Dana Milbank: The election really was rigged

[karlmarx1947]

47. Of Course: Almost No American Elections are Prima Facia Honest

I cannot think of an election from Kenedy/Nixon where Illinois may have been thrown where an incumbent wasn't running for a second term which wasn't thrown one way or another either by inadequate equipment, voter suppression, outright fraud, hacking or other methods. The reasons why this is so commonplace here in at least modern times is the stakes are very high in a Presidential Election and requiring voting is not enforced. If like Australia we required eligible voters to participate and fined people $50.00 if they didn't problems would largely evaporate other than making our creaky validation system up to date. Why people are so concerned about evident potential fraud and hacking in elections is a defect of having a President elected directly by the population when the vote is close. In a close election majority rule here means 1/2 the population approximately is disenfranchised. In a Parliamentary system the government would have to be run by a coalition and this near half of the population who voted for the minority would have a voice. The electoral college compounds the situation if you believe in majority rule. I am not sure I do but here there Trump lost by about 1-2% but not in the majority of electoral votes. Presidential System generally end in authoritarian rule at some point and I suspect the U.S. like most Latin Countries and Russia will follow suit shortly.