4 ways the election really is rigged, Mr. Trump

Republican nominee Donald Trump has been talking carelessly about a “rigged” election.

Despite what he says, the voting results can be trusted, but there are four other ways that the vote is in fact rigged — two of which will directly help Trump.

1. The Electoral College

For Trump to win, he’ll need to beat Clinton in pretty much all of the closely contested states: Georgia, North Carolina, Florida, Ohio, Arizona, Nevada, New Hampshire and (oddly enough) Utah.

Pennsylvania seems to be out of reach right now, so a sweep of the other battlegrounds seems necessary.

{mosads}He’s currently down by over 15 percentage points in both New York and California, as well as 10 points in Illinois. Most national polls have him down by at least 3 points and possibly as many as 14, with the FiveThirtyEight and RealClearPolitics averages both over 5 points.

But after FBI Director James Comey’s surprise announcement on Oct. 28 that Clinton’s emails were once again under review, the numbers did shift more toward Trump — but probably not dramatically enough for Trump to take a popular vote lead.

However, it is conceivable that Comey’s letter could shift just enough voters in the swing states to give Trump wins in all of them — understanding, of course, that Comey announced on Saturday that the emails have now been reviewed and his earlier decision not to pursue action against Clinton still stands.

We therefore could be looking at another scenario, like in 2000, wherein the popular vote winner loses the Electoral College.

In truth, the Electoral College is an anachronism. The Founding Fathers initially feared that the popular will of the people might lead to a demagogue becoming president, so they enacted this barrier — an antidemocratic measure, to be sure.

Sadly, it means that a New York Republican’s vote counts less than a Florida Republican’s vote, and the same could be said for a Democratic voter in Oklahoma, whose vote doesn’t seem to count at all.

Four times in our history, the popular vote winner did not become president (1824, 1876, 1888 and 2000). 

Yet, strangely, we’ve not only never fixed this issue, but have never seriously even sought to fix it. Candidates for president aren’t even asked about it, despite the fact that it causes serious division within our country, since candidates won’t bother to try to convince voters in states they feel they can’t win.

2. Voter suppression

According to Ballotpedia, 31 states currently have voter ID laws, with 16 requiring photo ID. These laws make it more difficult for poor people to vote, since they are less likely to have photo ID.

Republicans have made this a key issue, claiming that voter fraud exists, despite the fact that a Washington Post analysis showed only 31 cases of voter fraud in over 1 billion votes cast.

To make matters worse, ex-cons who have served their time are also often kept from voting. The 14th Amendment allows states to bar people from voting due to a conviction. This has translated to over 6 million people not being eligible to vote, many of them minority voters.

In many cases, these are people who have already served their time, plus probation. There is no legitimate reason that they should have their voting rights taken away, yet it happens and the effect definitely leans in the Republicans’ favor.

And, of course, there’s the trick of simply making voters wait excessively long times by reducing the number of polling stations. Forcing some people to wait hours to vote is an obvious way to suppress turnout.

In Maricopa County, Arizona, for instance, voting stations were reduced from 200 to 60. And across the nation, average voting times by state vary wildly.

3. Gerrymandering

While gerrymandering doesn’t affect the presidential race, it does have a huge effect on congressional races.

Republicans, using new technology that allows them to redraw congressional districts based on data that previous gerrymanderers could only have dreamed of, have taken this to new heights.

It’s why, when you look at a congressional map, you’ll see many districts that look more like octopuses, with arms stretching in a way to ensure the most congressional seats. It is entirely possible that Democrats could receive millions more congressional votes, yet still be the minority party in the House.

This happened in 2012, when Democrats as a whole got about 1.4 million more votes than Republicans, yet lost the House by 34 seats.

4. Outside interference

A foreign government (let’s say — hypothetically — Russia) working with an anarchist organization (let’s say WikiLeaks) could influence our election by hacking into the files of a candidate they oppose (let’s say Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton) and not doing anything to damage her opponent.

Also, a gung-ho FBI director could influence the election by giving his personal opinions about an investigation that produced no charges or by releasing a letter just 11 days before an election saying the investigation has new material to review, even though he doesn’t know if the material really amounts to anything (hypothetically).

Despite the almost divine stature often attributed to our Constitution, it is not perfect. Even the existence of a Senate, which gives unequal representation to less populated states, is in fact undemocratic.

The ironic thing is that these problems could be fixed if we had the political will to fix them, but their very existence divides the country and makes them difficult to remedy.

Rosenfeld is an educator and historian who has done work for Scribner, Macmillan and Newsweek and contributes frequently to The Hill.

This piece was revised on Monday, Nov. 7 at 3:35 p.m.

The views expressed by contributors are their own and not the views of The Hill.