Many thanks to Tim Hodge for sending me the link to this Rolling Stone article penned by Bobby Kennedy, Jr about election fraud in 2004. And you thought this was a dead issue.
The article alleges that “in Ohio alone, at least 357,000 voters, the overwhelming majority of them Democratic, were prevented from casting ballots or did not have their votes counted in 2004 — more than enough to shift the results of an election decided by 118,601 votes.” These are not new allegations, but the thoroughness with which they are documented is new to me. Most striking in my mind are the various kinds of evidence accumulated.
Not only were the exit polls statistically almost impossibly far off in a number of places, but comparisons of votes for presidential candidates didn’t always resemble those cast for other related candidates and measures. That is, in 12 counties in Ohio, “a liberal black judge who supports gay rights and campaigned on a shoestring budget” pulled more votes than Kerry. By 10%. In the rest of the state, he outpolled her by 32%. Furthermore, “Statewide, the president outpolled Thomas Moyer, the Republican judge who defeated Connally, by twenty-one percent. Yet in the twelve questionable counties, Bush’s margin over Moyer was fifty percent.” According to Kennedy, “If Kerry had maintained his statewide margin over Connally in the twelve suspect counties…he would have bested her by 81,260 ballots. That’s a swing of 162,520 votes from Kerry to Bush — more than enough to alter the outcome.” Here’s a graphic overview.
In addition to exit polls and down-ticket candidate performance, Kennedy also cites evidence relating to actions taken by Blackwell, a GOP “strike force” targeting minority voter registrations, other bureaucratic (and probably illegal) barriers to registration, election workers refusing to give out provisional ballots, inequitable distribution of voting machines causing long lines in Democratic areas, faulty equipment, and questionable recounts.
It’s all very disturbing, not only because of the outcome, but because one has to then wonder — what can we do about this? After the 2000 election, an “Election Assistance Commission” was set up “to oversee ongoing reform of American voting.” Rolling Stone has a disheartening interview with the first chair of that commission, Republican DeForest Soaries.
Also from Rolling Stone, Howard Dean says:
What are we going to do about it? It’s frustrating because we don’t control the levers of power. This is going to be a very critical election in 2006. We’re very aware that there’s huge potential for additional mischief in 2006. We have no doubt that some of the folks who were active in vote suppression will be active again. It’s very, very difficult to deal with it. We just have to keep pushing forward doing the best we can. The real question is why the mainstream media won’t write about this.
Short of having the U.N. send in international observers to monitor our elections, Howard Dean is right in that there is nothing much that can be done to prevent all instances of tampering, which has probably occurred throughout the history of our nation (e.g. some have said Joe Kennedy paid his mob buddies to swing Illinois and West Virginia to his son in 1960). I think the issue of election tampering has received more media attention of late because of how close the presidential races have been the past two times. The media probably is quiet on election tampering because, once we find out one election is rigged, then all of them potentially could be rigged, which could spur a serious crisis.
Honestly, the best (and perhaps only) way to foil election tampering is winning by bigger margins.
While I agree that election tampering has been and is pervasive, I don’t think that means we should tolerate it. Sometimes it takes a crisis to bring about change. This needs to change.
We had a crisis in 2000, and honestly I don’t think much has changed since then. There are some measures we can take to make elections more tamper-resistant — electronic voting machines, like I have where I live, are one — but those things cost money that local governments aren’t willing or can’t afford to spend. And even if we implement such measures, which would help with the questionable ballot counting, they would not address the voter registration issues and some of the other dirty tricks. I suppose you could say you are going to crack down on these things, but I imagine such violations are difficult to prove.
I re-read what I wrote earlier, and I want to clarify something (serves me right for attempting to write in a pre-coffee state). I agree election tampering should not occur, and I didn’t mean to dismiss the idea of reform in this area. However, I believe that we need to first address other, larger elections issues — for example, gerrymandering, which has a far larger impact on elections than tampering ever has — that have more obvious solutions.