I'm-not-voting-for-either-candidate

[vendic]

Ok, hard evidence time.
A documented case of a voter who's registration was changed by use of forgery.
She went to a judge who compared the two signatures, hers and the one that changed her registration to Republican.

http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2 ... aster.html

That is one clear example of electoral fraud in action, documented, witnessed and overturned by a judge allowing her to vote for the day.

So on this issue, that voters registrations were tamper'd with there is proof. The only thing that can be argued is the numbers of people that it affected. That will only be discovered with an independent investigation. Which isn't coming.

She was not the only one either. Just the only one I linked to. There are others with similar stories and it's not isolated to NY.

[vendic]

Statistical analysis.
Almost all the differences between exit poll results and the reported vote counts were in Clinton's favor.
Those that weren't were minor and well within the margins of error.
Ten states the differences were above the margins of error, every one in favor of Clinton.

Statistical analysis is one of the best ways to identify election fixing.
It's worthy to note that the differences between the exit polls and the reported vote count on the Republican side were within error. Even when the data was collected by the same interviewers on the same day at the same location.

Here's the data: http://tdmsresearch.com/2016/06/20/demo ... primaries/

Now there are two possibilities here for such errors.
1) The interviewers all somehow coordinated and decided to do this deliberately. This means different states, different interviewers and different polling companies all somehow plotted together to make it appear that Sanders was a victim for some random reason.
2) The Democratic party was at play to get Hillary to win.

Statistically, it gets even more bizarre.

[vendic]

This is just sad. A person video recorded the staff telling people that they had to vote provisional because they weren't on the list. They were using a three page list till the woman recording kept pressing saying there are more people on her street than their list contained and it was for meant to be for an entire zip code. Then they find another list that has more names but aren't sure what it was. Their voting machine wasn't working so everyone had to vote provisional anyway. No one called to get the machine fixed. The woman who was meant to call said she didn't have their phone number. (it was on the side of the machine shown on video). Another worker gave them the number and told the voters that it was their responsibility to call to have it fixed. Unbelievable. A bunch of people complaining that they aren't on the three page list.

It was one of Sanders biggest contributing zip codes.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RK4Q2ry ... e=youtu.be

Its easy enough to argue incompetence here rather than fraud though. Either way, as far as an election goes, it's disgraceful. I had no idea this sort of thing could happen in what people here claim the greatest democracy in the world.

[grapes]

Statistical analysis.
Almost all the differences between exit poll results and the reported vote counts were in Clinton's favor.
Those that weren't were minor and well within the margins of error.
Ten states the differences were above the margins of error, every one in favor of Clinton.

Interesting stuff. There were twelve--two are shown pending confirmation. But the full list only has 27 states.

Statistical analysis is one of the best ways to identify election fixing.
It's worthy to note that the differences between the exit polls and the reported vote count on the Republican side were within error. Even when the data was collected by the same interviewers on the same day at the same location.

Here's the data: http://tdmsresearch.com/2016/06/20/demo ... primaries/

Now there are two possibilities here for such errors.
1) The interviewers all somehow coordinated and decided to do this deliberately. This means different states, different interviewers and different polling companies all somehow plotted together to make it appear that Sanders was a victim for some random reason.
2) The Democratic party was at play to get Hillary to win.

Statistically, it gets even more bizarre.

[vendic]

Interesting stuff. There were twelve--two are shown pending confirmation. But the full list only has 27 states.

iirc there were 36 voting states and the rest were caucuses.
One state never kept records so that brought it down to 35.

Not sure why some are missing. maybe it was done before the primaries were finished but I haven't verified that.

Statistically, it gets even more bizarre.

oops. Sorry I got distracted with things and thought I finished.

The thing that was bizarre to me was that they found that as the numbers of the electorate went up, the margin Hillary won by also increased. Typically when there are more people sampled the results from the exit polls and the counted votes tends to get closer, not further. That follows no statistical model I know of. Oversampling gets more accurate results, it doesn't make them worse wrt the over sampled amount.

