Election Results
I am skeptical of this year’s election results being manipulated like it was in 2016.
Do you think this year’s election results will be accurate and valid or not? Please explain.
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Answers ( 1 )
I am sorry, what do you mean by the election results of 2016 "being manipulated"? I watched things very closely our last Presidential election, and I saw no "manipulation".
I saw a media so skeptical of one candidate, they discounted most support, so anointing of another, they discounted any unpopularity, and so ignorant of their own bias, they shut out a third. I saw pollsters who did not believe their own data. And I saw talking heads on national television display openly their bias. But, none of that "manipulated" the results of the election.
Manipulation of that election, given the ingredients I listed above, should have resulted in Clinton winning and Trump ranting his way to another television show- maybe even a whole cable channel. But the opposite happened. That isn't manipulation, that's being too clever by half on the part of pundits and players.
Even what is called gerrymandering is shown in actual data-driven research to be less about the popular notion of mostly-Republicans cheating and setting up voting districts so they win, and more about We, the People self-sorting into bunches and places in which we are comfortable. https://medium.com/@michael_hendrix/why-2016-came-down-to-whole-foods-vs-cracker-barrel-4361cb9b1e5f https://www.govexec.com/oversight/2011/08/self-sorting/34597/
If by manipulation you mean popular vote versus Electoral College, well, that's what can happen in a Democratic Representative Republic: The Founders didn't want direct voting, they felt such would soon become bread-and-circuses. Instead, we have representatives called electors who use an overarching consensus of their state or district to determine the outcome of an election.There have been five elections in which the winner of the Electoral College did not win the popular vote- and that is how our system is designed. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_United_States_presidential_elections_in_which_the_winner_lost_the_popular_vote
This year, 2020, the chances of actual manipulation may seem higher than ever; one side rails against the validity of so very many mail-in ballots while the other just keeps pushing for even more of them. One side is going back to its roots as blaming everyone and thing but themselves and their ideas while the other seems to be saying, "Vote for me, at least I'm not that guy". But, our electoral and voting institutions are enshrined in Federal and State Constitutions; they are neither easy to change or manipulate.
I have faith in them. We may see some media-reported feeding frenzies- especially if results aren't available when folks toddle off to bed the evening of Nov 3rd- but no matter how anyone tries to assail our processes as illegitimate or "manipulated", I simply don't see any machination which is legally capable of invalidating the outcome of the Vote.
https://www.rawstory.com/2020/10/trump-can-rage-from-the-balcony-but-he-will-not-succeed-dem-super-lawyer-promises-to-protect-the-vote/?utm_source=&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=5718&fbclid=IwAR2pA_JuAwHDODxp5fyKZmUUjGM9NXbIwm_qg7J-E8uS1Ydy7xxHkYhfK8o