A federal judge denied a request by third-party presidential candidates who wanted to force a recount of Ohio ballots even before the official count was finished.
Judge James G. Carr in Toledo ruled Tuesday that the candidates have a right under Ohio law to a recount, but said it can wait. The judge wrote that he saw no reason to interfere with the final stages of Ohio’s electoral process. Officials have said the results will be certified by December 6.
This is, of course, going hand in hand with the race-baiting and fear-mongering led by John Conyers, Maxine Waters, and the usual suspects, who are doing everything they can to deligitimize the 2004 election. Their letter to the GAO:
“We write with an urgent request that the GAO immediately undertake an investigation of the efficacy of voting machines and new technologies used in the 2004 election, how election officials responded to the difficulties they encountered, and what we can do in the future to improve our election systems and administration.”
Particular concerns brought up are:
-The almost 4,000 votes awarded to Bush in Columbus, Ohio, reported by the AP, which was only noticeable because more votes were recorded in the precinct than there were registered voters.
-Votes lost on a local initiative in Florida because the computer could only store so many votes.
-Apx. 4,500 votes lost in one North Carolina county.
-A glitch in San Francisco computers which caused many votes to be uncounted.
-Florida’s anomalous results where only districts with touch screen voting had disproportionate votes for Bush than expected. This analysis has since
been duplicated by a UC Berkeley professor and others.-AP reports in Florida and Ohio of voters who stated when using touchscreens, when they selected “John Kerry,” that instead “George Bush” would appear on the screen.
-Long lines in urban Ohio areas, to the point where voters left in frustration after 8 or so hours. But that’s not all. The second letter, dated, November 8th, reported additional incidents.
-3,000 phantom votes were added by a Nebraska “vote tabulator” which doubled the votes.
-22,000 North Carolina votes which later had to be added because the computer initially discarded them due to system overload.
-21 voting machines in Broward County, Florida, malfunctioned, eliminating prior votes that had been cast on them in this most-Democratic county in the state.
-Warren County, Ohio’s, bogus refusal allow independent monitoring of vote counting based on a terrorist incident which turned out later to not exist.
-Malfunctioning vote cassettes in Palm Beach, FL.
-Boxes of absentee votes discovered after the election in a Broward County election office.
Notably, nine (9) out of the current 14 supporters are members of the Congressional Progressive Caucus (CPC). They are Barbara Lee (who is a leader of the Caucus), along with John Conyers, Jerold Nadler, Melvin Watt, Tammy Baldin, George Miller, John Olver, Bob Filner, and Jan Schakowsky. According to the CPC website, there are currently 55
congressional members on the Progressive Caucus. For a list of members, see: http://bernie.house.gov/pc/members.asp
No election is perfect, and were this an effort to truly aid the creation of an error and nusiance free electoral system, who would be against it. The fact of the matter is that this is not the intent. The intent is to whip up racial animosity, to encourage the myth that the election, ‘just like in 2000,’ was stolen, and that there was widespread vote fraud and voter disfranchisemnet.
The Democratic party, or at least the fringes of the party that I despise, has devolved from a coherent ideology to a melange of victims groups- a cult of victimhood that values propaganda over logic and reason.
You tell me- which is more damaging:
1.) Naturally ocurring and regrettable voter irregularities of no over-all significance in reghards to the outcome of an election.
2.) Systematic efforts by one party to convince large portions of the electorate that their vote did not count, will not count, and never will count because of evil, insidious plots designed to disenfranchise minorities and poor people.
Justin O.
Didn’t Walden O’Dell CE of the Diebold machines state he was, “committed to helping Ohio deliver its electoral votes to the president next year.”?
Dorian
The same
Justin O.
That software is so easy to hack into. Why is it used in the first place? The fail-safe was disproven before another Stanley Kubrick like film could be made.
Terry
What on earth does this mean? “The fail-safe was disproven before another Stanley Kubrick like film could be made.” Coked up already??
S.W. Anderson
Some folks do still feel bruised because of what happened in 2000, no doubt about it. They have legitimate reasons.
Some folks have living memories of decades past when they were subject to real, old-fashioned, “get the hell out of here, boy” bigotry in action when they even thought about voting. You can call that eternal victimhood. I call it regrettably understandable. In fact, there was attempted intimidation in Florida this year.
In the current situation, e-voting machines are perfect setups for “irregularities” because they’re poorly conceived, poorly designed and poorly made. Many people, myself included, won’t have confidence in them until the problems are acknowledged and much better machines are put in place.
To top it off, the CEO of a major producer of e-voting machines is rabidly Republican and was, by his own statement, intent on “doing everything in my power” to get George W. Bush re-elected.
Tell me, if you had a boss and found out from a reliable witness that he’d made a statement, “I’ll do anything in my power to keep John from getting promoted, ever,” how would you feel about your job and your future at your place of work? I’ll bet your lack of any further trust in getting a fair break there would have you looking for another job, pronto.