I also messed up my phrasing in the post you quoted.
The same interviewers on the same day at the same poll location had errors with only the Democratic election results as tracked via exit polls. The Republican results were all within statistical error. That is a huge problem.

Statistical analysis is used regularly in detecting problems with vote tampering by comparison to the exit polls. There is something wrong here and it being ignored.

The report was apparently made by a team of lawyers and statisticians. Even notable statisticians have made comments that there is something not right here. Given the other evidence presented, it doesn't take much to figure out what. At least to me it doesn't but I'm not the final be all end all say in this. I could have missed something but i can't see it.

[SciFiFisher]

Unfortunately, I do not have the time to dig into the data or the websites you are presenting. At the end of the day it would do me no good if I did. The results are what they are. I am not disagreeing with Vendic that the DNC was biased towards Clinton. I also don't totally disagree that they may have engaged in shenanigans to make sure that Clinton won the nomination. As far as I know they did not break the law. They may have been unethical. They were biased. But, that is politics. We choose people we want because we think they will be the best at representing us. Yes, that is a generic us. The DNC failed to convince a percentage of the voting public that Clinton would represent them. There appears to some debate about whether that percentage have some responsibility for putting Trump in the white house. Some of us think they do. Some of us think they don't. At the end of the day I think we may just have to agree to disagree.

It has been proposed that we need changes to how the electoral process is conducted to choose candidates and/or to elect those candidates to national office. I assume the changes we are talking about would include congress critters as well as POTUS.

I am not sure that a third party is anywhere near being a reality in the U.S. anytime soon. However, I do know that the parties have gone through a variety of evolutions over the years. Today's Republican party has more in common with the Democratic party from around 1920. And vice versa.

I think one of the things that we really need to do is get BIG MONEY to have less influence on elections. I would gladly pay more in taxes to fund elections. Each candidate would be capped at the same amount. I could go one but right now I have a 6 year old freaking out over losing a tooth. I think you all get the gist of where I am going with this thought.

[Tarragon]

Ignore for a moment whether we can change the system, and tell me if you think there are election reform ideas that might work. What are they?

1. Abolish the Electoral College. President and Vice-president will be chosen by popular vote, with a plurality winning the election.

2. Transfer, by federal law, all control of elections of federal government offices to the Federal Election Commission. State governments will no longer set rules, dates or any other aspects concerning federal elections. Moreover, states will be required to accommodate and not hinder federal elections (provide adequate and numerous polling locations, etc). Voter registration will be uniform and handled by the FEC. Requirements for a candidate getting on the ballot will be set by law and enforced by the FEC.

3. Institute a national ID card. This card, which can simply be the US passport card currently in use for limited travel in North America, will serve as proof of identity for voting in all elections (not just federal) and will be required to be shown when voting. We will have to work out logistics to ensure every citizen has ample and affordable opportunity to obtain and renew their card. We will have to work out details to provide for proof of current residency for Senate and House of Representative elections, but that too will be uniform by law and enforced by the FEC.

4. Make federal election day a national holiday.

I agree with those for the most part, as a start.

A couple questions. For the plurality, do you have a preference for a minimum threshold to win or to winnow down the number of candidates or do you want to accept the risk of dozens of candidates splitting the popular vote? What happens in a tie?

When you say you want a national ID card to be affordable, do you mean free? Some would say any cost constitutes a poll tax.

Any other election rules, like primary dates, congressional elections, apportionment or anything else?

[Tarragon]

The only thing I'd add to this is that you implement mandatory voting here. After seeing the issues here, that itself might be enough to get the ball rolling on the other issues.

What's the penalty for those who don't vote?

[geonuc]

I agree with those for the most part, as a start.

A couple questions. For the plurality, do you have a preference for a minimum threshold to win or to winnow down the number of candidates or do you want to accept the risk of dozens of candidates splitting the popular vote? What happens in a tie?

When you say you want a national ID card to be affordable, do you mean free? Some would say any cost constitutes a poll tax.

