Wednesday, July 27, 2016

Was the democratic party primary rigged?

This is not just sour grapes the day after Clinton was coronated (although yes, I am bitter, thank you very much for asking). I came across a very strong case that suggests that the democratic primary was rigged for Clinton. It's very long, almost 100 pages, so just a TLDR warning there, but strong cases require laying out evidence, and require a lot of time to make one's case. So, I suggest reading it if you care for the details.

Anyway, the analysis is done by Election Justice USA, and argues that the the Democratic party may have been rigged via various methods like "targetted voter suppression", "registration tampering", "illegal voter purges", "exit polling discrepancies", "voting machine tampering", and weak security among voting machines (p. 95). It suggests that this could have cost Sanders up to around 184 delegates, which, having gone to Sanders, would have closed the lead by 368 delegates. Considering how Clinton won the popular delegate count by 359 delegates, this is enough to suggest that Sanders could have theoretically won the primary. It also mentions how the rigging could have affected media narratives, possibly costing even more delegates.

Now, all of this does not suggest that this effect was enough to solidify a Sanders lead. It's really only the most pronounced scenarios where it actually would have made enough difference to have an effect. If Sanders only lost 100 delegates, for example, he would have only shrunk Clinton's lead to 159. So it's really only the worst case scenario that Sanders actually lost the primary.

Still, this is very problematic for our democracy. Even minor/isolated voter suppression and the like is nothing to sneeze at. Every little bit helps, as anyone who lived through the 2000 election will tell you. This really puts the whole legitimacy of the democratic party and Hillary's candidacy into question, especially given the recent leaks. The democrats are looking as shady as heck right now. I can't say I'll be inclined to support them this election given all this. At least on the presidential level.

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