Well, here's a lot of irony for you. A lot of democrats over the past week or two have been saying the reason Donald Trump won the election is because it was rigged, especially in rust belt states Clinton was supposed to win. Oh, and it gets better, many of these accusations sound suspiciously like what we "Bernie Bros" called out 6 months ago, in the primaries, when no one listened and everyone told us we were a bunch of crazy conspiracy theorists. So let's look at these accusations:
Exit poll discrepancies
Some sources indicate that there was a very significant difference between the way exit polls predicted the election vs the way the it actually turned out and that this is cause for suspicion. This was also found in the primaries and it was a reason some people thought it was suspicious that Sanders lost in some states. The exit poll data and the actual results were way off.
It's arguable that this wasn't due to rigging though. I mean it raises suspicions, but in discussing Bernie Sanders in the primaries with people, and looking at explanations here, it's possible that the polls were just off due to how they sampled (as one article above mentioned they sometimes sample in clusters and this can lead to inaccurate results), and there's also the possibility of a shy Trump voter effect here in which people were embarrassed to discuss their support for Trump.
It does raise suspicions, and this definitely was something that made me suspicious of Sanders being screwed in the primary. However, like most evidence for these things, it's highly circumstantial. It's not a smoking gun; this was true in Sanders' case and it's true here. Still, I think the Clinton people are right to at least consider the possibility of funny business going on here. I just find the irony that they are now doing so to be pretty hilarious because we were saying the same darned thing 6 months ago and they were basically ignoring us.
Voter suppression and voter purging
Conservative voter suppression laws may have also depressed democratic turnout. Some of these states implemented a system called "crosscheck" to determine if people were voting multiple times, and this resulted in tens of thousands people purged from the voting rolls simply for having the same name as someone else in another state and stuff like that. This reminds me a lot of how during the primary tens of thousands of democratic magically became republicans or independents and how this might have given Clinton an advantage in the primaries. Once again, it's ironic how all of the sudden democrats care about this stuff when their preferred candidate loses. I'm not saying democrats don't have a right to be pissed off over such voter suppression measures, but honestly, we Bernie people were saying the same thing 6 months ago in the primary, and once again, we were dismissed as crazy conspiracy theorists.
Discussion
Now, I'm not saying the GOP definitely stole the election, nor am I saying that the dems definitely stole the primary in this way (as far as the primary goes I put way greater emphasis on the media machines manipulating people and general DNC dirtiness), but regardless, there is circumstantial evidence suggesting that there were certain patterns of behavior and polling that essentially may have helped contribute to Clinton's loss. I don't think it's the whole story, but it would help explain why there was a fairly large, but not quite statistically significant gap between the polling and the results. Remember, according to my own analysis, this election functioned as if there was a 3 point handicap in Trump's favor. This isn't out of the realm of random chance, but it is potentially a cause for concern given the fact that I was far closer in 2008 and 2012 and actually analyzed the election in far more depth this time around.
Either way, this evidence puts Clinton in a tough spot. If the dems pursue allegations of election fraud against the GOP, they will also be put under suspicion as the same tactics were arguably used against Sanders. And if they do pursue it, I hope they actually mean it and aren't just trying to do one thing when it helps them, and another when it doesn't. They need to be morally consistent on this issue. Not just suddenly cry foul when it benefits them while rigging the game themselves when no one is looking.
No comments:
Post a Comment