[nextstep]

Even the language used in this article is misleading: “hacked the election”. The actual allegations are that Russia was behind the hacks of the DNC servers. That is not election hacking! Hacking the election sounds like the Russians found some vulnerability with voting machines. There is no evidence of this.

In either case, Trump won the election because he won more electoral votes than Hillary. And he did this by winning more popular votes in key states. It’s that simple. The Democrats had an unappealing candidate who ran a weak campaign in key states. And lost.

What the DNC leaks do show, however, is that the Democrats ran a fraudulent primary election where they colluded with the Clinton campaign and suppressed any opposition from the left. This resulted in an unpopular candidate in the general election, and a public even more untrusting of the Clintons and the process. The Democrats needs to look in the mirror instead of playing to fears of Russian boogeyman.

[avenoir]

The DNC Charter [1] states numerous times that it is their responsibility to establish processes which ensure the office of President of the United States is selected by a fair and equitable process. However, being a private entity they are not obligated to do a damn thing. While they violated their own charter by favoring one candidate over the other I don't believe they actually broke any laws. And this is what makes this interesting. People can be very upset about what they've done, but nobody can really do much about it because they're not a government agency. Isn't it fascinating? We have an entity with incredible power over the election process and absolutely no oversight.

[1] http://s3.amazonaws.com/uploads.democrats.org/Downloads/DNC_...

[nextstep]

Yeah, it is a very interesting situation. It is unfortunate that these private parties have so much power and support from the states but aren’t really held accountable to the voters.

This sort of system maybe worked better early in the days of the US but with our two very entrenched parties, all of this serves to prevent any third party becoming a viable option.

[arca_vorago]

Indeed. Part of how they have done this is by taking over the state legislatures (both parties), and passing laws and regulations at the Secretary of State level that make it extremely difficult for third-parties and independents to run for federal office. For example, in Texas, a person wanting to run as an independent candidate for president needs to get 80k signatures on a petition by people who voted in neither party primary. Except they will dispute as many signatures as possible, so it's more like 120k needed. Also, you have 69 days to do it!

Both parties are corporations and are part of the problem. They circled the wagons when Ross Perot scared the shit out of them in 92, and the League of Women Voters withdrew from doing the debates because of how unfair they were becoming.

[prostoalex]

In theory it has few implications as there are dozens of political parties to help fill in the void https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_political_parties_in... In practice, however, it's next to impossible to run for a federal office on their ticket, so perhaps the focus should be on helping young political startups gain access to the federal stage.

[comex]

You accuse others of using misleading language, then proceed to use misleading language yourself. Calling the primary "fraudulent" makes it sound like primary votes were miscounted, but of course there is no evidence of that either. (Unless you count the controversy over a voter roll 'purge' in NY, but that (a) didn't cover enough voters to make a significant difference, (b) probably benefitted Sanders anyway, and (c) was not the subject of any revelations from the leaks.)

[nextstep]

The DNC colluded with the Clinton campaign in numerous ways. There's an ongoing lawsuit about this: http://www.newsweek.com/dnc-fraud-lawsuit-claims-bernie-sand...

http://www.theroot.com/dnc-fraud-lawsuit-is-the-biggest-stor...

[comex]

The lawsuit does not allege that votes were miscounted.

[nextstep]

You’re right, it alleges that the DNC defrauded donors by failing to run a fair primary.

[unityByFreedom]

ongoing lawsuit != guilt

It wouldn't surprise me if there are a number of campaign-inspired lawsuits. That doesn't mean any of their claims are found to be true by a court.

You're suggesting that the DNC colluded with Clinton against Sanders, yet Sanders is not a part of this lawsuit. Sounds more like spin from the right to me.

[nautilus12]

Hacking the election is the language that the mainstream media has been promulgating. Shouldn't he use the same language they use to point blame?

[petre]

It's the same language used by the MSM in clickbait titles. The article outlines the same counter intelligence techniques used in the Macron hack.

[gdudeman]

This is incorrect. In one case, Trump won the election by very narrowly winning more popular votes in key states. Those votes could have been influenced by the news.

What the DNC leaks show is also the messiness underbelly of virtually any campaign. You can call it collusion, but I'd say it's the DNC doing their job to try to get an electable candidate on the ballot. The RNC did the same thing - they just failed this time.

Had the Trump team's email leaked in the same way, I suspect the election would have gone the other way.

[cocktailpeanuts]

Parent said:

> And he did this by winning more popular votes in key states

And you said:

> This is incorrect. In one case, Trump won the election by very narrowly winning more popular votes in key states.

What exactly is "incorrect" again? So just because he won by a small margin, that win doesn't count? I don't even like Trump but this is really outrageous. Please take a second to think about what you're saying. I don't even know what you consider as "correct".

