DEBUNKENING: DNC Rigging Conspiracies Are Nonsense, Part 1

There have been many conspiracy theories in my life, but no set so prevalent and potentially damaging as the relentless deluge of ludicrous conspiracies that Clinton "rigged" the Democratic primary. Several of the pro-Sanders rigging conspiracies are so far-fetched that in order for Clinton to have done them, she would need to have a time machine and use it repeatedly.

I will be rating the conspiracies in part based on how important time machines are to this conspiracy. The Time Machines will be payed by TARDISes. Because it's my blog and I like Doctor Who. For those who have not read A Despot's Guide to Critical Thinking About Conspiracies, I will be linking relevant sections inline.

Table of Contents

Only Sanders Supporters Were Disenfranchised (meta claim)
The DNC Runs State Elections (meta claim)
DNC Data Breach was Planned to Frame Sanders
Clinton Won 6/6 Coin Tosses
Clinton Rigged Maricopa County (Phoenix) with Long Lines
Closed Primaries are Disenfranchisement
Closed Primary Party Change Deadlines are Disenfranchisement
Superdelegates are Undemocratic
Pro-Clinton Media Bias

Now, on to The Debunkening!

Only Sanders' Supporters..."

Claim: this is a meta claim that shows up in almost all of the other claims, so I'm going to cover it separately to avoid repeating myself 16 times. When people have reported "voting irregularities," they have claimed that the irregularities happened only to Sanders supporters, which "proves" that Clinton is behind it.

This TARDIS is currently under
construction. Try again later.

Important Omitted Information: proof for these conspiracies is compiled on reddit, in pro-Sanders subreddits. You may as well poll at a Sanders rally, asking people their choice of candidate. In line with the white dude delusion "If I don't know about it, it doesn't exist," they take lack of reports in their channels as proof that no Clinton supporters have complained about the same thing. In reality, there aren't many Clinton supporters in pro-Sanders subreddits, so there won't be reports by Clinton supporters there. Lack of Clinton supporter reports there is meaningless due to selection bias.

Debunk: This is the stupidest case of selection bias that I have ever seen, but for some reason, this is claimed about approximately all of the rigging conspiracy theories, even ones in which it's not possible limit the problem to Sanders voters. There seem to be a lot of "stupidest cases of [insert badness] that I've ever seen" this primary.

Time Machine Factor: Depends on the implementation.

Implied Assertion: The DNC Runs State Elections

Claim: This is another meta-claim that's important for understanding the other claims. "Voter suppression" is being committed by the DNC. The DNC purged rolls. The DNC set the voter registration deadline. The DNC selectively closed polls in minority neighborhoods. The DNC ran out of ballots at such-and-such polling station. This is often an assertion used as a basis for claiming pro-Clinton rigging: because the DNC did it, they did it on behalf of Clinton. It's often an implied assertion though. They say something like "It's voter suppression to disallow same-day voter registration, which the DNC is doing to rig the election for Clinton."

Important Omitted Information: Elections are run by state election officials, brain cases. The DNC didn't do any of those things. This is factually untrue! The DNC doesn't have the ability to purge people from the voter rolls, because those are government run. Not enough polling locations in minority areas? State or county election officials. Not enough workers at polling locations? State or county election officials. Same day registration not allowed? State or county election officials.

Did you go to the Democratic Party to register to vote? No. You went to a government office, typically a registrar or the DMV.

Not Doctor Who but too hilarious to skip.

Debunk: Seriously? You don't know that you didn't register to vote at a Democratic Party office? Or did you register as a non-Democrat but the Democrats control your registration anyway because jazz hands?

The DNC can't commit voter suppression at a polling location because they do not control anything about election procedures. The only thing they might control about an election is whether their primary is open or closed, but no, that's up to state law. If you don't know that, stop insisting that you're much more informed than I am. You don't even know how an election works. This is simply a false assertion. Repeatedly using it doesn't make it more reliable; it only makes your arguments more circular.

Most of these claims also don't fit on a timeline, like "Clinton made sure that there wouldn't be enough workers at the polls in California because she was ahead in early voting but lost voting-day voting. By making the lines untenably long, she disenfranchised 'only Sanders supporters' because she knew she would lose if she didn't."

