Election is Rigged! SG & USA same same

[democracy my butt]

[video=youtube_share;6xoa8bpFJc8]https://youtu.be/6xoa8bpFJc8[/video]




http://mobile.abc.net.au/news/2016-...presidential-nominating-system-rigged/7365218



US elections: Half of Americans think presidential nominating system 'rigged', survey says
UPDATED ABOUT 5 HOURS AGO
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PHOTO Voters find the state-by-state system of primaries, caucuses and conventions complex.
AFP: PAUL J. RICHARDS
More than half of American voters believe the system US political parties use to pick their candidates for the White House is "rigged", and more than two-thirds want to see the process changed, according to a Reuters/Ipsos poll.

Key points:
71 per cent would like to pick their nominee with a direct vote and cut out delegates
Over a quarter Americans don't understand the primary process
Analysts say 'arcane rules' come into play only during tight races
The results echo complaints from Republican front-runner Donald Trump and Democratic challenger Bernie Sanders that the system is stacked against them in favour of candidates with close ties to their parties — a critique that has triggered a nationwide debate over whether the process is fair.

The United States is one of just a handful of countries that gives regular voters any say in who should make it onto the presidential ballot, but the state-by-state system of primaries, caucuses and conventions is complex.

The contests historically were always party events, and while the popular vote has grown in influence since the mid-20th century, the parties still have considerable sway.

Larry Sabato, director of the University of Virginia Centre for Politics, said the US presidential nominating system could probably be improved in several areas, but noted the control wielded by party leadership usually becomes an issue only during tight races.

"The popular vote overwhelms the rules usually, but in these close elections, everyone pays attention to these arcane rules," he said.

Some 51 per cent of likely voters who responded to the April 21-26 online survey said they believed the primary system was "rigged" against some candidates.

Some 71 per cent of respondents said they would prefer to pick their party's nominee with a direct vote, cutting out the use of delegates as intermediaries

The results also showed 27 per cent of likely voters did not understand how the primary process works and 44 per cent did not understand why delegates were involved in the first place — the responses were about the same for Republicans and Democrats.

Overall, nearly half said they would also prefer a single primary day in which all states held their nominating contests together — as opposed to the current system of spreading them out for months.

The poll included 1,582 Americans and had a credibility interval of 2.9 percentage points.

'The process is so flawed'
"I'd prefer to see a one-man-one-vote system," said Royce Young, 76, a resident of Society Hill, South Carolina, who supports Democratic front-runner Hillary Clinton.

"The process is so flawed."

One quirk of the US system — and the area where the parties get to flex their muscle — is the use of delegates, party members who are assigned to support contenders at their respective conventions, usually based on voting results.

The parties decide how delegates are awarded in each state, with the Republicans and Democrats having different rules.

The delegates' personal opinions can come into play at the party conventions if the race is too close to call — an issue that has become a lightning rod in the current political season.

Another complication is that state governments have different rules about whether voters must be registered as party members to participate.

In some states, parties further restrict delegate selection to small committees of party elites, as the Republican Party in Colorado did this year.

Reuters

 

[democracy my butt]

