When dealing with the government, never underestimate the power of stupidity.
That was my thought, too…the MOST plausible explanation is that someone either made a mistake or didn’t know what the law was.
How many someones? In how many counties?
Translation: LA LA LA LA LA LA LA!
We get the message.
56 times?
Once is happenstance, twice is coincidence, three times is enemy action . . .
The instruction to do it probably came from a centralized place, so it was only the mistake of one person. The office staff who carried it out in each place may not have a clue in the world.
I’m pretty sure they’re in a Rubbermaid container in my basement. I’d go down and count them but there’s a bunch of spiders down there. And Jimmy Hoffa.
Dunno about that, Sarah. Campaign workers gossip about issues relative to themselves, just like the rest of us. There is little to no likelihood that they were entirely unaware of the bubbling “scandal”. Hence, we are on pretty safe ground to assume that they were aware of the implications of the actions, we might then conclude that they were instructed, in no uncertain terms, to their actions. I daresay its likely that one or several of them relayed their concerns to the higher-ups, along the lines of “You sure about this, boss?”. So, as simple mistake by one person, a genuine “ooopsy!” doesn’t seem very likely.
The instruction to do it probably came from a centralized place, so it was only the [del]mistake[/del] nefarious action of one person.
And if it was all done pursuant to one circular order from the Secretary of State’s office, why only 56 times, when Ohio has 88 counties?
I think, BG, that you did my job of refuting elucidator’s point! I would not expect that a centralized directive would necessarily be followed in lockstep by each county…I would expect some to follow it, some to question it, some to have already accidently destroyed the records, some to ignore it or procrastinate doing it because they were busy with other stuff, etc., etc. This is how bureaucracies work. A directive is given, and human response to it will be all over the map (as the precincts are reporting, according to the article you linked to, BG).
My guess as to how these things work in the real world is like this: After the 22 months are up, a memo goes out that the records can be destroyed…not that they must be, but that it is legal to do so, and that the precinct can use their judgment on whether or not to do it. Some precincts do it, some figure they’ll get around to it when they need the room, some realize, OOPS…we got rid of them already…guess we weren’t supposed to do that, etc. Some of it may have happened within the 8-day window, some may have happened after the court order went out because of miscommunication within the office, etc.
I work in a 3-person office and we miscommunicate stuff like this sometimes…no doubt in my mind that in the government, this is magnified by about a million percent.
That is an interesting conjecture.
Yah. I’m thinkin’ Karl Rove.
Interesting how?
Why is it that this questions always arise about one state that just barely went to Bush? Why don’t we hear about questions in a state that heavily went to Bush?
I have a question for you.
Assuming all the ballots were destroyed within the narrow eight day window where it was legal to destroy them, do you think the destruction was an entirely innocent, ethical action? Am I batshit crazy for thinking it unlikely that the same bureacracy that brought us the DMV is going to destroy all those ballots so quickly unless somebody had a very strong motive to see them gone?
Even if no crime can be proven beyond a reasonable doubt, shouldn’t this merit serious discussion about how to better improve our electoral system and make it less resistant to the possibility of tampering? Can I at least get you to concede that, Shodan? Throw me a frickin bone here.
From the standpoint of anybody who wants to hypothetically steal an election, there is no advantage to taking such risks in a solid red or blue state like Utah or Massachussetts. The exit polls would be so ridiculously out of wack (10% or more in the opposite direction) that even Fox News would have to admit something doesn’t look right. In comparison, a state with a razor thin margin is trivially easy to nudge in a certain direction.
With no more information than what you stipulate, I can’t see why it would not be.
It seems you are continuing with the same baseless assumption that underlies the whole thing about how there must have been something wrong with the election, because Bush won. There seems to be nothing behind all the manufactured controversy about the 2004 election than that - as Tuckerfan says, why does these questions only arise when the Democrats lose?
You assume, thus, that the election of 2004 was influenced by fraud. You assume also that the destruction or loss of these ballots is also influenced by fraud. You can’t seem to come with any solid evidence of either.
Why do you assume that it might not have been ethical?
If you are saying that we should keep the records until there is no question left that the election was legitimate. As I mentioned earlier, there is never going to be a point at which partisans will cease to question the election, as long as the result remains Bush in the White House until 2009. You had twenty two months to examine the records, with no result. So now you got a court order, after the fact, requiring that the records be retained after the period established by state law. To do, presumably, in the next twenty two months whatever you couldn’t do in the last twenty two. Or (possibly) to try to miscast and mischaracterize the destruction of the records so as to make it appear that something illegal or unethical or shady has gone on. As I said, the mere fact that no evidence exists is enough to convince some of the more ridiculously gullible assholes of the far Left (hi, Evil Captor!) that some dark conspiracy actually rigged the election.
Some of the notes of the Kennedy autopsy disappeared. Therefore, they must have contained the smoking gun proving unquestionably that there was a cover-up.
Some people really reason like that. Some of them have posted to this thread.
Look, Bush won the election, fair and square. Sour grapes and fantasies aren’t going to change anything. It just makes you folks look like idiots.
The day I put any credence into this kind of thing is the day when it starts up about some close election that a Democrat won.
Regards,
Shodan
Do me a favor, then - define “this” in the above sentence.
Regards,
Shodan