor people to practise, hither'south a hint: Brand them do information technology on a specific day (ideally a weekday) at a specific time (ideally during work hours) in a specific identify, and only give them one chance to practise information technology. Small surprise that we still hold our elections during work hours on one specific Tuesday in November. Pennsylvania voters have ane xiii-hour window in which to vote, and if you lot can't make it then, well, likewise bad for y'all.

This is a problem that a lot of states have actually taken significant steps to address. Simply non Pennsylvania, of course. For many, that 13-hr window is plenty of time. We can vote before or later on piece of work, or we can coil into piece of work belatedly or duck out early and tell our boss that nosotros had to vote. No big deal, right?

Only for people who work hourly jobs, missing a shift could be the difference between paying rent or getting evicted. On top of that, missing a shift could price them their task entirely. Single parents with children might non have the fourth dimension to stand in line at the polls. Some people might be forced to be out of town unexpectedly on election day, but didn't know nigh it until after the absentee ballot borderline.

The fact is, at that place are existent costs to voting. The more difficult we make voting, the higher those costs. And the people who tin least afford to behave those costs are the people who often have the about to gain or lose from the outcome of an election—poor and minorities. This amounts to a poll tax, plain and simple.

Again, the solutions are elementary and already widely-implemented. Early voting is immune in 34 states (plus DC) , and vote-by-postal service has been fully implemented in Oregon and Washington. And if for some reason we're non willing to practise that much? How most just making election twenty-four hour period a national holiday and making it illegal for employers to retaliate against employees if they miss work because of voting?

The 2-party system

This year's presidential election, possibly more than any other, highlights the failings of a two-party system. From the first chief all the way through the general election, voters in both parties were disappointed with their options, and frequently forced to make strategic choices virtually who to vote for rather than voting for the person they truly thought was all-time. For example, in the Republican main, the overwhelming majority of Republican voters wanted anyone but Donald Trump to exist their nominee; but, because they couldn't agree on a consensus alternative, Trump won country later state with pocket-sized pluralities of the vote.

It'south easy to run across why poor and minority communities aren't thrilled with their choices. Trump'south rhetoric towards minorities has been the worst of any presidential candidate since George Wallace himself, leaving Clinton free to ignore those communities in her policies, prophylactic in the cognition 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 3rd-political party candidate because of the style we count votes.

Gerrymandering is the worst culprit of racial oppression since Jim Crow. It's outrageous that our legislators allow hand-drawn, cherry-picked districts to continue to exist. The just possible reason is that they want to continue to dilute and suppress poor and minority votes.

The general upshot with voting for tertiary-political party candidates and independents is, of course, the Ralph Nader problem. For those of you who don't call back (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 and so entrenched that the likelihood of a viable 3rd political party emerging are effectively zero. So whatsoever vote for a third-party candidate takes a vote away from one of the "viable" major party candidates. People who vote strategically will end upward voting for their second choice, which isn't how republic should work.

Ranked-choice voting solves the Nader trouble—and thus encourages the existence of 3rd parties—past allowing people to rank all candidates in order of preference. Although it'south slightly more complicated than our electric current winner-take-all system, information technology'southward infinitely more off-white. In a ranked-choice system, a candidate must win a majority of all votes in society to win the election. If, after counting all of the first-choice votes, no one has a majority, then the candidate who had the fewest first-choice votes sees their votes redistributed based on those voters' second choices. The process continues until someone crosses that 50 percent threshold.

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

That'due south not all

These are only a few of the ideas that could profoundly aggrandize Americans' power to vote. There are fifty-fifty more, similar open primaries , lowering the voting age to 16, voting online, and creating financial incentives to vote. Implementing any 1 of these ideas would make our elections more off-white than they currently are.

If we were to create our voting system from scratch, it'southward unthinkable that we would create a system that looks like the one nosotros have. Anybody 1 of these flaws would take to be somehow justified. The only justification we currently have is the former "that'southward the way things have e'er been done" excuse. But inertia dating back to Jim Crow is quite possibly the worst justification for any of them. So yes, Mr. Trump, the ballot is rigged, just like every single ballot in American history has been rigged. It'southward rigged against the poor and minorities. What's your plan to fix it?

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Source: https://thephiladelphiacitizen.org/the-election-is-rigged-2/

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