Can We Try Again?

As the LWL (Ladies Who Lunch) Gang can attest, I have long held the opinion that the 2004 election was "fixed." They have listened to me rant about this topic on many (some might say, too many) occasions, expressing my deeply held belief that there was fraud in Ohio and Florida (again). However, I despaired about ever finding out the truth, because of paperless electronic voting. Remember, the CEO of Diebold promised to carry Ohio for Bush -- and he did -- by hook or by crook. I, of course, believe it was the latter. Unfortunately, I feel that this is one of those mysteries that we might not uncover in my lifetime, akin to who killed Kennedy or learning the true identity of "Deep Throat."

Robert Kennedy, Jr. has tackled this topic in an in-depth article published in the Rolling Stone, Was the 2004 Election Stolen?. The article is lengthy, but should be required reading. It's a good, albeit disturbing, read for a rainy day. He of course can't prove fraud, but he makes a compelling case. Kennedy observes:

For the second election in a row, the president of the United States was selected not by the uncontested will of the people but under a cloud of dirty tricks. Given the scope of the GOP machinations, we simply cannot be certain that the right man now occupies the Oval Office.

For the "Cliff Notes" version, read CorrenteWire.

As Bob Herbert of the NY Times, who wrote a column on this issue in Those Pesky Voters, summarized it:

Republicans, and even a surprising number of Democrats, have been anxious to leave the 2004 Ohio election debacle behind. But Mr. Kennedy, in his long, heavily footnoted article ("Was the 2004 Election Stolen?"), leaves no doubt that the democratic process was trampled and left for dead in the Buckeye State. Mr. Kerry almost certainly would have won Ohio if all of his votes had been counted, and if all of the eligible voters who tried to vote for him had been allowed to cast their ballots.

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No one has been able to prove that the election in Ohio was hijacked. But whenever it is closely scrutinized, the range of problems and dirty tricks that come to light is shocking. What's not shocking, of course, is that every glitch and every foul-up in Ohio, every arbitrary new rule and regulation, somehow favored Mr. Bush.

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The lesson out of Ohio (and Florida before it) is that the integrity of the election process needs to be more fiercely defended in the face of outrageous Republican assaults. Democrats, the media and ordinary voters need to fight back.

The right to vote is supposed to mean something in the United States. The idea of going to war overseas in the name of the democratic process while making a mockery of that process here at home is just too ludicrous.

This has been something I've wanted to write about since I first saw the Kennedy piece. I then saw an interview on the Colbert Report, with Bobby Kennedy Jr. on voter fraud, that reminded me to do this post.

(Cartoon via My Left Wing)

Tags: News, Politics, Election, Kennedy, Video, Colbert Report