Posted on 11/28/2004 9:50:10 AM PST by SmithL
The 2004 election -- arguably the most scrutinized ever held in the United States -- has spotlighted problems with the voting process that are decades old and long overlooked.
Voter intimidation, disenfranchisement, fairness, partisanship of election officials and several other issues are getting the most attention in Ohio, where two lawsuits were filed Friday contesting the counting of provisional ballots and the overall results. But it is citizen groups and individual voters rather than political candidates or parties that are demanding that the problems be addressed.
This lack of trust in the voting system, experts say, has spawned a dynamic voting reform movement with citizens inspecting the election process at nearly every level.
"It's an untenable situation in a democracy that people do not have any trust and faith in the system that determines who our elected leaders are," said Tova Wang, a fellow at the Century Foundation, a New York-based organization known until recently as the Twentieth Century Fund.
A recount will take place in the next few weeks because more than 6,000 people made small donations over the Internet to support such an effort, which proponents say is more about the process than the outcome.
Citizens attending public hearings held throughout the state earlier this month testified about long lines, too-few voting machines and other election day shenanigans at polling places.
Ohio Secretary of State Kenneth Blackwell has been labeled "the new Katherine Harris," the Florida secretary of state during the 2000 election who also faced accusations of election mismanagement. Both those officials were co- chairs of President Bush's election campaigns in their states while in charge of running elections.
(Excerpt) Read more at sfgate.com ...
Isn't it strange we NEVER have any problems with voting when the Democrats win.
We never have problems when Dems win because they see nothing wrong with dead people voting. Now, if the dead vote went to the Republicans, that would be a different story.
Dems know Blackwell is the leading GOP candidate for Ohio.
They know Taft's mismanagement of the state made Ohio volatile this year.
They know they need to pick off a state in "red" to win in '08.
They know if Blackwell is in office and governs as a conservative the chances of picking off Ohio decrease.
Hence, the desire to taint Blackwell's reputation.
This is about '08, not '04. Well maybe not among the lunatic elements of the base, but this is the motivation for the higher ups in the party.
Isn't going to work. Vote count too high. Blackwell did a good job overseeing the election. And if these idiots keep this up they are going to get election reform and it isn't going to benefit the Dems.
"Skepticism spawns broad effort to push voting reform"
Let me fix that for you:
"Democrat losses spawns broad effort to sue way to presidency"
Nobody is pushing for voter reform; they're just trying to figure out a way to further rig the system.
They think at DU that somehow after jesse jackson uncovers the mass fraud in Ohio, kerry will "slither" my word not theirs, out from under his rock and claim the presidency. They think the only fraud and intimidation was against poor democrats, who couldn't stand in line for 8 hours to vote.
They should interview a few people who, like me, think our voting process works just great.
Of course they would never mention voter fraud.
Name one single proven instance of this on the Republican side.
Fine. Let them continue to decieve themselves into oblivion as they attempt to deceive the rest of us. A fair and accurate voting system will only hurt the dims, who have practiced fraud and corruption as a mattter of course for decades. They more they "clean things up" the more we win.
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