Cross-posted to
Blog and Tan.
Primary question: Why would Dick Cheney ask the question, when asked whether the administration's "surprise" regarding the recent Hamas victory was an intelligence failure, "
Did you guys ever miscall an election here in the United States?"
One item that should be of major concern to Americans these days is voting. The last two Presidential elections have been notable not only for the outcome, but for the method. In 2000, for all practical purposes, we
don't really know who won in Florida. Per the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights, and
reports by investigative reporter Greg Palast, it is clear that thousands of Florida voters were denied the right to vote, and statistically it appears that those denied were disproportionately African-American. It is possible this voter disenfranchisement gave the election to the Republican Party.
In 2004, most people are familiar with this quote by the
CEO Walden O'Dell of Diebold, who was "committed to helping Ohio to deliver its electoral votes to the president next year." Exit polls were also
dramatically off-the-mark. O'Dell
resigned on December 12, and a
class-action lawsuit
alleging securities fraud and the
inability to ensure accuracy of voting machines was announced the next day.
Another was filed January 6. One county in Ohio had to re-vote because
more votes than voters were recorded in the last election in 2005! These facts are not conclusive by any means, but they do raise serious questions about voting integrity.
Though many states are already voting for paper-trail verification, this should be a Federal election requirement, as unless we as a people can be confident in the results of elections, there really is no freedom. It is important to also remember this is not a partisan issue; if a Democratic candidate won with such irregularities, the results would be equally questionable, and you can rest assured that Hannity and Savage would be ranting and raving about them. So because of that, I've placed a prominent link to the
"I Count" coalition, a group supporting a bill (HR 550) to ensure paper-trail and other voting accountability measures.
In other recent election news, there was a somewhat shocking revelation recently from Condoleezza Rice, who "
acknowledged that the U.S. was caught off-guard by the election results" in Palestine where the Islamist organization Hamas won overwhelmingly. With our investment in intelligence, and focus on Islamic militants, it is hard to believe this was really a surprise to the Bush administration--after all, that wouldn't say much for our intelligence gathering. A possible explanation came out in a blurb today, as an addendum to an
article about an interview with Dick Cheney. The article states that "on other subjects, Cheney:"
Declined to characterize as an intelligence failure that the landslide victory of the Militant Islamic Hamas party in Palestinian elections came as such a surprise to the administration. "Did you guys ever miscall an election here in the United States?" he asked.
I have to wonder--is this a backwards way of reinforcing an argument used to support the Diebold voting machines? As in, suggesting that the exit polls' inaccuracy is just as "normal" as the administration's "inaccuracy" with regard to the election in Palestine? I'm thinking we knew more about the election in Palestine than we're letting on, maybe only to provide a talking point in favor of our own electoral status quo.
