So, to sum up, the United States’ electoral system yields:
- Elections that, when closely matched, yield a tremendous return to just a little bit of manipulation, corruption, or voter suppression
- A near certainty that the most consequential elections will often be closely matched.
That’s pretty bad, right?
It’s worse than that. Parties will try all of the above, manipulation, corruption, and voter suppression. But manipulation is the safest — because it’s often legal, “legitimate” — so it is done most loudly, most aggressively. If you can do something, any little thing, that s with the news cycle immediately preceding the election, you can win everything for almost nothing.