Dear Editor

Trump was right when he said, “the system is rigged.”

The United States citizen who resides in a state with a small population compared to a citizen residing in a state with a large population is basically overrepresented in the United States Senate, e.g. South Dakota versus California, each state has two senators.

Likewise, the Constitution requires each state to have at least one member in the House of Representatives, e.g. Nevada’s sole representative represents far fewer people than does a New York’s representative in his district.

This “over and under-representation” applies to our Electoral College as well. The state’s number of “electors” equals the state’s number of federal legislators. If you recall, Clinton received 3,000,000 more popular votes than Trump, but he won the electoral vote 304 to 227.

Yes, the system is rigged. The American political system is tilted toward the people residing in rural, less populated, red states favoring Trump.

The Constitution also requires the state legislatures to “redraw” Congressional Districts following our required ten-year Census, to adjust to the states’ population gain or loss. Northern “rust belt” states are losing and the sunny south is gaining population and consequently elector votes as well. Our political system is further rigged when state legislators abuse their position and gerrymander as was the case here in Pennsylvania. Our Commonwealth’s Supreme Court ruled in February 2018 that some of the Congressional districts were so gerrymandered by the GOP controlled General Assembly that the re-drawing was ruled unconstitutional and ordered redrawn, e.g. in 2012 the Democratic candidates won 51% but own only 5 of the 18 Congressional seats. Fairness be damned.

Damning fairness further, more than 20 GOP controlled state legislatures have enacted laws to prevent millions of eligible voters from voting by cutting back early voting, requiring photo I.D. photos, and enacting restrictions on registration, and such.

Further subverting the people’s will is the 2010 Supreme Court’s conservative majority’s 5 to 4 Citizen’s United decision which resulted in Political Action Committees (PACs) e.g. Trump mega-donor Robert Mercer’s Super PAC and the Koch Brothers’ “Americans for Prosperity” – also known as sources of “Dark Money, non-traceable money.”

Much “dark money” has been focused on state elections which encouraged additional gerrymandering and the ability to obtain influence on state boards and committees e.g. discouraging the use of solar panels in our southwestern states by energy producers. Smell the swamp.

The Trump people’s use of technology to manipulate the minds and hearts of American voters was unprecedented in 2016. Using data mined from Facebook, they were able to issue mass amounts of non-traceable misinformation to targeted individuals, using voters’ personal information against them without their knowledge or permission. Senator Feinstein’s “Voter Privacy Bill” to prevent this was thwarted by “Moscow Mitch” McConnell, Senate GOP Majority Leader.

The Mueller Report stated, “The Russian government interfered in the 2016 presidential election in a sweeping and systemic fashion.” The Report cited chapter and verse the many contacts between our national enemy – Russia – and Trump people before, during, and after the 2016 campaign. Trump apologists say “no crime – no reason for a Special Counsel” ignoring that our nation’s counterintelligence personnel were merely doing their job of safeguarding our country, thank heavens.

In addition to Trump’s stone-walling the legislative branch’s attempts to conclude Mueller’s findings, we now have “Moscow Mitch” McConnell obstructing three bills designed to prevent foreign interference in American elections. WOW.

We would not tolerate such “rigging” in a little league baseball game, why would we tolerate rigging in our American democracy? Why not pursue the democratic values of ONE MAN, ONE VOTE and ELECTIONS THAT ARE TRANSPARENT, VERIFIABLE, FAIR, AND FREE FROM FOREIGN AND DARK MONEY INTERFERENCE?

We have meandered so far from the Greatest Generation it is pathetic. We have not MAGA; our democracy has been degraded to a new all-time low. Our Great Depression and WW II ancestors would be ashamed. We should be also.

Don Scott,

Warren