Rigged, for her Pleasure?
There’s an overwhelmingly large amount on conspiracy theorist rants this morning over the results of last night’s New Hampshire primary results in which Hillary Clinton and John McCain both won by slim margins. There are cries of fraud on both sides, many of which cite the Diebold voting machines, which have a long, marred history. On the Democratic side, some are pointing out Hillary’s strength in counties where Diebold machines are used. On the Republican side, and this is of no surprise to anyone I’m sure, Ron Paul’s neo-spammers are unable to accept the fact that the fringe candidate didn’t do as well as they hoped. They’re not just crying foul, they’re screaming it. But they scream about everything.
We’re not even into the main election yet and already there are problems, or at least allegations of questionable results. Even ABC News is asking how the polls got it so wrong.
It’s well known that our election system is archaic and susceptible to tampering. Both the 2000 and 2004 elections were decided by states where the vote was remarkably close. Allegations of fraud have been rampant since. Politicians have promised reform since the 2000 debacle but we haven’t seen it. Our system is just faulty, if not more so today.
The real venerability of our voting system rests on the The People. When the race is too close to call, the manipulation and/or validity of just a few thousand votes can swing it either way. In these situations, there is no way to ensure an honest election with a clean outcome. It’s not going to happen. The only true way to overcome the cracks in the system is for one candidate to win by a landslide. That means The People need to unite behind a candidate we can all believe in, if there is such a person. A candidate needs to win by a considerable margin that will be able to overshadow any vote tampering and/or questionable ballots. A few ten thousand votes in one state may not raise any red (or blue) flags, even though it should, but to inflate or deflate the results by millions of votes in multiple states would, hopefully, be completely impossible to pull off.
Was New Hampshire rigged? I don’t know. I don’t know anything about whether the accusations of fraud are founded or not. What is obvious is that this could very well be a sloppy start to another election season. This is not what America needs right now. We’re supposed to be closing the gap.