Horace Cooper comments on the dichotomy between our uncertain election and the Democrats' hand-wringing over the victory of Pres. Bush in Ohio:
It is a tale of two cities that shows political posturing at its worst. Democrats in Washington, D.C., protest irregularities in the November presidential election while remaining silent about problems in Washington State where, by most accounts, a real travesty has occurred.Hat tip: Cheryl in Seattle.Where is the provocative and inflammatory rhetoric from Democrats concerned about voter intent or insuring that "every vote count?" Apparently what Sen. Barbara Boxer, (D-CA) called a "matter of electoral justice" when it involved President Bush's decisive 100,000-vote plus win over Sen. John F. Kerry in Ohio is irrelevant in the other Washington, when Gregoire's current margin of victory is less than 130 votes out of 2.9 million cast.
UPDATE: Here's another comprehensive post at My Two Common Cents.
Posted by Brian Crouch at January 17, 2005 09:57 AM | Email ThisThere now are questions of voter fraud in Wisconsin, Michigan and Washington State.
This is a sleeper story that could be very big.
Posted by: jaybo on January 17, 2005 10:10 AMThis leaves me with a couple of questions:
(1) Does anyone have more recent news about this?
(2) Has anyone heard our WA state elections officials say they hoped criminal prosecutions would result here? ... or are we just too nice for that kind of thing?
http://www.freep.com/news/mich/register23e_20040923.htm
Overzealous or unscrupulous campaign workers in several Michigan counties are under investigation for voter-registration fraud, suspected of attempting to register nonexistent people or forging applications for already-registered voters, election and law enforcement officials said Wednesday.Posted by: Boonie on January 17, 2005 10:35 AMOfficials in Wayne, Oakland, Ingham and Eaton counties have been contacted about the problem, which appears to be an outgrowth of unprecedented efforts by political interest groups to register thousands of new voters before the November election.
State Elections Director Christopher Thomas said he hoped criminal prosecutions would result. Thomas, who has held his post for more than 20 years, said the scale of voter-registration drives this year and the irregularities were like nothing he had seen before.
First, as with most big cities, the Democrat machine, with all of it's vote-stealing apparatus firmly in place, controls Cleveland.
Second, Ohio has a strong and outspoken Republican Secretary of State, J. Kenneth Blackwell, whose job includes overseeing elections in Ohio. Much to the consternation of Ohio Democrats, Mr. Blackwell anticipated what the Democrats were up to, and issued some directives two months before the election that put a serious crimp in the Democrats' planned efforts to steal the election for Kerry. These directives related to strictly enforcing the regulations about late registrations, because it was apparant that the Democrats were going to flood the roles with dubious last-minute registrations. Mr. Blackwell thereafter strictly interpreted and enforced the rules about late regisrations and provisional ballots. In effect, Mr. Blackwell sniffed out the Democrats' vote fraud plan and busted them before they could do it. The regulations Blackwell issued and enforced also had to do with the precise weight and thickness of ballots. Enforcing the weight and thickness rules made it much easier to regulate the election, and to protect the election's integrity from fake ballots.
The Democrats in Ohio have been apoplectic ever since, because their plans to steal the election were thwarted.
The fact that Mr. Blackwell is African-American further sends the Democrats into a mouth-foaming frenzy.
Near as I can tell, that's the long and short of the Ohio election.
Posted by: jay bird on January 17, 2005 11:19 AMDemocrats want to make voting simple, easy and unrestrictive to encourage participation by minorities, students, the homeless and legally approved felons -- in short anyone who meets the barest MINIMUM test of citizenship.
If Republicans would have their way, based on all of the contributions to this website, the only people allowed to vote would be white male property owners who are also career military officers! Then, and only then, would we have real "democracy."
In fact, I'm sure if you took a poll of most of the contributors to this website, they would enthusiastically support the original voting rights embedded in the US Constitution: which were white male property owners, with blacks, Indians and others counted as 3/5 of a person.
Women? Oh yeah. Republicans would permit women to vote, provided they were married, over 40, had no interest in reproductive rights and signed a pledge to endorse all Republican social policies!
While my tongue is planted firmly in my cheek here, I actually don't think I'm too far off the mark.
GOP Electoral Reform: EXCLUSIONARY policies to make it as difficult to register and vote as possible.
Dem. Electoral Reform: INCLUSIONARY policies to make it as simply and easy to register and vote as possible.
Posted by: Nelson on January 17, 2005 11:36 AM
Bottom line:
Democrats want the loosest rules possible so that anyone and everyone can vote, knowing that will ultimately increase their numbers and that they can slip in extra votes where needed.
Republicans want as many legitimate voters as possible. Contrary to what your email from Moveon.org says, they don't want to suppress anyones votes, they just want every vote to be legal.
(From Nelson's post)
"When the Democrats talk about it, it is to INCLUDE as many legal voters as possible."
"Democrats want to make voting simple, easy and unrestrictive to encourage participation by minorities, students, the homeless and legally approved felons -- in short anyone who meets the barest MINIMUM test of citizenship."
This is a classic example of the Orwellian term.
What all of this really means can be seen in the results of Wisconsin, Michigan and Washington.
It is a blatent attempt to re-establish the machine politics of the previous century because they now understand that they no longer represent the majority in America.
Posted by: jaybo on January 17, 2005 12:01 PMNelson omits the L- word because...we all know why.
It's humorous that Nelson weakly attempts to grab the high ground at a time he ought to be hanging his Left-Wingnuts in shame!!!
No one will ever convince Nelson anything wrong happened in this election.
The Dems will rue the day they pushed for the hand recount and what they have done in the aftermath. Washington, Wisconsin, Michigan, Ohio and other states are now on to the Leftist tactics. I call them Leftist because they wouldn't make a pimple on a good Democrats rear-end.
The upcoming depositions of Dean Logan, Bill Huennekens, their entire staff, and Paul Berendt ought to be put on CourtTV, don't you think? After all they are public servants, except for Paul. And when Paul starts blubbering when asked the tough questions, CourtTV Ratings will skyrocket!!
Posted by: Mr. Cynical on January 17, 2005 12:41 PMhttp://news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/ap/20050117/ap_on_re_us/mlk_day_kerry
He would do well to concern himself with the voting irregularities in Washington State as well, seeing that the margin of victory in our case was not 110 thousand votes. Oops, I forgot, a Democrat came out on top in Washington State, so that must be different!
Every fraudulent vote which is cast disenfranchises a legitimate voter.
The Republicans seek to minimize the number of legitimate voters who are disenfranchised by those who vote fraudulently. They are consequently prone to discriminate against would-be voters who are fictitious, non-human, dead, underage, or otherwise ineligible to vote. Apparently this is considered a bad thing.
Posted by: supercat on January 17, 2005 03:45 PM