Americans are accustomed to accepting the outcome of even the closest and hardest-fought presidential elections — even those, such as the 2000 race that put George W. Bush in the White House, in which the winner of the electoral vote didn’t prevail in the popular vote.
Yet, three weeks after the final ballots were cast in the 2016 election, the notion the contest was “rigged” or otherwise lacking in legitimacy is alarmingly widespread. A YouGov poll conducted from Nov. 11-14 found 22 percent of respondents thought the election was rigged. Among Democrats the number was 42 percent.
So pronounced is the disquiet that some usually serious commentators are spinning scenarios about reversing Donald J. Trump’s victory through recounts or a revolt by members of the Electoral College. That seems highly unlikely. …
Nevertheless, the unease is real. And whatever one thinks about the outcome of the election, a perception that the election was unfair is corrosive.
To some extent, the popularity of the rigged theory reflects widespread disaffection with Trump, whose often offensive campaign rhetoric inspired protests of “Not My President.” But it also feeds on real and perceived interference with the election — by Russian hackers, the director of the FBI and Republican officials who made it harder for Democratic-leaning citizens to vote — and on fear-mongering about imaginary voter fraud.
Ironically, the chief culprit in propagating the myth of that sort of rigging is Trump himself. During the campaign, he sowed doubt about the integrity of the election process, and even after his victory he has been peddling utterly unsubstantiated claims about “millions” of illegally cast votes (in an effort to explain away his second-place finish in the popular vote). …
That’s not to say there aren’t real issues and problems contributing to public disaffection that need to be acknowledged and addressed. The Electoral College, for instance, is an anti-democratic anachronism that should be abolished through a constitutional amendment.
The hacking of Hillary Clinton campaign chairman John Podesta’s emails and those of the Democratic National Committee — by Russian state actors, according to some U.S. intelligence officials — suggests a foreign government might have used technology to embarrass one candidate in a U.S. election and boost the candidate it preferred. That sort of interference is outrageous and ought to concern American officials regardless of their party.
While it’s impossible to prove it cost Clinton the election, FBI Director James Comey’s announcement Oct. 28 that he was reopening the investigation into her use as secretary of state of a private email server — and his follow-up two days before the election reaffirming he would not seek charges against her — revived an issue the Democratic candidate thought she put behind her. …
Laws and policies that depress the vote are objectionable and ought to be reversed. But they aren’t proof that the election was rigged in the sense that votes were fixed or fraudulent or intentionally tampered with. The distinction matters — even if the election has produced a president who has trouble making distinctions.
— Los Angeles Times
