It has
finally happened:
Four years after Florida became the object of international ridicule, officials for the Catholic group Pax Christi USA will place monitors from 30 countries at polls in four Florida counties that were at the center of the 2000 U.S. presidential election dispute.
Jeb's response is priceless:
Florida Gov. Jeb Bush said equating Florida's election system with that of a Third World country was insulting. He also said Florida had put in place machinery and voter education programs that made it a model for the nation.
"This is all part of some politically motivated thing that tries to scare people to somehow think their vote is not going to count," Bush said. "That's hogwash, hogwash."
Is he trying to mimic
Justice Scalia's "quack, quack"? Or perhaps he knows the Bellman's sage advice from Lewis Carroll's
The Hunting of the Snark?
"Just the place for a Snark!" the Bellman cried,
As he landed his crew with care;
Supporting each man on the top of the tide
By a finger entwined in his hair.
"Just the place for a Snark! I have said it twice:
That alone should encourage the crew.
Just the place for a Snark! I have said it thrice:
What I tell you three times is true."
I'm glad to see the subject of election fraud is making it to the Yahoo! front page, but unfortunately, there's no mention of voter intimidation or illegal voter purges. Observe the sanitized worries below:
Florida counties now use paper ballots that are penciled in like standardized tests and read via optical scanners, or electronic touch-screen machines similar to automated bank teller machines.
Some counties have had glitches with the latter. U.S. Rep. Robert Wexler, a Florida Democrat, filed a federal lawsuit on Monday asking a judge to order ballot printers that would produce a paper record in the 15 counties that use touch-screen machines. Without them, he said, there is no way to conduct a manual recount.
Yes, there have been "glitches" (even USA Today had a small article on them), and the ability to perform a manual recount is crucial, but isn't it worth pointing out that there could be widescale hacking from within and without the Republican-owned companies that make these machines? I think so. So do VerifiedVoting.org and Bev Harris of Black Box Voting. And, for that matter, John Kerry.
CNN's coverage back in October was a bit more complete. Maybe we can get some better coverage again, now that we're actually into the election season?