http://www.bbc.com/news/election-us-2016-36029381


US Election 2016
Is the US presidential race 'rigged'?
Anthony Zurcher
North America reporter
14 April 2016
From the section US Election 2016
Image copyrightGetty Images
The United States may be a democracy, but the party presidential nomination process - upon closer inspection - is hardly a shining beacon of democratic light.
For most of US history, party nominees have been decided by political power brokers and deal-makers behind closed doors. Parties operate like private clubs - they make their own rules and are suspicious of outsiders.
Only in recent history has a more open system of primaries and caucuses been grafted onto the process to give the average American a say in who appears on the general election ballot.
In a close, contentious primary season, however, the veneer of accountability can rub off, exposing the sometimes unsightly gears that still power the US political system.
This has prompted objection from the supporters of two candidates in particular - Donald Trump and Bernie Sanders - who feel that the party establishments are arrayed against their presidential quests.
But are their concerns valid? Here are answers to four pertinent questions as the nomination battles approach their final months.
Is Trump being cheated?
34
Number of delegates Ted Cruz received in Colorado, which held conventions to pick delegates
743 Trump total delegate count
545 Cruz total delegate count
AP
AP
Mr Trump is leading the race for the Republican nomination, but it's starting to feel like he's not winning.
While he's comfortably ahead, with 743 delegates to second-place Ted Cruz's 545, there's mounting evidence that he's being outmanoeuvred in a behind-the-scenes political process that could come into play if he doesn't reach the magic 1,237 delegate number necessary to secure the nomination outright.
In Colorado - which selected its delegates last week at party gatherings instead of through primaries or caucuses - Mr Cruz walked away with all 34 delegates. Even in states that have held contests won by Mr Trump, Mr Cruz's team has been working doggedly to ensure that their people become delegates.
While Mr Trump swept South Carolina's 50 delegates, for instance, the state's convention delegation will be riddled with Cruz supporters who, while bound to Mr Trump on the first few ballots, can switch to the Texas senator if there is a protracted convention battle.
It has Mr Trump and his people crying foul.
"This is happening all over our country - great people being disenfranchised by politicians," Mr Trump tweeted on Monday. "Repub party is in trouble!"
Paul Manafort, Mr Trump's new aide in charge of managing the delegate-selection process, accused the Cruz campaign of using "Gestapo tactics, scorched-earth tactics" in Colorado.
If, as Mr Trump asserted on Monday, the system is "rigged" and "crooked", however, it isn't always tilted in favour of Mr Trump's opponents. Thanks to the Republican Party's delegate-apportioning system, including Florida's winner-take-all primary, Mr Trump has secured a larger share of the delegates so far (45%) than he has of the raw primary vote (37%).
If Mr Cruz manages to win the nomination at the Republican convention despite trailing Mr Trump in total delegates and share of the popular vote, Mr Trump may have reason to feel aggrieved.
But before he complains too loudly, he might want to heed some sage advice attributed (incorrectly) to Albert Einstein: "You have to learn the rules of the game. And then you have to play better than anyone else."
Mr Trump should be familiar with the quote, since he tweeted it in October 2014.
Why isn't Sanders catching up?
17
States Bernie Sanders has won
18
States Hillary Clinton has won
BBC
AP
Mr Sanders has won five state contests in a row and seven of the last eight. If he were an American football team he'd be poised for the playoffs. If he were prize fighter, he'd be tuning up for a title bout.
Instead his pledged-delegate deficit to Mrs Clinton has gone from daunting to only fractionally less daunting. Over the course of his recent run, the Vermont Senator has picked up a net of just 91 delegates, despite winning Wisconsin 56% to 43%, Utah 79% to 20% and Washington 72% to 27%.
According to a New York Times calculation, the former secretary of state currently has 1,305 pledged delegates, while Sanders has 1,086. Add in the non-binding support of "super-delegates" - Democratic officeholders and party functionaries who also cast ballots for the nominee at the convention - and Mrs Clinton's lead balloons to 1,774 to 1,117.
To secure the Democratic nomination without drama at the convention a candidate needs the backing of 2,383 delegates
The problem for Mr Sanders is that while he's been posting sizeable wins over the past month, they've largely been in delegate-poor states, like Wyoming (14 delegates), Idaho (23) and Alaska (16). His successes pale in comparison to Mrs Clinton's massive earlier wins in populous southern states like Texas, Florida and Georgia, which alone netted her 184 delegates over Mr Sanders.
