Can Elections be Rigged?

Can US elections be rigged?

                When I was young I used to debate with my friends if “professional wrestling” was real or fake.  There were pro’s and con’s, we were convinced the wrestlers were giving their utmost to win but something was off.  The wrestlers did amazing stunts but at the same time the stories seemed to be too perfect and the matches seamless to the next storyline.  Eventually the major wrestling network WWF (now called WWE) admitted to having ‘scripted’ matches.  The moves were real and the athletes truly are doing amazing feats but the outcome is known.  This is what I visualize when someone says the word rigged. 

                Tammany Hall was a political organization created in 1786 which worked to help immigrants, mainly the Irish rise up in power and influence.  By the mid 1800’s it was a strong organization which muscled it’s way into political power in New York City.  It was notorious for graft and corruption and vote rigging.  Throughout American history there have been many instances of voter intimidation mainly in poor and minority communities which is why so many laws have been created.

                Could something like wide scale vote rigging or voter intimidation today happen?  Here are the outliers which don’t define the majority of our electoral system.

(1)    The presidential election of 2000 came down to Florida which subsequently came down to several counties where ballots had changed.  Some were punched twice or partially punched.  After a grueling battle, the electors in Florida were given to George Bush making him the president.

(2)    During the 2016 democratic nomination process, Hillary Clinton was ahead but mostly because of the non pledged (super) delegates.  New York was a critical primary that set her on a course for taking the nomination. Bernie Sanders name was left off of a couple counties which favored him.

(3)    Al Franken became the 60ths democratic senator in 2009 allowing a super majority democratic congress to emerge.  The race was won by several hundred ballots supposedly left in a pollsters car for a night.  Then the story was retracted and denounced. 

(4)    In 2008 black panthers staged some of their people outside majority white communities and engaged in intimidation carrying batons.  Initially there was a legal case but for some reason it was dropped by the new administration. 

Is it possible for a political machine, Democratic, Republican, Independent or foreign to throw an election?  Influence is one thing.  We know for sure that the media has an agenda and tends to favor one candidate over another. 

The election system is vulnerable to accidents, fraud and espionage.    

·         No ID required to vote.  Give your name and address.  For some reason having to show ID is racist and activist groups will fight any attempt to implement such a system.  A person could theoretically vote more than once, register themselves more than once and vote for people who either aren’t alive or have moved.  It would be hard to coordinate a large scale effort.

·         Voter Registration:  Groups like Acorn discredit the good work that people do to try to get as many new people to register and vote.  In the past workers for certain groups have admitted to helping people either lie to get registered or pushed to sign up as many applicants regardless of how new they were.  Also, they will usually assign them into the political party of their choosing.  That doesn’t mean the person must vote that way but it puts them on notice with the particular political party. 

·         Foreign Funding.  Many groups like moveOn.org, Black Alliance for Just Immigration, and Center for American Progress receive foreign funding and seek to influence united states elections.  This is technically probably still illegal but very easy to get around.  https://www.opensecrets.org/pacs/foreign.php  http://www.discoverthenetworks.org/viewSubCategory.asp?id=1237

·         Electronic voting.  It’s not that the machines are more likely to fail or be tampered with.  There are monitors from both political parties at each polling place and certainly when the votes are tampered.  However, we’ve seen 500 million yahoo accounts become hacked, servers of major political parties, and even Iranian centrifuges.  Could a worm be planted in machines previous to them being deployed. 

·         Vote Counting: In 2012 a Spanish company SYCTL bought the largest vote counting company in united states.  Why this was allowed was beyond me. Our votes after being tallied are sent to this server, routed possibly out of country, counted and then the results are sent back.  There is so much possibility for manipulation at every stage. Again if everybody's being hacked (for fun) why wouldn't this be at the top of some hacker or even state sponsors list? 

How do elections probably get won?

                I get asked often, can anybody’s mind be changed by what the candidates say or do in the last month before an election.  Everyone wants to capture a “49%” or “deplorables” moment on video.  It’s not that these moments change many minds but it’s all about motivation.  If you are demoralized you are less likely to vote and if you are charged up or better yet caught up in a frenzy of fear you will vote, lest they take away your X.  It’s about optics, how you and your surrogates use the various victories of your candidate and missteps of the other. 

                It’s also about the ground game.  How do you encourage people to vote.  How often do you barrage them with letters, advertisements, calls, poster bill boards.  If you can get them to sign up on your web site with prizes like meet the candidate for lunch (yeah right) they can then use your email or phone number to pester you into voting. 

                At the end of the day anything can happen.