Bernie Sanders and Rigged Elections: Sometimes You Just Lose

[BootinUp]

Hillary Clinton has a strong lead by any measure, but many supporters of Bernie Sanders continue to believe that it’s because the primary system was designed to help her. Credit Left, Eric Thayer for The New York Times; Jim Wilson/The New York Times

The 2016 Race
Bernie Sanders and Rigged Elections: Sometimes You Just Lose

By NATE COHN and TONI MONKOVIC JUNE 1, 2016

Each week, Nate Cohn, The Upshot’s elections analyst, and Toni Monkovic, an Upshot editor, will discuss the 2016 race and post a lightly edited transcript of their written exchange. The Democratic primary season has led to some grumbling from supporters of Bernie Sanders that the primary system is rigged. This week, we start on that subject, and look ahead to the California contest on June 7.


SNIP

Toni: There is a perception among a lot of his followers that the election system is rigged. What about some of the examples they cite, like the Brooklyn voter purge in the New York primary?

Nate: Well, I think the first thing that’s important to acknowledge is that the American election system is a disaster. It’s administered at the local level, by thousands of jurisdictions across the country. It’s often grossly underfunded. Voter registration systems are truly a mess. Put it all together, and we have a very ineffective voting system that always produces a steady stream of errors.

That said, these errors are not really signs that our elections are rigged.

With Brooklyn, the Board of Elections purged more than 100,000 voters just ahead of the election. This shouldn’t happen: Purges should happen well ahead of an election.

But did it affect the race? Not really. The people who get “purged” from voter rolls are “inactive” voters — people who haven’t voted in two straight elections and didn’t return postcards seeking to verify their address. These are generally people who moved, or have died.

SNIP

So realistically, most of the people who were purged were not going to vote. They probably don’t live in Brooklyn anymore.

And the people who were purged in Brooklyn were probably likelier to be supporters of Clinton than Sanders. Brooklyn voted for Clinton by 20 points. Most inactive voters are older (after all, a 20-year-old hasn’t had the opportunity to skip two consecutive federal elections).

NYTIMES