So, late Monday, she checked the number of tallies (which weren't public information at the time). Tuesday, she went back in time, took over the election board, identified people who would choose Sanders months later, selectively closed polling stations, mailed out the voter notifications listing the new polling locations, and cut the number of staff at the polls. Then she got back in the time machine and came back for her victory speech.

Time Machine Factor: The Eleventh Doctor is having none of your shit and built a you-repelling field around the TARDIS for everyone's safety.

The Initial DNC Data Breach was a Pro-Clinton Frame Job

Claim: Last fall, the Sanders campaign pointed out a security flaw to the DNC repeatedly. No action was taken to fix it, so one of their staffers retrieved data on Clinton's donors as proof of the flaw, then alerted the DNC again. The DNC responded by shutting off all Sanders access to the server in question, eliminating his access to even his own data*. Sanders sued the DNC to regain his access, arguing that the staffer in question had been recommended by the DNC, implying this was just an elaborate setup by the DNC to remove his access without showing that their real motivation was to discredit him and harm his campaign, as part of their collusion with Clinton.

Important Omitted Information: I've worked as a web programmer for over 15 years and during that time, I have had to personally manage 6 security breaches. This is in addition to breaches that I have witnessed as a habitual dater of sysadmins and security admins. You don't know about any of these breaches because they were not made public. The first priority in a breach is to cover your ass; you plug the hole and you hope no one spills the beans. If word gets out that there was a breach, it damages the company's reputation, so unless passwords or credit cards are stolen, there will probably not be a press release. And to be frank, if credit cards were stolen, you probably still won't be told, even if the FBI is*2. Passwords are a different matter though; in spite of their theft typically indicating poor security procedures, the ramifications are bad enough that you are more frequently told about their theft, which is still far less than "always." These things happen all the time but you just don't know about it because almost everyone is hiding it.

Debunk: Now look at the DNC breach with that in mind. Plug the hole: cut off Sanders' access temporarily while the fix is being implemented. Hope no one tells: make the Sanders team think that the problem was their fault and that their reputation will be damaged if word gets out. And if that doesn't work, intimidate them and hope that it will keep them quiet. The Sanders team didn't keep quiet; they exposed the breach, at which point, there's no longer a point in trying to intimidate them. Turn their access back on and hope the stink isn't too big.

Thus, our potential explanations are:

• The DNC allowed Sanders to run as a Democrat if he joined the party, gave him access to their data, recommended an employee to be their mole, then deliberately left the hole open-- things that happened before he was a viable candidate. Then, they had their mole take advantage of the hole from his office, giving them an excuse to cut off Sanders' access. And they did all of these things to rig the election in favor of the candidate who had a massive lead at the time, in fact, from the very beginning when he was actually not a viable candidate. OR...
• The DNC was trying to cover their ass the way most companies do during a security breach.

So we have one extremely convoluted option that requires a lot of actions for which there is no motivation at the time that it was done, and one extremely simple option that sounds completely sensible. In order to make the first one make sense, we'd have to invent a lot of things. To create motivation, the DNC would have to know that Sanders was a legitimate threat to Clinton back in June, even though Sanders wasn't a viable candidate until January or February.

The Extraordinary Razor says to pick the second explanation. But honestly, why wouldn't you pick the second one if you know that companies act that way in response to a breach? That said, people that I know through programming went with option 1. Come on, programmers. You use logic for a living and you know computer security is joke.

Time Machine Factor: One Drunk TARDIS required.

Clinton Won 6/6 Coin Tosses in Iowa

Claim: Clinton won Iowa because she won 6/6 coin tosses at the caucuses.

Important Omitted Information: There were more than 6 coin tosses and none of them made a significant enough difference for either party to win because of them. It was reported in the media that "of at least 6 coin tosses" Clinton won 6 but people ignored the "at least" and used that to backup their claim that there were only 6 coin tosses. If all 6 claims are correct, there were at least 12 coin flips, since the application used to track the caucus got  report of 6/7 coin flips for Sanders. It's not a comprehensive list because that application wasn't mandated, but that just means that we can't confirm 5/6 claimed pro-Clinton flips. On top of that, each coin flip allotted a partial delegate, so the end result wasn't a difference of 6 as implied by the claim. In fact, election officials claim that the resulting percentage was so tiny that the coin flips made no difference at all in the outcome.

