Posted on 11/25/2018 10:25:40 AM PST by Kaslin
The political climate in the United States has been perpetually explosive for what feels like generations. This sentiment was evident as voters went to the polls for the 2018 midterm election. As a result of this, the 2018 midterm had the highest voter turnout since 1914. Despite the passion exhibited by both parties this election, in the shadow looms a serious issue that can affect the very foundation of our democracy. That issue is the growing distrust in our election results.
According to recent surveys, 31% of American voters have “not very much” or “no confidence at all” in our election results. Furthermore, one-third of Americans believe foreign governments had influenced the outcome of the recent midterms. This can be partially attributed to the American media's narrative framing of the 2016 Presidential election as illegitimate, and partially decided by foreign entities.
There are a number of additional factors that also have contributed to the growing lack of faith in the electoral process. It is no secret that foreign governments have attempted on multiple occasions to influence American elections to suit their agenda.
In 1996, China attempted to influence domestic American politics by attempting to assist in the reelection of President Bill Clinton. Dubbed “Chinagate,” the scandal was born out of a United States Department of Justice investigation into fund-raising activities that uncovered evidence of Chinese agents directing contributions from foreign sources to the Democratic National Committee. In addition, just before this year’s midterm election, Facebook discovered that multiple accounts associated with the Russian based Internet Research Agency were engaging in a disinformation campaign.
We have seen more of this weaponizing of social media in order to sway public opinion. In August and October this year, Facebook discovered two more influence campaigns spearheaded by Russia and Iran. Some of the accounts involved in these operations were followed by nearly one million people in the United States and Britain. Twitter also reported accounts from foreign actors that engaged in disinformation campaigns related to the election.
At first glance, one might not think that these social media operations would have a minimal effect on the midterm election. However, when put into perspective, the reality is they could have a significant impact.
According to a survey done by the Pew Research Center, 68% of American adults get their news through social media with 43% through Facebook and 12% through Twitter. Browser hijackers, like the Google Redirect Virus, are designed to replace the information and stories seen on leading websites and apps including Google, Twitter, Facebook, and others. This can easily be leveraged to corrupt election results. If even a nominal portion of this demographic is influenced by foreign propaganda, these misinformation campaigns can potentially sway close elections.
These influence campaigns are not the only tools used to manipulate the elections. There have also been multiple reports of hacking attacks to disrupt American votes. These cyber-attacks employ the use of malware such as Trojans and Ransomware to target political campaigns or Denial of Service attacks to state websites.
And of course, there is the State of Florida. Machine recounts, “hanging chads,” Brenda Snipes, thousands of missing votes and the late submission of revised vote tallies have all worked to undermine the perceived legitimacy of election results in one of the most critical swing states in the country.
While all the aforementioned issues affecting our democratic process are serious, the long-term problem may prove to be a lack of trust with election results. Citizens may begin to question the validity of election outcomes and the resulting disillusion and disengagement may have more of a negative influence on our democracy than any foreign power could ever desire.
bump
I certainly am. I have been losing confidence in the vote since round 2012. More was said about it than in the past, but the GOP still doesn’t fight about it nearly as much as I think the Dems would were the shady vote counts switched around.
Hell Yes!!!
When I see seat after seat stolen by Dem shenanigans, ie mail-in ballots, I’m ready to give up.
My son, a disabled Vet no longer bothers so to vote. Hasn’t for years.
“It don’t matter” he told me - “if the Dems don’t get what they want, they just go judge shopping and force it on us that way.” The he starts muttering about Stalin and who counts the votes....
I find it increasingly difficult to argue with him...because it is true.
ALL voter registrations need to be voided, nationwide, and everyone required to appear in person with ID to register anew.
Paper ballots only, no machines.
No absentee, or tentative ballots allowed.
And ink the finger of those who vote.
I lost mine in 1960 even though I've partaken in the farce since 1966 after I'd turned 21
And add to that, a fee to be paid — because money can be tracked, and if you try to add 10,000 phony votes, you’ll have to come up with a large sum of cash and somehow get that into the system without its origins being noticed.
Definitely, and on both sides.
On the conservative side, it’s obvious that the Left cheats everywhere they can and in every way they can. From motor voter to counting every lame provisional vote to encouraging illegals to working the nursing homes and prisons, the Dems are on it.
On the progressive side, the MSM echoes idiots like Stacey Adams and Ex-Senator Nelson, inciting them to believe in voter suppression and encouraging them to fight it by urging the disinterested to vote and also encouraging an “our team” mentality to support ballot shenanigans.
If you haven’t lost faith in the integrity of our election process, you are not paying attention. Whether it be from voter fraud; one political party fighting tooth and nail to not allow voter rolls to be cleaned and scrubbed; a gubernatorial candidate openly advocating for non-citizens to vote; for Project Veritas exposing these frauds and seemingly no one is held accountable; people like Snipes giving the country the finger; voting precincts where more people vote than are registered to vote; Detroit canceling their recount b/c they know it’ll expose their fraud.
It’s disgusting.
Are Voters Losing Confidence in the Integrity of Our Elections?
YES!
YES, we are loosing confidence in the electios process. I was out of the country, for a year, and found absentee ballots had collected in 3 states. I wonder if Post clerks and delivery people could catch these or the people doing dumpster diving could have voted for me. Once I had my grandson open the absentte ballot and vote for me.
Sure.
Those that are not are either Democrats or not paying attention.
Motor voter open the door to massive fraud
A pRESIDENT advocating for non-citizens to vote! Obama, in the run-up to the 2016 election : ‘if you live here, that means you can vote’.
If Democrats were smarter and wiser, they would consider this before engaging in underhanded vote fraud. They imagine that once they are in power, everything will be just peachy. The truth is that the more the people view them as illegitimate, the more difficult it is to govern. But the left just is not intelligent enough to think ahead to the consequences of its actions.
We need federal legislation outlining a US wide system that applies to all states to use for federal elections. Specifying who can vote.Requiring citizenship and residency verification registration performed by bi-partisan canvassed confirmation And No provisional, mail in, or same-day ballot issuance permitted.
Not me! I’m proud that America has become a corrupt, third world banana republic with corrupt elections that are a friggin’ joke. Anybody who isn’t ashamed of what just went on at the beginning of the month is a total friggin’ moron. That was an election. It was a friggin’ circus.
xlnt
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