The U.S. has ‘worst elections of any long-established democracy,’ report finds

[milestogo]

What do Argentina, Costa Rica and Brazil have in common? They all outranked the United States in a comparison of election standards and procedures conducted by the Electoral Integrity Project. The United States ranked 47th worldwide, out of 139 countries. The survey is a measure of dozens of factors, including voter registration, campaign financing rules, election laws, the voting process and vote count.

Overall, one in six elections around the world were considered electoral failures. But in general, countries in the Americas and central and eastern Europe, as well as in Asia, were considered to be on the winning side in terms of electoral integrity, with Scandinavian and Western European nations topping the lists.

The report was particularly critical of nations in sub-Saharan Africa. Even amid those already low standards, Ethiopia stood out, according to the report. Last May, the country's ruling party won all seats in parliament "following harassment of opposition parties, censorship of the media and repression of human rights."

Syria, Afghanistan and Bahrain were described as having performed only slightly better in elections between 2012 and 2015. Syrian elections during that time were considered the fifth worst -- only Equatorial Guinea, Djibouti, the Republic of Congo and Burundi ranked lower.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/worldviews/wp/2016/03/21/the-u-s-has-worst-elections-of-any-long-established-democracy-report-finds/

[merrily]

1. Sure has been seeming that way.

Clap louder.

[Baobab]

16. This election may be another anomaly like 2000

I think tomorrow may break Hillaries winning streak, Sanders is projected to trounce her in a number of states. Time will tell, though. Hillary may likely win in Arizona which is fairly conservative. her having been a Goldwater Girl in her youth might actually help her there.

may the most human win!

(that wont be a racist statement for quite some time)

[milestogo]

2. This isn't about how worthy our candidates are...

just standards and procedures.

We have had two presidential elections derailed - in 2000 and 2004 - but nothing has been done to ensure that the same thing doesn't happen again.

[Baobab]

17. what about HAVA...

touch screen voting machines?

> but nothing has been done to ensure that the same thing doesn't happen again.

[milestogo]

19. Those are good points.

But touch screen voting machines can still have problems. I've heard that there are 11 times as many regulations regarding casino gaming machines as there are for voting machines. In many cases they are hackable.

[Baobab]

22. touch screen voting machines are horrible

HAVA should be renamed the Stop America From Voting Act

Example:

https://www.usenix.org/legacy/event/evtwote09/tech/full_papers/appel.pdf

[RufusTFirefly]

3. I'm all in favor of any superficial improvements to the process...

... just as long as Wall Street can continue to function as the gatekeeper.

[elljay]

5. You obviously have not read the Constitution

Or you wouldn't have left out the NRA. They get to confirm everything. It's in the Second Amendment, somewhere.....

[rhett o rick]

4. This is the status quo that Clinton fans love. They say why even have a democracy? Let Goldman-

Sachs choose.

[Brother_Love]

11. Can we skip the election and just let Loyd and the Kochs battle this out?

[reACTIONary]

6. Click bait..

.... note the weasel words qualifier "of any long-established democracy". Actually, the report rates the US in the high caategory. We rank alongside those other countries because they rank high also.

[Human101948]

26. 47th is high ranking?

What happened to USA is number one?

[reACTIONary]

28. I would make the following observation...

.... at the higher end, with little variations in their scores, absolute rank is not especially significant. The United states has a score of 62, but so do two other countries. So which of the three is really the 47th?

If you group the countries by score and count groups, the United States is 18th. If you agregate further, for instance grouping by a range of 5, the United States is 5th. Is a difference of a few points really that significant for rank?

The report and the data set is pretty intersting in the details.... take a look at it.

[bbgrunt]

7. Our system is a disgrace. Can't figure

out why neither party works to improve it........ oh wait! I guess they BOTH benefit from all the sources of corruption and it really doesn't matter because the people really in charge own both sides.

[Hortensis]

21. The GOP CANNOT WIN without election fraud.

They are the Incredible Shrinking Party. They've seen it coming for decades and have preferred to institutionalize every possible method of oversetting the popular vote, including legalizing what was once illegal, to actually, you know, becoming the party of ALL conservatives. And, of course, we know all possible illegal means of stealing elections are used.

Democrats weren't able to stop it from happening because most of it occurred in an era of conservative ascendancy. Also because most happens at the state level, and half our states are run by Republican political machines at any particular time. Redistricting based on the 2010 "Tea Party" wins -- part of a surge of particularly hard-right conservative ideology -- was the latest, but one of the worst, disasters.

The wheel started turning around with the Election of Obama anyway, and now if we can get the presidency, Senate, and SCOTUS, we will have enough power to make real reforms and go harder on illegal practices. Again, though, almost all abuse happens at the state level.

