The election of 2016 was not a free and fair election in our democracy.

[Baltimike]

and now that we have established all that RUSSIAN COLLUSION, we need to come to grips with the fact that they rigged the election too. NOT that they "just went into our databases and voter files to just have a look around" NOT just the disinfo...not JUST the conservative press masquerading about as the "liberal media", but a frothy, spiteful mixture of all of it.

They're rigging elections, plain and simple.

edit: typo

[SHRED]

1. A rigged pResidunce

In a rigged election.

[zipplewrath]

2. Well, by "rigged"

I assume you are alluding to things like voter suppression, gerrymandering, dirty campaign tricks, the spreading of disinformation, etc.
It is all true, and some of this has always been around. We're going to have a long tough fight and it's going to have to start with gerrymandering, and then fixing the voter suppression problem.

[Baltimike]

3. by "rigged", I mean ALL OF IT

including machine rigging. Like throwing spaghetti at a wall, they did ALL of it.

[zipplewrath]

5. Which machines?

I haven't seen anyone had found a rigged machine.

[Baltimike]

6. Oh. Ok then. That settles it.

[bearsfootball516]

7. It's not worth it, I had a long conversation with him yesterday.

He won't provide any proof to back up his accusations.

[zipplewrath]

9. Well, and I'm sympathetic to the idea

We know it's possible, at least for some of the machines. But I tend to have a philosophy that never attribute to genius, that which can be explained by stupidity. There just aren't that many evil geniuses in the world. Most of the voter fraud is vastly more easily executed through absentee ballots and other more "paper" methods than by trying to rig some machine to create false votes without being detected.

[virgogal]

4. I didn't know that Russian collusion had been established.

My old brain completely missed that,I guess.

[Charlotte Little]

11. I think Collusion has been Established

But conspiracy, which is considered illegal, has not (although, I'd bet my life savings that Mueller is going to prove it.)

Trump admitted he was trying to make a deal with the Russians in June 2016. He's even moving closer and closer to "collusion is totally acceptable!", especially after he tweeted how "cool" it was that he was lying to Americans during his candidacy about having anything to do with Russia - just as he was offering Putin a $50M penthouse in Trump Tower.

[beachbum bob]

8. the collusion, if there was. limited to russian bots on social media, you can thank Stein voters

for giving us trump as well as all the democrats who stayed home.

[Eric J in MN]

12. Do you think Jill Stein

...told Putin to pay people to post to social media?

[Baltimike]

13. Oh it was *limited* now, was it?

Good grief.

[Charlotte Little]

10. For what it's worth, Baltimike

I agree with you. But with the Republicans in charge, there was no way we were going to be able to determine if it happened. So, being reasonable, I just let it go if it comes up in discussion with others.

Also, during the midterms, there were reports that when voters chose the option to vote straight Dem, Ted Cruz showed up on their ballots in TX. Somehow, that was excused away as just machine error. Kind of like those hanging chads.

https://www.politico.com/story/2018/11/05/voting-machine-errors-texas-georgia-2018-elections-midterms-959980