• grue@lemmy.world
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    4 days ago

    Honestly, I suspect they’ve been trying trying their hardest to rig the last several elections, which is why they were so pissed off and in denial about 2020: they were incredulous that they rigged it and still managed to lose anyway.

    But yeah, we’ve been having exit poll discrepancies, Republican success strangely correlating with the installation of Diebold voting machines with no paper ballot, outsized performance for certain Republican candidates even though Democrats won down-ballot races, and other weird anomalies for couple of decades now.

    That said, I don’t necessarily think that Republican rigging changed the 2024 outcome. I was watching them insert MAGAts into election boards, pack the courts, and gear up to refuse to certify votes and whatnot, so I was fully expecting “stop the steal 2.0” except successful this time. But then Harris gave a big middle finger to the left and subsequently underperformed so badly that she just lost outright, so the foul play wasn’t even necessary.

    • WoodScientist@sh.itjust.works
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      4 days ago

      The truth is that outright stealing elections via vote rigging is an incredibly risky strategy. If you do that, and you get caught? That’s the kind of thing that can legitimately trigger an actual civil war. Rationally, it’s just not worth the risk. It’s especially not worth the risk when there are plenty of other shady but legal options available like gerrymandering, voter roll purges, corrupt judicial rulings, etc.

      This dynamic is also why you rarely see companies bribing politicians with giant bags of cash delivered in the night. There’s no need to engage in such overt bribery, as they’ve already constructed a system where legal forms of bribery (campaign contributions) exist.

      • lolcatnip@reddthat.com
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        3 days ago

        What do you think they’re afraid of? Every time they get caught doing something blatantly illegal, the only consequence is their base gets more enthusiastic. And they’re not exactly trying to avoid a civil war now that they’re in power.