Debunk: Information was gathered in pro-Sanders subreddits and no one reported any Sanders wins in them. Because they only knew about 6, they assumed that were only 6. There are some obvious selection bias problems with that, plus ye olde White Duditis (if they don't know about something, that is proof that it doesn't exist).

Time Machine Factor: I grant one Spoiler
TARDIS to Sanders supporters so that next time, they can go to the page with the the actual statistics, since waiting until the statistics are fully gathered before calling them complete is a blight on democracy, or something.

Clinton Rigged Maricopa County (Phoenix) With Long Lines

Claim: In Maricopa County (Phoenix), voters arrived to find long lines. After waiting for hours, many of them ran out of time to vote, having to leave to go to work or to pick up children or to manage other obligations. This disenfranchised voters, but only Sanders voters.

Important Omitted Information: The problems in Phoenix were long lines in minority neighborhoods. There are five ways that the GOP has been trying to systematically disenfranchise likely Democratic voters: gerrymandering, voter ID laws, limiting voting hours and weekend voting, purging eligible voters from the polls, and selectively closing polling stations in minority neighborhoods. And nice red uniforms. We know that this is happening, why, and who's doing it because they keep publicly admitting it. Arizona is a strongly red state with a very conservative administrative branch.

In order for "only Sanders supporters" to have been disenfranchised this way, there would have to have separate lines for Sanders voters and Clinton voters, which is illegal because voting in the US is done by secret ballot. Plus, after separating, the Clinton line would have to move much faster. That isn't claimed because there weren't separate lines.

Debunk: This conspiracy contradicts itself because there weren't separate lines.

The problem in Maricopa County is actual voter suppression. The long lines were due to the consolidation of polling places, something that Clinton has no control over because the makeup of polling places is handled by local election officials. Another issue there is that transportation of early voting ballots was limited, so that people not in towns or cities (ie Native Americans), were impaired by lack of transport. In fact, coverage by major news outlets include history that shows that it was action by the GOP that caused the disenfranchisement and even state the selection official's excuses about why her office did it. Now, how Hillary Clinton could convince the Arizona GOP to do her bidding to skew the election in her favor, I have no clue. Because it wouldn't happen. Besides, the disenfranchised voters are from demographics that Clinton won, making it probable that more Clinton voters than Sanders voters were disenfranchised.

But the kicker is that Clinton sued over this and Sanders joined her suit. So for this to be true, Clinton would be suing the government for her actions that disenfranchised her own voters via mechanisms controlled by a GOP government that hates her, but this action affects only Sanders supporters even though that would have required extremely visible illegal behavior that no one is claiming happened. Nope.

The evidence that it only affected Sanders supporters is that "most of Clinton's voters did early voting," according to random non-expert white dudes on the internet. This article takes a statistic that "the majority of people who voted early are over 30" and paraphrases that as "elderly" because wow, really? I know I'm old, but Jesus. "Elderly?" I've seen this "Clinton disenfranchised day-of voting" theory in several places and it's hilarious misuse of statistics. You see, the people who wrote the articles about this aren't aware of the GOP's national campaign to marginalize likely Democratic voters, in part by consolidating minority polling sites-- or they know and conveniently ignore it. The state admits that the problem was caused by it consolidating polling sites, but that problem didn't affect early voting, leaving us with these statistics, which I have to take someone's word on because the county has taken them down:

	Early voting:		Regular voting:
Clinton:	118,832	66.1%	12,802	39.2%
Sanders:	71,019	33.9%	19,883	60.8%

The explanation for why this disenfranchised Sanders voters but not Clinton voters, how Clinton skewed the election in her favor goes like this:

Clinton knew that she was leading in early voting, so she closed polling stations to disenfranchise regular voting, which skewed heavily Sanders. This requires that Clinton know her early voting lead in time to change the polling locations, which were changed months before polls opened, requiring a time machine. She would have to know that regular voting would lean heavily Sanders at that time to motivate the time trip to change the polling locations and she would have to know which polling locations would lean furthest towards Sanders so that she could close the right ones, requiring that she have the full election statistics before she went back in time. Clinton would have to have the power to close polling stations, doing so between early voting and regular voting, requiring that she go back in time to email a postcard to all affected voters that their polling station had changed. And we are required to ignore that the precincts in question were racial minority ones, leaving polls all across the county with short, white lines and long brown ones.

