Something that always bothers me during election time, even in leftist spaces, is the lack of any discussion of direct election tampering. In addition to voter suppression and gerrymandering and such, we know electronic voting machines are seemingly designed for the purpose of tampering, and the dem primaries were blatantly rigged with shitty apps, coin flips, and "rouding errors" that somehow all went for establishment candidates. So, are we really sure any vote totals are legit, or is it a giant psy-op whose results are tailored to produce the preferred political climate for capital?
If voting mattered you wouldn't be allowed to do it.
Well there are all sorts of efforts at voter supression, so...
I just commented on this exact thing the other day, here's my take:
I’ve seen this exchange a bunch of times, and I think it’s interesting. At first blush, it seems maddeningly circular. Basically, if voting could effect change, those in power wouldn’t allow voting. This implies that the presence of electoral mischief is proof of the efficacy of voting. Meaning, the more voter suppression or fraud you see, the more powerful voting must be. You can guess where this kind of shit ends up, and yes, I have literally seen a lib suggest voting out electronic voting machines because the vote totals can’t be trusted.
The solution is simple, instead of “if voting mattered they’d fuck with voting” it should be “voting doesn’t matter because they fuck with voting.” Before it was gerrymandering, closing polling places and hacking voting machines it was property ownership and race requirements, it’s just the modern way of ensuring the ruling class gets it preferred outcome.
Take all the money, voter supression, and election tampering away for a minute. How much farther left would our politics be?
Capitalists have to massage elections to frustrste the popular will. They can't ignore it completely because they have to maintain the pretext that we're a functioning democracy. Voting matters because there are limits to how far capitalists can go.
This fact means that there is every incentive for capitalists to bring electoral politics under its direct control. So suppose you had methods of manipulation like gerrymandering, voter purging and such, but you innovated a way to get direct control over results, by replacing paper ballots with electronic machines, say. You would still need to monitor and pander to the public, in the manufacturing consent style of vigorous debate within tightly controlled bounds (mainstream electoral politics), but you would never need to worry about the public getting out of hand, you could tailor the results and the partisan reactions and rationalizations. That's why it's conspiracy theory hours, it's kind of unproveable.
Exactly, those efforts make your vote matter next to nothing.
Voting determines how much effort it takes to alter the results, and there are limits on the ability to do that.
Perception matters as well. A ham fisted system of control might be more robust short term but eventually gets overthrown, a system that dupes you into believing that shitty outcomes are just a matter of bad luck and you should just try harder within the given framework next time and next time, and next time is much more sustainable. Just like how casinos are more profitable than street robbery.