Another presidential election has run its course and Americans who want to participate in a process that’s democratic, transparent and accountable are left in the dark.
All along the way, there have been dismal failures in our supposed democratic process. That continues today, as election integrity activists point out that the national media’s election day exit polls found that Hillary Clinton was ahead in four key states — North Carolina, Pennsylvania, Wisconsin and Florida — but lost the computerized vote count. That’s not the first time a “red shift” occurred between live exit poll results posted on CNN and the later vote count results.
That suggests the exit polls were either deeply flawed, or the vote count was compromised or stolen.
This latest affront comes after other attacks on the process by political insiders and outsiders throughout the race. Before the campaigning began, insiders in 14 Republican-majority states adopted new voting restrictions and barriers such as new ID requirements. In Wisconsin, where Trump was ahead by 27,000 votes, attorneys trying to challenge that state’s new law said upwards of 300,000 residents lacked the required IDs. That early attack was bookended at the election’s close by Republican election officials, from Ohio’s secretary of state to North Carolina county election boards, who gamed the field for brazen partisan advantage. They curtailed early voting, moved precincts, inaccurately purged voter rolls, and made perplexing decisions—as in Ohio—not to activate voting machine audit software, which means the results cannot be verified.