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January 07, 2005
Crocodile Tears
In Washington state the governor's race went to the Democrat after a recount where several thousand extra ballots were miraculously found that happened t benefit the Democrat candidate. Of course the number of votes cast in some Democrat dominated precincts was higher than the total population of the precinct, but whatever. Today in the Seattle Post Intelligencer you have people admitting to committing vote fraud by voting for and signing their name in place of their dead spouses on absentee ballots. During the 2004 and previous elections Democrats in Minnesota went from poling place to poling place and registered and voted at each place. In Minnesota you do not have to have any proof you live in the precinct other than a witness who says you do. This same witness can act as a witness for multiple people and this year they had badges identifying them as such so strangers would know who could vouch for them at each precinct. Than there was the questionable election in 2002 during the South Dakota Senate race where Republican John Thune lost a very close race likely due to fraud that was even investigated by the F.B.I..
Senator Barbara Boxer did not cry over any of these cases and yesterday did not object to either Minnesota's or Washington's electoral votes being certified even though there is good evidence of widespread voting fraud in these states. Coincidentally John Kerry won both of these states electoral votes (except for one Minnesota vote which went to John Edwards). But Boxer did cry over Ohio getting its votes certified even though there are no serious allegations of fraud and Bush won Ohio by over a hundred thousand votes. The Democrats probably will not push hard for real voting reforms like this suggestion from Best of the Web:
Those who objected to the election result insisted they knew their effort would not succeed and their purpose was merely to urge Congress to reform the election system. Bring it on, says reader Dave Clark:
I hope the Republicans will respond to the grandstanding of Rep. Stephanie Tubbs Jones and the rest of the Congressional Black Caucus. This is a great opportunity to advance comprehensive election reforms that include some kind of uniform voter ID in every state. Election reforms could eliminate the huge advantage Democrats have in urban areas where there are more voters than the adult census population, like Philadelphia, Milwaukee and St. Louis. It could also track voters who use the absentee ballot provision to vote twice in different states. Could the Democrats win Pennsylvania if voting was cleaned up in Philadelphia?
My basic ideas on what serious voting reform would look like are here. I doubt Senator Boxer will introduce any legislation that comes anywhere near advocating these reforms. Unless she does introduce or at least vote for serious voting reform legislation it will show she is crying because her candidate lost not because she cares about legitimate elections.
Posted by Pete at January 7, 2005 03:58 PM
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