Clinton gets more minority votes and Sanders gets more white votes. Clinton won the Hispanic vote in Arizona. So, if minority voters but not white voters were disenfranchised on voting day as is alleged, these statistics are exactly what we would expect: higher than expected turnout for Sanders and lower than expected turnout for Clinton.

Instead, we are expected to assume that had Clinton not disenfranchised (only) Sanders voters, that Sanders would have gotten more than 60% of the regular vote even though Clinton got more than 63% of early voting, something that were expected to assume without even any reason to explain why, much less any evidence. 

And that's not the most ludicrous example.

Time Machine Factor: The antenna on their phone booth was a bit fragile and I knew that this would be a complicated trip, so I loaned Bill and Ted a TARDIS. 

Closed Primaries Are Disenfranchisement

Claim: This has been the refrain from every closed primary that Sanders lost-- that disallowing non-Democrats to vote in the Democratic primary is voter disenfranchisement. I have already covered this claim in detail here, but to sum up, there is no right to vote in a party primary, and thus, no disenfranchisement.

Important Omitted Information: Open primaries are subject to cross-voting, in which members of a major party vote in the opposing major party's primary to try to get the weakest candidate selected. This is a strategy to rig the Presidential election in favor of a party by sabotaging the other party. It is the dilution of legitimate party member votes in favor of non-members, who have no right to vote or even a legitimate interest. In addition, there is evidence to support that allowing independents to vote in a primary can skew the primary towards a candidate who isn't appropriate for the party and that will damage the party's chances in the election.

This redefinition of "voter disenfranchisement" is a demand that Sanders supporters be allowed to break the rules, typically asked for after the fact so that independent and third party voters who want to vote for Clinton don't get the same opportunity. Allowing after the fact rule changes helps rule breakers at the expense of people who knew and accepted the rules,

In fact, according to the lawyers for the Nevada DNC:

After reviewing Nevada law, we believe that registering under false pretenses in order to participate in the Democratic caucuses for purposes of manipulating the presidential nominating process is a felony.The Nevada State Democratic Party will work with law enforcement to prosecute anyone who falsely registers as a Democrat to caucus tomorrow and subsequently participates in the Republican caucuses on Tuesday.

While they technically could try to file charges against anyone who changed party affiliation to vote in the Dem primary, their stated intention was to only file charges against people who voted in the closed Democratic primary and the open Republican one. So they announced in advance that while it was probably illegal for people to register as Democrats just for the primary, they would not pursue charges against people who changed because they genuinely supported one of the Democratic party candidates.

Debunk: This is the Democratic primary, an election process that selects the Democratic Party candidate for President and the de facto leader of the Democratic party. Are you a Democrat? No? Then you don't get to decide who represents the Democrats. I'm not a Democrat. Why should I have a say in who represents the Democrats? I shouldn't! This is completely reasonable. If you would like to vote in the primary, join the party! You wanted openness. They gave you openness. You still complained! My misanthropy levels have been running pretty high.

There should not be a reward for refusing to follow the rules! Lowering voting requirements for only one of two candidates is rigging. It is not "rigging" to disallow actual rigging, no matter how many people yell that it is.

Time Machine Factor: I shall allot one guinea-pig manned TARDIS per affected person who was both not a Democrat prior to primary season and also unable to change their party affiliation on time due to illness or transportation issues, as opposed to because they didn't bother to figure out how to make their vote count in advance.

Closed Primary Party Change Deadlines are Voter Disenfranchisement (NYC, at al)

Claim: In New York, the deadline for changing parties prior to the primary was 6 months before the election, and thus too early for newly interested voters to have become involved. Other states with closed primaries allowed party change but not on the day of the primary, which was called voter disenfranchisement because the deadline was too far in advance, even in a state where the deadline was the day before the election.

