So, we had an election. Can you honestly tell me, with certainty, what the results were? No one can, and no one will. If you can't vote, because your vote can't be counted (accurately,) you have no democracy. If you have no democracy, all else is moot.
Meanwhile, we have gross disenfranchisement going on across the country, and it will go ignored by the Democratic Party. Again. And this time people are telling themselves they will never vote again. This can not go ignored by the Dems, again. There are many African Americans who are so disgusted they may never vote again.
(This is my first diary entry, and it's a long one. There will be no smoking gun or new information in here, so if that's all you are looking for, look elsewhere. Thank you for taking the time to read it.)
First of all, I want to say that we are the party of the majority. In an election such as this, considering George W. Bush is by far the most hated man in America, scratching our heads wondering "what went wrong?" indicates there is a serious problem afoot.
We cannot continue playing politics to the right and sort-of governing to the left. I suspect that if John Kerry said he was 100% in support of gay marriage because he believes it to be a basic civil right, his support would have gone up, not down. OK, maybe that was an extreme example that wouldn't hold true, but you get the point. The biggest problem people had with John Kerry was that he seemed to stand for nothing, not that he was too liberal. Remember, BC04 tried the "liberal" attacks, and his poll numbers did not go down. If the Democratic Party expects to get the support of the people, or myself, it had better get it's act together, and quit playing on the Republican playing field. I am saying this as a warning from a concerned individual, I think it's of vital importance the Dems don't shrug their shoulders and move to the right or nowhere at all. Millions of people are wondering "where the hell is the Democratic Leadership?" They need to take a stand. And now's the time to do it. Onwards to the election.
Let me just mention the disenfranchisement that we have clear evidence of. This needs to be pursued and prosecuted by the Dems. The partisan challengers, the robo-calls, the bogus felon lists, the lines that were likely purposely in place, etc. etc. etc. Here is where we can start taking a stand. This cannot continue, and if we fear the backlash of litigation, THAT is what will scare away voters. It will scare away me, that's for sure. Possibly from the country, if no one but me and a very rare few will dare to stand up for it. Just imagine the Republicans having to defend disenfranchisement. We cannot let this slip away. But there is something just as if not more important on the table as well.
So, the fact that the election could possibly have been fraud or massively innaccurate is a tin-foil-hat issue? Not in my mind, and I think this is one vital issue we need to take a stand, and now. What would the Repubs do if the roles were reversed? They would kick and scream and it would be all over the media. Once again people are wondering, and i've even heard it, personally, "the Dems have no balls, and I cannot continue to support them/join the party."
There are several facts that need to be considered here:
#1 - The exit polls are grossly off, and almost exclusively where electronic machines were being used. If this was any other country, the UN would be extremely skeptical of the official results. International watchers did not say that they were skeptical of the results outright, but that the elections were essentially a disaster. Even the NY Times said itself that exit polls are used to determine the accuracy of an election. If the media were really liberal, they would stand behind their numbers (and not change them at the end to halfway make sense, either.)
Of most obvious skepticism are the results in New Hampshire. The exit polls were 17% for Kerry, and he won with 1%.
#1A - The pre-election polls were also off, quite seriously in a few cases. While this is much more common and explainable, it all adds up. On top of that, polls tend to undercount Democrats, and favor incumbents. Both of which weren't the case with when compared to the "official" results. They also did not count the new registrations which, correct me if i'm wrong, favored Dems in the end. Nevermind the exit polls, for George W. Bush to get the numbers he did with the turnout we saw on election day (the youth vote DID turn out,) taking into account the polls, it just doesn't add up, once again. I'd like to hear Zogby's opinion on this.
#2 - The various machines used have many, many problems (that are quite serious) reported with them (yet generally speaking the SCLM have continued to either ignore it or even say they are operating well.) There have been several documented incidents of machine miscalculations/tabulations, all of which, when applicable, inexplicably favor Bush.
#3 - There is something very wrong in the State of Florida. This has been described in depth. There are so many numbers that just don't add up, and this is not the first time either. We have Dems voting ~80% for Bush, and this still doesn't make sense in places where we take the "Dixicrat" factor into account. We have more votes for President than we have voters. The 2002 election there was completely and utterly out of control, downright ludicrous, and still nothing happened. The Dems need to stand up in Florida, or many, many people will never vote there again. As the numbers come in, there is yet more evidence of fraud or malfunction. I am still waiting for someone to analyze the numbers, as they become available, and say that the numbers in Florida are statistical proof of machine error or fraud (yes, there is such a thing as statistical proof. Remember, genetic evidence, used sometimes alone to send people to jail or death, is nothing more than a statistical probability.)
#4 - The software used to tabulate votes, the software we have available to us at least, is extremely vulnerable to fraud, and has been leaked to the public. It doesn't even take a halfway decent hacker to alter the votes. Some of these machines are connected to the world via modem. This is insane, and makes hacking extremely easy.
None of these facts are evidence of fraud, a willfull cheating on the part of the Bush/Cheney '04 Campaign. However, I think taken together, they are clear evidence of a likely malfunction OR fraud that could have possibly given Bush the election. That does not make this a tin-foil-hat issue! Saying that BC '04 committed fraud, period, yes, that could be considered tin-foil-hat, as we have yet to have concrete prosecutable evidence. However, saying that these machines can not be counted on to accurately count votes, and that the results from 2004 are questionable at best, is a fact, and one that needs to be emphasized, and addressed.
I will tell you what's a tin-foil-hat belief. Believing that BC04 wouldn't steal the election if they thought they wouldn't win, saying that the people in power wouldn't cheat to keep that power if they had to, when they easily can do it, now THAT'S tin-foil-hat.
This issue is fading and it's scaring the crap out of me. We cannot let this go ignored. Calling fraud is definitely pre-mature, but saying we should take the vote-count as-is, is not only not intelligent, it's extremely dangerous. (i've even seen, on the front-page no less, in-depth analysis of it!) Part of the problem is the "we-need-it-now!" attitude towards the results. That's just asking for problems.
If we cannot trust in an accurate vote count, we have no democracy. If we have no democracy, what our party should do, what we should do, it's all moot. We are left in a dictatorship. And if we are left in a dictatorship, if we let this just slide by, again, I will change my mind on staying and fighting for the country I believed in.