But I’m done with the partisan stuff, and think both sides are equally out of their minds.
Look, I can get behind the general sentiment of your comment, but this is just wrong and it’s dangerous to keep pushing this lie.
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limer@lemmy.dbzer0.com 3 weeks agoEh, it’s been a long journey for me. Years ago I was active in the Democratic Party in Texas, later I was a keyboard warrior who wrote millions of words, none of which did any good.
Now I just want fair elections; again writing words, now in a very small community, that also does no good.
But I’m done with the partisan stuff, and think both sides are equally out of their minds.
Democracies need accurate ballot counting, most states fail this. The primaries in both parties and the general elections have been tampered with for decades in many states. This has totally changed the character and leadership of both parties over the decades.
This is not a falsifiable argument because the only way to prove the above is wrong is to not use the election machines run by private organizations. While at the same time exit polls and stats hint of extreme ballot stuffing by these very companies. It’s not rocket science.
But, most commentators and social media participants in USA politics don’t care or want to know.
The ballot manipulation will allow democrats to win the midterms by a landslide, and most likely have the presidency again in 2028, and people who want paper ballots will be rendered mute again by most. Then next cycle the republicans will win again!
It’s a very long game, with each iteration moving more wealth away from the majority. And the only way to fix it is with paper ballots counted in front of witnesses and unlimited recounts allowed. Even then, it will take a long time to fix
prole@lemmy.blahaj.zone 3 weeks ago
limer@lemmy.dbzer0.com 3 weeks ago
Democrats are out of their minds because they, as a party and a majority of participants: embrace electronic voting; do not demand recounts in very close elections; ignore exit polls that show more people voted for them than recorded in the elections they loose; have no interest in paper ballots etc etc.
If a party is against demanding better democratic practices in states they routinely lose. Sometimes loosing only narrowly.
And everyone needs them to win.
Then what would you call it besides a sort of insanity?
prole@lemmy.blahaj.zone 3 weeks ago
You have to understand that I’m not trying to defend the Democratic party here. It’s just important to be clear that both sides are not even close to being “equally out of their minds.”
Do I really need to go into details here, or is it not just self-evident based on the past 6 months?
limer@lemmy.dbzer0.com 3 weeks ago
First, I’m rather far far left. Both mainstream parties have traditionally been against things I hold dear. So things promoted by democrats can be poison to me.
But that is not the point.
When you have a party supporting the fascists, and a party that is less so; and that other party is against enabling, asking, paying token lip service: to democratic principles that every real democracy in the world holds dear, practices that would make the fascists loose.
That makes them a passive enabler.
There is nothing wrong with being a professional looser, and a corrupt mess, if that is what your voters want. But when it’s something that important and there is still no mass awareness of the situation, or even a glimmer of interest to do better.
That does make them equally bad. Much like a child abuse scenario where one parent beats up the children and another parent lets them.
And I think future historians will agree with me
crusa187@lemmy.ml 3 weeks ago
Agreed we need much better voting protections and a complete overhaul of the system. I think there is probably a more modern solution available that would satisfy the requirements you’ve laid out, but would be happy to start with paper ballots if that’s all we can muster. Eventually I’d like to see something like a 1 way hash that can be combined with some of a voter’s PII to publicly verify votes cast and results while protecting voter identities.
limer@lemmy.dbzer0.com 3 weeks ago
Most democracies use hand counted paper ballots. It works, and it’s fast enough, no need to improve it.
I don’t understand the American need to tinker with a good system.
That said, there is no way the majority of USA states will switch over to better counting systems. Some areas of the world will never be able to be truly democratic. The Americans have some weird system that works for their upper class, and the lower classes fully believe in it. This will not change in my lifetime
crusa187@lemmy.ml 3 weeks ago
It sounds like you were politically active in TX around the same time I was, during GW era, based on prior comment. But this reads as if you are an expat now. Did you leave?
limer@lemmy.dbzer0.com 3 weeks ago
Those were really badly designed ballots. Look at France or the UK or Canada or Virginia etc for how they should be. No self respecting democracy should ever use a half mechanical design that fails like that.
What really made me angry later was that this was used to justify worse ways counting ballots. But my main issue was the shut down recounts. GW was never properly elected, in my mind, and he made several problems for the USA that still have ramifications to this day, including his introducing modern computer voting. He used his contacts to form the first private voting companies we know today. And in my view his son was elected to Texas only because of that.
No, still in Texas. Unfortunately, during the gw era I was not interested in politics much. If I sound like an expat its because I am totally not on board with any of the major political movements