If Mrs Clinton performs as expected in the coming contests in New York (291 delegates), Maryland (118) and Pennsylvania (210), she'll largely erase all the modest ground Mr Sanders has made up over the past three weeks.
Does the popular vote even matter?
9,412,426
Votes for Hillary Clinton during primary season so far
7,034,997
Votes for Bernie Sanders during primary season so far
BBC
Getty Images
If delegate maths and selection rules make your head hurt, at least we can rely on the raw vote totals to get a feel for how popular the remaining candidates are, right?
Wrong.
According to current tabulations Hillary Clinton has received 9,412,426 votes during the primary season so far. Bernie Sanders has received 7,034,997. That 2.4m vote lead has been relentlessly touted by the former secretary of state and her supporters to counter claims from Sanders' faithful that their man is more popular than the delegate tallies indicate.
Some states that hold caucuses - like Iowa and Washington - aren't included in that number, however, because they don't report vote totals.
The Washington Post's Glenn Kessler tried to extrapolate numbers for the remaining states based on their total voter turnout and concluded that Hillary Clinton leads Bernie Sanders by 2.3m votes - still a significant margin.
Among the Republicans, who are better at providing full vote totals, Mr Trump leads with 8,256,309 votes. Mr Cruz is second (6,319,244) and former candidate Marco Rubio is third (3,482,129), followed by Ohio Governor John Kasich (2,979,379).
In the end the popular vote may give the leading candidates a claim of legitimacy as the people's choice - but appearances can be deceiving.
"The media has created the perception that the voters choose the nomination. That's the conflict here," North Dakota delegate Curly Haugland told a television interviewer. "The rules are still designed to have a political party choose its nominee at a convention. That's just the way it is."
Can Republican convention delegates be bribed?
"Well, there's the law, and then there's ethics, and then there's getting votes. I'm not going to get into what tactics are used."
Donald Trump adviser Paul Manafort
If, as appears to be increasingly likely, the Republican primary season ends without Donald Trump securing the 1,237 delegates needed to secure the nomination, the Republican National Convention could turn into a political free-for-all unrivalled in modern US political history.
After several rounds of deadlocked balloting, most convention delegates would be free to vote according to their conscience. But could that conscience be nudged by, say, a free weekend at a Donald Trump golf resort, a nice dinner with the Cruz family or even a choice spot in a John Kasich administration?
Maybe! While there are detailed anti-corruption laws governing the behaviour of public officeholders, convention delegates are private citizens. While government regulations prohibit them from taking money from corporations, labour unions, government contractors or foreign nationals, beyond those restrictions the law is much murkier.
Campaigns and their wealthy donors could likely cover delegates' travel expenses, no matter how lavish. Gold watches? Bags of small, unmarked bills? Who knows? State anti-bribery laws may apply, but there's scant legal precedent.
Perhaps the greatest deterrent to untoward action by campaigns is the negative publicity such naked attempts at influence could have if they're documented. But public perceptions and attitudes this political season has been difficult to predict, to say the least.
Although the national convention is still months away, accusations of dirty tricks have already started flying. On Sunday, Mr Trump took to Twitter to accuse the Cruz campaign of misdeeds during the South Carolina state party convention - a charge Mr Cruz vehemently denied.
"I win a state in votes and then get non-representative delegates because they are offered all sorts of goodies by Cruz campaign," Mr Trump wrote. "Bad system!"
During a television interview that same morning, however, Trump adviser Paul Manafort appeared to acknowledge that his campaign won't be shy in wooing delegates at the national convention.
"Well, there's the law, and then there's ethics, and then there's getting votes," he said. "I'm not going to get into what tactics are used. I happen to think the best way we're going to get delegates is to have Donald Trump be exposed to delegates, let the delegates hear what he says."
Another Trump adviser, Barry Bennett, said they wouldn't be offering "seats on the Trump airplane or anything like that".
"There's obviously a big line - we're not going to do anything immoral, illegal or unethical," he said.
But when a presidential nomination is at stake, and it comes down to just a handful of delegates, that "big line" may end up looking awfully fuzzy.
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[democracy my butt]

