(Reuters) - Russian President Vladimir Putin, running for a new six-year term in an election that his opponents say is a parody of democracy, said on Tuesday that past U.S. elections had been rigged by postal voting.

"In the United States, previous elections were falsified through postal voting ... they bought ballots for $10, filled them out, and threw them into mailboxes without any supervision from observers, and that's it," Putin said, without providing evidence.

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[–] 198 points 2 years ago (35 children)

And watch MAGA eat this shit up.

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  • [–] 61 points 2 years ago (30 children)

    MAGA and tankies. I'd say strange bedfellows, but honestly, they're not that different beyond what shade of red they prefer to be painted.

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  • [–] 106 points 2 years ago (5 children)

    Elections have been rigged for a long, long time. Gerrymandering is absolutely insane. Cities with meandering sections cut off. Disadvantaged suburbs slammed into afluent areas across town to dilute the votes.

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    [–] 70 points 2 years ago (10 children)

    Ah yes, a Putin, the bastion of honesty and truth.

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    [–] 70 points 2 years ago (18 children)

    "In the United States, previous elections were falsified through postal voting ... they bought ballots for $10, filled them out, and threw them into mailboxes without any supervision from observers, and that's it,"

    Problem - That's not the way vote by mail works.

    1. You register to vote and place a signature on file.

    2. You get your ballot in the mail and vote.

    3. You put the ballot in the mailing envelope and sign the back of the envelope.

    4. When the ballot is returned, they compare the signature on the envelope with the signature on file, if it matches, the ballot is set aside for counting.

    5. If there's a PROBLEM:

    A) Missing signature
    B) Signature doesn't match
    C) Ballot damaged or unreadable
    D) Ballot already recorded as present

    The ballot gets returned to the voter for correction, assuming there's enough time for it to be corrected.

    What Putin describes wouldn't work, because the fake ballots either wouldn't have a signature, wouldn't have a valid signature, or wouldn't correspond to a registered voter.

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  • [–] 46 points 2 years ago (1 child)

    Won't matter, he is speaking directly to MAGAs, and they already believe that this is the truth

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  • [–] 11 points 2 years ago*

    You know how the Nigerian prince scams intentionally use terrible English to filter out the stupid ones?

    Half the people you come across are below average. Technology has made it exceptionally effective to target the dumb and vulnerable.

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    [–] 58 points 2 years ago (2 children)

    So weird that Trump and Putin have the exact same opinions. Do you think Trump is controlling Putin?

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  • [–] 50 points 2 years ago*
    [–] 36 points 2 years ago

    Putin dying will be a holiday.

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  • [–] 32 points 2 years ago

    I mean he should know since he was one of the people paying to influence the election.

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  • [–] 32 points 2 years ago (1 child)

    Say it with me kids, Projection.

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    [–] 30 points 2 years ago*

    phew I thought Russian elections were rigged too, glad to hear that is not the case, what a real relief

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  • [–] 30 points 2 years ago

    "by me lelelelelelelel" - Putin prolly

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  • [–] 28 points 2 years ago (1 child)

    Rhetoric of this sort just promotes distrust in election systems, which of course prompts demagogues like Trump to promise voters they can fix it if they gain power. The fun thing here is that the right here needs you to believe things that aren't true in order to justify them doing a coup, the stupid thing is that stupid people take this kind of talk seriously.

    But seriously, American voting is relatively secure- it's just that where lawmakers don't want voters deciding the 'wrong' way they've gerrymandered them into districts to prevent them doing it, and they've done things to strip voters of their voting rights and to suppress voting and to make it inconvenient or difficult to vote. This has been a bipartisan thing in the past, but today the GOP are the chief offenders.

    Also, Putin's Russia is in the stage of democracy where elections are an exercise in flaunting the death of democracy itself, and nobody should ever take his talk about elections as being in good faith, ever

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    [–] 28 points 2 years ago*

    And he wouldn't lie would he. Internationally known as being a reasonable person that he is.

    God, what a stupid article, why the hell was this even reported? Oh never mind it's Yahoo news, that's why

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  • [–] 27 points 2 years ago* (28 children)

    Always has been.

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Electoral_College

    Of course, if it was a popular vote, the parties would apply entirely different strategies in elections, so we cannot be sure what would've happened in the past if popular vote mattered.

