Voters in 19 countries, including in three of the world’s largest democracies, are widely skeptical about whether their political elections are free and fair, and many favor a strong, undemocratic leader, according to a study released Thursday.
The report by the International Institute for Democracy and Electoral Assistance, or International IDEA, concluded that “democratic institutions are falling short of people’s expectations.” The 35-member organization promotes democracy worldwide.
”It is past time that people’s perceptions are centered in conversations about the future of democracy; this analysis is a small but important first step towards that effort,” the Stockholm-based organization wrote.
The surveys had a margin of error hovering around 2-4% and the number of respondents in each country was around 1,500. The sole exception was the Solomon Islands, where the small population meant they had a representative sample of 526 people, IDEA said.
Democracy and money don’t mix. And as long as we’re attached to money, we’ll never have a democracy that isn’t contaminated by it.
Ugh. Just a reminder that Bernie Sanders made repealing citizens united, and campaign finance reform one of his main platforms for each presidential run. He would have done so much good. His lampooning by neo-liberals who are devoted more to order than justice, forever stains my opinion of them and their institutions.
Clinton received so much more support from Democrat party leadership, so much more funding from corporate donors, and so much more coverage from mainstream media sources. The fact that Bernie even put up a fight was admirable, but he really had the odds stacked against him.
Sanders never really had a chance. And got a ton of media coverage. Remember, its much better for the media that there is an actual race, as it gives them something to report on.
I voted for Sanders both in 2016 and 2020. But the “unfairness” against him was minor. The reality is, unfortunately, the moderate Clinton and Biden represent the median democratic voter better.
Leftists don’t like admitting that the average American isn’t worth fighting for.
Keep in mind that the primaries also aren’t free and fair elections, we don’t know for sure what the outcome would have been in an actual election. Between the state ordering that gives early preference to relatively conservative states and “superdelegates” that allow party insiders to put their thumb on the scale, the DNC can get just about whatever result they want out of a primary without concerning themselves with voters or popular support.
None of this makes sense. Clinton crushed sanders by like 12 points. Even if Sanders had gotten all of the super delegates of the states of the primaries he won, Clinton still would have beaten him. Iit’s a pretty good mix of conservative vs liberal states throughout the democratic primaries. And, on top of that, the democratic party is not overall all that conservative. … it’s almost like you are saying that non-representative states should have gone first. And claiming this is done to “tip the scales” doesn’t make any sense because it’s not like they are reordering the states every election.
They quite literally tried to reorder the states in the current primary even though there wasn’t a competition. They told the (Republican controlled) state of New Hampshire to change their primary date, and when they refused, the party punished the democratic voters by reducing their number of delegates. But that’s somewhat irrelevant though, a fair election wouldn’t have state orders which increase the power of earlier states, they would simply have all of the states vote at once and tally the results. Without a fair election, saying Clinton won by 12 points is accurate just like how Putin won with 88% of the popular vote in Russia this year. That is to say, completely useless because it didn’t come out of a free and fair election.
Which kind of undercuts your claim that it’s done to tip the scales.
lol The Putin number is either outright fudged, or due to repression of actual votes. The fact that they did not all vote at the same time is not even remotely equivalent to this. I’m honestly shocked that you would even make this argument.
It is observable and well known that opinion polls in later voting states shift in line with results in earlier states. Basically, people don’t want to vote for a candidate they believe has already lost, and so there is a snowball effect where a candidate having a small lead in the first few states ends up having an increasingly large lead in later states, even if opinion polls from before the primary election began predicted other results. The US parties exploit this by ensuring states that favor their preferred candidates go first. If you don’t believe this, well there’s nothing else I can offer you and I hope you are content in your rosy world view.
I feel like that’s less of a democracy issue, and more of an issue that people with power will use that power for their own benefit.
money is power in most places.
Money is power always. They are two sides of the same coin.
Money is dependent on power to enforce its value and contracts.
Money is only power in the context of a society.
Money is only money in the contexts of a society. So, it’s always a form of power. Being dependent on other power structures does not make it not power.
Societies depend on the sun’s power, as does all life here. Still we talk of other forms of power and how they influence democracy 🤷
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Democracy and Russian propaganda don’t mix very well either.