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Will the U.S. Presidential Election Be Rigged?

2016-10-25 · explainer · John · 6:57 · watch on YouTube

Topic: US politics & society · mode: News analysis · tags: timely hook, civic or action cta

John argues the 2016 US presidential election will not be rigged: the decentralized electoral system resists fraud, the disputed 2004 Ohio result was not stolen, voter suppression is real but voter fraud is not, and a candidate's rigging claims are lies that erode trust in elections.

What is said

The parts of the video and what is said in each (★ — how much it matters to the video).

00:00:00 — The 2004 election and how the electoral college works, including winning the popular vote but losing

  • ★★ John says Bush received about 3 million more votes than Kerry across the country in 2004. — 00:00:11 · United States presidential election
  • ★★ John explains the electoral college: states get electoral votes by congressional representation (California 55, Montana 3), most give all to the state winner, and 270 wins. — 00:00:30 · Montana
  • ★★ John says a candidate can win the popular vote but lose the election, which is how George W. Bush was elected in 2000. — 00:00:52
  • ★ John says if no candidate gets an electoral majority the House chooses the president, as in 1826 when Congress chose John Quincy Adams although Andrew Jackson had more votes. — 00:01:02
    • a number in question (slip of the tongue): "1826" — check against the recording
  • ★★ John calls the electoral college a strange and anachronistic feature and agrees that it all sounds bananas. — 00:01:21

00:01:25 — Thousands of separately overseen elections make US presidential elections hard to rig

  • ★★★ John says an arguable upside of the electoral college is that it makes presidential elections very hard to rig: 51 state elections and thousands of separately overseen local ones protect against widespread fraud. — 00:01:25

00:01:54 — The 2004 Ohio rigging claim and what actually happened; Kerry concedes

  • ★★ John says Kerry lost Ohio by about 118,000 votes and would have been elected president had he won it. — 00:02:00 · United States presidential election
  • ★★ John says many on the left, reportedly including Kerry himself, believe voter suppression and possible ballot fraud rigged that election, as a Rolling Stone cover story argued. (hedged) — 00:02:03
  • ★★ John lays out the claim: Ohio's Republican secretary of state engineered long lines, purged voters, kept 25% of new registrants off polling lists, and 150,000 rural votes were switched to Bush. — 00:02:18 · Republican Party
  • ★★ John says 25% of new registrants did have to fill out provisional ballots, showing how poorly Ohio's election was run, but almost exactly half of them voted for Bush. — 00:02:41
  • ★ John says the voter rolls were purged because the law requires purging as people die or move. — 00:02:54
  • ★★ John says none of the 150,000 purportedly switched votes was actually switched. — 00:03:03
  • ★★ John says long lines at polling places did disenfranchise voters, but not enough to change Ohio's presidential result. — 00:03:08
  • ★★★ John concludes the 2004 Ohio election was poorly run and fell short of democratic ideals, but did not steal the election from Kerry. — 00:03:17 · United States presidential election
  • ★★ John cites the Democratic Party's own investigation, which found no evidence from its survey that Kerry won Ohio, though it came months later. — 00:03:25
  • ★★ John says the morning after the election Kerry still thought he might have won and was furious at the partisanship, yet called Bush and conceded. — 00:03:36

00:03:47 — Trusted elections and the peaceful transfer of power as a central tenet

  • ★★★ John calls it a central tenet of the country that elections are fair, their outcomes broadly trusted, and power changes hands peacefully. — 00:03:47 · United States
  • ★★ John notes it is sometimes said Washington's greatest presidential moment was handing office to John Adams, setting the precedent for ceding power. — 00:03:56
  • ★★ Paraphrasing George W. Bush, John says the office of the presidency is always more important than the person who holds it. — 00:04:07

00:04:14 — Voter suppression is real, voter fraud is not; debunked fraud claims

  • ★★★ John says US elections are not perfect: voter suppression has been a hallmark of US voting, targeting the poor and later women and people of color, and many strategies persist today. — 00:04:14
  • ★★★ John says voter suppression is real but is not the same as widespread fraud, which is not real. — 00:04:31
  • ★★ John says observers from both major parties monitor poll workers in most states, and fraud among voters is incredibly rare in the US. — 00:04:37 · Republican Party, United States
  • ★★ John says voter rolls often include dead or otherwise ineligible people because they are not kept up to date, but that does not mean fraudulent votes will be cast. — 00:04:54
  • ★★★ John says in-person voter fraud is even rarer than death by lightning: 31 substantiated cases in 14 years versus 36 lightning deaths this year (2016) alone. — 00:05:02
  • ★★ John says absentee-ballot fraud is somewhat more common, since mailed ballots are easier to fill out for someone else, but is neither widespread nor systematic. — 00:05:19
  • ★★ John says a study claiming 6.4% of non-citizens in the US voted in 2008 has been thoroughly debunked. — 00:05:28 · United States
  • ★★ John says the claim that certain voting machines can easily be rigged is not true. — 00:05:36
  • ★★ John says the rumour that machines owned by George Soros will be used in 16 states is false: Soros has no ownership stake in Smartmatic. — 00:05:40
  • ★★ John says Smartmatic machines will be used in zero states in 2016. — 00:05:50

00:05:58 — The election will not be rigged; a candidate's rigging claims are lies that undermine trust

  • ★★★ John says the US presidential election will not be rigged, any more than the 2004 one was. — 00:05:58 · United States presidential election, United States
  • ★★★ John says one major-party candidate loudly claims the election will be rigged, with widespread fraud, people voting ten times and undocumented immigrants voting, and that these are all simply lies. — 00:06:03 · Donald Trump
  • ★★★ John says normalizing these conspiracy theories scares him because fewer Americans will trust elections even when they are free and fair. — 00:06:19
  • ★★ John says he understands that fearmongering is part of US politics, but undermining the legitimacy of political institutions without cause is not. (hedged) — 00:06:31 · Donald Trump
  • ★★ John says hearing such unfounded rhetoric from a presidential candidate is a new and disturbing development in American political discourse. — 00:06:38 · Donald Trump, United States

00:06:46 — Your vote will count; eligible voters, vote

In the description and comments

  • ★★ John says Bush did not steal the Bush–Kerry election in Ohio, pointing to Farhad Manjoo's complete analysis of the vote-rigging claims. — video description
  • ★★ John cites election law expert Chris Ashby on why the presidential vote will not be rigged: machines cannot be secretly adjusted, and the decentralized system makes widespread fraud extremely unlikely. — video description
  • ★★ John says elected officials of both parties agree the US election system is more secure than ever in the nation's history. — video description · Republican Party, United States
  • ★★ John cites a comprehensive investigation of voter impersonation that found 31 incidents out of a billion votes cast. — video description
  • ★★ John says voting law experts agree official election fraud is becoming increasingly rare in the US, not more common. — video description · United States

Threads in this video

Where the stories that moved here went next

Mentioned

Central: Donald Trump · electoral fraud · Ohio · peaceful transition of power · United States Electoral College · United States presidential election · voter suppression

Also: People: Andrew Jackson · George Soros · George W. Bush · George Washington · John Adams · John Kerry · John Quincy Adams

Organizations: Democratic Party · Republican Party · Rolling Stone · Smartmatic · United States House of Representatives

Concepts: absentee ballot · conspiracy theory · democratic backsliding · lightning · suffrage

Places: California · Montana · United States

Only in the description or credits: CGP Grey · Chris Ashby · Farhad Manjoo · Time

Also centred on electoral fraud: Iran Election Fraud: 5 Reasons to Doubt the Results · The Rigged Election

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