UFO Sightings Are More Common Than Voter Fraud

So, You Thought You Understood This Voting Thing

12 min readNov 17, 2019

A democracy depends upon having a fair system of voting that enables every eligible citizen to express his or her opinion through the ballot box. Here’s the thing; it’s not that simple. I’ve already talked about Gerrymandering. What follows are explanations of the many other means people use to corrupt and distort the system we use to elect our leaders.

Voter Suppression

Voter suppression includes several variations of efforts by one group trying to keep members of an opposing group from voting. Many of the efforts are falsely characterized as efforts to reduce voter fraud. To be clear — voter fraud makes fascinating headlines, but it is not a significant issue. For a thorough understanding of the non-issue, read the Brennan Center for Justice Report “The Truth About Voter Fraud[1]”. In nearly every case of a claim that voter fraud is an issue, the party promoting the issue is using it to justify some deceitful effort to suppress voting by some targeted group. For example, the voting registration requirements, times, dates, and locations for voting are sometimes manipulated to make it more difficult for targeted groups to vote.

In September 2018, Dr. Carol Anderson, a professor of African-American studies at Emory University wrote an opinion in the NYTimes titled, “The Republican Approach to Voter Fraud: Lie — They use the fallacy of rampant cheating at the polls to make it harder for people to vote.”[2] She begins her piece with:

“He was a proud Korean War veteran. He was also black and lived in Texas. That meant that by 2013, Floyd Carrier, 86, was a prime target for the state’s voter suppression campaign, even though he was “Army strong.”

In an election that year, when he handed his Department of Veterans Affairs card to the registrar, he was turned away. No matter that he had used that ID for more than 50 years without a problem. Texas had recently passed a burdensome and unnecessary law that required voters to show a state-approved ID with a photo. His card didn’t have one.

The North Koreans couldn’t break Mr. Carrier, but voter suppression did. “I wasn’t a citizen no more,” he told a reporter last year. “I wasn’t.”

Voters across the country are now realizing that they, too, have crossed into the twilight zone: citizens of America without full citizenship rights. The right to vote is central to American democracy. “It’s preservative of all rights,” as the Supreme Court said in its 1886 ruling in Yick Wo v. Hopkins. But chipping away at access to that right has been a central electoral strategy for Republicans.”

If you have any doubts about the issues of voter fraud and voter suppression, take the time to read this article.

Voter Turnout

Voter suppression efforts are only one factor in determining turnout. Only 54% of voting-age population voted in the last presidential election (for mid-term elections, the percentage who vote is closer to 40%). The US ranks 138th of 172 democratic nations in voter turnout! Why is this an issue? The number of people who actually go to the polls and vote determine the outcome of elections. It is not enough to have the most supporters if they do not go out and vote. There are a few causes for the low voter turnout problem. Some of them are deliberate. For example, ‘fake news –aka lies — make a candidate look bad, diminishing enthusiasm for supporters to go to the polls. Fake news originating from a foreign enemy to deliberately influence a targeted group of voters is a new and frightening phenomenon.

Voter Registration

There are many democratic nations throughout the world. The US is one of the few that have separate registration and voting steps. In most democracies, when a person becomes eligible to vote, the government puts their names onto the voting lists. Governments know the names, ages, and addresses of most of its citizens and (except in the United States) provide the appropriate polling place with a list of those qualified to vote. The voter just has to show up. In the US, politicians in power place arcane and repressive barriers to registration — again, selected to minimize access to voting by targeted opposition groups. If a person is an eligible voter, there should be no need for them to register. The government knows they exist. Just go to the polls and vote.

Fake News

Fake news may be the most dangerous and frightening phenomena in this book. It undermines our democratic form of government by attempting to invalidate and vilify the people and institutions that provide the voting citizens the information they need to make good decisions. Extremists and foreign enemies use social media sources like Facebook and Twitter to discourage voters from going to the polls. By creating “fake news” stories and posting them on social media sites, highly qualified candidates look less admirable. The doubt generated by these tactics may diminish a voter’s enthusiasm and commitment to go out and vote. American political organizations originated much of the fake news, but for the first time in election history, there is irrefutable evidence of Russian interference. The Huffington Post article, “Here Are Some Of The Ads Russia Paid To Promote On Facebook”[3] provides a frightening insight into how deeply and broadly, the Russian efforts were targeted. If you want to see a second source, read, “Congress Just Released The Ads That Russia Used To Influence 2016 Election And They’re Unbelievable”[4] from VerifiedPolitics.com.

