As Cheney put it in his own nasty way, if Kerry can’t stand up to
Howard Dean, “how can we expect them to stand up to Al Qaida?” For that
matter, how can we expect him to stand up to Karl Rove?
Why was the Kerry campaign not ready for this contingency in Ohio?
Why were they not ready with the simple message, “Your vote doesn’t count until it’s counted”?
Why didn’t we already lay down a media ground war over the past four years to win the idea that every vote should be counted, regardless of whether it would affect the outcome,
on sheer principle? Isn’t it worth counting every ballot for the sake
of literally having your vote count? Do baseball games stop because
it’s “statisically impossible” to come back from a 30-0 deficit in the 9th inning? (I take back everything I said about Election 2000 griping, except for our inability to develop a counter-punch after 4 years of griping).
We should have been ready to present the case that not counting
votes is simply un-American. Just on principle. Everywhere. Regardless
of cost.
Without the popular vote, and in “war conditions,” the American
public has no stomach for uncertainty. But the Kerry campaign should
have been ready to settle their fears of “another Florida” yet still
proceed with some count.
I want the heads of Terry McAuliffe, Bill Clinton, and every Democratic pundit who claimed that “electability” was the key to victory this year.
I agree.
Got any info on any response to the votes cast for Bush in Ohio that couldn’t have existed–in a precinct in Columbus, where there were 638 voters, Bush got over 4200 votes.
Thanks for any info
Interesting. I have a friend who’s been closely tracking the electoral irregularity issue. I’ll see what he knows on this. (He doesn’t keep a blog himself). Are you a resident of that precinct?
In one precinct, Bush’s tally was supersized by a computer glitch
Friday, November 05, 2004
Jim Woods
THE COLUMBUS DISPATCH
A computer error involving one voting-machine cartridge gave President Bush 3,893 extra votes in a Gahanna precinct.
Franklin County’s unofficial results gave Bush 4,258 votes to Democratic challenger John Kerry’s 260 votes in Precinct 1B, which votes at New Life Church on Stygler Road. Records show only 638 voters cast ballots in that precinct.
Matthew Damschroder, director of the Franklin County Board of Elections, said Bush received 365 votes there.
The remaining 13 voters who cast ballots either voted for other candidates or did not vote for president.
Damschroder said he received some calls yesterday from people who saw the error when reading the list of poll results on the election board’s Web site.
“It’s why the results on election night are unofficial,” Damschroder said.
The error would have been discovered when the official canvass for the election is performed, he said.
Election workers will start certifying the official election results later this month. The final, official tally will be available by the end of the month.
This is what happened, Damschroder said:
Gahanna Precinct 1B has three voting machines. After the polling station closed, the cartridges were taken to a computerized reading station.
When one of the cartridges from the precinct was plugged into a reader, it generated the faulty number.
The reader also recorded zero votes in the race between Arlene Shoemaker and Paula Brooks for county commissioner.
Damschroder said the cartridge was retested yesterday and there were no problems. He couldn’t explain why the computer reader malfunctioned.
When workers checked the cartridge against memory banks in the voting machine yesterday, each showed that 115 people voted for Bush on that machine. With the other two machines, the total for Bush in the precinct added up to 365 votes.
So far, Damschroder said, no other problems have surfaced.
When election workers do the official canvass, all cartridges from voting machines are rechecked