Any other election rules, like primary dates, congressional elections, apportionment or anything else?

Plurality: I haven't considered the question to that detail, but a minimum probably would be a good idea. I'd be open to other votong schemes, such as STV.

Free, or minimal fee. We can work it out such that no one is denied due to cost.

One other 'rule'. To combat gerrymandering, redistricting would be done at the federal level by a non-partisan group. State legislatures would have no say in it.

[geonuc]

Ok, hard evidence time.
A documented case of a voter who's registration was changed by use of forgery.
She went to a judge who compared the two signatures, hers and the one that changed her registration to Republican.

http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2 ... aster.html

That is one clear example of electoral fraud in action, documented, witnessed and overturned by a judge allowing her to vote for the day.

So on this issue, that voters registrations were tamper'd with there is proof. The only thing that can be argued is the numbers of people that it affected. That will only be discovered with an independent investigation. Which isn't coming.

She was not the only one either. Just the only one I linked to. There are others with similar stories and it's not isolated to NY.

Yep, that appears to be evidence (not proof - I subscribe to the scientific use of that term) of an instance of illegal tampering. Probably a Republican voter registration activist gone rogue, but who knows.

[geonuc]

Statistical analysis.
Almost all the differences between exit poll results and the reported vote counts were in Clinton's favor.
Those that weren't were minor and well within the margins of error.
Ten states the differences were above the margins of error, every one in favor of Clinton.

Statistical analysis is one of the best ways to identify election fixing.
It's worthy to note that the differences between the exit polls and the reported vote count on the Republican side were within error. Even when the data was collected by the same interviewers on the same day at the same location.

Here's the data: http://tdmsresearch.com/2016/06/20/demo ... primaries/

Now there are two possibilities here for such errors.
1) The interviewers all somehow coordinated and decided to do this deliberately. This means different states, different interviewers and different polling companies all somehow plotted together to make it appear that Sanders was a victim for some random reason.
2) The Democratic party was at play to get Hillary to win.

Statistically, it gets even more bizarre.

Sorry, I can't agree. Your premise and especially your conclusions are, in my mind, flawed. Statistical analysis is not necessarily 'one of the best ways' to identify election rigging and you certainly can't conclude there are 'two possibilities for errors', particularly those two. I know enough about statistics from the work I do to know that laypeople like you and me and everyone else on FWIS who aren't trained in a statistical analysis can't draw conclusions from such data.

For example, one other possible reason for the EP/VC discrepancy is what some people have been saying since the election (where Clinton was heavily favored to win over Trump) is that polls - even exit polls - are becoming less reliable because people simply lie about their voting preferences more than they used to, for whatever reasons.

And there could be other reasons for the data looking the way it does. I don't know.

[vendic]

The only thing I'd add to this is that you implement mandatory voting here. After seeing the issues here, that itself might be enough to get the ball rolling on the other issues.

What's the penalty for those who don't vote?

That one I'm not sure about at all. Most people will follow the rules without fear of repercussions. Especially if you make it easy for them. I don't like the idea of fines/charges at all on this issue. That just leads to the possibility of political prisoners. Maybe just get them to lodge an reason for not voting and if they don't put it on their record.
No idea really.

[vendic]

Yep, that appears to be evidence (not proof - I subscribe to the scientific use of that term) of an instance of illegal tampering. Probably a Republican voter registration activist gone rogue, but who knows.

There are more examples across more states. This wasn't just one or two cases.

Sure it could be anyone that did it. You guess it was the republicans. I doubt that.
I'm saying there is enough to warrant an investigation. The only ones that an do that are the Democrats and they aren't willing to do so.

[vendic]

Sorry, I can't agree. Your premise and especially your conclusions are, in my mind, flawed. Statistical analysis is not necessarily 'one of the best ways' to identify election rigging and you certainly can't conclude there are 'two possibilities for errors', particularly those two. I know enough about statistics from the work I do to know that laypeople like you and me and everyone else on FWIS who aren't trained in a statistical analysis can't draw conclusions from such data.

