"North Carolina is no longer classified as a democracy" (nor is the US):

[tblue37]

http://amp.newsobserver.com/opinion/op-ed/article122593759.html?__twitter_impression=true

North Carolina is no longer classified as a democracy

In 2005, in the midst of a career of traveling around the world to help set up elections in some of the most challenging places on earth – Afghanistan, Burma, Egypt, Lebanon, South Africa, Sudan and Yemen, among others – my Danish colleague, Jorgen Elklit, and I designed the first comprehensive method for evaluating the quality of elections around the world. Our system measured 50 moving parts of an election process and covered everything from the legal framework to the polling day and counting of ballots.

In 2012 Elklit and I worked with Pippa Norris of Harvard University, who used the system as the cornerstone of the Electoral Integrity Project. Since then the EIP has measured 213 elections in 153 countries and is widely agreed to be the most accurate method for evaluating how free and fair and democratic elections are across time and place.

When we evolved the project I could never imagine that as we enter 2017, my state, North Carolina, would perform so badly on this, and other, measures that we are no longer considered to be a fully functioning democracy.

snip

Indeed, North Carolina does so poorly on the measures of legal framework and voter registration, that on those indicators we rank alongside Iran and Venezuela. When it comes to the integrity of the voting district boundaries no country has ever received as low a score as the 7/100 North Carolina received. North Carolina is not only the worst state in the USA for unfair districting but the worst entity in the world ever analyzed by the Electoral Integrity Project.

snip

[thbobby]

1. So how does USA rank as a democracy?

Not even meant sarcastically. Gerrymandering, voter suppression, absurd electoral college system of electing the president, low voter participation. My guess is we do not do well.

[tblue37]

2. Not well at all:

https://www.cnbc.com/2017/01/25/us-is-no-longer-a-full-democracy-eiu-warns.html

US is no longer a full democracy, EIU warns

US no longer considered a full democracy

9:35 AM ET Wed, 25 Jan 2017 | 00:36

The U.S. has been demoted from a full democracy to a flawed democracy for the first time, according to the Economist Intelligence Unit (EIU).

Every year, the firm's Democracy Index provides a snapshot of global democracy by scoring countries on five categories: electoral process and pluralism; civil liberties; the functioning of government; political participation; and political culture. Nations are then classified under four types of governments: full democracy, flawed democracy, hybrid regime and authoritarian regime.

America's score fell to 7.98 last year from 8.05 in 2015, below the 8.00 threshold for a full democracy, the EIU announced in a report on Wednesday. That put the world's largest economy on the same footing as Italy, a country known for its fractious politics.

A flawed democracy is a country with free elections but weighed down by weak governance, an underdeveloped political culture and low levels of political participation, according to the EIU. Other flawed democracies in 2016 included Japan, France, Singapore, South Korea and India, the report said.

snip

[thbobby]

3. So fucking depressing

The Viet Cong recruited by saying "Turn your grief to action". Are Americans patriotic enough to do this? When we vote we win. Seems obvious, doesn't it?

[erronis]

11. Most of us are kept in "good enough" status. Never able to achieve but unwilling to rebel

I think the system is being fine-tuned on the backs of the lower/middle/lower-upper class.

With the instant knowledge of how each dot is acting (a dot is you and me), the knobs can be adjusted and the results measured.

Thanks to computers and AI/ML, Asimov's SF is now a reality.

With a police state, corrections can be made.

Thanks to the GOP/USSR.

[ProudLib72]

6. That's nearly a year ago

I wonder where we rank now.

[Soylent Henry]

22. Wait a sec

We've always been a "flawed" democracy. Being in the same boat as France and Japan doesn't really bother me that much. Whether we're a well-functioning democracy is another issue.

[unblock]

12. Dont forget unverifiable, internet-hackable voting machines

[Scurrilous]

4. K&R

[SeaDoo77]

5. 2016 Voting Machines Broke Down In Durham Remember

This was no accident. Voting problems in largest minority area.

There is something sick going on in North Carolina.

http://abc11.com/politics/many-frustrated-by-durham-voting-problems/1598952/

[roamer65]

7. We are an oligarchical republic...for now.

The republic part is falling apart.

[Irish_Dem]

8. I don't think it has been a democracy for some time.

There have been a lot of stolen elections.

[Angry Dragon]

9. So many TRAITORS in this country

[2left4u]

10. ACT

The only reason this keeps happening is because instead of organizing to win elections and protest we follow the "Russian Collusion" theme.
All the while they appoint judges for life, come up with a nefarious plan using the census and keep us focused on the shiny thing versus actually doing shit that is real change.

Mueller isn't going to save us and it really doesn't matter if Dumbass is impeached..."meet the new boss, same as the old boss" they just keep moving forward while we get excited over new stories of corruption or collusion...we waste our time where it would appear they want us to.

The people of Iran are doing something right now.

We should be organizing on here and focusing on the election versus shit that won't change a thing presently.

More Dems replacing the Republican thieves and crooks is what will stop their agenda cold.

We should be united on this and quit playing their game.