[PhantomGremlin]

Had the Trump team's email leaked in the same way, I suspect the election would have gone the other way.

It's hard to conceive of what could be in Trump team email that would be more damaging than some of the things that Trump said that were known before the election. Such as:

"I could stand in the middle of 5th Avenue and shoot somebody and I wouldn't lose voters"

and

"Grab ’em by the pussy. You can do anything."

And that's just the tip of the iceberg. It seems like Trump said something outrageous every other day.

If Trump's email had him directing his underlings to cooperate with the Russians to hack the DNC, then maybe that would have hurt. But maybe that wouldn't have been sufficient. Maybe there would have needed to be a video attachment with Trump saying exactly that? Not just words?

Seriously. Outside of evidence of Trump specifically directing people to cooperate with Russia to commit felonies, what email could have been sufficiently damaging to Trump?

[macintux]

Well, there was the serious allegation of forced rape of an underage (13 I think?) girl. I doubt there'd be any emails in that topic, but I have to think that would have cost him a few votes if verified.

OTOH, the "but Hillary" argument seemed to trump everything else, so ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

[nextstep]

All votes are influenced by the news. That’s how our modern democracy works. You learn about the candidates through a (hopefully free) media and then you cast a vote.

[blackrose]

That's the point -- the CIA, FBI, and NSA determined with "high confidence" [0] that Russia worked to influence us through (among other outlets) the media -- especially social media. It worked, and because of it our votes weren't free.

> Moscow’s influence campaign followed a Russian messaging strategy that blends covert intelligence operations—such as cyber activity—with overt efforts by Russian Government agencies, state-funded media, third-party intermediaries, and paid social media users or “trolls.”

[0] https://www.dni.gov/files/documents/ICA_2017_01.pdf

[Elhana]

Because only "free" US media can influence US citizens... Mark Twain wrote about it long ago in his "Running for Governor"

[nautilus12]

"You can call it collusion, but I'd say its X doing their job." I find this statement totally lacks awareness considering all the accusations of collusion being hurled at the current administration.

[ece]

Trump won because in MI, PA, and WI, Jill Stein received more votes than the difference between Trump and Hillary.

3rd party candidates in FL in 2000 and MI, PA, and WI in 2016 were the spoilers for the whole nation. Don't be an idealistic, naive American voter, be a pragmatic voter!

Yes I know the electoral college is racist, and we need to abolish it.

[xtreme]

Why do you assume that all the third party voters would have voted for Hillary if there were no third party candidate? They could have abstained, or even voted for Trump. Many libertarian party supporters find the Republicans more tolerable than the Democrats.

In any case, shaming people because they voted for a candidate who they felt best represented their views goes against the very idea of representative democracy.

[ece]

I'm not shaming the fact that they voted, I'm shaming who they voted for. You aren't a responsible voter if you're not up to accepting responsibility for your vote. If you voted for Trump, hope he's making you happy. If you voted for Jill Stein or Ralph Nader in 2016 or 2000 in WI, MI, PA, or FL, you are very much responsible for Bush and Trump respectively in the electoral and government system we have since your candidate was a spoiler.

These 3rd party voters could have abstained or voted for another 3rd party or went Republican, but they didn't. They could have traded their vote to someone in a safe state (https://www.nytimes.com/2016/09/16/opinion/anti-trump-republ...), if Hillary was their 2nd preference. If not, go ahead, vote for 3rd party candidate who could be a spoiler and has no chance of winning.

[yellowapple]

You aren't a responsible voter if you pretend that voting for a "lesser of two evils" over a candidate who actually represents your beliefs is ever anything better than a wasted vote.

[ece]

This is the very definition of idealism and being naive about how much your vote matters, when you should give a thought to your 2nd preference and be pragmatic if you are in a non-safe state for your 2nd preference. Do vote trading with someone in a safe state, and your candidate will still get the same percentage of nationwide votes, and your 2nd preference will win.

Again, I am not saying that don't vote for 3rd party candidates anywhere.

There is no equivalence between Trump and Hillary, and if Voting for Hillary in a non-safe or safe state would have been a wasted vote, pity the 65 million who voted for her.

[yellowapple]

"This is the very definition of idealism and being naive about how much your vote matters,"

I was a California resident at the time. My vote was about as close to irrelevant as one can get; California's electoral votes haven't turned red since Reagan.

Even if I had moved to Nevada by then (that is: a few months before I actually did), I would have had zero regrets voting for Johnson. Neither Trump nor Clinton deserved my vote, simple as that.

"There is no equivalence between Trump and Hillary"

There is plenty of equivalence between two corrupt and most-likely-actually-criminal sociopaths. There's also plenty of equivalence between two presidential campaigns that went out of the way to present a "if you're not with me, then you're against me" mentality and alienate every supporter of the other candidate.

