North Carolina is no longer a democracy

Mr. Tea

Let's Talk About Ceps
Anyone else seen this?

http://thehill.com/blogs/blog-brief...orth-carolina-is-no-longer-a-democracy-report

North Carolina can no longer be considered a democracy, according to a new report from the Electoral Integrity Project (EIP), which rated the state's overall electoral integrity at the same levels of those in authoritarian states and "pseudo-democracies" such as Cuba, Indonesia and Sierra Leone.

The state scored 58 out of 100, with ratings so poor on the measures of legal framework and voter registration that it tracked closely with those in Iran and Venezuela. The state got a score of 7 out of 100 for the integrity of voting district boundaries.

Er, happy Christmas everyone!
 

baboon2004

Darned cockwombles.
Timing!

I think it'd be interesting to see who funds the EIP. It's not usually the kind of conclusion that comes out of American studies, although it is shared with Sydney I spose. Usually you get these absurd indices saying how free the US is even as it incarcerates millions. Freedom House is the worst one from memory, in terms of being both skewed and widely quoted in the press without critique.
 

Mr. Tea

Let's Talk About Ceps

Lol, fair point.

I think it'd be interesting to see who funds the EIP. It's not usually the kind of conclusion that comes out of American studies, although it is shared with Sydney I spose. Usually you get these absurd indices saying how free the US is even as it incarcerates millions. Freedom House is the worst one from memory, in terms of being both skewed and widely quoted in the press without critique.

The EIP's list of supporters sounds pretty legit, as far as I can tell:

The project has been generously supported by many agencies, especially the $2.6m Kathleen Kitzpatrick Laureate Award by the Australian Research Council, as well as by the University of Sydney, International IDEA, and at Harvard University by the Ash Center for Democratic Governance and Innovation, the Committee on Australian Studies, and the Weatherhead Center for International Affairs. Partnerships have been developed to collaborate with many multilateral agencies, including International IDEA, the Organization of American States, Global Integrity, UNDP, the Carter Center, UN-EAD, and A-WEB. The five year project was launched in Madrid in July 2012. The team of researchers are based at Harvard University's Kennedy School of Government and the Department of Government and International Relations, University of Sydney.

Assuming none of those organisations is a front for, like, the Russian government or something.
 

baboon2004

Darned cockwombles.
But why are those funders legit, other than having authoritative-sounding names? I mean, the Weatherhead Center (the one I picked at random to google) approvingly quotes the thought of war criminal Henry Kissinger as central to its founding ethos...

And while the EIP is criticising NC, it's notable that Cuba is still cited as enemy of democracy number one, and Iran and Venezuela come up almost immediately. Familiar lists.

But still interesting to see it so baldly declared that NC is antidemocratic, as you said.
 

Mr. Tea

Let's Talk About Ceps
Well if, as you suggest, the organisation has a right-wing or pro-American bias, that makes its criticism of American electoral processes even more damning than if it were funded by groups you'd expect to be critical of the USA, wouldn't you say? Far more damning, in fact.
 
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baboon2004

Darned cockwombles.
Generally I agree, but important that it's not criticism of American electoral processes - it's one state being painted as a 'bad apple'. I don't know much about this, but clear that NC was 'outed' a while ago as a bad 'un: http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2016/07/north-carolina-voting-rights-law/493649/

If an org like this were to come out and say that the US has little to no history of electoral integrity, then I'd be genuinely surprised (as a country that came to universal suffrage after Iran and Indonesia for example). The whole approach to the question of democracy and elections with these kind of thinktanks is always tree-focused, never on the wood.
 
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Mr. Tea

Let's Talk About Ceps
There may well be something to all of that, but I just think it's hugely important that it's being brought to public attention, and by a group that can't easily be dismissed by those in power as 'left-wing extremists' or whatever.
 
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