Why the hell isn’t this major news? Has our nation become so inured to corruption that we don’t bat an eyelash when it seems that yet another election has been stolen? This isn’t a Republican or a Democrat issue, if this is true, this is an American issue. Why are we not demanding clarity and veracity in this matter? Why are those who’ve most vociferously questioned others’ patriotism not in the vanguard?
What the fuck is going on? Are people turned off by the fact that Democratic staff conducted the study? Is there a question out there as to the truth value of its findings?
No one cares because these claims are highly suspect.
If there had been a shadow of verifiable doubt that the outcome in Ohio could change, Senator Kerry’s team of hundreds of lawyers and his built-in Democratic protestor contingent army would have been all over this, filing suits and demanding justice.
This didn’t happen because there’s nothing to see here.
What’s YOUR explanation for why the press and the Democratic Party and the Kerry campaign are silent?
Because any way you slice it he would have lost. Even if by some miracle Kerry did win Ohio the scorched earth battle that would have been required to get there and the fact that Bush had a three million vote lead nationwide would have made a Kerry victory even more controversial than Bush’s was in 2000.
Gotta agree with Bricker here despite his typically snide wording. I’ve no doubt that there are issues that need to be investigated and fixed, both in Ohio and nationwide, but by no means did they decide the election.
A team of crack Bushevik researchers at Halliburton, with help from big drug companies (all big-money donors to the Bushies) developed a genetically modified strain of influenza that causes intense rectal itching and cardiac arrest. The tighty righties then ordered a CIA operative to infect Teresa Heinz Kerry with the virus. Once that was done, it was just a matter of letting Kerry know that the antidote would be made available only AFTER he conceeded the election. This was easy to do using an “auser”–a focused audio beam that can transmit an audio message directly into someones skull. The NSA developed these in the early 80’s, and quickly perfected them to the point that they could fit in a small box, warn just below the shoulders on ones back.
Conyers got a Senator. Barbara Boxer just signed on officially this morning. So congress will be required to debate the issue.
It’s not about Kerry, or overturning the election results. It’s not about winning. It’s about standing up. When’s the last time you saw a Senator do that?
Should be interesting. C-span 1pm eastern, 10am pacific.
Well, that’s why they need to be investigated and fixed, isn’t it? I do sincerely hope that simply because all the concerns with the honesty of this election turned out to more or less ill founded, that these concerns are not now ignored. We need paper trails, validation mechanisms, and so on. I would hope that by the next election the electronic voting systems are more secure and auditible. You’re absolutely right to wonder about the next time, and I do too.
Well, one of the complaints was that voting machines were allocated based on a given precinct’s last turnout, not on the number of registrations or the expected turnout this time. (Not sure how the “expected turnout” was divined; perhaps it was the same formula that decided how many younger cell phone users were not answering the polls).
In any event, the next election should allocate polls based on this one’s turnout, and that should go a long way towards solving the problem of too few voting machines.
Many of the other problems fall into the category of whining. The report complains about Blackwell’s “narrow interpretation” of the provisional ballot law that required provisional ballots to be cast from the correct precinct, but acknowledges that Blackwell’s interpretation was upheld by the Sixth Circuit. Bizarrely, the report acknowledges that the Sixth Circuit upheld Blackwell, but then quotes extensively from the lower court ruling that the Sixth Circuit overturned - and since the Supreme Court refused cert, the Sixth Circuit’s ruling is the law in that circuit. Like or dislike Blackwell’s interpretation, the fact of the matter is that the highest federal court ruled it was correct. So if we’re asking, “What about the next election?” then Blackwell’s rule will stand.
The report complains, legitimately, that Blackwell was being hypertechnical in enforcing a rule about 70 lb bond paper for voting applications, but Blackwell reversed this rule in late September. So if we’re asking, “What about the next election?” then this rule will no longer be a factor, if it ever was.
The report complains about the challenging tactics - trying to discover voters who registered with incorrect addresses. The report notes clearly that a federal district court found the tactics illegal. The Sixth Circuit also reversed that opinion, and the Supreme Court denied cert. (Hmmm… Mr. Conyers seems to quote extensively from court opinions that are not good law.) b]So if we’re asking, “What about the next election?” then the practice is legal and will stand.**
One of the things that I have heard is that every last electoral “mistake” in Ohio was in Bush’s favor. Obviously, random errors would tend to have random results. This charge also impresses me because it would be very easy to refute – trivially easy to refute, if it’s false. Any refutations out there?
