There is absolutely no reason private companies should be involved in the elections. Not even the printing of ballots. It should all be agents of the citizens who are accountable to the laws and to the people, subject to rights and privileges of a free people such as FOIA transparency; and where those agents can be held accountable and not hide behind threats of multi-billion dollar lawsuits, which is preposterous on its face.
Speaking back to you as an American supporter of voter rights, let’s not pretend that elections haven’t ALWAYS come with an unhealthy doses of, well, shenanigans. To pretend otherwise is just silly. There is no reason to believe it doesn’t still occur. Methods may change, the purposes don’t.
I agree, there have always been shenanigans. The difference, the way I see it, is this:
1. In the past, it was political parties cheating. The actual US government probably wasn’t involved directly. Now, FEDGOV is weaponized and using all of it’s power to hide and probably help it.
2. In the past, it required those counting the ballots to be corrupt. Now it only takes those with internet access to change the ballots and a couple other people to allow ballots be placed after hours in a facility.
3. In the past, a recount could see if there was a ‘counting’ error. Now, a recount is useless because it all computerized and ballots are just made up.
4. In the past, the media wasn’t watched, bugged, threatened, and controlled by 6 ‘independent’ owners who are likely connected to government with 3 letter acronyms.
5. In the past, Americans would not have welcomed help from adversarial foreign countries.
No, there might have been some homegrown shenanigans in the past. What we have now is world wide industrial fraud.