Which is why we rely on statisticians who around the world use these techniques for checking elections and they use it because it is a proven technique.
I can conclude that they are the most likely possibilities for reasons I'll explain below. You however are allowed and encouraged to disagree.

I'll even help you: https://www.nytimes.com/2016/06/28/upsh ... nders.html

This author states he has no idea why people think exit polls are considered a valid fraud detection technique and thinks they are not accurate. Here's the problem: http://electiondefensealliance.org/freq ... exit_polls

Around the world, exit polls have been used to verify the integrity of elections. The United States has funded exit polls in Eastern Europe to detect fraud. Discrepancies between exit polls and the official vote count have been used to successfully overturn election results in Ukraine, Serbia, and Georgia.

Yes this paper was peer reviewed

Have your papers been peer reviewed?
Yes. There is no formal mechanism for papers like this (nor is there any good forum in which to publish them), but when I leave a "t" uncrossed in these papers, people write to the dean and demand my dismissal (actually, they do that anyway). The conclusions of the initial paper, in fact, have been accepted, and the "debate" has moved on.

The US Count Votes paper which I co-authored with 11 mathematicians, statisticians, and other social scientists was extensively peer reviewed.

I will note here that this paper is different from the one I linked to. It uses exit poll data and has been peer reviewed and the conclusions accepted. I put it in to debunk the above link that claims exit poll data is not valid. Clearly it is and is widely accepted. That means the reporter and self acclaimed numerical analyst (I checked his bio and credentials) did not do his due dilligence at all considering he is claiming to have experience in the field of polling data analysis. Or he is playing spin doctor. Take your pick.
Here's the link to that study: http://electiondefensealliance.org/freq ... z4Xp3h8UNF

Of course you can choose what you want to accept.

For example, one other possible reason for the EP/VC discrepancy is what some people have been saying since the election (where Clinton was heavily favored to win over Trump) is that polls - even exit polls - are becoming less reliable because people simply lie about their voting preferences more than they used to, for whatever reasons.

And there could be other reasons for the data looking the way it does. I don't know.

The problem is that the same interviewers at the same locations on the same day also took data where there were simultaneous republican elections and the Republican data is well within error and has none of the anomalies.
When people lie at exit polls it won't be limited to just the Democratic voters. It also would require Sanders voters to claim the voted for Hillary or Hillary voters to claim they voted for Sanders but always with a leaning such that it came out that Hillary appears to get more counted votes than the exit polls show. Now the article I linked above (that contradicts my views) provides alternative explanations which seem legitimate. I just don't agree with that because the data corrected for demographics and because the problem below.

The second problem is that as the electoral population went up, so did the discrepancy. That means that the more people that were sampled the greater the percentage of people lying. Again, only in one direction and again only in the case of Democrats. This one makes no logical sense whatsoever statistically from everything I know and I do know enough about statistics to understand that the more sampling we use the better the result should be. In fact I use this very same property of statistics in engineering to get more accurate results than should be possible. It works, it's proven. it's reliable and is the cornerstone of much of the technology we use today. It never gets less accurate. This data however goes completely against it. This aspect of the data was left out of the article I linked above. It was not addressed at all. To me this is the strangest part of the data and I suspect any statistician would be equally interested in what is going on. The author missed or chose to ignore this aspect and if he did choose to ignore it, I can understand why. It's not explainable in any way other than fiddling the data.

Highly noted and regarded statisticians have raised questions about the issues. The report I linked was written by lawyers and statisticians and they have concerns. They are not laymen. If they are raising questions, maybe we should listen.
Sure it's not proof. It is however enough to say things aren't as simple and clear cut as they appear. Given the rest of the evidence they also collected I believe that's a given.
There is evidence it has happened before (the other link I gave).

I have shown evidence of someone forging peoples signatures to alter their registrations. This was not a one off and certainly not just one state. It was systematic. No investigation has been initiated by the DNC and they would want one if someone was hacking their database.