Important Omitted Information: This is a closed primary. Some state parties think that closed primaries should actually be closed. By allowing people to join or switch parties for a single election, the state opens the door to cross-voting (including alleged plans for Republicans to double-vote in the Nevada primary) and other dilution of the votes of people intended for the primary, in this case Democrats who are electing a leader for the Democratic party. Cross-voting, specifically, is the reason for long party-change deadlines.

Debunk: Again, there is no right to vote in a primary, only a privilege that in this case is given to party members considered legitimate for this vote. That one state wants to be extra careful to disallow cross-voting isn't an infringement of a right because there is no right involved.

Time Machine Factor: I shall allot one slightly pricklier hedgehog-manned TARDIS to the affected people who would like to go back in time to become interested in politics on a permanent basis prior to the start of primary season, which I estimate to be about 4.

Superdelegates Are Undemocratic

Claim: Superdelegates (AKA unpledged delegates) are representatives of the party who have a delegate vote equivalent to the delegate vote of a "pledged" delegate, one selected through or because of the state primaries, who is required to vote for the person designated by the state primary. (Some states assign delegates proportionally and some are all-or-nothing.) These superdelegates are chosen by the national and state parties and are established party leaders, elected politicians, downmarket candidates, and assorted other people.

Like this superdelegate from Vermont.

Important Omitted Information: Superdelegates serve several purposes: to help ensure that the winning candidate is a viable candidate in the upcoming election, someone who has the support of Democrats in Congress and in state leadership, someone who works well with others to get things done. This is balanced with the will of the voters, in a way that gives the will of the combined voters more weight than the will of the combined superdelegates. This seems completely reasonable to me because newsflash: the Democratic Party is not a democracy! It's not even a government!

That said, the superdelegates almost always vote for the person with the most pledged delegates.

Even more problematic with this claim is that to run in the Democratic primary, one has to sign an agreement to help downmarket elections through appearances and fundraising. Many of the superdelegates are the downmarket candidates. Despite signing an agreement that says that he will help downmarket candidates, Sanders has been insulting them, refusing to help them, and then using that refusal to help as part of his campaign platform, because those people are "The Establishment." Clinton has been helping downmarket candidates and doing other things that have gotten her support with the superdelegates, some of which Sanders calls "purchasing superdelegates" and some of which he has called "money laundering."

The Sanders camp started badmouthing the superdelegates as soon as a bunch of them came out in support of Clinton. Of course, Jeff Weaver was very loud about his hatred of superdelegates, but the truth is: he is the one who got them included in the process in the first place. It's good when it's his idea and supports his goals, bad when they actually behave as autonomous people with their own opinions that don't align with his. But then something interesting happened: Sanders became a superdelegate. Then superdelegates were ok but they must be forced to vote in a specific way, and which specific way depended on which way helped Sanders the most at the time. They must vote for the person who won the state that the superdelegate represents. Oh, Sanders didn't win the most states? Well, they must vote for the person who has the popular vote. Oh, Sanders didn't win the popular vote either? Well, superdelegates must be allowed to vote their hearts because we all know that in secret, no one likes Clinton. I mean, superdelegates must vote for the candidate more likely to win in the general election!

Debunk: People dislike superdelegates because power is a zero-sum game and having superdelegates reduces the power of individual voters, who naturally do not want their power reduced. Well, neither do straight, cis, Judeo-Christian, white men but I honestly don't much care when they complain about it. Speaking of which, I'd like to remind people that the Clinton superdelegates lean heavily black and/or female and the Sanders supporters lean heavily white and male, so I look at this as white guys complaining that black women have too much power.

Well, it's about fucking time.

Did you notice the "flip-flopping" on how the superdelegates "must be forced to vote?" Well, firstly, it's trying to eliminate the work that Clinton did to earn those superdelegates, by claiming that the superdelegates picked her because she "purchased" them or because they're all "The Establishment." Secondly, every position is the one that was expected to benefit Sanders the most at the time. This was never about democracy; this was about a woman having something that a man wanted. That she earned it was irrelevant. What was important was that he got the benefits of her work instead of her.

