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This is a companion discussion topic for the original entry at https://talkingpointsmemo.com/?p=1417537
This is a companion discussion topic for the original entry at https://talkingpointsmemo.com/?p=1417537
If we want fair election administration in which all voters can have confidence, we need much stronger rules to ensure that the people running our elections set aside their party loyalties.
Sounds good. The only fly in the ointment is that there’s a whole political party and its rabid voters in the US that do not, in fact, want fair election administration.
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In that sense, Trump “won” the 2020 Election. Unless we can counter the actions he and his political party have done, we are playing the game on his terms.
Never has there been such a chaos-inducing reaction by a presidential loser.
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“Fair” administration does exist - it’s only when the Republican wins, silly.
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Which is something that we prognosticators who could read the situation at all predicted back in 2016. We could see he was a true agent of chaos, riding a wave he didn’t understand, all for the ego trip. Once he found himself on the crest, he didn’t want to come down, and he was willing to do anything to stay up there. Legality/illegality plays no interest in his mind; just whether it feeds his desires or not.
Letting someone like that remain in charge is a recipe for disaster we here all saw coming, even if the Fourth Estate prognosticators were willfully blind to it at the time.
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It still beggars belief that “we” elected a total con man with no interest in anything save his own ass and money. Chauncey Gardner is a prince and a genius compared to him.
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TFG refers to any election that he loses as “stolen.” Not only do we have to wrestle our government back from these cretins, but the meaning of words, as well.
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Shit, he was already screaming fraud before the election in 2016. It was part of his plan even then.
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Most of the world does not always unconditionally trust election results. We should not either. Let us all also remember that elections in America were tainted for over a hundred years because of racist white nationalism. Likewise, Nazis in Germany and South Africa, and Putin in Russia were elected. None of us should take the vote, voting rights, vote counting or election results for granted. Opportunity for fraud and crime abound at every step.
The intelligence agencies of America, Russia, England, Australia, France, Israel, Saudi Arabia and some EU countries have been proficient, active and effective at rigging election outcomes in countries through much of the 20th and 21st centuries.
There are many contractors in England who will rig election in other countries for a price – Cambridge Analytica was one election rigging contractor that was caught on tape, was dissolved, and started up under another name.
Election outcomes should never be unilaterally considered sacred or rigged. Leads to unhealthy moral hazard. Trust has to be earned by all parties and all participants and verified.
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I sincerely hope that the J6 Committee Hearings get more people thinking more about Fair and Just Elections, for our future.
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Over the years I have known several election officials including secretaries of state. When I was young both parties seemed to promote bland but competent people to such positions. People who both parties trusted to do the right thing. In my home county the parties made sure that each had a solid, dependable “non-political” representative involved. I was always impressed by how they approached their jobs. Cool, quiet, evenhanded and competent.
That was when I was young. These days a guy like Brad Raffensperger appears to be exceptional. He is an open partisan, but he is still cool, and competent. Most of all he realizes that he works for all of the people not just his tribe. I think things started going to hell in 2000. Hanging chads would not have been an issue if there had been a competent ballot design. Damn do I wish we could return to the election officials and secretaries of state of my youth.
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TFG is very familiar with fraud.
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Lots of experience I understand.
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News from MTG-Land…
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“To Trust Election Results, We Must Trust The People Administering Them.”
We also need to trust that our Supreme Court – the ultimate referee of elections – isn’t an orgy of drunken, corrupt, theocratic, partisan hackery.
(And that our press isn’t a dope-filled scrum of on-air Ken dolls all squeezing out steaming, stinking “bothsliders”.)
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Indeed.
I believe that it was on O’Donnell’s show that it was pointed out that Merrick Garland gave an address to Harvard dealing with preserving our democracy.
It was Swalwell, the guest, who observed that the GOP is hellbent on overturning said system.
The insertion of Garland in the conversation was interesting.
I know HE knows (better than we do) the danger we are in right now.
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Another point, in regard to secretaries of state (state government): someone occupying the secretary of state position should not be running for higher office since he/she can affect the outcome in various unfair ways. Case in point, the corrupt Kemp in Georgia, who participated, along with Raffensperger, in purging voters and set the rules for his own election. He should have resigned the secretary of state’s office if he wanted to run for governor. The best you can say for him is that he is not a Trump favorite. But he should either resign from the governorship or be removed from office.