Our Elections Are Not Rigged, but our Electoral System is Broken.

In 2010 the U.S. Supreme Court issued a ruling reversing a 2002 law that had imposed restrictions on election spending by corporations, unions, and other public entities. The court reasoned that the 1st Amendment did not allow for any restrictions on free speech. Although these restrictions were limited to a narrow reach related to political speech by specific groups, the court ruled that no restrictions could be applied.

Citizens United was a conservative political action group that had been formed in response to the McCain-Feingold Act that imposed certain restrictions in 2002. A series of lawsuits followed that challenged those restrictions that eventually ended up in the Supreme Court.

The primaries in North Carolina will be March 5th. No real contest on the Presidential candidates. The Governor’s race is tighter with the Democrats having two leading candidates that may run to the wire. Nobody pays any attention to the Lt. Governor race, which is why we ended up with the unfortunate results the last time. The Democrats also appear to have a contest for Attorney General, and they may take back the Insurance Commissioner’s slot.

The Gerrymandering of legislative districts (both federal and state) is still being contested, but the ballots (and candidates) in the NC primaries follow the new alignments. Speculation is that the GOP will gain more seats from NC in the Congress. They already hold a majority in the House & Senate in the NC General Assembly.

With just a few weeks until the first primaries, election fever is warming up. Some states have senators up for election. We do not. So, it’s the Presidential Preference Election Primary that’s the big one. In North Carolina, the Democrats have an uncontested primary, the Libertarian Party has nine candidates, and the Republican Party has seven candidates for the NC Primary. Trump has been accepted as a candidate. The primaries in North Carolina will be held March 5th.

Trump has been challenged in several states. Michigan and Minnesota overruled a court challenge. Colorado and Maine have approved a court challenge. Several other cases do not have a ruling yet. The cases will go to the U.S. Supreme Court, which has not yet announced a date since the Appeals Courts have not made rulings. The request from the federal prosecutor on whether or not Trump is immune from prosecution has nothing to do with the elections. The real challenge will be the candidates in the new districts, both congressional and state. The GOP in the NC General Assembly redrew them after only two years so they could gerrymander them.