That's why harassing the superdelegates was perfectly fine with him, the "just reward" for having picked the "wrong" candidate. That's why the victims deserved the blame instead of the harassers. Then the campaign decided to try to convince the superdelegates too, after months of attacking them and victim-blaming them for crimes committed against them by his supporters. After the last primary, not having the pledged delegates, the campaign decided to "increase outreach" to the superdelegates to change their minds.

This claim didn't exist for democracy. This claim existed to benefit Sanders and lasted until it stopped benefitting him.

But in the end, who had those superdelegates picked? The person who won the popular vote by a lot, even after adjustment for caucus states. The person who won the most states. The person who, were there no superdelegates, still would have won.

Time Machine Factor: I inject one Idris TARDIS into the life of each complainant so that they are confused about a woman with power and desires, who helps people only if she wants to.

Pro-Clinton Media Bias

Claim: Sanders supporters love to claim that the media has an anti-Sanders bias, typically in the comments of any article that fails to support Sanders 100%.

In what looked to be a coordinated effort, more than 160 complaints alleging CNN bias in favor of Hillary Clinton were filed. The complaints pushed a now-debunked story claiming the cable news network deleted favorable polling that showed Bernie Sanders won the debate. 

Important Omitted Information: Several studies of media bias in the primary, across all candidates, Clinton got the most negative coverage and the least positive coverage. Once Sanders became a viable candidate, left-wing news and political sites focused on how awesome Sanders is, taking him at his word no matter what he said, and not allowing Clinton to refute his claims against her. Even CNN leaned heavily Sanders, with numerous articles (by the same three white dudes) reciting what Sanders said about Clinton, presented as fact, with no fact checking and no rebuttal. And my favorite, one of them giving Sanders a line to use in the next debate because Sanders' answer to a specific question didn't seem good enough, live on CNN.

Clinton was expected to win by
double digits. That's "sweating."

And this is just the mainstream news sites. Liberal sites like Salon went All in on Bernie and have yet to stop. It was so difficult to find positive coverage of Clinton that I specifically sought out pro-Clinton websites so that I could get the non-Sanders side of stories. You see, before I take a stance on an issue, I look at mainstream news, biased news on both sides, and bloggers who have researched a topic extensively, including links for assertions in their posts, links which I then read as well. Mainstream news sites and liberal standards did such a poor job of presenting Clinton's side of an issue that I had to Google for pro-Clinton coverage just to find the information omitted by the deluge of pro-Sanders news. At one point, I spent the day evaluating CNN's coverage and for articles on the homepage: 5 articles were pro-Sanders, 2 articles were neutral (with "pro-Clinton media bias claims in comments), and 3 were anti-Clinton.

Debunk: When a medium is offering anti-Clinton rhetoric to Sanders live on air with no apparent consequences for that despite it being pointed out repeatedly, that medium is not pro-Clinton. And yet I saw people complain about pro-Clinton bias on articles that discussed a Sanders attack and a Clinton rebuttal.

 If she is allowed to present a stance at all, that's because of pro-Clinton bias. If anyone even hints that there might be another side to the story or maybe Sanders isn't 100% correct, RAWR PRO-CLINTON BIAS! Of course, it's not, hence the repeated studies to the contrary.

This is the hostile media effect: "the tendency for people who have taken a position on an issue to see media coverage of that issue as biased against their position."

Time Machine Factor: I will grant the complainants one DVRed Three Leia TARDIS, because they are obviously confused about what show we're watching.

Coming soon: The next 17 conspiracies!

* I don't think that the DNC was 100% right here. Cutting off Sanders' access to his own data was a dick move. I suspect that the description of the vulnerability was inaccurate and that the symptoms described by the Sanders camp were accurate, in which case, it may have been necessary to turn off his access while the problem was fixed. However, in the case of his own data, it should have been made clear that any such change was temporary. The DNC did not defend themselves with a claim that the lockout was temporary, so I assume that if the intention was for the lockout to be temporary, that that was not made clear.

*2 Yes, I do, in fact, know from experience that reporting an online security breach to the FBI in which credit cards are stolen does not automatically trigger a press release. I actually got hired to clean that one up because I'd warned the company of the security hole over 5 years earlier. If you have shopped online, someone, somewhere has your credit card info. I know someone who only uses prepaid credit cards so that when his cards are stolen, he can just switch.