International election observers discover that America's elections ARE being "rigged." Just not in the way Donald Trump claims they are being rigged.

Courtesy of WhoWhatWhy:

The hundreds of international observers dispatched to keep an eye on the US election are already troubled by what they have seen. 

According to an interim report, the election monitors sent by the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) have expressed deep concerns over the disenfranchisement of millions of US citizens. 

“Up to six million Americans will be excluded from the election,” said Michael Georg Link, the OSCE’s chief election observer, in an interview with the German Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung. 

Link explained that an estimated 3.2 million Americans are being disenfranchised because they are either in custody and awaiting trial or have already been sentenced. An additional 2.6 million citizens have already served their time behind bars but were still stripped of their right to cast a ballot on November 8.

Hmm, I wonder which ethnic demographic this most negatively impacts and who that demographic would be most likely to vote for in this election?

But wait, there's more: 

The OSCE is also disturbed that so many Americans fear that the election would be rigged. Link explained that the international observers had so far seen no evidence that this is happening. Instead, he suggested that the accusations Democrats and Republicans had exchanged are rooted in the viciousness of this election cycle.

So to be clear this group of trained election observers, from around the world, are finding NO evidence of any election rigging, but they are finding evidence that certain groups are purposefully disenfranchised due to brushes with the law, which of course impacts minorities in far larger numbers than it does white people in this country.

I think that the only issue I would take with his article is the contention that BOTH Republicans and Democrats are adding to the fear of election rigging which might scare voters away from the polls this election cycle.

It seems pretty obvious that only ONE major party candidate is making those accusations, and it is also pretty clear as to why he is doing so.

Though unable to steal the election for Mitt Romney, Florida Republicans DID manage to cost the President 11,000 votes.

Florida Governor Rick Scott.

Courtesy of the Orlando Sentinel:  

As many as 49,000 people across Central Florida were discouraged from voting because of long lines on Election Day, according to a researcher at Ohio State University who analyzed election data compiled by the Orlando Sentinel. About 30,000 of those discouraged voters — most of them in Orange and Osceola counties — likely would have backed Democratic President Barack Obama, according to Theodore Allen, an associate professor of industrial engineering at OSU. About 19,000 voters would have likely backed Republican Mitt Romney, Allen said. This suggests that Obama's margin over Romney in Florida could have been roughly 11,000 votes higher than it was, based just on Central Florida results. Obama carried the state by 74,309 votes out of more than 8.4 million cast.

Keep this in mind when you hear Republicans spouting off about patriotism or wanting to take this country back to "traditional values." One of those traditional values was the idea that everybody's vote counted and that American's right to vote was sacrosanct. (Well except for the female vote and the black vote of course. Those took a little longer to seem important to the white males running the place. And clearly to some they are still not terribly important.)

You know maybe it is just me, but I would NEVER be able to hold my head high if my candidate only won an election by cheating.

I guess that is yet another thing that separates me from the Republicans. Apparently THEY have no problem with it at all.