Election Integrity
From the beginning of this election cycle President-Elect Trump claimed the system is rigged, millions of illegal voters voted, the dead have voted, etc. That is until he won and then it was I also won the popular vote as millions voted illegally for Clinton. Historically, voter fraud has hardly been an issue and it has been measured in the tens of thousands of 1%. What is claimed to be voter fraud is usually voting irregularities or issues with the procedures and process of voting. Even though there is no evidence of wide spread voter fraud, it has not stopped states from putting in place new laws to supposedly safe guard the vote and at the same time making it more difficult to vote. Amongst those states who have installed new requirements to vote or register are “9 of the 15 previously covered in whole or in part by Section 5 of the Voting Rights Act because of a state’s history of preventing minorities from voting.
The Electoral Integrity Project is an independent academic project at Harvard University and the University of Sydney. It is directed by Harvard University Professor Pippa Norris and governed by an International Advisory Board. Using 726 political scientists based in local universities in each state, the EIP evaluated the process and procedures of voting in each state using 49 core indicators which were then grouped into 11 ranking categories. The highest attainable ranking in any one category is 100 points. The project reviews the entire electoral cycle from the pre-election stage, the campaign itself, the actual polling day, and the aftermath. The results of the 2016 election and the corresponding state rankings are in Figure 1 (click on the picture for a larger version).
In speaking for the SCOTUS majority vote of 5, Chief Justice John Roberts repealed Section 5 of the Voting Rights Act claiming things had changed dramatically since the 1960s. Congress could no longer require states and counties to get the approval of the Department of Justice to change plans or put in place requirements for minorities to vote. The thought was the additional approval and supervision by the DOJ was no longer needed as these jurisdictions could be trusted to treat minorities fairly going forward.
State wide voting restrictions directed at minorities were viewed as a problem of the past when discrimination was blatant. With the passing of decades it was felt these States had outgrown past biases with minorities and could be allowed to govern voting rules and regulation on their own by SCOTUS. Evidence of such was not so positive and recent reviews show the states in the South had the weakest electoral performance overall in 2016. The newly passed North Carolina GOP State House laws to restrict the power of Democrat Governor Roy Cooper before he takes office suggest such thoughts of fairness were optimistic. The Rust Belt ‘Blue Wall’ states of Ohio, Michigan, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin were also problematic. By contrast, the quality of elections in the Pacific West and New England were viewed positively.
Figure 2 shows the ranking of each state amongst the other states for “perceptions of Electoral Integrity” from the highest Election Integrity at 1 (Vermont) to the lowest Election Integrity (Arizona) at 51 (Click on the picture for a larger version).
Vote counting, the Voting Process, and the role of Electoral Authorities were shown to be less problematic than Congressional Voting District Boundary Delineation, State Electoral laws, Campaign Media, and Political Money in the Electoral process. North Carolina comes in at #1 followed by Wisconsin, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Michigan, Texas, and South Carolina for Congressional Voting District Delineation. The aggregate for Congressional Voting District Delineation is 33 and is the lowest of the 11 categories with Electoral Laws (Voting IDs, Early Voting, Provisional Ballots, etc) being next.
It is no secret, delineation of state Congressional Districts has led to additional Congressional Representatives of a political party being sent to Congress. As an example, Michigan has had a greater than 50% Democrat majority vote since 1992 and its Congressional delegation to the House has been less than 50% Democrats. This is the result of Congressional redistricting after every Census by a Republican majority in the state. As it now stands, changes to Congressional Districts will not happen until 2022 and only if the Democrats can take back state legislatures or if courts overrule the Congressional District delineation in place now or created in 2022 after the next Census. There is a far greater issue with Republican drawn districts than Democrat.
Other issues which need sunlight and additional discussion are Campaign Media, the lack of substantive Policy Discussion during the campaign, the False Equivalency Standards of Journalism, and the overwhelmingly Negative Tone of news coverage.
If one were to compare states by political control using this data, Democrat – Controlled states showed greater “Electoral Integrity than Republican – controlled states. Figure 3 shows in the aggregate assessments of each of the eleven stages during the electoral cycle compared with which party controlled the State House. With the exception of “Reporting Results” across all the remaining stages, “the gap was substantial and statistically significant on the issues of gerrymandered district boundaries, voter registration, electoral laws, and the performance of electoral officials.” Democrat controlled states out performed Republican controlled states in Electoral Integrity.
Taking into consideration the substantial gap and statistically significance issues of gerrymandered congressional district boundaries, voter registration, electoral laws, and the performance of electoral officials” (Figure 3), there was a clear tendency for Trump to also win more states (Figure 4) exhibiting these weaknesses. The evidence is not so clear as to state Trump won these states solely due to these issues; however, the correlation and direction pointed is clear. Perhaps as Trump claimed the election was rigged; but, it was not rigged in the manner he claimed.
