RolStoppable said:
EnricoPallazzo said:
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Also voting ID... If a poor country like Brazil can do it, you can be sure US can do it to.
But what impresses me the most in the american system is... WHY THE HELL VOTE ON A TUESDAY???? I know it's the rules, but really, most people need to work and it impacts poor people the most as they would probably feel less inclined to abandon their job for a few hours to vote, also transportation, etc.
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The American system is all about rigging the election within the confines of the law, because the GOP knows that an actually fair and democratic process would be unfavorable for them.
The electoral college itself allows that a minority can win the election. In the current election Biden has received about four million votes more than Trump, but it's still not a 100% confirmed thing that Biden won.
In the senate the republicans held the majority of seats (53 of 100) despite only getting ~45% of the votes in the elections for the senate. This is where the "winner takes it all" system strikes again, because voting districts get redefined to play the system. It's called gerrymandering and isn't a thing in countries where plain majorities win elections. The point of gerrymandering is to draw lines on the map that concentrate a large amount of opposing voters into one district while the own voters get a better spread across a multitude of districts. The idea is to lose one or two districts by huge margins, but in turn win a great number of remaining districts by small margins. That's how a minority can be declared winners of an election, because it's about how many districts you win, not how many votes you get.
Voting on a Tuesday favors the republican party, because many people who vote for the democrats won't be able to show up in time due to work. The reduction of places where people can vote is another means to prevent people from voting. In a proper democracy it's the norm that every town has its dedicated place to cast votes, but not so much in the USA. Voting ID, badmouthing mail-in ballots are other tricks in the book, just like revoking the right to vote for a lifetime for people who have served a prison sentence (this differs by state), regardless of the severity of the crime that was committed.
This leaves the question why the DNC hasn't made a bigger effort to change the rules to a more democratic process, because that would obviously favor them. It's because they are idiots and too concerned about the moral high ground, just like on the topic of nominations for the supreme court where they gave in to the republicans and did not get in their own nominee while the republicans did not return the same favor. This is why the tolerant left is dangerous for the USA.
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The problem is that as long as the Democrats don't have the majority in Congress, there is nothing they can do. Any proposals to address problems with election law is dead in the water because Republicans scream bloody murder about Democrats trying to cheat and destroy the integrity of elections.
One of the first things passed by the House when Democrats took control of the House in 2019 was election reform:
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/For_the_People_Act_of_2019
They also wanted to reinstate the voting rights act of 1965:
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Voting_Rights_Act_of_1965
Both met unanimous opposition by Republicans, and Mitch McConnell refused to bring them to the floor for a vote.
And because Republicans gerrymander in state and local elections, Democrats are at a huge disadvantage at reforming state laws as well, especially if they require super majorities. Democrats have to win elections by insane margins to even take a simple majority in some states. The best hope Democrats had was to win a simple majority in this election to address gerrymandering when districts are redrawn next year. Results are still being tabulated, but it doesn't seem like there are any major wins in notoriously corrupt (in regard to purely the districting process) state legislatures.
I can understand why a partisan Republican would reward this corrupt behavior, but I cant fathom how Republicans continue to court the votes of Independents. It's very clear who the bad actors are.
Thankfully recent reforms in the DNC primary process have been pro-democratic, so they are at least starting to reform things in their own camp. But I also think a political party should be allowed to use whatever system they think is appropriate for their own internal nomination process. The motivation for change came from the members though, so it seems that everything is working as intended on that front.
Anyway, I guess my point is that it's not fair to say that Democrats aren't even trying. People often accuse Democrats as being the same as Republicans because they vote for them, see them win a majority of votes, and seemingly nothing gets done. The last time Democrats actually had control of Congress, they tried to be bipartisan, and got burned for it. They at least passed the Affordable Care Act, but ever since Republicans have been on a war path to destroy it. I'm hoping the next time Democrats control Congress they'll take a page out of the Republican playbook and pretend the other party does not exist.
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