Ways the Republicans Have “Fixed” The Election
1. When Trump says that the election is fixed, he’s right! It’s fixed in his favor!
2. We recall that the Republican primaries were also fixed in his favor, since 80% of the delegates were chosen in Winner Take All or Winner Take Most states.
3. Republican red states are often small states where the two senatorial electoral college votes are counted that do not represent a sector of population like the house electoral college votes do. In a blue state, like California, almost all of the electoral college votes represent a segment of the population.
4. The Republicans have the Citizens United ruling which allows businesses or PACS to be considered as people, and have unlimited free speech rights. People can give an unlimited amount to PACS to run ads and perform other partisan election actions. Witness the $750 million Koch brothers super PAC.
5. The Republicans have intimidated the IRS and its individual workers from removing the tax exemption of PACS that are not 50% educational in nature.
6. The Republicans have passed voter restrictions in many states, such as voter ID laws, that on their surface have been established by courts to have the purpose of discriminating against poor people and minorities. This is a result of the Supreme Court gutting the Voting Rights Act that required such changes to be reviewed first in states with a history of discrimination. Congress has not acted to reinstate a list of states to be covered by the act.
7. Seventeen states enacted voter restriction laws, but so far, only five have had them declared unconstitutional.
8. The claims that voter fraud is a necessary reason for voter ID laws has been shown several times to be false, since there are only minor violations. The punishment of 5 to 10 years in jail plus fines of $5,000 to $10,000 is enough to discourage any sane person from committing intentional voter fraud.
9. Republicans have gerrymandered red states so that Republicans can dominate state legislatures and congressional districts. While Democrats do this too, progressive states like California have adopted non-partisan commissions to allocate districts in a fair way. The gerrymandering leads to legislatures that pass voter restriction laws, and to local districts that restrict the number and location of polling booths.
10. The exclusion of felons from voting after having served their time has been abused by the important swing state of Florida, which bans more than 23% of black men, according to the Sentencing Project. Virginia bans 20% of black men, and Kentucky bans 22%. Disenfranchised felons total about 6 million Americans. In 38 states, most felons get voting rights back after completing their sentences. California is one of these states, after parole and/or probation.
11. Republican states or counties often cut the number of polling places in poor or minority districts, resulting in lines at polling places taking hours of waiting.