I have provided links and sources to leading statisticians, mathematicians and peer reviewed papers whose conclusions were accepted that used exit poll data to detect fraud. I have shown that exit poll data is used and has been used to successfully detect fraud in elections by the US government overseas. There is no reason to think that it works elsewhere but not here.

Lastly, you mentioned that people lie more and more at exit polls. The correct thing to say there is that there is a discrepancy between exit polls and counted votes that is growing. Lying is one possible explanation. So is more systematic rigging of the results. I call Occam's Razor here. People all around the country lying more and more as an explanation, or count tampering on the increase.

[vendic]

Unfortunately, I do not have the time to dig into the data or the websites you are presenting. At the end of the day it would do me no good if I did. The results are what they are. I am not disagreeing with Vendic that the DNC was biased towards Clinton. I also don't totally disagree that they may have engaged in shenanigans to make sure that Clinton won the nomination. As far as I know they did not break the law. They may have been unethical. They were biased. But, that is politics.

Forging someones signature to change their registration against their will is illegal. I provided a link to evidence of it. A judge agreed it was a forgery.
It's identity theft for a start.
It's also deliberately trying to steer the direction of the selection of the most powerful person in the world. If people don't think this is a problem then I don't know what to say.
The day we start accepting this kind of behaviour as just "politics", is the day we have given up on getting democracy for the USA. I say that with a straight face, you don't have a Democracy here. You have an oligarchy running under a faux Democracy. I doubt they want to give up their power so easily.

[geonuc]

I see that the data you provided seems to suggest a discrepancy. However, I object to your saying it necessarily means one of the two things you stated. It could mean other things (such as people lying more these days but also maybe something we haven't considered). And it could be meaningless. It could be that there were flaws in the polling rendering the results useless. It could be a lot of things.

I'll wait for the peer-reviewed studies.

[Tarragon]

The only thing I'd add to this is that you implement mandatory voting here. After seeing the issues here, that itself might be enough to get the ball rolling on the other issues.

What's the penalty for those who don't vote?

That one I'm not sure about at all. Most people will follow the rules without fear of repercussions. Especially if you make it easy for them. I don't like the idea of fines/charges at all on this issue. That just leads to the possibility of political prisoners. Maybe just get them to lodge an reason for not voting and if they don't put it on their record.
No idea really.

What about carrots instead of sticks? Do you think a lottery with casting a vote as the method of entry would bring more people in?

Or including a straw poll section that could be included on the ballots? This would give people a chance to express an opinion, even if it's not binding like in direct democracy.

[Tarragon]

I agree with those for the most part, as a start.

A couple questions. For the plurality, do you have a preference for a minimum threshold to win or to winnow down the number of candidates or do you want to accept the risk of dozens of candidates splitting the popular vote? What happens in a tie?

When you say you want a national ID card to be affordable, do you mean free? Some would say any cost constitutes a poll tax.

Any other election rules, like primary dates, congressional elections, apportionment or anything else?

Plurality: I haven't considered the question to that detail, but a minimum probably would be a good idea. I'd be open to other votong schemes, such as STV.

Free, or minimal fee. We can work it out such that no one is denied due to cost.

One other 'rule'. To combat gerrymandering, redistricting would be done at the federal level by a non-partisan group. State legislatures would have no say in it.

Sounds like you want to reduce state autonomy. I don't disagree. The Electoral College was one compromise for that, but hasn't worked out so well.

For the federal gerrymandering commission, do you have any specific rules or preferences for packing and cracking voting blocs?

Is the election reform just for presidential elections or Congress as well? Even with Plurality or STV, there might be a lot of different parties elected. Do you have any ideas or preferences for making the houses of congress work when there's no majority party?

[SciFiFisher]

Unfortunately, I do not have the time to dig into the data or the websites you are presenting. At the end of the day it would do me no good if I did. The results are what they are. I am not disagreeing with Vendic that the DNC was biased towards Clinton. I also don't totally disagree that they may have engaged in shenanigans to make sure that Clinton won the nomination. As far as I know they did not break the law. They may have been unethical. They were biased. But, that is politics.

