Worth a reminder that the entire nazi playbook is specifically written to subvert democracy, open debate forums, etc. by using a number of underhanded means too large to list, all based on the assumption people will respond with idyllic calls to just vote for the right people.
Perhaps more relevantly, please note that white nationalists within the U.S. government have spent... well really the entire history of the country seizing every available opportunity to remove voting as a method of removing them from power, including, just off the top of my head
- Implementing weird little systems that subdividing maps, and declaring the entire population of any subdivision votes for whoever the majority of votes cast within that subdivision went to.
- Granting extra "bonus votes" to subdivisions they have a firm hold on.
- Granting extra "bonus votes" to subdivisions they have a firm hold on.
- Artificially inflating the population of these subdivisions by building and thoroughly packing large prisons, whose populations are not allowed to vote, but which ARE counted as part of the population for the aforementioned systems.
- Constantly redrawing these subdivisional
- Constantly redrawing these subdivisional
maps to maintain this vote-stealing system as populations shift... which really demands some illustrations.
- Directly preventing people from voting by way of closing, moving, and otherwise making poling places difficult to physically reach and enter, as well as removing members
- Directly preventing people from voting by way of closing, moving, and otherwise making poling places difficult to physically reach and enter, as well as removing members
of the opposing party from lists of eligible voters shortly before elections, without notification.
- Physically threatening and intimidating voters, at the polls and in general.
- Intentionally adopting the use of electronic voting machines with known security issues and no way
- Physically threatening and intimidating voters, at the polls and in general.
- Intentionally adopting the use of electronic voting machines with known security issues and no way
of verifying if their tallies are accurate (followed by so shamelessly compromising these machines that total votes in a region exceed that region's population, and documented mismapping of touch screen fields).
- Just plain straight up openly not counting votes. Very common with
- Just plain straight up openly not counting votes. Very common with
write-in votes by way of actual policy ("we'll check those if it seems close"), and... straight up throwing out/destroying ballots in the counting process. Or hell, just deciding not to follow the process. Rather famously, the 2000 election subverted democracy by awarding the
presidency to the candidate with significantly fewer votes, but the process of securing enough electoral votes to make this happen involved awarding the entire state of Florida to him, due to an on the spot decision to ignore the actual voting procedures used in Florida under the
rationalization that following said procedures would take too long. Said procedures were still carried out after the fact and if properly observed would indeed have led to a result of Florida voting for Gore, rather than... the brother of Florida's governor.
None of this stuff
None of this stuff
is speculative. Stories are written about all of it in major newspapers regularly, these gerrymandered-to-hell maps are freely available to anyone to look at, etc. But the whole issue tends to be just completely ignored by those not directly effected (a decidedly non-random group
of both those whose demographics/residence/party registration mark them as people whose votes enemies of democracy want counted and/or people living in areas not controlled by said enemies of democracy). As it's so easy for them, they just keep shouting "vote" at those who can't.
