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In 2005, in the midst of a career of traveling around the world to help set up elections in some of the most challenging places on earth – Afghanistan, Burma, Egypt, Lebanon, South Africa, Sudan and Yemen, among others – my Danish colleague, Jorgen Elklit, and I designed the first comprehensive method for evaluating the quality of elections around the world. Our system measured 50 moving parts of an election process and covered everything from the legal framework to the polling day and counting of ballots.
In 2012 Elklit and I worked with Pippa Norris of Harvard University, who used the system as the cornerstone of the Electoral Integrity Project. Since then the EIP has measured 213 elections in 153 countries and is widely agreed to be the most accurate method for evaluating how free and fair and democratic elections are across time and place.
When we evolved the project I could never imagine that as we enter 2017, my state, North Carolina, would perform so badly on this, and other, measures that we are no longer considered to be a fully functioning democracy.
In the just released EIP report, North Carolina’s overall electoral integrity score of 58/100 for the 2016 election places us alongside authoritarian states and pseudo-democracies like Cuba, Indonesia and Sierra Leone. If it were a nation state, North Carolina would rank right in the middle of the global league table – a deeply flawed, partly free democracy that is only slightly ahead of the failed democracies that constitute much of the developing world.
Indeed, North Carolina does so poorly on the measures of legal framework and voter registration, that on those indicators we rank alongside Iran and Venezuela. When it comes to the integrity of the voting district boundaries no country has ever received as low a score as the 7/100 North Carolina received. North Carolina is not only the worst state in the USA for unfair districting but the worst entity in the world ever analyzed by the Electoral Integrity Project.
I read this piece a few days ago. I get what he is saying BUT I think this is exactly what democracy looks like. 50%+1 wins. They make the rules and the minority be damned. People who want to abolish the electoral college should use NC as a case study and figure out why it would be a bad idea.
Read more @: North Carolina is no longer classified as a democracy
North Carolina is the GOP's dream. Undermine the powers of the democratically elected governor, gerrymander the state congressional districts to a point where most of them are not even competitive, and ignore the voice of the people. North Carolina is essentially on its way to becoming a one party state where democratic values are
Taking punitive actions to undermine the results of an election or when the democratic environment is not fair is not how a free and fair democracy operates.
Taking punitive actions to undermine the results of an election or when the democratic environment is not fair is not how a free and fair democracy operates.
Like Stein and Clinton.
Were you this concerned about democracy when it was Chavez doing this sort of thing (and worse)?
like the worst gerrymandered map in the USA
Stein didn't like the election outcome either.
North Carolina hasn't been a democracy for a while...
Did her lame attempt change the outcome?
Is your lame attempt at deflecting from the OP changing the permanent damage to NC ?
Democrats won two state-wide elections this year in NC.
The 2010 election gave the NC GOP a remap resulting in supermajorities that have no fear of their actions.
2010, 2014, 2016 elections have consequences when multiple parts of the Democratic base don't turn out.
Such as in WI, MI, and PA this year for starters .
For every Madigan/Illinois there are 3 NCs, with severe gerrymanders in Texas, Wisconsin, Michigan, Pennsylvania, Ohio, Florida, Virginia and every southern state just for starters.
Democrats have their work cut out for them in 2018 if they want to turn these states around in 2020 .
You act like gerrymandering is specific to Republican leaning states. It isn't, at all. Learn to see malfeasance on both sides of the aisle.
Recounts are undemocratic?
They are when they're sued for by a 1% loser. Stein pocketed a bunch of money.
Read more @: North Carolina is no longer classified as a democracy
North Carolina is the GOP's dream. Undermine the powers of the democratically elected governor, gerrymander the state congressional districts to a point where most of them are not even competitive, and ignore the voice of the people. North Carolina is essentially on its way to becoming a one party state where democratic values are
In the words of Donald Trump, "WRONG".
http://talkingpointsmemo.com/news/jill-stein-donate-money-recount
Read more @: North Carolina is no longer classified as a democracy
North Carolina is the GOP's dream. Undermine the powers of the democratically elected governor, gerrymander the state congressional districts to a point where most of them are not even competitive, and ignore the voice of the people. North Carolina is essentially on its way to becoming a one party state where democratic values are
There are only a few states that actually draw their maps without bias in them.
If you were to do this in CA, or IL you would change their state legislature dramatically.
The fact is gerrymandering is not set to one party.
FL Voters passed a constitutional amendment to get rid of such things.
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