"In the United States, previous elections were falsified through postal voting ... they bought ballots for $10, filled them out, and threw them into mailboxes without any supervision from observers, and that's it," Putin said, without providing evidence. Putin's opponents say the March election in Russia is no real contest as the president wields unchallenged power and his main rival, Alexei Navalny, is serving more than 30 years in jail on charges that Navalny says were trumped up. They say the use of electronic voting creates scope for authorities to manipulate the vote in Putin's favour without detection.

(Reuters) - Russian President Vladimir Putin, running for a new six-year term in an election that his opponents say is a parody of democracy, said on Tuesday that past U.S. elections had been rigged by postal voting.

“In the United States, previous elections were falsified through postal voting … they bought ballots for $10, filled them out, and threw them into mailboxes without any supervision from observers, and that’s it,” Putin said, without providing evidence.

  • fosforus@sopuli.xyzEnglish
    8·
    11 months ago

    Why do an election when the electoral college decides who the winner is?

    The voters decide what the electoral college chooses, though. I suppose it has been a sort of buffer against the dumbfuck citizens making dumbfuck choices. Donald Trump’s presidency of course has shown that if any such buffer ever existed, it sure doesn’t now.

    • bob_lemon@feddit.deEnglish
      4·
      11 months ago

      Historically, it was implemented because in the 1800’s, a lot could happen between an election in, say, Wisconsin, and the time the electoral college member arrives in Washington DC.

      The US being the oldest democracy might have a nice ring to it, but realistically it’s just means that there’s a lot of outdated baggage attached.

      • fosforus@sopuli.xyzEnglish
        21·
        11 months ago

        Not to mention that the economy is also typically better when a Democrat is the president.

        This might be explained by the latency that large economic decisions have. As a practical example, the leftist government in Finland increased expenditure by quite a lot in Finland during 2019-2023 (mostly due to Covid-19 and Russia, but also beyond that) leading to a much increased governmental deficit. As a result, the economy is doing poorly now, and since the Finns chose a rightist austerity government in 2023, it looks as if the economy was doing well under a leftist government, and poorly under a rightist government – even though the consequences for the current situation can clearly be derived from the previous government and there’s no way the current government has had enough time contribute to the situation.

    • i_am_not_a_robot@discuss.tchncs.deEnglish
      1·
      11 months ago

      That would make sense, but that’s not the law. In most states, the electors can vote differently and it still counts, and in only some of those states is it even illegal for the elector to do that.