I still wouldn’t call it rigging, because it IS legal. It’s more like influencing in a legal manner.
Is it fair? No, but it’s legal, so it’s NOT rigging, by definition. It’s the same with the Electoral College. There are ways to manipulate it, and they aren’t specifically illegal, so it’s not rigging.
Make gerrymandering and Electoral College illegal, and then manipulating them would be rigging.
It is functionally election manipulation, making it much harder for election based overthrow of government, just out in the open and legal. If that is enough for you to not call it rigging, so be it. It doesn’t change what it is and what it does. Remove voting power from the electorate transferring it to the party/parties currently in power.
I criticise what it is and what it does, not the terminology. The issue is that this is not the only major deficiency in the US election system. Another one being that effective limitless bribing of parties, via election campaigns has been legalised as well. Yes, you might also come in and say, because it is legal it is not bribing. I don’t care. It functionally is, legally, call it whatever you like.
On top of that, the Electoral College almost seems benign as it is different, even though it is highly problematic as well. It is as such not changing, ie manipulating the outcome of the election in a dynamic matter, depending on who was previously in power in the state. It is my understanding, that while the voter will could be ignored, it is still the case that the electoral college is basically just doing what the state level results would suggest.
If you add it all up, especially with the changes in the recent year, I think the US is best described as authoritarian democracy. Overthrow of government by election is still possible but increasingly harder to achieve, free and fair elections are compromised, media increasingly affected by Gleichschaltung, the election bureaucracy is increasingly hollowed out and replaced by people under control by the government, instead of people trying to follow the process in a proper manner. Add to that, that even if the other party in this two party state were to win, also their candidate would stand no chance without tapping into the near limitless support from company fundings (and nothing in life is free).
There has been a lot of MAGA discussion about gaming the Electoral College as well, like splitting a state’s votes between parties. Its the next frontier after gerrymandering, although the gerrymandering thing hasn’t worked out so well for them this time, so maybe they’ll reconsider messing with the Electoral College.
Ah, who am I kidding? These MAGA morons never learn from their mistakes, they just blame somebody else, and keep being stupid.
Sure. The Electoral College is certainly a weak point as well, but giving all those other gaping weak points, reaching all the way up to the top of the judiciary, I’d be surprised if they’d even need to exploit the Electoral College. But never say never.
I still wouldn’t call it rigging, because it IS legal. It’s more like influencing in a legal manner.
Is it fair? No, but it’s legal, so it’s NOT rigging, by definition. It’s the same with the Electoral College. There are ways to manipulate it, and they aren’t specifically illegal, so it’s not rigging.
Make gerrymandering and Electoral College illegal, and then manipulating them would be rigging.
It is functionally election manipulation, making it much harder for election based overthrow of government, just out in the open and legal. If that is enough for you to not call it rigging, so be it. It doesn’t change what it is and what it does. Remove voting power from the electorate transferring it to the party/parties currently in power.
I criticise what it is and what it does, not the terminology. The issue is that this is not the only major deficiency in the US election system. Another one being that effective limitless bribing of parties, via election campaigns has been legalised as well. Yes, you might also come in and say, because it is legal it is not bribing. I don’t care. It functionally is, legally, call it whatever you like.
On top of that, the Electoral College almost seems benign as it is different, even though it is highly problematic as well. It is as such not changing, ie manipulating the outcome of the election in a dynamic matter, depending on who was previously in power in the state. It is my understanding, that while the voter will could be ignored, it is still the case that the electoral college is basically just doing what the state level results would suggest.
If you add it all up, especially with the changes in the recent year, I think the US is best described as authoritarian democracy. Overthrow of government by election is still possible but increasingly harder to achieve, free and fair elections are compromised, media increasingly affected by Gleichschaltung, the election bureaucracy is increasingly hollowed out and replaced by people under control by the government, instead of people trying to follow the process in a proper manner. Add to that, that even if the other party in this two party state were to win, also their candidate would stand no chance without tapping into the near limitless support from company fundings (and nothing in life is free).
There has been a lot of MAGA discussion about gaming the Electoral College as well, like splitting a state’s votes between parties. Its the next frontier after gerrymandering, although the gerrymandering thing hasn’t worked out so well for them this time, so maybe they’ll reconsider messing with the Electoral College.
Ah, who am I kidding? These MAGA morons never learn from their mistakes, they just blame somebody else, and keep being stupid.
Sure. The Electoral College is certainly a weak point as well, but giving all those other gaping weak points, reaching all the way up to the top of the judiciary, I’d be surprised if they’d even need to exploit the Electoral College. But never say never.
They aren’t driven by Need. If they have the opportunity to exploit something, they HAVE to do it, they can’t resist. It’s a compulsion.