American Election Farce Is Bad News For Democracy

The Great President Franklin D Roosevelt described America as “the arsenal of democracy” during the Second World War.

- Leo McKinstry

Yesterday, the stocks of democratic ammunition were running low, as the count in the highly charged contest between Donald Trump and Joe Biden dragged on.

The fundamental purpose of any democratic process is to deliver swiftly an outcome whose legitimacy is respected by the vast majority of voters. But that is precisely where the system in the United States is failing, amid long delays, media manipulation and accusations of abuse. It will be a severe indictment of American politics if the result ends up being decided by unelected judges in unaccountable courts.

This week is not the first time that the integrity or organisation of a Presidential election has been questioned. In 1960 the Democratic candidate John F Kennedy prevailed in an eyewateringly tight contest against Republican opponent Richard Nixon, thanks to industrialised stuffing of Chicago ballot boxes by city mayor Richard Daley.

Nixon himself was a master of dirty tricks, which he used to destroy George McGovern’s campaign in 1972. At the turn of this century, George W Bush reached the White House after a narrow Republican victory in Florida was fiercely disputed by the Democrats.