Dana Milbank: The election really was rigged

[meadowlander]

38. I think the point

is that it's 2016 - why is anyone in the US expected to spend four hours standing in line to do anything? There is no technological reason why voting can't be secure, painless and accessible to everyone, just like the most important civic duty in our country should be. The only reason voting is so inconvenient is because some people have deliberately made it that way to stop other people from voting.

Republicans have systematically worked to deprive people of their right to vote by understaffing polling places in minority neighbourhoods, by not providing accessible places to vote, by trying to prevent voting by making the hours inconvenient, by purging voter rolls in democratic districts, by spreading misinformation about how people can vote, etc.

I think you should show some more appreciation of the fact that many poor people do not have home internet access, or a car, or a stable home address where they can receive mail, or the ability to take half a day off work without going hungry. Something that you find relatively easy becomes a massive struggle when you have to do two bus transfers to get to a library (which may or may not be open during hours that work around your job schedule) just so you can print something. Add in kids and an 80 hour work week and that's just never going to happen.

Those people are the victims of a massive fraud. And it's not constructive to blame the victims of that fraud or to accuse them of not giving a shit. They do give a shit, they're just exhausted. So why not work to make things easier for them instead of tearing them down?