Remember all that hype about how vulnerable electronic voting booths were, and how sure we were to have a repeat of 2004 where votes would mysteriously disappear? Remember how certain everyone was that there would be lawsuits left and right suing states for allowing these hackable machines to count votes? Well wheres all that hoopla now? Where's all those dead persons voting from ACORN? Wheres the mismatching Diebold vote counts? Wheres that signature Republican fraud we were waiting for? Aren't we supposed to be up in arms claiming our Presidency has been stolen?!?
It sure seems as if, for the first time in recent memory, we've apparently had a clean, untampered election. In an age where it seems anyone who can mess with technology, will, it looks like we can finally trust democracy to truly represent the wishes of the people, not the corporations. Funny enough, it was the Republicans, who just happened to be losing big in every poll, who were developing the fear of stolen elections this year. Like in February, when Fixed Noise was already airing segments devoted to proving just how vulnerable we were to voter fraud:
The day before Election Day, Fixed Noise was happily displaying a piece on how "we should all be worried about the upcoming voter fraud!" Then, the morning of the election, before polls had even opened, the RNC was already preparing to sue over a possibility of computer voter fraud, presumably just in case the election was tight and they could stretch out their hopes of stealing it again. Not a single instance of computer hacking or mismatched results had been found during early voting, and yet they were already assembling a team of lawyers "just in case"...
When looking back, actual occurrences of voter fraud are so rare, its difficult to collect much of a basis for the fear mongering. David Morris recently wrote a great article describing how the term "Voter Fraud" is actually a means of voter suppression. Any time an election may be close, those most likely to lose are often quick to bring up the theory that they'll lose because someone made sure it would happen (yes, even Democrats are sometimes guilty of this, though there's usually at least some reason behind the claim, say missing votes in 2004 Ohio). If they're lucky, this will convince enough people that their vote won't count, so they might as well stay home. And if that claim doesn't stick, they then turn towards voter intimidation, always looking for a reason to validate their claim that they should have won.
And yet, here we are. Election week has passed, and there's no cries of "foul", no frivolous lawsuits, and the one race with even the slightest hint of impropriety is being properly handled with an automatic recount led by a well-established guide for determining voter intent (I'm operating under the assumption that Alaska might actually be odd enough to vote for a felon...). Typos have been cleared up, missing votes are being accounted for, and there's no senate investigation going on of how ACORN stole an election. There's no Katherine Harris overusing her power to steal the Presidency. There's no hour long news segments devoted solely to explaining what went wrong, and how the system needs to be fixed.
The fact of the matter is, America voted, and her people's votes were counted. The democratic process prevailed, and although I live in Texas where my presidential vote hardly made an impact, I strongly believe my vote [was] counted. We finally have someone who truly cares for the people. Someone who wants to help the average American, instead of Big (fill-in-the-blank). I'm proud to have taken part in a true government "of the people, by the people, for the people." What a great time to be an American!