Failed at the Booth
John Kerry, world's worst election observer.
By Andrew Cline
According to Sen. John Kerry, the 2000 presidential election in the United States was fraudulent and invalid — but the 2000 presidential election in Haiti was legitimate and legal.
In reference to President Bush's victory in Florida in the 2000 election, a Floridian asked John Kerry this week, "What can you do to prevent them from stealing the election again?"
Instead of correcting the man's terminology, Kerry left it unchallenged and responded, "We're going to pre-check it, we're going to have the legal team in place.... We're going to take injunctions where necessary ahead of time. We'll pre-challenge if necessary."
On Monday, Kerry said of Florida in 2004: "Not only do we want a record level of turnout to vote, we want to guarantee that every vote is counted."
After winning the Florida Democratic primary on March 9, Kerry said that Florida's two Democratic senators were "living testimony to what happens in Florida when you count all the votes."
Last December Kerry told Florida Democrats, "Florida is the place where America's democracy was wounded." He also said, "We had more votes; we won! None of us are going to forget."
Apparently Kerry (along with most Democrats) forgot that USA Today, the Miami Herald, the Tampa Tribune, the Bradenton Herald, Florida Today, the Tallahassee Democrat, the News-Press of Fort Myers, the Pensacola News Journal, Knight-Ridder newspapers, and the National Opinion Research Center at the University of Chicago (hired by the Washington Post, the New York Times, and several other newspapers) all reviewed the Florida election results of 2000, and found that not only did Bush win the ballots that were officially counted, but he also won after counting every ballot cast.
While Kerry deliberately and incorrectly portrays President Bush as having been fraudulently elected, he mischaracterizes (deliberately or ignorantly, we don't know) Haitian President Jean-Bertrand Aristide as a democratic leader. Kerry told the New York Times that Haiti under Aristide was a "democracy" and a "democratic regime."
A Cox News Service story reported that, on Haiti, "Kerry challenged the premise of undercutting a democratically elected leader based on the quality of their governance."
Kerry's daughter Vanessa said that the United States "just helped overthrow, basically overthrow a democratically elected president." Asked on Good Morning America about his daughter's statement, Kerry did not disagree with it or correct it.
Again Kerry ignores the conclusions made by independent election observers. In calling Aristide a democratically elected president, Kerry disregards the Organization of American States's conclusion that Aristide's 2000 election was hopelessly tainted.
Kerry's views on the Haitian and American elections of 2000 make one thing very clear: This is not a man you'd want leading your local elections board, much less the free world.
— Andrew Cline is editorial-page editor of the Union Leader and New Hampshire Sunday News in Manchester, N.H.
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