There is little or no evidence there was voter fraud or votes cast illegally in 2016 as President – Elect Trump has claimed before, during, and after the election. However taking a broader vision of Election Integrity and with a review of this study, “one could arrive at the conclusion US elections suffer from several systematic and persistent problems. Donald Trump and the Republican party appear to have done well in states with the most problems.”
It is not only the 2016 election which has had its issues. As EIP and Professor Norris have shown in other studies, there have been issues with the 2012 and 2014 elections as well. When compared to other countries, the United States has scored the worst in Election Integrity amongst similar Western Countries given the culture and history the US represents. “The US also ranks 52nd out of all 153 countries worldwide in a cross-national Electoral Integrity survey. The comparison is even worse when the issue of Congressional District boundaries ate considered as the U.S. score is the second lowest in the world.”
References:
Why it’s Not About Election Fraud, Its Much Worse. Electoral Integrity Project; Pippa Norris, Holly Ann Garnett, Max Grömping
Study: Clinton-Trump Coverage was a Feast of False Equivalency, Erik Wemple
“North Carolina Is No Longer Classified as a Democracy”, Andrew Reynolds
The Truth About Voter Fraud”, Justin Levitt
If anyone still needed proof of the political nature of the Supreme Court, the decision in the voting rights act case ought to do it.
The SCOTUS decision was a “judgment” with information that was based on decades of federal oversight in election conditions for the former secessionist states.
There was no objective evidence nor any objective evidence even possible to obtain on how these same states current processes without federal oversight would modify or adjust or change conditions to resume or re-instate practices that reduce the probability of non-conservative voter turnout.
Thus SCOTUS made a pure “judgment” that is precisely what a Supreme Court must do in the absence of objective information.
in this case the majority “judged” that the conservative former confederates states would sufficiently change their prior ways to no longer require federal oversight of the special forms enacted by congress.
It is pure folly and fantasy to believe the members of the Supreme Court are not just as prone to having an ideological bias as any other person in the U.S. (or of any human on the globe). There is no such thing as a politically or socially unbiased “judgment”.
The Constitution prescribed that States shall have the sole responsibility for voting conditions & made no restrictions on same. The only reason there were special federal oversight restrictions applied to some states after the Civil War was because congress applied restrictions via federal oversight conditions (I forget when they did this) which the then SCOTUS “judged” to be in keeping with “fair”. The current SCOTUS simply “judged” that the restrictions were no longer “fair”.
Change the SCOTUS mix of 5/9 and presto-change, like magic from “on high”, the law is changed. The problem is
a) The means by which members of SCOTUS are selected & conformed (or not) which invites political bias to the nth degree if the administration and/or Senate so wish it to be.
b)That there are only 9 justices…. The more justices on the court the more it minimizes major changes in the law by “judgment” of the court. Consider: 1 in 9 currently makes the difference (11% of the bench). 1 in 21 is <5% of the bench , and 1/ 31 is ~ 3%. The probabilities of <5% is 1/2 that of 11% probability. The probability of 3% is ~ 1/4 the current probability.
Or go the other way in the extreme.. 3 justices where 1 in 3 makes the difference which is a 33% probability case.
The relationship is that the number of justices is inversely proportional to the rate of changes in the law.
“The Constitution prescribed that States shall have the sole responsibility for voting conditions & made no restrictions on same.
Um, under the Constitution the law changes. I can say the Constitution prescribed that blacks are not human and women are not equal and make as much sense.
The restriction is complete regardless of the level at which regulation is created: One voice, one vote.
Transgender is not a “born identity.” One has to choose, every day, to play dress-up and pretend to be what one is not.
“I can say the Constitution prescribed that blacks are not human and women are not equal and make as much sense.”
You can say it, but there is nothing in the Constitution to support either assertion. However, the Constitution does say this about the election of Members of the House of Representatives: “[The] Electors in each State shall have the Qualifications requisite for Electors of the most numerous Branch of the State Legislature.” So that is left to the States to decide. In fact, there is no mention of Congressional districts at all, because they are not required by the Constitution.
Warren:
Other than stirring up trouble, where are you going with this? The complete remark was:
“’The Constitution prescribed that States shall have the sole responsibility for voting conditions & made no restrictions on same.’
Um, under the Constitution the law changes. I can say the Constitution prescribed that blacks are not human and women are not equal and make as much sense.”
You only took a partial of what EM said which gives the leeway to say what you said. Of course there is no mention of districts; but, Electors are assigned by Reps with Repubs having theirs and Dems having theirs. Who ever wins goes to the final vote except for two states who apportion to a degree (I have to look it up again which I am not going to do now).
“Electors are assigned by Reps with Repubs having theirs and Dems having theirs.”
Different electors. In the context of Article I, Section 2, they are the electors who get to vote for House members. In Article II. Section 1, they are the electors who get to vote for President.
Run,
Waste of time talking to this person.
“The man who does not read has no advantage over the man who cannot read.”
Mark Twain