http://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/opinion/2016/04/american-democracy-rigged-160424071608730.html


OPINION
American democracy is rigged
The Republican and Democratic parties are functioning like two identical but competing Orwellian Ministries of Truth.
24 Apr 2016 09:13 GMT | Politics, United States, US Election 2016, Hillary Clinton, Bernie Sanders

***Engagement: 7357

American citizens are as much trapped inside this corrupt system as people around the globe are at the mercy of its fighter jets and drone attacks, writes Dabashi [AP]

ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Hamid Dabashi
Hamid Dabashi is the Hagop Kevorkian Professor of Iranian Studies and Comparative Literature at Columbia University.

@HamidDabashi

In the United States presidential elections, there are two towering political parties - the Democratic and the Republican - that during the course of their "primary" elections get to choose who will be their respective candidates in the course of a national election.

Although any US citizen can join these two parties - or any other political party - millions of eligible voters have not, and consider themselves "independent".*

These independent voters get to vote in the general elections like anyone else, but by the time we get to that general election in November, the two dominant political parties have already elected their nominee, and, therefore, US citizens at large have to vote for one of these preselected nominees if they want their vote to have a role in who their next president will be.


US elections 2016: Democrat Sanders visits the Vatican

This entirely undemocratic, arcane, draconian, and ipso facto rigged aspect of the US electoral system came to a crucial dead-end during the New York primaries of the Democratic and Republican parties on April 19, when Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump won their respective primaries.

Decisive setback

In many significant ways, the presidential primaries in New York were a turning point in the unfolding saga of Bernie Sanders' bid for the US presidency.

His crushing defeat by the former state secretary marks a decisive setback that may, in fact, end his candidacy and usher his massively popular campaign into a new phase, with or without the prospect of US presidency.

ALSO READ:*Muslims for Bernie Sanders

So crucial was this victory for Clinton that soon after this primary, the New York Times - which now openly, unabashedly, and against any norm of journalistic decency or professionalism acts as the official organ of Clinton's campaign - was so confident of her victory that it began to speculate*about who her running mate might be.


US Democratic presidential candidate Bernie Sanders [Reuters]
These primaries were not like any other; New York is the financial, commercial, cultural, and intellectual capital of the US. What happens in New York (and a few other major cosmopolitan epicenters like Chicago and San Francisco) is, in many ways, the barometer of the nation at large.

Some 20 million people live in the state of New York, of which about 8.4 million live just in New York City. This population figure places New York City above many European democracies, such as Austria, Denmark, Finland, Norway, Sweden, and Switzerland.*

Now, consider the fact that according to reports,*"only 19.7 percent of eligible New Yorkers cast a ballot, the second-lowest voter turnout among primary states after Louisiana, according to elections expert Michael McDonald".*

This is not to mention the fact that even those who were registered Democrats and could not vote: "The Kings County Board of Elections purged 126,000 registered Democrats from the voting rolls in Brooklyn, prompting an outcry from Mayor Bill de Blasio and an audit from Comptroller Scott Stringer."

Since when can a political party ... violate the inalienable right of citizenship in a republic?

*

Whatever the cause of this "purge" (fraud or mishap), this is not the main calamity of the electoral process in the US. *

The issue is the fact that less than 20 percent of eligible voters in a statewide election get to choose who the next presidential candidates in the US national elections*would be.

This low number is not any indication of an apathetic low voter turnout, but, in fact, is the evidence of massive voter suppression that, in the racist parlance of the white supremacists, is kept exclusive for what they call "Third World Banana Republics". *

Now, the question is very simple: What is the difference between the way the Democratic Party functions in New York and many other states and the Communist Party of North Korea, the bete noire of the liberation theologians singing Hallelujah for "American democracy"?

Since when can a political party (with an obvious political agenda to promote for its own endurance) violate the inalienable right of citizenship in a republic?

Some more equal than others*

The principle reason for this voter suppression is what they call in the US "closed primaries". What is a closed primary?

ALSO READ:*US elections: Hillary Clinton's millennial dilemma

New York is among many other states that conduct what is called "closed primaries"; namely, they only allow voters who are registered members of a particular political party to vote in that party's primary.


It is not, therefore, accidental that much to the chagrin of Sanders and his massive supporters among independents, "Clinton has won every state so far that's held a closed primary".

If, as a citizen, you followed the debates closely and came to the conclusion that Sanders is the candidate of your choice and not Clinton, you would not be allowed to vote for him unless months ago (long before you were familiar with Sanders or his ideas), you had applied to the Democratic Party and become a member.*

It must be a rudimentary fact of any claim to democracy that if you are a citizen of a republic, you must be able to vote in any phase of any presidential (or any other) election simply by virtue of being a citizen.

The Democratic Party, therefore, rules over this false claim to democracy the same way the Guardian Council of octogenarian Super Mullahs rules over the Islamic Republic.

*

But in this crucial phase of the US presidential primaries, these citizens are not allowed to vote unless and until they are card-carrying members of the political party conducting that primary.*

"All animals are equal," indeed, as we learned from George Orwell's Animal Farm, "but some animals are more equal than others".*

As a result of this blatantly undemocratic practice, if you are an independent-minded person, follow the news and watch the debates before you decide which candidate you prefer and want to vote for in the Democratic primaries in New York, you might as well be a woman trying to drive in Saudi Arabia: You could not. *

False claim to democracy

The Democratic Party, therefore, rules over this false claim to democracy the same way the Guardian Council of octogenarian Super Mullahs rules over the Islamic Republic.*

