Untangling a Hairy Electoral Mess

Senator Barbara Boxer (D-CA) and Representative Stephanie Tubbs Jones (D-OH) have declared open season on the 2004 election.

Results of 2004 election challenged.

Obviously given the number of incidents involving lost absentee ballots, discarded voter registrations and of course, two manufacturers of the new electronic voting machines being rather large GOP contributors and the machines vulnerability to being hacked (not to mention all this on top of the massive disenfranchisement of black voters in Florida in the 2000 election) it is obvious there are some serious issues with our current voting process.

I think it would be pretty obvious to a chimpanzee that they are not going to get GWB out of the White House through this, but are rather looking to reform the a vulnerable electoral system to prevent any question of validity in the future. To quote the article:

“Boxer and Tubbs Jones had no illusions that their action would overturn the election results. Their aim was to open a dialogue on election reform. In a letter to Tubbs Jones, Boxer wrote, “I have concluded that objecting to the electoral votes from Ohio is the only immediate way to bring these issues to light . . . to let the American people know the facts surrounding Ohio’s election.”
In her remarks to the Senate, Boxer said, “Let me simply say to my colleagues: I have great respect for all of you. But I think it is key, whether it is Republicans or Democrats, that we understand that the centerpiece of this country is democracy, and the centerpiece of democracy is ensuring the right to vote.
“I ask you, my friends from both sides of the aisle, when we get busy working within the next few weeks, let us not turn away from the things that happened in Ohio. Our people are dying all over the world. A lot of them are from my state. For what reason? To bring democracy to the far corners of the globe. Let us fix it here, and let us do it the first thing out.””

Schweeeet.

However, that doesn’t stop the neo-cons from making a straw man out of the issue: World Net Daily

Someone missed the point. But then actually functioning freedom and democracy for American citizens has never been high on the neo-con agenda.

(Please note I said "neo-con", not "Republican". The Bush adminstration is not a Republican one.)

Nor are they completely alone in this as the neo-cons would claim. Their protest was based on the findings in Representative John Conyers'(D-MI) Report to the Judiciary Committee “Preserving Democracy: What Went Wrong in Ohio”.

Link PDF File of Report

Link to House Committee of Judiciary, Democratic Members (for those that don’t have Acrobat)

On a lighter note, books currently being read:

The Discoverers by Daniel Boorstin

Shadow Divers by Robert Kurson

Quote of the day:

The scientist does not study nature because it is useful; he studies it because he delights in it, and he delights in it because it is beautiful. If nature were not beautiful, it would not be worth knowing, and if nature were not worth knowing, life would not be worth living.
--Jules Henri Poincare