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A Report on the Flawed 2016 Democratic Primaries

(drive.google.com)
212 points DamienSF | 2 comments | 27 Jul 16 05:59 UTC | HN request time: 0.649s | source
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vannevar ◴[27 Jul 16 16:46 UTC] No.12174358[source]▶
I think the most interesting (and perhaps hopeful) aspect here is that people now have an expectation of fairness in the selection of party candidates. That's a relatively new phenomenon. In the past, I think people widely assumed that the party was biased towards individual candidates. Even now, that's clearly the case when the sitting President is a candidate. I personally think that expecting an unbiased party structure is unrealistic, given the very nature of the organization. The party doesn't have a product, other than its opinion. The idea that an organization of partisans only arrives at that collective opinion through primaries and caucuses seems quite naive to me.
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DamienSF ◴[27 Jul 16 17:28 UTC] No.12174770[source]▶
I am not sure how the findings of this report can reinforce the expectation of fairness in the selection process. The reports points out to evidences of various election fraud tactics (voter suppression, registration tampering, illegal voter purging and fraudulent voting machine tallies) which have been carried out to eventually influence the outcome of the election.

Also, I wonder how can the Democratic party can still be credible in denouncing Republicans efforts to suppress voters the right to vote when employing the exact same tactics during the primaries.

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vannevar ◴[27 Jul 16 18:44 UTC] No.12175485[source]▶
The point is that people went to a lot of trouble to study bias in a process that in the past was widely just assumed to be biased. In this case, it's unlikely that the bias affected the overall outcome---Sanders lost by a large margin in the biggest states, a deficit that would be hard to overcome---but I think it does indicate a shift in how people view the parties.

The criticisms of hypocrisy are fair, but only go so far. If they violated rules, they were rules of their own making, and not rights granted by the Constitution. Voting for a party nominee is a privilege, and if the party chose to limit the voting pool to party officials only, they could do so without violating anyone's rights. Bernie is free to run as an independent, and his supporters are free to vote for him. If the DNC somehow interfered with that, they would be doing what Republicans are accused of doing with the Voter ID laws.

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therealjumbo ◴[27 Jul 16 19:32 UTC] No.12175832[source]▶
>The criticisms of hypocrisy are fair, but only go so far. If they violated rules, they were rules of their own making, and not rights granted by the Constitution.

That's like saying, "Lying is only a crime when you're under oath. Ergo, the party leaders are free to lie all they want and no harm, no foul."

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1. vannevar ◴[27 Jul 16 20:14 UTC] No.12176152[source]▶
Lying is only a crime when it's under oath. Hypocrisy is bad, too, but it's not illegal. And party leaders are free (in the legal sense) to lie all they want, though if they want continued political support it's probably a poor strategy.

Before we are too quick to call on the law to support our side, consider what happens when that same law is used against us by our opponents. Right now you may want DNC leaders in jail, but I think it would set a terrible precedent for private political activities to result in imprisonment, regardless of our distaste for them. Again, the situation is very different when peoples' Constitutional voting rights are denied (eg, voting in a real election). Then by all means, legal action should be taken.

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2. troyvit ◴[28 Jul 16 16:55 UTC] No.12181450[source]▶
I skimmed the beginning and end of 95 page report, but its recommendations were pretty good:

1) Exclusive use of hand-counted paper ballots in all future US elections.

2) Automatic voter registration, with same-day party affiliation switching as a mandatory condition for all elections that are publicly funded.

3) Restoration of voting rights legislation which would ensure adequate access to polling sites.

So it's cool: no jail time for anybody, just better preventative measures.