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In reply to the discussion: I wouldn't blame Hillary if she moved to Canada. [View all]pnwmom
(110,265 posts)And your comment blaming the Dems for not eliminating the Electoral College after Bush's election is similarly uninformed. An amendment to the constitution requires an approval by 3/4 of the states. That was not something the Democrats could have accomplished.
http://pasadenajournal.com/what-surely-tainted-our-election-voter-suppression/
The steps taken to suppress the vote arent secret: new requirements of voter ID that discriminate against the poor, the elderly and disproportionately people of color; restrictions on use of college ID to impede student voting; closing registration weeks before Election Day; limiting early voting days, closing on Sundays; holding Election Day on a workday with limited hours for voting, making it difficult for those with inflexible hours to get to the polls; shutting down or moving polling places to confuse voters and force them to wait in long lines; purging voters from the polling lists, leaving them to cast provisional ballots at best; prohibiting felons who have paid their debt to society from ever recovering the right to vote, disproportionately impacting African-American men.
There is little doubt that these measures worked, and cost Clinton the election. In Wisconsin, for example, Trumps margin of victory was 27,000. A record 300,000 registered voters lacked the newly required ID, contributing to the lowest turnout in 20 years. Turnout was down by more than 50,000 in Milwaukee where 70 percent of the states African-American population lives.
In North Carolina, black turnout was down 16 percent in the first week of early voting, in part because there were 158 fewer polling places in the 40 counties with large numbers of black voters. The targeting was intentional, with Republican officials celebrating the effects. The decision by the right-wing gang of five on the Supreme Court in the Shelby case effectively subverted the victory of the civil rights movement at Selma.
If Russians hacked the Democratic National Committees and the Clinton campaigns emails to influence the election, it should be investigated. In an election decided by 80,000 votes in three states, it might have made a difference (as almost anything could in an election that close). But what is clear is that Russian hacking was not nearly as effective as the partisan systematic suppression of the vote. And that effort is continuing. Republicans in Missouri took control and moved to institute new voting ID restrictions for the next election. In Wisconsin, Republicans announced plans for new restrictions on early voting.