Forging someones signature to change their registration against their will is illegal. I provided a link to evidence of it. A judge agreed it was a forgery.
It's identity theft for a start.
It's also deliberately trying to steer the direction of the selection of the most powerful person in the world. If people don't think this is a problem then I don't know what to say.
The day we start accepting this kind of behaviour as just "politics", is the day we have given up on getting democracy for the USA. I say that with a straight face, you don't have a Democracy here. You have an oligarchy running under a faux Democracy. I doubt they want to give up their power so easily.

But, was it the "Democratic National Party" engaging in a nationwide conspiracy? Or are all the instances you are talking about the work of individuals who for their own motives chose to "help" Clinton win? In the case of the signature forging I would agree that was a criminal act by an individual. But, unless we can prove that they did so because the DNC instructed them to or in some way was part of the crime then all we can accurately determine is that there were widespread individual cases of "cheating" to ensure that a preferred candidate wins. Which, is sadly, a very widespread practice in every country that uses some form of elections to decide things. Or imperfect democracy in action. AKA That IS Politics.

IMO, based on vague recollections, the individual acts of "cheating" usually don't add up to an overwhelming influence on large elections such as choosing a candidate to run for president or the actual presidential election. IOW the cheating gets washed out. If enough voters had wanted Bernie to be the nominee then they would have overwhelmed the small percentage of cheating for Hilary. The only time it might make a statistical difference is if you had two candidates who were practically tied.

As to your claim that we what we really have is an oligarchy in practice with a democracy in form I don't entirely disagree with you. In all systems power, money, and influence tend to give someone an advantage. When things are going well the oligarchical institutions trend toward working for the good of the most. When things are going badly the oligarchical institutions trend toward working for the "good" of the few. I think that currently we have a system that has been trending towards the good of the few. We have also had decades where we gained for the good of the most. Social Security, Medicare, Welfare in it's various forms, Unions, and Anti-Monopoly laws just to name a few things.

When you look at things like Citizen's United, The Republican Congress for the last 8 years, and the election of Trump for POTUS it would be very hard to argue that the trend is NOT toward the good of the most.

I definitely agree that we need some fixes to the system. I am not sure we need to scrap the entire system though. I am not saying that the parliamentary system isn't good. It seems to work fairly decently a majority of the time for Australia, Canada, and the U.K. from what I have seen and learned. That doesn't mean we couldn't make what we currently have work the way it was intended to work. It actually does seem to work pretty well at the local levels for the most part.

I think what you and I really disagree is about is how to fix the system. I think we both agree that something is wrong with it. We just seem to disagree about how broken it is.

[geonuc]

Sounds like you want to reduce state autonomy. I don't disagree. The Electoral College was one compromise for that, but hasn't worked out so well.

For the federal gerrymandering commission, do you have any specific rules or preferences for packing and cracking voting blocs?

Is the election reform just for presidential elections or Congress as well? Even with Plurality or STV, there might be a lot of different parties elected. Do you have any ideas or preferences for making the houses of congress work when there's no majority party?

Yes, I want to reduce state autonomy. I'm no fan of the varied standards and laws we have. Too much opportunity for the local majority to oppress the minority.

I have nothing on how to eliminate gerrymandering beyond making redistricting a federal decision.

I believe I stated that my changes would be for elections to federal office. So yes, the House and Senate too. I don't see the major two-party domination changing too much with my reforms, so I don't think the Congress would work much differently.

[vendic]

But, was it the "Democratic National Party" engaging in a nationwide conspiracy? Or are all the instances you are talking about the work of individuals who for their own motives chose to "help" Clinton win? In the case of the signature forging I would agree that was a criminal act by an individual. But, unless we can prove that they did so because the DNC instructed them to or in some way was part of the crime then all we can accurately determine is that there were widespread individual cases of "cheating" to ensure that a preferred candidate wins. Which, is sadly, a very widespread practice in every country that uses some form of elections to decide things. Or imperfect democracy in action. AKA That IS Politics.

