US voters have to decide who is the lesser of two evils

Surprisingly, US news media and many Democratic leaders, including President Obama, have focused on whether it was Russians who hacked the Democratic National Committee. But the key issue should be that a level-playing field did not exist for Sanders during the Democratic primaries, not to mention the party's superdelegates system that further disadvantaged Sanders. And the run-away campaign financing has also cast shadow on the US electoral system.

So far there has been no apology from Democratic leaders to Sanders, not even public acknowledgement of such misdeeds, despite the firing of Debbie Wasserman-Schultz, chairwoman of the Democratic National Committee. On the contrary, Obama and Clinton have both publicly praised Wasserman-Schultz for her outstanding work.

While Democrats and Republicans attack each other during the presidential race, average American voters seem to believe it is a choice between the lesser of two evils, although many passionate Sanders supporters I met vowed to vote for Jill Stein for her similar views and ideals.

A Pew Center poll on July 7 showed that overall satisfaction with the choice of candidates is at its lowest point in two decades. Fewer than half of registered voters in both parties -43 percent of Democrats and 40 percent of Republicans－say they are satisfied with the choices for president.

In a July 14 poll, only 18 percent of registered voters checked the description "someone you admire" for Clinton and 10 percent indicated this for Trump.

If this election is not a vote for the lesser of two evils, then what is it?

The author is deputy editor of China Daily USA. chenweihua@chinadailyusa.com