Last but not least, bear in mind that he who goes up at some point comes down. There will come a day when Republicans are down, getting kicked and feeling as though if they didn’t have bad luck they wouldn’t have any luck at all. Expect them to feel suspicious about questionable elections and irregularities too.
Al Maviva
If we really want to get pecunious about voting, I’m all fucking for it. Let’s have federally verified voter ID cards with fucking biometrics, and printed receipts for each vote cast. What’s that – you don’t want a voter ID card SW? Why’s that? It would take away too much advantage in New York, Bah-ston, Chi-Town and St. Louis?
I’m willing to ignore massive Dem corruption in the urban political machines, if y’all on the left are willing to STFU about far-fetched conspiracies. The fact is, lost votes are like blocked pores. Most bodies function pretty good, but if you pick at a single blocked pore long enough, eventually you’ll be bleeding profusely out of what should have been a tiny flaw in the system. Same thing with voting – y’all are hell fired up about counting every vote, but your goddam crack-for-vote schemes and pre-loaded Philly vote fraud disenfranchises Republicans – every vote y’all steal, negates a vote from the other side. That’s disenfranchisement just as sure as a Jim Crow law, the only difference is it’s harder to ascertain the identity of the particular person disenfranchised.
When it comes right down to it, none of this controversy from the left is about counting every vote, and all people getting an equal chance to ahve a say. It’s about seizing power any way necessary (including highly selective recounts with floating standards for what actually counts as a cast vote) and if it involves destroying faith in self-government, then that’s just fine as long as the Dems are left in power when the whole thing falls apart. I’ve had it with this “count every vote” bullshit, because it’s a one-way street every time the Dems bring it up. It’s all about gaming the system to get Dems into office. Sorry, but there it is.
Terry
I second much of what Al has posted. One needs only to think of the selfless and patriotic act of Richard Nixon, of all people, in not challenging what was demonstrably voter fraud in Chicago in 1960 because, as he put it: He didn’t want to put the country through such a divisive period. Contrast that attitude with the selfish, slimey, disgusting attitude of Al Gore and his coterie of thugs in 2000 and far too many leftish idiots in 2004, when there is not even a scintilla of serious question about the validity of the voter count.
Joe Schmoe
Al said it all.
“There was attempted intimidation in Florida this year?”
I call bullshit. Where is your proof? I hear Jesse Jackson, who I otherwise respect, make this outrageous charge every four years. He’s a fucking liar as far as I am concerned, becuase he has never ONCE produced a single shred of proof.
There are always stories about police officers checking black voters for ID, etc. Well, I know plenty of black politicians. I can tell you that if this were to happen in any of their districts, they would raise holy hell. You think Maxine Waters or Cynthia McKinney would just sit on their hands if the police were checking ID’s down at a local polling place? No way. There’d be camera crews, demonstrations, pictures…
Yet we never see any of that. There are only vague RUMORS and mutterings about a vast conspiracy.
That’s not good enough. Show me the proof.
And for your information, I myself voted electronically on a Diebold machine — in LOS ANGELES COUNTY, California.
Do you really think that LOS ANGELES COUNTY, which is 100% controlled by Democrats, would buy Diebold’s machines if they could be fixed? Lots of other urban counties buy them too.
Voter intimidation and fraud is a serious charge. Unless you have some facts to back it up, it is incumbent on you to keep quiet.
Justin O.
Just referring to Dr. Stranglove Terry that’s all.
SDN
SW, no response? Not surprising. Here in AL, Republicans pushed for some form of voter ID. Every year, Democrats, especially Black Democratic race warlords, like Alvin “Sharpton-clone” Holmes, D-Montgomery, would start screaming racism. The best thing to come out of 2000 is that we finally got some form of voter ID. Not the best; we still can’t require a photo ID; hell, they’ll still take phone bills. And of course they take provisional ballots. But it’s a start.
Kimmitt
If voter ID discussions actually were about possible fraud instead of making it harder to vote, I’d care.
No election is perfect, and were this an effort to truly aid the creation of an error and nusiance free electoral system, who would be against it.
The Republican Party, of course. If they weren’t, we’d all just use Oregon’s system.
jacitelli
Kimmit,
Please explain to me how showing a photo ID, or some sort of id makes it harder to vote? Im curiuos.
Kimmitt
There are two problems:
1) If you’ve moved and haven’t gotten a new drivers’ license yet (which you are not required to do), you may not have a photo ID with your current address on it.
2) People who are ignorant of the requirements will be turned away. This is more or less the definition of making it more difficult to vote.
The set of people who don’t necessarily have time to keep their drivers’ licenses current, don’t necessarily have time to stand in line twice after going home to fetch their stuff, and/or aren’t necessarily fully conversant with the details of election law happens to skew heavily Democratic. Which is why this is such a partisan issue.