IMO, based on vague recollections, the individual acts of "cheating" usually don't add up to an overwhelming influence on large elections such as choosing a candidate to run for president or the actual presidential election. IOW the cheating gets washed out. If enough voters had wanted Bernie to be the nominee then they would have overwhelmed the small percentage of cheating for Hilary. The only time it might make a statistical difference is if you had two candidates who were practically tied.

Here's the problem, it's not an individual case. Thousands have complained. I linked one case that had clear undisputed evidence of registration tampering because for a while on this site I was being told that there was no fraud in the election and nothing illegal. I supplied evidence that there was. That's all I needed to do.
Now I'm being told it's only a small number. Where is the evidence for this? At least we've gone from there was no electoral fraud to it was only a small number. Do I have to now find far more examples and if I do, will the goal posts be changed again?
I'm being told that a Republican might have hacked the system. Ok, it might. Why then would the DNC not even try to investigate the thousands of voters whose registrations were changed on the DNC's own database? There were about 1000 that complained just in NY. We all know that not everyone will complain officially so the number has to be higher. It was ignored. I mean literally ignored. Feel free to find somewhere that the DNC has said where they find this to be a problem and are willing to investigate.

I showed a video where on one small sample of time there were three people complaining about their records changed to the people running the voting stations. All falling on deaf ears. What are the odds of only a small number of people being affected and all of them arrive at the same time at the same polling station? That itself is indicative of it not being small or isolated cases.

I showed evidence that the voting machines were proved hack-able 8 years ago by Stanford University (iirc) without breaking the security seals, yet the same machines are in service.

Most importantly, it is impossible to know the true numbers this happened to because no one is interested in investigating it. Not the DNC not the general public even when made aware of the problem.

Then people complain when the voter turnout is low in the general election and blame the public for not showing up. rofl

The strange part is we agree that there is an oligarchy type system in place. Yet it seems they are really very honest and decent because they surely wouldn't do anything to keep their power base and interests when it's loss is threatened. They would never bring themselves down to fixing elections or such. Just like there is no real insider trading. They would never do such a low thing. Because they are a nice oligarchy with the public's interests at heart. Their track record proves it!

[vendic]

I see that the data you provided seems to suggest a discrepancy. However, I object to your saying it necessarily means one of the two things you stated. It could mean other things (such as people lying more these days but also maybe something we haven't considered). And it could be meaningless. It could be that there were flaws in the polling rendering the results useless. It could be a lot of things.

I'll wait for the peer-reviewed studies.

I gave you one peer reviewed study from another time period already.
I also addressed the lying. Apparently only Democrats lie.
The other finding you might want to consider is that the shift towards Hillary increased where voting machines without a paper trail were used.
Every single anomaly just happens to shift in one direction only.

[vendic]

What about carrots instead of sticks? Do you think a lottery with casting a vote as the method of entry would bring more people in?

Or including a straw poll section that could be included on the ballots? This would give people a chance to express an opinion, even if it's not binding like in direct democracy.

To be honest, I have no idea. i really don't.
I was initially not happy with the Australian system of compulsory voting. After seeing the problems here, all I can say is that compulsory voting is way better than voluntary. Of course Australia also has the STV system and the US uses first past the post. That makes a difference too.

[code monkey]

The only thing I'd add to this is that you implement mandatory voting here. After seeing the issues here, that itself might be enough to get the ball rolling on the other issues.

What's the penalty for those who don't vote?

I wouldn't have a penalty for not voting in and of itself. however, i'd levy a large fine on anyone who didn't vote but then complained about any gov't action after the inauguration of those elected.

[Tarragon]

The only thing I'd add to this is that you implement mandatory voting here. After seeing the issues here, that itself might be enough to get the ball rolling on the other issues.

What's the penalty for those who don't vote?

I wouldn't have a penalty for not voting in and of itself. however, i'd levy a large fine on anyone who didn't vote but then complained about any gov't action after the inauguration of those elected.

Does that mean you want to gut the First Amendment in the US Bill of Rights?