I wrote the WaPo this morning in response to their
article about the blog generated 'conspiracy theories' about the election. I essentially complained that their article missed the point that these irregularties (especially after the debacle of 2000) have eroded faith in the electoral system. I further complained that their tone only further eroded America's trust in the media. Finally, I suggested their time would be better spent 'setting the record straight' and offering up confidence building solutions rather than laughing off legitimate concerns about our democracy.
Their response after the fold...
Thanks for your note.
As someone who has spent more time covering the problems in election
administration than anything else since 1997, I could not agree more that
the sloppiness and poor execution of our elections is a criminal
deficiency. The problem is not machines, but the people who run them
badly. I could go on and on describing the errors I've seen --
double-counted ballots, lost ballots, erased results, miscounts,
flip-flopped explanations. In my story of Oct. 24, I described the
experiences of Ted Selker, co-director of the CalTech-MIT Voting Technology
project
"It's execution," he said. "It's not about the fancy toys. It's real
unlikely that the machine will scam me. It's more likely that an election
official will be so harried that they'll screw up procedures."
Selker has observed poll workers in Los Angeles, Chicago, Fort
Lauderdale and Boston and said he has never been in a precinct more than 30
minutes before seeing volunteers break the rules.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A59554-2004Oct24.html
Our article today was not to say that it's OK for the data to be
unreliable. It addressed the intense flow of e-mails that go a very
important step further to say that
- Kerry won
- the election was stolen
and to point out that the evidence is just not there.
It's my job to track down voting errors and I'll continue to do so. But I
think it's dangerous to have people being told that evidence proves the
election was stolen when there is no such evidence.
Dan Keating