We are the peoples party, we are the voice of the minority, the poor, the workers. Its time we ignored their bs and replaced them...that my sisters and brothers will fix everything.

[scarletwoman]

13. +1000 - welcome to DU.

Thank you for the excellent post.

Mueller isn't going to save us and it really doesn't matter if Dumbass is impeached..."meet the new boss, same as the old boss" they just keep moving forward while we get excited over new stories of corruption or collusion...

I feel the same way.

[airplaneman]

16. Good post and welcome to DU - I agree Muller is not going to save us.

-Airplane

[ck4829]

25. Time to start using this

http://www.aeinstein.org/wp-content/uploads/2013/09/FDTD.pdf

[2left4u]

28. Thanks

Thank you so much!

I downloaded and am reading it!

Thanks again!

[safeinOhio]

14. Make SC a Right-To-Vote State.

Use the 50 things measured in the article.

[ms liberty]

18. That will do those of us in NC no good at all, since we are not SC. n/t

[appalachiablue]

15. The Northwestern and Princeton Study in 2014:

"U.S. More Oligarchy Than Democracy, Study Suggests" 4/19/2014, MSNBC

Americans may like to think they live in a Democracy, but a new study suggests the opinions of a moneyed elite class are far more influential than those of the masses. The study, by professors at Northwestern and Princeton, found that policies supported by economic elites and business interest groups were far more likely to become law than those they opposed. It also found that the preferences of the middle class made essentially no difference to a bill’s fate.

“The central point that emerges from our research is that economic elites and organized groups representing business interests have substantial independent impacts on U.S. government policy, while mass-based interest groups and average citizens have little or no independent influence,” Martin Gilens and Benjamin Page wrote in the study, titled “Testing Theories of American Politics: Elites, Interest Groups, and Average Citizens.”
While Gilens and Page call the state of the current political system “economic elite domination,” another term could also be used: Oligarchy, otherwise known as a system in which power rests with a small number of economically or politically advantaged people.
The study looked at nearly 1,800 policy issues over a 20-year period between 1982 and 2002. According to their data, when the rich support a policy, it has a 45% chance of becoming law. And when they oppose it, it has only an 18% chance of being enacted.

“In the United States, our findings indicate, the majority does not rule – at least not in the causal sense of actually determining policy outcomes. When a majority of citizens disagrees with economic elites and/or with organized interests, they generally lose. Moreover, because of the strong status quo bias built into the U.S. political system, even when fairly large majorities of Americans favor policy change, they generally do not get it,” the study said.
Other studies have shown that income inequality has grown in recent years. An economist at the University of California-Berkeley estimated that between 2009 and 2012, the richest 1% of Americans held 95% of all income growth.
Supreme Court decisions like Citizens United and the more recent McCutcheon v. FEC have made it easier for corporations and wealthy individuals to spend money for political purposes, which could increase their influence over elections and eventually policy decisions.

http://www.msnbc.com/msnbc/the-us-no-longer-democracy#51760

[Enoki33]

23. The recent tax scam would seem to reinforce that study. There is

a functioning criminal enterprise pretending to govern, and they think they are untouchable because of Russia’s ongoing help.

[defacto7]

17. As the US plummets into an abyss

may the civilized world ignore it and rise above it to lead the way toward the survival of humankind and the planet. That's all there is, friends.

[Roland99]

19. Republicans hate democracy

[TryLogic]

20. I absolutely agree

[IronLionZion]

21. People have been moving to NC, black people especially and liberals from the northern states

from rust belt to sun belt, NC is getting a lot of new people. The GOP there is worried that they could have another Obama 2008 situation on their hands, or elect another John Edwards or Kay Hagan. It bothers them and they stay up late at night thinking of how to screw over Democratic voters.

[ck4829]

24. Kick

[zipplewrath]

26. bit of a trick question

The US, and states in general are going to start of with a handicap because of course technically we aren't intended to be a democracy. At best we are a representative democracy, and at the federal level even that is dubious.

Our system was intended to do a few things that are extremely undemocratic. One of the biggest of course is to prevent power vacuums and uncertainty about who is in charge/control. As such we end up with features like "winner take all" and representation by state, a distributed House of Representatives that is only roughly based upon population, and worst of all, congressional districts. All of these features lead to very "undemocratic" tendencies, especially once they put a particular party in control of future elections.

And once again, as it has so often been in the past, this control of elections and congressional districts leads to what we today call voter "suppression". Technically it is more of a bias, but the outcome is the same. We are going to have to find ways to run elections that aren't run by the sitting politicians in their favor. In this day and age it should be much easier to develop systems which are vastly more "immune" to these biases. Some states are doing better than others. But we have a long way to go.

[appalachiablue]

27. Kick. Never give up. So many are still fighting in NC & the US!

In Powerful Rebuke, Dems. Poised to Challenge Every Single GOP Seat in in North Carolina:
Inspired by Virginia, North Carolina Democrats are Ready to Fight Republican Control over Their State

https://www.democraticunderground.com/100210051029