Wednesday, August 10, 2016

Is the Election Rigged?

Of course the upcoming presidential election isn't rigged -- but that hasn't stopped Donald Trump from suggesting it (coincidentally as he was falling further and further behind in the polls).

How many folks buy his "rigged" argument? Yes, we've got a poll for that. If you look here you can see the breakdowns of a Bloomberg poll. The question was:
When it comes to the presidential election, is it your sense the election will or will not be rigged?
Turns out, 34 percent say it's rigged and, thankfully, 60 percent say it's not rigged. Six percent aren't sure.

I don't have access to the crosstabs, but according to this article, among Trump supporters 56 percent say it's rigged. Because, I suppose, Trump says so. Our elections are screwed up sometimes, but it's not about invalid voters or cheating, it's more about making it too hard for people to vote, for lines being too long, and all that.

Why does this matter? This deserves a very long, very thoughtful piece, but I'm not gonna bother. Let me just say that a sense of a "rigged" election hurts democracy, harms people's faith in the electoral process, and is generally bad all around. I can't do it any better than this NPR piece does. Read it. Save me the writing time.



No comments: