You may recall that one; just a decade after nominally waging the Civil War on behalf of emancipation, Republicans condoned a century of Jim Crow in exchange for an unelected president, Rutherford Hayes. It says something about him that the rampant graft permeating his adminisration, rather than the election, earned the moniker "Rutherfraud" (where was he from again...? ) It says something about the GOP that they so quickly sacrificed blacks on the altar of political power. It says something about Southern Democrats that they betrayed both the party and Constitution for the sake of racism. It says something depressing about America that the same two groups who inaugurated Hayes inaugurated Reagan a century later. In that light it is hardly surprising that when the GOP nominee was a single electoral vote from defeat in 2000 (just as in 1876) the FL electoral delegation was contested (just as in 1876) and the Republican candidate was ultimately awarded every single vote needed for victory (just as in 1876.)


I would be genuinely shocked if any Republican electioneering on Bushs behalf in 2004 kept a stack of fliers with a false election day around for nearly a decade just so someone can use it to prove their guilt and their partys, and just as shocked if one allowed that stack to fall into anyone elses hands. That is about as likely as Ford keeping a memo offering Nixon a pardon in exchange for the presidency, then accidentally leaving it out for his cleaning lady to find in the late nineties (probably less likely, given Fords general level of competence.) Whatever did or did not happen, incontrovertible proof of improprieties then is as hard to find now as similar proof LBJ stuffed ballot boxes to get elected to the Senate. At the time, however, there was enough evidence Republican-aligned groups proclaimed false election dates in Democratic-aligned areas, and of interminable voting lines, that Kucinich (who represents the area where most of that is alleged) released a post-election statement referencing constituent complaints about both.

http://www.commondreams.org/views04/1110-31.htm


Like I say, I do not expect to find any decade old stacks of fraudulent election materials lying around now, but if that does not substantiate the claim, it does not disprove it either. If Kucinich lied about it, OH Republicans probably punished him sufficiently by gerrymandering him out of his district.


While I have long been curious how TX goes about selecting the third of "independent" election workers, splitting it 50/50 between the two major parties alone seems like a recipe for oligarchy (but then, republicanism by itself is a good recipe for oligarchy.) Not a trend we should encourage, given that the next election is Robamcare author vs. Robamacare implementer, and the '04 election was Yale alum vs. Yale alum, with Bednarik and Cobb forced to demand (and finance) the OH recount when Kerry would do neither. It is a good example of why I would prefer either of them to Kerry or Bush though.

I had forgotten about Diebold president Wally O'Dells infamous GOP fundraiser promise to "deliver Ohios electoral votes for the president [i.e. Bush]" but that really did not help matters. Between that and Diebolds gaping security holes and lack of a paper trail, their machines should not be used in ANY election. Still and so, no one alleged a machine shortage for OH AS A WHOLE, only Cleveland and (according to Kucinich, who does not represent them) Columbus, AKA "the only parts of OH where people would throw water on Kerry if they saw him on fire." In terms of documentation and substantiation, while the author does not link his data sources (which he claims to be the OH Board of Elections,) the below linked article has a good statistical analysis of Franklin County voting machine distribution. The near-universal rule of thumb is that historically Republican precincts had significantly more voting machines per capita than historically Democratic ones, enough so the survey author claims that, had the distribution been even, "Kerry's plurality would have been 9,971 votes more" IN FRANKLIN COUNTY ALONE.

Given how heavily Bush won the rest of OH, that would probably still not have been enough to overcome his ~130,000 statewide margin, even if the effect were duplicated in Columbus, but the fact remains machine distribution disproportionately favored Republicans. That is hardly justified by explaining distribution was based on past turnout rather than registration, because, as we have often discussed (and as often referenced in what google has turned up on Ohios 2004 election) Republican turnout is typically higher than Democratic, all else being equal. In other words, however practical it may seem, allocating machines based on past turnout rather than registered voters inherently favors the GOP, whether maliciously or "only" incompetently. When done despite a massive urban registration spike, the malice/incompetence is proportionately magnified.

Now that I am in full awful-flashback mode, I also recall reports Blackwell forbade any media oversight of recounts, making the public reliant on various partisan observers for any account of how they were conducted. On that note, the "laziness" involved was, according to Green Party nominee David Cobb (who, along with Lib nominee Michael Badnarik, demanded and paid for the recount,) that election workers deliberately selected precincts to recount on the basis of closely matching the statewide results, rather than randomly (as state law requires.) That is a black eye for both the election process and the major parties whose members made that self-serving (and illegal) decision. It further encourages the already strong reason to believe American politics is no more than two elitist groups with the same selfish agenda, deigning to let the public decide which of them implements it.

http://www.iwantmyvote.com/recount/ohio_reports/#notrandom

With regard to that election though, if the 2000 election irregularities can be summarized as "FL et al." those in 2004 are "OH et al." Just scanning Wikipedias page on it demonstrates that, but also turns up a few other things, like this comment from a NYT article at the time:


http://www.nytimes.com/2004/12/24/national/24vote.html?pagewanted=3&_r=1

Very lucky; he was in line five hours, and two hours after the polls were supposed to close there were still 150 people behind him. Wikipedia claims some OH polls were open until 11PM to allow people in line by 7PM to vote; last I checked, 11-7=4, so, yes, there were people in line many hours, though a cursory glance has not shown any in line ten hours.

The Washington Post printed a similar "anecdote:"



http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A64737-2004Dec14.html

That MSM article also references (whether directly or not, I am uncertain) the findings in the below linked study:


Then, of course, there is the report every article on the OH election mentions: Election workers openly conceding that two dozen machines incorrectly recorded Kerry-votes as Bush-votes, and they do not even know how many times it happened before anyone noticed. That one is right up there with the AZ voter in 2000 who claimed he had to re-enter a vote for Kerry SEVEN TIMES before the machine stopped giving it to Bush.

People who dislike prison do not stuff ballot boxes in 21st Century America; they devise a system disproportionately favoring their side while granting them plausible deniability, then blame their creation for all bias. Believing Democratic election officials would not be culpable in that requires believing the two major parties differ on anything but rhetoric, and I am increasingly unable to suspend my DISbelief that much.


There is a difference between charging for the means of voting and the means of reaching the polling place, since the latter does not actively impede voting. For what it is worth, I do not think absentee ballots should require postage, at least not when a legitimate need for them exists (not that I expect Norway to mail my absentee ballot free of charge, but most absentee ballots are for the military, and sending an absentee ballot through an APO should be free of charge; in many cases, those people have already paid plenty for their right to vote.) However, a marginal fee for repeated replacement IDs is not unreasonable (though the county registrar sent me a new registration card every two years in TX, at no charge.) Most people will not use them more often than once every four (MAYBE two) years anyway.

Apologies for length and tone; I will give you the last word, because if I spend any more time thinking about ya'lls 2004 election I will be in full rant mode. ' />