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Comment by dathinab | Hacker News Reader

> many of whom have never even thought of voting before, how, and for whom, to vote. This will be a Rigged Election. No way!

So basically he is afraid of more people voting? Like how is a election where more people then ever vote rigged? Like wtf.

This might fall in line with the analysis of <forgot name sorry> which claimed that election results are more based on which people vote and which don't then on swing voters and that swing voters are pretty much irrelevant.

If this is true and it turns out that an majority of voters in the US is more on the side of the democrats then a voting method which makes more people vote could indeed cause a long term defeat of the republicans in a fair democratic non rigged manner!

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Of course he's afraid of people voting: he and his party are only in power because people don't vote.

Partially correct. He’s in power because the left didn’t vote as much as they could’ve, but he’s also in power because his party’s constituents overwhelmingly supported him and went out in droves to vote for him. Hillary thought she had a sure win, so she didn’t campaign in some states; Trump seized those opportunities and won more support.

I often hear it stated as "We disliked Hillary so much, we voted for someone worse".

The American voters’ approach to government often reduces to “cutting off the nose to spite the face.”

You can phrase it that way. But it's a deceptive statement. For the most part, people don't switch parties they vote for. They just choose not to vote instead. So taken in aggregate, you could say "we disliked Hillary so we voted for someone worse".

But the more accurate statement is that some groups of people decided not to vote at all because they disliked Hillary, and other groups of people decided to show up and vote.

> way. But it's a deceptive statement. For the most part, people don't switch parties they vote for.

You are forgetting that most Americans are self-proclaimed independents and not sworn to support either of the two parties.

Not "most": it's a plurality, not a majority (31/37/28 D/I/R)

https://news.gallup.com/poll/15370/party-affiliation.aspx

If you look at the week by week numbers, you see variance; I suspect most independents lean one way or another, but their willingness to commit in a poll varies based on various affairs.

Most independents reliably vote one party or the other. The number of "true" independents, who will frequently switch the party they vote for, is about 10%.

And just to beat this dead horse slightly more: The US does not have democratic elections. Clinton won by that measure. Trump won because we value some people’s votes more than others.

You’re right with regard to your first point: we don’t have directly democratic elections; We have representative (indirect) elections (a la the Electoral College).

With regards to your other point: Hillary did not win the election, no matter how you spin it. She won the popular vote, but that means nothing in terms of who becomes President (read: who wins).

We also don’t “value some people’s votes more than others.” The Electoral College votes based on the way that state’s populace votes, and every electorate’s vote is equal. However, each state can have their own rules regarding how those votes are distributed: some states are winner-takes-all at the state level, while Maine and Nebraska are winner-take-all at the district level.

One can argue whether the Electoral College should exist at all, but it’s worth keeping in mind why it was created: we are a union of states (United States of America), not a homogenous unit (United America?).

> Hillary did not win the election, no matter how you spin it.

I didn't say she did. I said she won the democratic election, which you call the popular vote. It's the same thing.

> We also don’t “value some people’s votes more than others.”

This is another tomato tomahhto splitting of hairs. A Nebraskan voter's vote is worth about 3.4 Californian votes. If you don't consider that as "counting some people's votes more than others", I don't know what to tell you. We can argue about whether you think that is a good idea (aka have the electoral college debate). But there should be no debate whether we do systematically prefer some voters over others.

> We also don’t “value some people’s votes more than others.”

This stance just ignores the facts of electoral college vote allocation as well as the related and probably much more important existence and power of the Senate. The rules that define the federal government intentionally discount the contributions of millions in the most populous states. It's a crime that would have been rectified decades ago were it not explicitly written into the Constitution (see Baker v. Carr).

Actual political scientists 100% for sure do not split hairs like that unless there's a reason they're trying to distinguish between two flavors of democracy and there's risk of confusion, and would definitely describe any part of the American election system as falling under the umbrella of "democratic". For one thing, it's not some kind of club with very strict rules for inclusion and being in or out is super important in some kind of way, and for another it would mean almost no systems or parts of systems would be "democratic" so we'd just have to invent another word to take over the very useful role that word serves now.

[EDIT] to be clear it's fine to think some parts of our election systems suck (they definitely fucking do) but "it's not democratic" isn't a very useful, meaningful, or even clear objection, per se.

It much be nice to be able to read the minds of non-voters and decide how they would have voted if they had bothered to.

I would say it's as much a result of flaws in the electoral college system. States like Texas and California are way too large for a winner-take-all to reflect voter will.

> Like how is a election where more people then ever vote rigged?

Lets say the states decide to send out mail in ballots to all members of a house hold. A parent intercepts the ballots and fills them out on behalf of the kids or grandparents, or even the previous tenants. All of a sudden casting multiple votes becomes much easier by a single person.

In a more cynical situation, the ballots are intercepted and returned filled out by party members.

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