Saturday, January 21, 2006

What If They Held An Election And...

...nobody showed up to vote? After the 2000 election, it was shown that Al Gore, not George Bush, won in the State of Florida. In essence, the wrong person took the oath of office for the presidency in January 2001.

Editor Joel Bleifuss, writing for In These Times, shows that potential voter fraud and/or tampering was readily evident in 2004 as well.
Concerned about reports of election fraud and vote suppression in the 2004 election, Rep. John Conyers (D-Mich.), the ranking Democrat on the House Judiciary Committee, asked the Government Accountability Office (GAO), the investigative arm of Congress, to examine the allegations. In September, the GAO released a report that found electronic voting systems "have caused local problems in federal elections--resulting in the loss or miscount of votes." In the 2004 general election, about 64 percent of voters cast ballots on one of two types of electronic voting systems: optical scan systems, which read marked paper ballots, and direct recording electronic systems (DRE), which have a touchscreen that voters use to make their choice.

The GAO highlights one major problem with electronic voting systems: They can be hacked because of woefully inadequate security systems.
What's the point in voting if we have no confidence our votes will be recorded accurately. It becomes nothing more than a grand charade!

Who's to blame for this problem? Both the Republican AND Democratic Parties! And, in my book, the Democrats are the most culpable.

Strong evidence exists that Al Gore carried Florida in 2000 and John Kerry actually carried Ohio in 2004. However, in both cases, the Democratic Party BACKED AWAY from a fight that would have delivered the presidency to them. In each case, they could have made a stand for the integrity of our voting system and, in both cases, they walked away.

1 comment:

  1. Democrats. Feh. Look at what happened to Harry Reid last week. His office sends out a strongly worded but accurate memo about Republican corruption. The GOP starts screaming ... and he apologizes! Democratic politics in a nutshell. And even the apology doesn't stop the bloodcurdling screams from the Right. They want to bring HIM up on ethics charges now.

    I'm completely disenchanted with American politics, but even a blasé observer like me can see that the GOP knows how to fight effectively, cheating whenever necessary, and the Dems do not. High road, shmigh road. Are they going to win, or not? They have learned nothing.

    I believe the electoral system has been corrupted. Votes in elections that matter don't count - literally. The Democrats will NOT take back the House this year, and surely not the Senate. The Republicans know which races are close and which ones they have to win, and they will make damn sure a little thing like "the will of the people" doesn't get in the way.

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