According to authors Bob Fitrakis and Harvey Wasserman, the outcome of the 2016 election can be explained by (1) the stripping of massive numbers of voters from the voting rolls, (2) the flipping of vote counts in swing states by partisan-owned unverifiable “black box” electronic voting machines that cannot be audited, and (3) the Electoral College.
Stripping: They explain how the peculiar U.S. history of racism and imperialism have worked to disenfranchise non-white citizens. Some examples described by the authors:
“In 2000, Florida Governor Jeb Bush used a program called ChoicePoint to strip more than 90,000 predominantly black and Hispanic citizens from the voter registration rolls in an election decided by 537 votes. The pretext was alleged felony convictions. The selection was “won” by Bush’s brother George W although a full recount (which was stopped by the US Supreme Court by one vote) would have given Al Gore the majority in Florida, and in the Electoral College.”
“In 2004, more than 300,000 predominantly urban citizens were stripped from the voter registration rolls in an election the GOP won by 118,775. A quarter of all voters in heavily Democratic Cleveland were de-registered. Ohio’s ill-got electoral votes gave George W. Bush a second term.”
“In 2016, … a new program called Crosscheck was used by some 30 GOP Secretaries of State to strip more than 1.1 million predominantly black, Hispanic, Islamic and Asian-American citizens from the voter rolls. Originating with far-right Republican Kris Kobach, Kansas’s Secretary of State, Crosscheck eliminated more than enough minority voters in at least three swing states to flip the entire presidential election.”
“Alongside computerized techniques, the Republicans have effectively deployed still more traditional Jim Crow tactics to strip black/Hispanic/Asian-American citizens of their ability to vote. In part these include: demands for photo ID, elimination of polling places, narrowing time frames in which citizens can vote, deliberate distribution of misinformation about voting requirements, non-counting of provisional ballots, failure to send out absentee ballots, intimidation and widespread confusion at polling places [Google voting map] and much more.”
Electronic Flipping: “The vast majority of the popular votes in this election nationwide were cast on either computerized touch-screen electronic machines, or on scantron ballots that are counted by computer. In neither case are there public monitoring capabilities or legal recourse for vote counts that are flipped.”
“In 2016, as in all previous US elections at least since 2000, the electronic vote count remains anyone’s guess. In states with a governor and Secretary of State from the same party, the final tally can be whatever they want it to be.”
The authors provide ways to end electoral fraud and make U.S. elections fair, should there ever be the political will do do so.
