Voting in US

VOTING IN THE UNITED STATES
(Student’s Name)
(Instructor)
(Course)
(Date)
Voting In the United States
Introduction
Voting is how a group of people uses votes to show their opinion or make a collective decision on certain issues of concern. Voting normally involves discussions, election campaigns, or debates. These activities happen before the voting process is undertaken. The United States is a democratic country where Americans can elect leaders of their choice by voting. Voting in this country was initially restricted to white males owning property. Today there are great changes, allowing every American the right to vote. However, there have been complaints from some election candidates about elections being rigged and increased voter fraud. The fear of rigging and fraud in voting is associated with one-way voting and mail in the ballots. This research project is about analysis of voting in the U.S. The following are the research questions. What are the voting issues in the Us? Is it possible for elections to be rigged in this country? Could there be widespread voter fraud? Do mail-in ballots provide a more secure or less secure manner to vote? Lastly, is one way of voting advantageous to a given party, and why? This research will help find answers to those questions.[Dunleavy, Patrick; Diwakar, Rekha. "Analysing multiparty competition in plurality rule elections" (PDF). Party Politics. 19(6): 855–886. (2013).]
Background information
In voting, there must be disagreements, and this is common between the POTUS and the U.S. intelligence community. Several issues normally arise during elections in the U.S., especially presidential elections. Foreign policy and peace are also vital issues to presidential candidates. Throughout U.S. history, election candidates have always stood or stumbled on their stance on political issues. Regardless of their powers of personality, publicity, and popularity, an election candidate who wants to win elections must win on political matters. Sometimes elections are associated with rigging and fraud. There are various ways in which people can rig elections. Some of the ways are; packing, bleaching, cracking, poll tax, and literacy laws. Packing entails putting like-minded voters in one district to reduce their power in other nearby districts. Packing is usually done to prevent minority voters from voting elsewhere.
The U.S. election is also associated with bleaching. This is the practice in which the surrounding districts were being breached by packing non-white voters into one district. In November vote 2016, the U.S. election agency was breached by hackers. It is the role of this agency to ensure that voting machines meet security standards. Many presidential candidates have raised fraud and rigging, ranging from George Bush verses Gore to Donald Trump verses Joe Bidden..[Gilens, Martin; Page, Benjamin I. (September 1, 2014). "Testing Theories of American Politics: Elites, Interest Groups, and Average Citizens." Perspectives on Politics. 12 (3): 564–581. (2014).]
Intelligence Community’s View Point
Intelligence Community had been silent on the issues related to election fraud and rigging until 2000, when it started to air them in public. The battle over Florida in 2000 exposed the dysfunctional electoral system and allowed for meaningful electoral reform. It also led to new reforms of political warfare, creating an unknown error of the fair game. The segregation era seemed beneficial for the Republicans. In 2016 when the U.S. was near the November presidential election, there were claims and fears that the Russian government was going to take part in the election. Intelligence Community (I.C.) and Policymakers did not want the public to know the truth of the matter. The I.C. did not want to inform the public about how the activities of Russia was going to impact the outcome of the 2016 US-presidential election. I.C.'s silence on this issue shows its incompetence in promoting a free and fair electoral system. Russia government performed persistent and sustained activities to affect the results of this election. The US government was very reluctant to find out more information about those practices. The bipartisan consensus confirmed that the Russian government was involved, but since Intelligence Community failed to clear the public, there has not been a consensus conclusion about those allegations. Outside observes still maintain that Russian activities affected the election even if the impact cannot be measured.[Cordero, Carrie. "Intelligence Transparency and Foreign Threats to Elections." Center for a New American Security (en-US). Last modified 2020. /publications/reports/intelligence-transparency-and-foreign-threats-to-elections.]
Senate Select Committee on Intelligence (SSCI) in Volume 1 of its report reported that the Intelligence Community was not in a position to tell the public if indeed the actual voting system was attacked even if it happened. The community reported that Russian troll might have impacted the election outcome, but many other factors can affect the election. Some of the factors are voter behavior, voter-turnout, and voter attitude. With those factors, the community maintained that it is hard to identify the exact factors, especially in areas where the margin of election results was very close. What worrying Americans the most is their inability of knowing what they are supposed to know. This is because no audit of voting systems or vote tabulation was done.[SSCI Report, Volume III, U.S. Government Response to Russian Activities, /sites/default/files/documents/Report_Volume3.pdf]
Foreign influence has been a major threat to the U.S. elections, and it was still evident in November 2020 election. Its threat to democracy prompted the federal agencies, including Intelligence Community to provide a warning. In the 2018 midterm elections, the federal agencies warned about foreign influence on the U.S. electoral system. In November 2019, the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), speaking on behalf of other agencies like I.C. and National Intelligence, assured Americans that the government had prioritized election security. The statement from DHS came after there was fear that China, Iran, and Russian were planning to influence the U.S. November 2020 election. The U.S. election has been associated with fraud in social media campaigns, cyber-attacks, and disinformation operations, yet I.C. has been slow to come out clear about them.[“Joint Statement on Election Day Preparations,” U.S. Department of Homeland Security, press release, November 5, 2018, /news/2018/11/05/joint-statement-election-day-preparations.] [“Joint Statement from DOJ, DOD, DHS, DNI, FBI, NSA, and CISA on Ensuring Security of 2020 Elections,” Federal Bureau of Investigation, press release, November 5, 2019, /news/pressrel/press-releases/joint-statement-from-doj-dod-dhs-dni-fbi-nsa-and-cisa-on-ensuring-security-of-2020-elections.]
Facts and evidence available in the OSINT realm
The latest rigged elections claim in the United States is linked to the presidential battle between Donald Trump and Joe Bidden. President Trump shocked the world and the American political establishment when he failed to accept the results of the 2020 presidential election. His refusal showed lack of confidence on the country’s electoral system. The tweet by President Trump that there is a large-scale voter fraud happening on and before the election day. His claims about the scam in voting were also evident during the 2016 presidential election.
Republicans have been on the high end, complaining about how using the names of dead people in elections, illegal immigrants, and occasional household pets has been affecting the outcome of elections. They have been complaining...