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  • [–] 13 points 2 years ago (17 children)

    I never really understood this. Why do an election when the electoral college decides who the winner is?

    I'm not a US American.

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  • [–] 14 points 2 years ago* (last edited 2 years ago) (3 children)

    The electoral college complicates things by having each state be its own separate popular vote.

    Two states, Nebraska and Maine, will split their electoral votes based on their popular vote. But the rest of the states just give all their electoral votes to their popular vote winner.

    The core issue is that a presidential candidate can win 50.1% of the vote in a state and will receive all electoral votes as if 100% of the state voted for him.

    A secondary issue is that electoral votes aren't equal. Each state has a minimum of three electoral votes. This creates a situation where Wyoming, a state who's population is smaller than our capital Washington D.C., has more voting power per person per electoral vote than California; the most populous state.

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  • [–] 11 points 2 years ago*

    The original thinking was the electoral college could stop any truly disastrous votes. But we've seen how that goes! Now we're stuck with it because it helps one party and would require a constitutional amendment to abolish, and too few people in power are interested in doing what's right for the country - they're interested in doing what's right for their party.

    (For another example of the "party first" mentality that has taken over: Washington, DC residents have no vote in Congress. This seems like an obvious thing to fix, give them a two members of the House and two Senators....but whoa, we can't do that, it would change the balance of power in Congress! Seriously. That's why DC residents have no real voice in Congress. For clarity, their votes do count for the Presidential election.)

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    [+] 26 points 2 years ago* (last edited 11 months ago) (1 child)
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    [–] 24 points 2 years ago (2 children)

    Cool story.

    Why is it so hard for people to judge credibility? It's just (1) listen to a statement, (2) ask if what a person is saying directly benefits them and (3) if it does, require evidence to believe it.

    We know this is not credible because by saying it, Putin diverts attention from his own corrupt election and normalizes election fraud. So did he provide evidence? No. So it should be ignored.

    Can't we all just... Do that?

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    [–] 15 points 2 years ago

    Once again proving the old adage that every accusation from the fascists is a confession, in Russia too.

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  • [–] 15 points 2 years ago

    Who cares what that failed czar pussy says kek

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  • [–] 14 points 2 years ago

    I love the logic pivot on people who in the 90s thought russia was just straight up evil are now looking at them as the bastion of conservative ideals...

    Go move to Russia boys, oh you don't want to? Why not they apparently have it all figured out.

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  • [–] 14 points 2 years ago (1 child)

    Even the one that trump won?

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  • [–] 13 points 2 years ago

    Because he has the receipt 😂

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  • [–] 13 points 2 years ago* (last edited 2 years ago)

    Hey Putin, we're all saving up for the gigantic party we're gonna throw when you blow your (meager collection of) irradiated brains out all over your disheveled office.

    Also the table you use for meetings is SMALL!

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  • [–] 12 points 2 years ago

    Source: Trust me bro Trump.

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  • [–] 11 points 2 years ago* (1 child)

    I mean

    The Bush family rigged W's election against AI Gore. Why did that get swept under the rug?

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  • [–] 11 points 2 years ago (3 children)

    This post is disinformation

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    [+] 10 points 2 years ago* (last edited 2 years ago)
    [removed by mod]
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  • [–] 10 points 2 years ago

    Interesting.

    Seems like they're going to be shooting for an off election cycle coup, since their last one failed and its not quite time for the next window of opportunity.

    The supreme court taking up Trumps case the most significant case in the history of the United States. It will decide if our constitution has any real meaning (in some ways, it determines the tests the very legitimacy of constitutionalism as a system). The language of the constitution, and the interpretation of this amendment is very cut and dry. No one can reasonably argue it wasn't designed, and intended to prevent Trump or Trump-like candidates. It was an insurrection against the United States of America. He not only partook in it, he led it, supported it.

    So this may be a signal that Putin thinks the Supreme Court will rule against Trump. Go ahead and start seeding the doubt around the next election cycle now.

    It may also be a sign for something far more nefarious, that perhaps rather than allowing a ruling to happen, Trump goes for a coup-in-name-only, makes the claim that the election was stolen, and that he is 'President-in-Abstentia' sitting in Moscow. Then gets his lackies to make road blocks across the country, idk.

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  • [–] 10 points 2 years ago

    He should know.

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  • [–] 9 points 2 years ago

    I had to double take to make sure it wasn't Jokes and Humor but actually World News

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