You May Think Your Vote Counts, But the NY Primaries Just Proved the Establishment Does Not

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Your vote doesn’t matter. But if you still harbor illusions about its value after the farce that was the New York primary on Tuesday, your cognitive dissonance is likely impenetrable.

In fact, New York City’s primary elections received so many reports of suspiciously-purged eligible voters, incompetent poll workers, and altered voter party affiliations, the city’s comptroller didn’t wait for polls to close before announcing plans to audit the Board of Elections.

“There is nothing more sacred in our nation than the right to vote, yet election after election, reports come in of people inexplicably purged from the polls,” New York City Comptroller Scott Stringer explained in a statement Tuesday afternoon. “The people of New York City have lost confidence that the Board of Elections can effectively administer elections and we intend to find out why the BOE is so consistently disorganized, chaotic and inefficient.”

It didn’t take long for Mayor Bill de Blasio to back the audit, as he also issued a statement yesterday afternoon:

“It has been reported to us from voters and voting rights monitors that voting lists in Brooklyn contain numerous errors, including the purging of entire buildings and blocks of voters from the voting lists […] “We will hold the BOE commissioners responsible for ensuring that the Board and its borough officers properly conduct the election process to assure that voters are not disenfranchised. The perception that voters may have been disenfranchised undermines the integrity of the entire electoral process and must be fixed.”

NYC BOE Executive Director Michael J. Ryan continued pushing back against mounting evidence of that exact disenfranchisement, calling the hefty volume of complaints various offices received “typical” for an election.

Nick Benson, spokesman for New York Attorney General Eric Schneiderman, begged to differ, tweeting the AG office hotline had received over 700 complaints before 4 pm compared to around 150 for the entire 2012 general election.

As of 3:50, @AGSchneiderman voter hotline received > 700 complaints from voters across NYS. Context: Office received ~150 for '12 general. — Nick Benson (@nick_benson) April 19, 2016

Hillary Clinton managed to secure a win in the state, which — though some polls prior to the election predicted — occurred in large part due to New York’s closed primary that doesn’t allow voters unaffiliated with a party to cast a ballot. And Bernie Sanders, though Independent, is running as a Dem — meaning a large portion of his support base doesn’t claim any Party affiliation.

Considering Brooklyn, alone, saw around 126,000 eligible voters inexplicably dropped from voter rolls and numerous reports voters arbitrarily had their party affiliations switched, Clinton’s win appears at least somewhat contrived.

Indeed, the Democratic establishment’s overt favoritism of Hillary has permeated nearly every caucus and primary since Iowa — evidenced by similar disorganization, voter disenfranchisement, and occasionally blatant manipulation of results. Even the Iowa caucus that kicked off primary season had been so bereft of integrity, the Des Moines Register published an editorial slamming the state’s Democratic Party for refusing to audit what took place:

“What happened Monday night was a debacle, period. Democracy, particularly at the local party level, can be slow, messy, and obscure. But the refusal to undergo scrutiny or to allow for an appeal reeks of autocracy.”

As reported by the Hill, Sanders won the majority of counties in the state, but Hilary Clinton still won.

This is how New York is voting for Sanders and Clinton: https://t.co/nvgOmsixkw #NYPrimary pic.twitter.com/e9YiUnNhC7 — Colleen Shalby (@CShalby) April 20, 2016

Clinton’s victories have been tinged with suspicious circumstances for months. In March, The Free Thought Project noted how candidates are selected, not elected, in a thorough analysis following snafus in Arizona’s Democratic Primary which led Clinton to victory there. After Sanders lost Wyoming, despite winning the popular vote by a margin of 12 percent, Anti-Media also reported on the obvious rigging of elections.

Clearly, the Democratic establishment has chosen Clinton over Bernie Sanders — voters be damned. Sanders isn’t the only candidate being thwarted by political insiders and Party politics, of course, as Trump’s phenomenal popular support has the GOP in a tailspin.

Trump even called the system “rigged” after Republican Party rules left Colorado voters unable to cast a ballot in Colorado. In an op-ed published in the Wall Street Journal Thursday, Trump asserted:

“I, for one, am not interested in defending a system that for decades has served the interest of political parties at the expense of the people. Members of the club — the consultants, the pollsters, the politicians, the pundits and the special interests — grow rich and powerful while the American people grow poorer and more isolated.”

Supporters of both Trump and Sanders join those who previously supported the presidential bid by Ron Paul in their crushing disappointment over the realization the system was designed to affirm its own interests. Paul recently spoke out on the state of elections, echoing Trump in calling the process rigged.

In its present corrupted and monied manifestation, the American political system will never allow the nomination of any threat to that self-interest — whether it be from a third party or anti-establishment hopeful running on a party ticket.

How anyone still gives credence to the United States calling itself the Land of the Free flies in the face of all evidence to the contrary. Take, for instance, a recent study which found America ranks dead last among Western democracies in the integrity of the electoral process.

Still not convinced? Perhaps testimony under oath by a computer programmer who admitted to coding computers to rig elections would do the trick.

Considering the evidence from the New York primary, alone, anyone left steadfastly defending the worth of the popular vote is simply refusing to face reality.

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