Importantly, and more specifically, both candidates' campaigns utterly alienated me as a voter simply because I did not precisely align with their "one true policy" or whatever. Neither candidate gave me any reason to vote for them, and every reason to not vote for them.

"2nd preference"

I had no second preference. If I did have a second preference, it might as well have been Mickey Mouse.

"vote trading"

Oh yeah, and make my vote even more worthless than it already is.

(Of course, vote trading as a California resident would've been an upgrade no matter what, but now that I live in Nevada, it'd be entirely irrational to want to dilute the power of my individual vote any further than it already is).

[arca_vorago]

The electoral college has a purpose and plenty of thought went into it. Also, this narrative of spoiler candidates is bullshit.

https://youtu.be/BYqOxTzOdb4?t=85

[ece]

It's purpose was to have electors cast nationwide votes before mass transportation existed. In it's current form, it is completely a left over from a racist past.

http://www.salon.com/2016/12/15/the-electoral-college-born-o...

Also, if a democratic candidate is your 2nd preference, and you're in a non-safe state, and you don't trust vote trading, you should most likely not vote for a spoiler candidate, and vote for your 2nd preference democratic candidate. If a democrat isn't your 2nd preference, go ahead, do what you want.

The mechanics of the electoral college make this much pragmatism and tactical voting necessary for any American voter I'm afraid.

[yellowapple]

The electoral college has less to do with it than the fact that our electoral system is first-past-the-post.

[ece]

States handing out their electors according to vote would make the system non-racist.

[legacynl]

I think people should be free to vote whatever they feel like.

The voting is not the problem, the two party system, that effectively discounts any vote thats not R or D, is.

[ece]

People should be vote trading if they're in a non safe state. https://www.nytimes.com/2016/09/16/opinion/anti-trump-republ...

No excuse to not do it until the electoral college is abolished.

[monocasa]

3rd parties get trotted out every time someone loses an election by a few percentage points. The facts are, that viewed against 2012, the right wing third party candidates gained more votes than the left wing. Ie. the demographics of the 3rd party votes helped Clinton more than they hurt her.

[ece]

By definition they helped Trump more in WI, MI and PA. Where MI, PA, and WI would have put Clinton over 270. Have there been any cases where Republicans would have won the presidency but 3rd parties were spoilers in a handful of states? I don't think so. Maybe in 1960.

Percentage increase is less relevant with Trump on the ballot, compared with the raw votes that swung the electoral college.

I am not saying don't vote for 3rd parties. I am saying if you're in a non-safe state for your 2nd preference, do vote trading with someone in a safe state or vote for your 2nd preference who has a better chance of winning. If you vote trade, your 3rd party candidate will still get the same percentage of votes nationwide, and your 2nd preference will actually win.

The combination of mass incarceration, the racist electoral college as it is, and the the demographics of the country make it seem likely that some pragmatic and tactical voting in non-safe states will go a long way for Democrats, at least that seems to be the lesson from the past two decades. Hacking the electoral college anyone?

[monocasa]

> By definition they helped Trump more in WI, MI and PA.

No, not by definition. There's all sorts of other reasons why Clinton could get fewer votes. Clinton has just been trying to blame every reason except those that blame her campaign.

The real question isn't "what could have cost her a fraction of a percentage point here and there?", but instead "why was such a razor edge to begin with?"

[ece]

Yes by definition, and I did define it as a presidential election flipping because of 3rd party voters in a handful of swing states.

You're ignoring that Trump on the ballot meant any Libertarian was going to get a bump. Any other republican, and their winning margin would've been bigger, or Hillary would've won and we wouldn't be having this conversation.

It shouldn't have been close, but the last few elections have been, with the popular vote winner losing the electoral college twice and Kerry coming within ~30 EVs. Do you have a solution for divided media, inequality, climate change, and citizens united, that is simpler than vote trading or making people realize voting for their 2nd preference might just be worth it to hack the electoral college? I'd love to hear it.

[monocasa]

> Yes by definition, and I did define it as a presidential election flipping because of 3rd party voters in a handful of swing states.

There's no data that this that case. You just keep stating it like it's a fact.

[ece]

Seriously, downvoted for pointing out legitimate fact and reference to pragmatism?

[arca_vorago]

Not legitimate fact.

[ece]

It mostly is if you lookup the definition of spoiler. Gary Johnson and Independent voters did also receive more votes than the difference between Trump and Hillary in MI, PA, and WI.

[nl]

The actual allegations are that Russia was behind the hacks of the DNC servers.

Generally speaking "hacking the election" doesn't refer to this, and instead refers to information operations by Russian linked groups. Indeed, there were no credible public allegations of actual voting machine hacks or even attacks until the "Reality Winner" leaks.

I'd note that on a website called "Hacker News" it should be pretty clear that "hack" can refer to many, many thing.