2016: The year Americans realized voting and elections are pretty much meaningless

[Feeling the Bern]

On our side, there have been numerous instances of voter purges and irregularities.

On their side, they are threatening to broker a convention unless the candidate the GOP power brokers decide they want is made the candidate and not the boob the voters chose.

Carlin was right, elections are meaningless. The Great American Okie-Doke has been shown to be a lie in every facet of American life.

[liberal N proud]

1. RIIIIIIGGGHT!

[struggle4progress]

2. That's some load dumped in the road

[Laurian]

3. Shouldn't this be in GDP?

[Eko]

4. Tell that to

the people that have health care now because of the ACA, do you think a republican president would have made that happen? Or that a repub president would have gotten rid of don't ask don't tell? I don't think its possible for you to stick your head any further into the sand than you already have but I'm sure it wont be for a lack of trying on your part.

[AgadorSparticus]

11. Ditto that!!! The sky is NOT falling. If it was going to fall, it would have done so in 2004

The idea of a second dubya term was more than scary. And in 2008, it WAS horrifying. We were nearly in economic collapse when Obama took the reigns. So, no. It is not politically over. Life goes on....

[dreamnightwind]

5. If voting changed anything, they'd make it illegal

or very difficult to do.

[Retrograde]

6. It's deja vu all over again

I've been hearing this plaint my whole adult life: why should I bother, my vote doesn't count, all parties are the same. And yet the small percentage of the populace who bother to show up have a disproportionate say in how things get done in this country.

[cwydro]

7. Wrong forum. nt

[craigmatic]

8. Yeah pretty much. It's the hang over from the Obama years. 2008 was all about hopes and dreams

2016 is all about hardcore ugly reality. I personally was not inspired to vote for anybody although I did support Sanders on Supertuesday. I'm not looking forward to November either just because there are glaring social problems in this country when it comes to race relations and justice and neither nominee is going to do anything to fix them.

[Hydra]

9. :) Great to see St. George telling it

"Bullshit is the glue that binds us as a nation."

[Feeling the Bern]

13. We need someone like him. Not someone as sanctimonious or pompous as Maher

We need someone like George these days. We lost too much when he left us eight years ago.

[AZ Progressive]

10. Elections are like trails with juries

They are there to legitimize the outcome even if the decks were stacked to begin with.

[Democat]

12. Tell that lie to gay, lesbian, and transgender Americans

Democrats are far far better than Republicans.

Just because you don't get everything doesn't mean that "both parties are the same".

Ask all of the people who died in the Iraq war how that works out.

[sufrommich]

14. 2016: The year Sanders supporters realized

going to rallies and tweeting isn't the same thing as voting.

[1939]

15. Back in 1952

when the conventions ad wrapped up and Ike and Adlai were chosen by the two parties, my father said that he had no role in choosing either candidate.

In the primaries, your vote is very indirect and you are really electing delegates to the convention (usually bound for the first ballot). If no single candidate has a first ballot majority (not the case since 1960) then the convention begins the horse trading to agree on a candidate who may or may not be the one who came in with a plurality. In the end, your delegate may or may not end up voting for the one you elected him/her to vote for.

In the actual election, your vote is more direct, but legally you are voting for a slate of electors to the Electoral College (who can legally change their vote).

[randome]

16. Every single election has irregularities. Just about every single voting precinct does.

But those who trumpet conspiracy theories have been given plenty of information about how the system works -for instance, the 'horrifying' sight of vote totals going down- but they seem completely unable to find out for themselves how to verify what they are being told is true.

They don't bother to dig up information because that's too much hard work and so they parrot the line over and over again: "She's cheating!" Until it becomes simply white noise that no one pays attention to.
[hr][font color="blue"][center]All things in moderation, including moderation.[/center][/font][hr]