trump off the CO ballot

[Meadmaker]

They make an effort to manipulate laws to give themselves an advantage, but that's not the same as cheating. Both parties do it, and they always will. In 2020, for example, Democrats made a huge push to make it easier to vote. Why did they do that? Was it because of their deep commitment to democracy and wanting to get as many people as possible to vote? Hell, no. They knew that their voters were more likely to vote if they made it easier.

Huh? Making it easier to vote benefits everybody. It's how you make elections fair. It supports democracy. The Republicans don't do that. They gerrymander. They introduce voter ID laws that disenfranchise the poor. They make it hard to get to polling places in districts that are likely to not vote for them. Republican thugs station themselves at polling places to intimidate people.

If you think both sides cheat equally at elections, then you're just not looking at elections.

What worries me is that people might elect someone who tried to cheat at an election. Just trying to do that is, in my humble opinion, despicable, and I would never vote for someone who did it.

According to your argument, you do it all the time. Because everybody cheats at elections.

See, this is a lot like when you used "stated" in reference to something that no one has stated.

My argument is that no one cheats. That's my argument. Anything else is misrepresentation.


Sometimes a few people try to cheat. They fail.


And do you really think that Democrats don't gerrymander? Of course they do. Republicans have gotten so much attention for it lately becuase they've gotten quite good at it. It isn't cheating.

Making it hard to get to polling places really pushes the limit. Honestly, though, I haven't seen a credible claim of that since Ken Blackwell and the 2004 election in Ohio. Yes, people claim it happens all over the place, but when the claims are examined, they fall apart.

[arthwollipot]

Your entire electoral system is set up to enable cheating. The Electoral College itself is a cheat. You're cheating people out of their fundamental right to have their vote counted by taking the result out of the peoples' hands and putting it in the hands of an elite group of Electors who may or may not make their decision in accord with the popular vote. Cheating!

[Meadmaker]

I don't think I could find that definition of "cheating" in a dictionary.

[Admin]

It's the entire premise of Project 2025. The party platform of the Republicans isn't a list of policies, it's a Pledge of Allegiance to Donald Trump

The Heritage Foundation isn't the Republican Party.

It's deja vu of PNAC that never happened under Dubbya.

[arthwollipot]

I don't think I could find that definition of "cheating" in a dictionary.

If someone plays poker with a stacked deck, that's cheating. The Republicans have been stacking the electoral deck for years, making sure that some candidates are advantaged over others.

[Meadmaker]

I don't think I could find that definition of "cheating" in a dictionary.

If someone plays poker with a stacked deck, that's cheating. The Republicans have been stacking the electoral deck for years, making sure that some candidates are advantaged over others.

Stacking the deck in poker is against the rules.

The electoral college IS the rules.

Sending in fake electors is cheating. Some idiots did that four years ago. Some of them may end up in jail for it. (I don't think anyone already has.) Donald Trump might be one of them. He's charged with it. I don't actually know to what extent he participated in the scheme, or whether what he did was criminal. Some combination of judges and juries will decide that. As that trial gets closer, I'll probably take a closer look and form an opinion on the subject, but for the moment I haven't bothered trying to find out what really happened.

What I do know is that none of it succeeded. The actual electoral votes were counted in the early morning of January 7, in accordance with law. Whatever attempts were made to cheat, they failed.

[Meadmaker]

As for other forms of electoral manipulation, some of it gets into a grey area, but we have judges to make sure it doesn't go too far, and it hasn't.

Yes, the Republicans wantt voter ID laws. We know they aren't actually concerned with illegal voters. We know they just want to gain a tiny advantage that they would get by passing them. And it is tiny. Darned near everyone in America carries ID with them at all times. However, they know that there is some fraction of 1% of the people who would get disenfranchised if voter ID laws were enforced, but more of those people vote for Democrats. So, the Republicans push for voter ID laws under the pretense of keeping out illegal votes. That's not really cheating, but it does creep up to the line on it.

I've said before at ISF that I think Michigan's voter ID law, where I live, should be a model. We have to show ID. Any government issued ID works. If we don't have ID with us, we have to sign an affidavit of identity, and then we can vote. Darned near no one signs affidavits, because we all carry ID anyway. That's perfectly adequate to prevent any significant voter fraud, and it doesn't prevent anyone from voting. Nevertheless, Republicans demand stronger laws and Democrats say it should be repealed. Each side tries to use the laws to jockey for a tiny advantage they might get from a legal change.

[President Bush]

Your entire electoral system is set up to enable cheating. The Electoral College itself is a cheat. You're cheating people out of their fundamental right to have their vote counted by taking the result out of the peoples' hands and putting it in the hands of an elite group of Electors who may or may not make their decision in accord with the popular vote. Cheating!

The way the Electoral College is constucted gives it a bias towards small states.

Expand the House of Representatives. More populous states would obtain more representatives and, therefore, more electoral votes. And with smaller congressional districts in the states gaining representatives gerrymandering could, theoretically, be reduced.

[Meadmaker]

Your entire electoral system is set up to enable cheating. The Electoral College itself is a cheat. You're cheating people out of their fundamental right to have their vote counted by taking the result out of the peoples' hands and putting it in the hands of an elite group of Electors who may or may not make their decision in accord with the popular vote. Cheating!

The way the Electoral College is constucted gives it a bias towards small states.

Expand the House of Representatives. More populous states would obtain more representatives and, therefore, more electoral votes. And with smaller congressional districts in the states gaining representatives gerrymandering could, theoretically, be reduced.

The problem with electoral reform is that the people who have to vote for it are the people who won the last election, using the existing rules.

I think expanding the House would be a good idea, but it waters down the power of each individual representative, and the expansion would have to be passed by the people whose influence would be watered down.

[President Bush]

Your entire electoral system is set up to enable cheating. The Electoral College itself is a cheat. You're cheating people out of their fundamental right to have their vote counted by taking the result out of the peoples' hands and putting it in the hands of an elite group of Electors who may or may not make their decision in accord with the popular vote. Cheating!

The way the Electoral College is constucted gives it a bias towards small states.

Expand the House of Representatives. More populous states would obtain more representatives and, therefore, more electoral votes. And with smaller congressional districts in the states gaining representatives gerrymandering could, theoretically, be reduced.

The problem with electoral reform is that the people who have to vote for it are the people who won the last election, using the existing rules.

I think expanding the House would be a good idea, but it waters down the power of each individual representative, and the expansion would have to be passed by the people whose influence would be watered down.

Sounds like cheating.