The Mueller Commission has indicted 13 Russian individuals and 3 Russian companies for interfering in the 2016 election. It should make every American angry to realize that a hostile foreign country played a major role in selecting the current President — regardless of what you think of the result. Trump’s denial of the issue is frightening. The US is under attack, the US Intelligence agencies have confirmed that efforts to influence the 2018 mid-term elections are already underway, and the President is not leading our defense or a counter-attack. More egregiously, he has not implemented the sanctions that Congress passed to punish past interference and deter future attacks.

We have entered particularly dangerous times. A major cable news channel, Fox News, has become biased beyond any reasonable limits. I recently heard it described as “Fox news — Rich people persuading middle-class people to blame poor people.” Viewers are described as ‘living in the bubble’ — meaning that they select their news sources so that they only see things that support their preexisting bias.

Tuesday Voting

Why do Americans vote on Tuesday? It dates back to an 1845 law. The people writing the law took into account that some people would not be able to travel to the county seat on the Sabbath, so they gave them one day to travel (Monday); a day to vote (Tuesday) and then time to go back home. Times have changed, but the law remains the same. Voting on Tuesday in these times means that people have to take time off from work. For many low-income citizens, this option is not affordable. There is a proposed law before congress to move the voting date to the weekend, but because many of the low-income voters who would benefit from this change typically vote for one political party, the other party is resisting the change. Making Election Day a national holiday or move it to Veterans’ Day as another means of fixing this issue.

Felon Disenfranchisement

The US incarcerates more of its citizens than any other country in the world. Although it varies from state to state, most states take away a person’s right to vote when convicted of a felony. In many states, there are efforts to revoke this kind of restriction and restore or never revoke a convicted felon’s voting rights. Lest you doubt this is a partisan issue, when the Democratic Governor of Virginia issued an Executive Order to restore voting rights to 200K felons, the GOP sued to stop him. Here again, the racial and socioeconomic demographics of the 200K felons were skewed in favor of the Democrats, so the GOP opposition was understandable, if not honorable. Across the country, state and federal laws disenfranchise about 2.5% of the voting population for felony convictions. Almost half of them (2.6M people) are no longer in prison. John Oliver provides a satirical but serious look at the issue on his program Last Week Tonight. Check it out at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NpPyLcQ2vdI Fair warning — some f-bombs.

Informed Electorate

If we succeed in making it easier for all citizens to vote, we must ensure, at the same time, they are prepared to use their votes wisely. This preparation needs to start in elementary school.

Money — Campaign Contributions

Elected officials admit that as soon as one election is over, they begin raising money for their next campaign. There is a direct correlation between how much money they spend on a political campaign and the campaign’s success in getting its candidate elected. The Vox.com article “40 charts that explain money in politics”[5] provides an excellent series of charts, graphs, and descriptions of the money associated with politics. The money is called a “contribution”. It should be called a “purchase”. When wealthy people or organizations give large amounts of money to politicians, they are expecting something in return. They expect to influence the politician’s vote on issues they care about.

Citizens United

This Supreme Court decision made it legal for corporations and labor unions to spend virtually unlimited amounts of money in support of their preferred candidate — but not give it to or coordinate with the candidate. The result has been a deluge of misleading and deceitful ads that become a big part of the Fake News mentioned above. Sixty percent of super PAC money spent on all federal elections between 2010 and 2015 — $600 million of $1 billion — came from just 195 individuals and their spouses. Undisclosed donations are also on the rise. This election cycle, dark money made up 28 percent of all spending in competitive Senate races. The winners of the 11 closest races benefited from $131 million in dark money. The public does not know who spent that money. Do the candidates who received backing know who spent that money? Of course they do. Are they going to give legislative favors to the people who spent that money? We don’t know and we can’t know; and the voters won’t be able to hold them accountable at the ballot box six years from now if they do.

Lobbyists

These people represent organizations seeking to influence legislation. In 2013, federal lobbyists spent more than $2.3B. Given that lobbyists provide a big majority of the money spent on elections, the current situation results in voters electing the representatives who then realistically more diligently represent the special interests who pay the lobbyists than the people who elected them.

Lack of Trust in the Voting System

As more states and districts adopt computer touchscreen voting machines, the potential for hacking and changing the results grows. The stories about Russian hacking during the last election and Donald Trump’s continuing claims of voter fraud only exacerbate the problem of voters’ lack of trust in the system.