[Thespian2]

8. Money controlling what is left of the

electoral process...just what the Koch-suckers want...don't forget to spoon in a little Goldman-Sachs, Exxon-Mobile, BigPharma...etc., etc...

[Rebkeh]

9. SCOTUS took the teeth out of the

Voting Rights Act not too long ago. Media bias, gerrymandering, limiting polling locations, etc

And these are just off the top of my head. It's been an ongoing problem for years. Ari Bernan from, I think, The Nation has been on it for a while now.

[A Little Weird]

10. I don't think we're all that bad

But there's a lot of room for improvement.

[Baobab]

18. Borda Count?

nt

[A Little Weird]

25. Ok I take it back

Reading about the widespread problems in Arizona made it sound like a place that had never held an election.

[burrowowl]

12. K&R!!!!!!

[Punx]

13. This is by design

It's no coincidence. This is a big issue to me and I'm thankful I live in Oregon, and even parts of our system here could be improved.

[whereisjustice]

14. Goldman Sachs, their candidate and the DNC disagree.

[appalachiablue]

15. US electoral processes are a wreck, need immediate clean up. Same for Banks, Media, more.

[Scuba]

20. In 2009, Democrats in DC had an opportunity to protect our votes and voting rights.

They chose not to do so. Weird, eh?

[noiretextatique]

23. +1000

My authoritarian friends on Facebook keep screaming about voting team blue. But, when they do nothing to protect voting rights, why should people keep voting for the team that won't deliver? Obama had the votes to raise the minimum wage too.

[kristopher]

24. It shows in our very poor ranking on Economist's "Democracy Index"

The Economist Intelligence Unit’s Democracy Index 2015
Democracy in an age of anxiety

The Economist Intelligence Unit’s Democracy Index provides a snapshot of the state of democracy worldwide for 165 independent states and two territories—this covers almost the entire population of the world and the vast majority of the world’s states (micro-states are excluded). The Democracy Index is based on five categories: electoral process and pluralism; civil liberties; the functioning of government; political participation; and political culture. Based on their scores on a range of indicators within these categories, each country is then itself categorised as one of four types of regime: “full democracies”; “flawed democracies”; “hybrid regimes”; and “authoritarian regimes”.

This is the eighth edition of the Democracy Index. It reflects the situation in 2015, a year in which democracy was tested in the face of war, terrorism, mass migration and other crises, and, in some cases, suffered serious setbacks. The title of this year’s report reflects the threat to democracy emanating from the fearful mood of our times, which informs the reactions of ordinary people and political elites alike. An increased sense of personal and societal anxiety and insecurity in the face of diverse perceived risks and threats—economic, political, social and security—is undermining democracy, which depends on a steadfast commitment to upholding enlightenment values (liberty, equality, fraternity, reason, tolerance and free expression) and fostering democratic institutions and a democratic political culture.

In many democracies, political elites worry about their inability to relate to the electorate and fear the challenge that populist parties pose. In some cases, established parties have colluded to exclude or marginalise the populists. In the face of terrorist threats, democratic governments have reacted in anti-democratic ways, calling into question freedom of speech or adopting draconian laws. In non-democratic countries, authoritarian political elites fear the threat from the masses and seek to bolster their rule by imprisoning opponents, restricting the media, limiting popular freedoms and repressing protest. Meanwhile, electorates are ever more anxious—about economic insecurity, about their personal safety, about the consequences of immigration, about the threat of terrorism—and angry that their concerns are not being represented by the established parties. This mood of fear and insecurity represents one of the main threats to democracy today.

Almost one-half of the world’s countries can be considered to be democracies, but, in our index, the number of “full democracies” is low, at only 20 countries; 59 countries are rated as "flawed democracies”. Of the remaining 88 countries in our index, 51 are “authoritarian” and 37 are considered to be “hybrid regimes”. As could be expected, the developed OECD countries dominate among “full democracies”; there are two Asian countries, one Latin American country (Uruguay) and one African country (Mauritius), which suggests that level of development is not a binding constraint, but is a constraint, nevertheless. Slightly less than one-half (48.4%) of the world’s population lives in a democracy of some sort, although only 8.9% reside in “full democracies”. Around 2.6bn people, more than one-third of the world’s population, still live under authoritarian rule (with a large share being, of course, in China).

“Flawed democracies” are concentrated in Latin America, eastern Europe and Asia...

http://64.37.52.189/~parsifal/EIU2015.pdf

They rank the US 20th out of 20 in their set of "full democracy" nations.

See also:
http://www.democraticunderground.com/12511052587

[underpants]

27. Take THAT Micronesia!

And Barbados we've got you in our sights

46 Barbados
47 USA! USA!
48 Micronesia