Ray, I read all that. I read Greg's "Best Democracy Money Can Buy". There's no doubt that the Republicans stacked the deck against the Democrats in Florida in 2000. Mainly by wiping the voter rolls of 50,000 voters who may have been eligible to vote, and were Democratic leaning voters.
But, given all that, the Democrats ultimately bungled it themselves. Even that questionable move by the Republicans is partly the Democrats fault, why didn't they challenge what the Republicans were doing and try to bring it to light? The voter purge was happening a year before the election. The Democrats were alseep at the wheel.
All that aside, why didn't the Dems make sure the ballots were at least clear for voters? They lost 1,000s of votes and ultimately the election because of the butterfly ballot that was designed by a country Democratic operative. I understand they couldn't have overhauled the voting system, not having the reigns of power in Florida and that being such an overwhelming task, but they could have done more things on the ground to help their candidate, like ensuring the ballots were clear. That butterfly ballot was something you'd expect from the Republicans dirty tricks machine, but it came from the Democrats themselves, which is why it's hard for them to blame others for their loss in 2000.
That's all history now. I'm concerned with some of the irregularities in 2004. Disparities between exit polls and regular and computer voting. We need to fix this new system to ensure it's fair in future elections. We need paper trails. It's kind of crazy to think our election is being computed on PCs these days with no backup. |
