"But Australia has marginal seats" not anymore mhaze. What were once considered "safe" seats are now becoming more volatile for the 'Big Two' and they can no longer consider any seat "safe".

Something rather odd, with 2 weeks of pre-polling here in Queensland (today's the big day) I've got to know the 6 candidates running in my local seat. I see them nearly everyday as they are outside our hall (polling booth) up to 14 hours a day, badgering voters. The lads have become rather friendly with each other, One Nation cozying up to the Green, Labor and LNP sharing a coffee together etc etc, very strange, one big happy family. I even like Davo from the ON party, crazy as a cut snake, but a nice guy anyway. Chad from the LNP is actually a progressive liberal, and I like him also, make a good politician one day, the Green lady is nice, the incumbent Joan for Labor is very well known, and a terrific local member, regardless of the overall outcome she deserves to keep her job, and old James from FF is well known to me. However my vote went to "Little Buddha" the independent candidate.

The important thing today is we want to sell plenty of "Democracy Sausages" the real purpose of all this voting nonsense!

Guess what folks: pointless waffling about America doesn't hide the awful problems of our own "flawed democracy". It's just another way of putting your heads in the sand.

Only American citizens can do a damn thing about America. I doubt that Australians will do much to improve their own country at the next election.

Two parties not much different from each other, and most voters too afraid to try something different by voting for the four optional parties in the Senate: Family First, One Nation, United Australia, and the Libertarians. Anything but Labor/Liberal/Green.

You could vote the same way in the lower house, but that would be too daring I suppose. But, try to do something about your own country, and leave Americans to sort theirs out. I doubt that many of them would be bothering themselves with Australia.

"And according to his former Chief of Staff, John F. Kelly,..."

Yes Foxy, this is exactly the type of story that you regularly and habitually fall for. If you could join us in the real world for a moment consider this...

Kelly worked for Trump for two years. No one else in the room when Trump allegedly made these comments recalls hearing them. Kelly didn't mention it to anyone else. If he had any integrity and if the story was true, he should have immediately resigned and bought it to the attention of the nation. But he continued working for Trump until his incompetence was such that Trump sacked him. Kelly has pursued a vendetta ever since. But even then he didn't raise this story. Not during the 2020 election. Not any time since. Then he raises it 12 days out from an election.

So a man of integrity? Well the usual useful idiots will fall for it.

Every Republican leader is called Hitler. Even Eisenhower who literally defeated Hitler was called Hitler when he ran as a Republican. Nixon of course was Hitler. Reagan as well. Literally every Republican presidential candidate for the past 60 years. And not just presidential candidates. Dick Cheney, who the Democrats now love, was Himmler. Paul Ryan was Goebbels.

And the useful idiots fall for it every time.

Here's a prediction you can take to the bank. Once Trump moves on, he will cease to be Hitler. But whoever takes his place, will magically become Hitler.

Banjo Paterson,

Don't get me wrong. The US is a flawed democracy. Just not for any of the reasons you raised.

It is flawed because the Democrats have utterly bastardised the system to allow them to cheat on a monumental scale. They have allowed for virtually unlimited mail-in voting accompanied by reduced to no checking of the validity of such votes. They have allowed people to vote without the need to prove they are citizens. Indeed in California it is now illegal to ask a voter or someone seeking to register as a voter for any proof.

Just today we hear that Pennsylvania found 2500 illegals seeking to register and vote while an unknown number succeeded. Michigan found 300,000 invalid names on their rolls and when they tried to remove those names, they were sued by Washington and forced to leave them on the rolls. Let that sink in.

We have seen jurisdictions that have more names on their voter rolls than actual voters. And that is allowed to continue. We have houses or even vacant lots that have thousands of names registered as being their official address.

Counting is a mess. Many places don't even have paper ballots but require people to vote on computer. In this election, they've already found instances of computers reversing a Trump vote and giving it to Harris.

And that is all before we have systems that are so opaque that boxes of pre-filled ballots get trucked in in the middle of the night and added to the official count.

Trump will win the voting this election, just as he did in 2020. But he will lose the count. Just as he did in 2020.

And at that point the US democracy will cease to exist.

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Dear mhaze,

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Unfortunately, as you have not indicated the source of your information, I have had to do my own fact-checking.

But first, perhaps I should add that America’s flawed democracy that allowed four of the five past presidents to be elected despite having lost the popular vote, were all members of the Republican Party. The fifth one, John Adams, who was elected the 2nd president of the US in 1796, was a member of the Federalist Party that was opposed to what, many years later, became known as the Democratic Party.

As regards the Pennsylvania affaire you mention, I see that the Lancaster County Commissioner Ray D’Agostino, a Republican who chairs the election board, said at a news conference that the 2500 fraudulent voter registration applications were not limited to a single party and that they had been collected at various spots in Republican-majority Lancaster. He did not say which parties were involved and the state attorney general's office declined to comment.

You also write that “Michigan found 300,000 invalid names on their rolls and when they tried to remove those names, they were sued by Washington and forced to leave them on the rolls”.

The Associated Press did some fact-checking on that and explained in an article dated 23 October 2024 :

« This is missing context. While the state does have more total voter registrations than eligible voters, that number includes voters who are inactive but cannot yet be removed from voter rolls under federal and state laws. The number of active voters is far less than those who are eligible to vote, and experts say there is no reason to believe that widespread fraud will result.

« Still, numerous social media users have suggested these numbers are proof that Michigan is trying to cheat in the 2024 election. Among them is billionaire X owner Elon Musk ... » :

http://apnews.com/article/michigan-voter-rolls-fraud-fact-check-misinformation-3075e2cb1f7d69c27a5181a7e4ea7251

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(Continued …)

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(Continued …)

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You conclude that Trump will win the election, and American democracy will cease to exist.

If that’s what the Americans choose, mhaze, I hope they do it peacefully.

During the 1930s, the combination of the Great Depression and the memory of the tragic losses in World War I contributed to pushing the Americans to choose isolationism.

In his Farewell Address in 1796, President George Washington advocated non-involvement in European wars and politics.

So, if Trump decides to close his borders and the free world finds itself without its protector once again, we in Australia might sadly end up, this time, having to sing the Chinese national anthem.

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