In other words, the free and fair formation of political parties that is supposed to be the finest fruit of a democracy has paradoxically degenerated into the most powerful impediment to democracy.*

The question is: What is the result of these undemocratic "closed primaries"?*

These "closed primaries" are the bottlenecks of a closed political culture, preventing the possibility of any liberating breakthrough into a foreclosed political system.*

At the heart of this imperial republic that effectively rules the world with its military might (not with any moral courage or political legitimacy), we have an electoral process that systematically bars any critical judgment of its own citizens to disrupt its mindless militarism. American citizens are as much trapped inside this corrupt system as people around the globe are at the mercy of its fighter jets and drone attacks.*

These two parties, Republican and Democratic, are today functioning like two identical but competing Orwellian Ministries of Truth - systematically, consistently, unabashedly disallowing any critical thinking or nonviolent democratic action to enter and disrupt the always-already rigged election.*

Hamid Dabashi is Hagop Kevorkian Professor of Iranian Studies and Comparative Literature at Columbia University in New York.

The views expressed in this article are the author's own and do not necessarily reflect Al Jazeera's editorial policy.

Source:*Al Jazeera

 

[democracy my butt]

https://www.rt.com/usa/341153-rigged-presidential-voting-system/


50% of US voters say presidential candidate system 'rigged' – poll
Published time: 27 Apr, 2016 16:09
Edited time: 27 Apr, 2016 16:16

Democratic U.S. presidential candidate Bernie Sanders and U.S. Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump © Reuters
714
We heard Donald Trump saying the US voting system is rigged, we heard Bernie Sanders criticizing closed elections. Now a new poll shows that more than half of US voters believe the system to pick their president is “rigged.”
The poll, conducted by Reuters and Ipsos, found that some 51 percent of voters believe the primary system is rigged against certain candidates. Some 71 percent said they would prefer to pick their party's presidential nominee with a direct vote, cutting out the use of delegates as intermediaries.

The survey also found that 27 percent of likely voters do not understand how the primary process works, and 44 percent do not understand why delegates are involved at all.

Read more
‘Deeply troubled’: New York’s top lawyer investigates voting irregularities in primary
Nearly half said they would prefer a single-day primary in which all states held their nominating contests together, as opposed to the current system which draws the process out for months.

The responses were about the same for both Republicans and Democrats.

The poll surveyed 1,582 Americans in an online survey from April 21 to 26. It has a credibility interval of 2.9 percentage points.

Delegate controversy*
Although the US is one of the countries that gives voters a say on who should make it onto the presidential ballot, according to Reuters the process isn't as straightforward as it seems. The complexity lies in the use of delegates – party members who are assigned to support candidates at their conventions, usually based on voting results.

The individual parties decide how delegates are awarded in each state, with Democrats and Republicans having different rules. And when the race is too close to call, the delegates' personal opinions can come into play – much to the dismay of voters seeking a simpler system.

Another controversial element to the system is that each state has different rules about whether voters must be registered as party members to participate. In some states, parties restrict delegate selection to small committees of party elites, which the Republican Party in Colorado did this year.

Read more
New York cares: Primaries marred by allegations of voter fraud, suppression
The poll results come after similar complaints from presidential candidates Donald Trump (R) and Bernie Sanders (D), who have argued that the odds are against them because they lack close ties to their parties.

Trump has called the system undemocratic, and lashed out in a Wall Street Journal opinion piece after Colorado's Republican Party awarded all of its delegates to challenger Ted Cruz. “The system is being rigged by party operatives with 'double-agent' delegates who reject the decision of voters,” he wrote.

Meanwhile, Sanders has voiced his disapproval of the Democratic Party's use of superdelegates – elite party members who can support whomever they like at the convention, and who are overwhelmingly supporting Hillary Clinton this year.

Sanders has also criticized primaries which were open only to registered Democrats, stating that “independents have lost their right to vote.” The New York primary, which took place earlier this month, was hotly-contested as it did not allow independents or unaffiliated voters to participate.

However, claims of injustice from Trump and Sanders have been squashed by those who disagree with their arguments. Republican National Committee Chairman Reince Priebus has dismissed Trump’s complaints as “rhetoric,” saying the rules will not be changed before the Republican convention in July. Meanwhile, Clinton has pointed out that she is not only beating Sanders in pledged delegates, but also in total votes cast.

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