You cannot report that the number of polling places in Kentucky were reduced from 3,700 to 200 under a headline that reads voting went relatively smoothly in Kentucky. But that’s exactly what CNN has done:
And NPR:
Also the New York Times:
And the Washington Post:
Interesting that they all used the same “smooth” descriptor, isn’t it? What are the odds that they all coincidentally opted for the same phrasing? Boy, it’s almost as if there’s an intentional, ubiquitous narrative in corporate media…
Anyway, back to Kentucky closing 2,500 polling stations just before a primary election…
If your local polling center were shut down would you drive half an hour to the next nearest location? How about an hour? Two hours? Some might. Most would not. And considering that Kentucky is the 5th poorest state in the country (16.9% of the population lives below the poverty line as of 2018) many voters likely couldn’t afford to make the drive, presuming they even owned a vehicle to do so. By reducing the polling centers so drastically, Kentuckians (or any Americans, really), are more likely to just not bother. That’s how voter suppression works. It doesn’t make it impossible to vote, it strongly discourages it by creating obstacles on the way to the voting booth or by eliminating voting booths entirely.
This is why corporate media giants focus almost exclusively on what % of people voted for each candidate but rarely (if ever) report on what % of voters actually voted at all. Doing so would expose just how undemocratic the United States is, how the wealthy elite actually decide elections, and how voter suppression plays an integral role in this dynamic. For CNN, Fox News, the New York Times, etc. to expose what I’m about to show you would mean exposing their own complicity. The last thing any of these outlets want is for their viewers to learn the truth, hence why they shamelessly release anything from misleading reports to outright fabrications.
REAL NEWS
Below are the six largest counties in Kentucky (every county with 100k or more people), the total number of registered Democrats (SOURCE), and the total who voted in-person in the 2020 Democratic Presidential primary (SOURCE). To be clear, these numbers do not reflect mail-in or absentee ballots, but remain significant data points to illustrate the specific impact of closing 95% of polling stations.
- Boone County
Population: 129,095
Registered Democrats: 34,138
Registered Democrats Who Voted: 1,269 (3.7%) - Fayette County
Registered Democrats: 128,097
Registered Democrats Who Voted: 2,031 (1.6%) - Hardin County
Population: 108,095
Registered Democrats: 40,144
Registered Democrats Who Voted: 2,328 (5.8%) - Jefferson County
Registered Democrats: 354,847
Registered Democrats Who Voted: N/A (pending) - Kenton County
Registered Democrats: 54,235
Registered Democrats Who Voted: 1,788 (3.3%) - Warren County
Registered Democrats: 40,671
Registered Democrats Who Voted: 1,800 (4.4%)
CONCLUSION
Roughly 95% of polling stations were closed in Kentucky and only less than 5% of registered Democrats actually voted in-person. Yet the corporate media across the board reported that this Democratic primary went smoothly because… the lines weren’t too long? Instead of reporting that hardly anyone showed up to vote, the media focused on the wait times for the very few that did.
The death of democracy is anything but smooth. It’s rough and it’s horrifying and it’s a disgrace that more Americans aren’t paying attention to it. Voter suppression must be exposed, as well as the media organizations that are complicit. This problem is widespread and rampant across the country, not just Kentucky. And it’s why Americans can never achieve a peaceful revolution through legal, electoral means. Tack on the exit polls that strongly indicate fraud, the shredded ballots, and voters blatantly purged from the rolls and it has become abundantly clear that this system is too rigged from coast-to-coast for our votes to ever make a meaningful difference.
Some might cite progressive “success” stories, but they are so few and far between that they are a negligible statistic. It’s actually part of the strategy to maintain the status quo. If the elites never allowed a handful like Bernie Sanders, Tulsi Gabbard, AOC, Ilhan Omar, etc. to make it into Congress, then the rigging would draw much more attention. When only a handful of non-corporate politicians are permitted to gain power it inspires false hope, which means we have only false opposition.
Whether these politicians are aware of it or not, they are also strategic cogs of the Establishment machine, the crumbs being fed to the middle-class. In this way our system keeps the public believing that revolution is possible through a voting booth rather than through a populist uprising in the streets.
Don’t believe it.
#REVOLT