The Electoral College

The simple fact that puzzles and irritates many people is that it is possible for a candidate to win the popular vote but lose the election because of the electoral vote. It is not just possible. Five times in America’s history, in 1824 (Adams over Jackson), 1876 (Hayes over Tilden), 1888 (Harrison over Cleveland), 2000 (Bush over Gore) and now in 2016 (Trump over Clinton); the candidate with the higher popular vote lost the election because of the Electoral College. So, why does America need or have an Electoral College? Blame this issue on the Founding Fathers. They feared that the general population could not be trusted to have the wisdom and knowledge to choose wisely, so the voters would select a slate of electors who would be better informed and qualified to choose. That original plan has devolved into a system where groups of political party hacks gets together and cast their votes based directly and solely on who won the popular vote in their state. There are a couple of remarkable inequities introduced by this system.

· The winner of the popular vote in any state takes all of that state’s electoral votes (except Maine and Nebraska). This choice is not federally mandated. Individual states set their rules.

· Under the Electoral College structure, smaller states have enormous political advantage. Wyoming has a population of 584,153 and has three electoral votes, which means that each Wyoming elector represents 194,717 voters. California has a population of 38,800,000 and has 55 electoral votes so each elector represents 705,454 voters. Therefore, each vote in Wyoming is worth 3.6 times more than each vote in California. (not close to the “one man — one vote” ideal)

The US is the only democracy in the world that has an Electoral College system. It is not serving the intended purpose. In fact, it may be distorting the will of the people.

Political Parties

Ideally, the political parties conduct a series of primary elections that deliver a slate of candidates from which the voters choose their President. Historically, America has had two major political parties and a group of smaller fringe parties. Currently, the two major parties are each divided into internally competing parts. The result has corrupted the process of selecting the best candidate from the available options. At the most recent presidential election, some voters went to the polls as zealots dedicated to electing their favorite, while many people either stayed home or held their noses and voted for the candidate who they felt stunk the least.

The Slightly Less Than Supreme Court

Whether you agree or disagree with the recent Supreme Court decisions, I hope you are troubled by how politicized the Court has become. In the Affordable Care Act ruling, Chief Justice Roberts acted apolitically and joined the majority in supporting the legitimacy of the act. The three justices who ruled against the Act cited a strict non-contextual interpretation of one specific passage as the reason for their vote. Their assertion was that the wording was intended to invalidate the rest of the Act — or to make the rest of the Act untenable by shrinking the risk pool. It’s an absurd assertion. For hundreds of pages, the Act created a program for providing affordable healthcare to millions of Americans. Buried in all of that language was one short sentence that could be interpreted to make the Act impossible to implement. Three Conservative justices clung to that single sentence as their justification for potentially invalidating the whole act. The consequences of overturning the Act were horrific. Millions of people would have lost their healthcare coverage. The members of the Court are called “Justices.” There would have been no justice in overturning the Act. I am not saying the Act is a great solution. We still have outrageous issues with the cost and availability of healthcare in this country. However, a partisan ruling on the issue doesn’t fix the problems and does the country no good.

The recent ruling on gay Marriages should not be a split decision along party lines. Either the Constitution supports gay marriages or it does not. All the crap about states’ rights and the other red herring issues raised do not change the fundamental issue. It is bad that the court split 5–4 on the decision. What makes it more unpalatable is that the split is along party lines. Intelligent, well-meaning, rational people can have different opinions about specific questions. Because the Justices are appointed through a political process, we can expect some ideological leanings from the members. Senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan is frequently quoted for his statement, “Everyone is entitled to his own opinion, but not his own facts.” We need our Justices to behave more like statesmen and less like political hacks. They are appointed by a political process, but after they are appointed, they serve all of the American people, not just the party that appointed them.

Delegates and Super-Delegates

Both political parties have some form of a super-delegate system, but the Democratic Party version is much more powerful. The delegate part is simple and fair. Each state holds party primary elections and selects its candidates for support at the national convention. A slate of delegates convey this support by voting at the convention on a winner-take-all basis, or in some states, in proportion to the vote by the electorate. The candidate who receives the most votes at the convention becomes the party’s nominee for the office. Seems simple and fair enough. However, the senior people in the party, including the currently and formerly serving Presidents, Senators, and Representatives were not necessarily members of these state delegate groups — and they were not willing to cede the power to select the candidate to these locally elected delegates; so they made themselves super-delegates. As such, they had full voting rights, without any constraints on who they would support. The super-delegates control 15% of the votes. It is not a majority, but they do not need a majority to control the outcome. As long as the delegate count is within 15%, the super-delegates can control the outcome. If the count differential is greater than 15%, then the superior candidate probably has a major popular level of support and the party elders would not oppose that person because they would want that person to win the nomination — and hopefully, the election.