WE WON IN CALIFORNIA, BUT OTHERS LOST

Sure, Californians may have managed to vote down the props Arnold wanted in last weeks special election, but there were other places where the forces of balance and truth didn't do so well. FreePress.org has a couple of articles on their site reporting on the how's and why's.

In their [http://www.freepress.org/departments/display/19/2005/1556|first article] they talk about how the losers in elections with questionable outcomes should not remain silent or even quiet about their suspicions. The article cites recent Internet scuttlebutt about Kerry and his wife being fairly convinced that the election was rigged. Here's a quote:

In recent days Mark Crispin Miller has reported that he heard from Kerry personally that Kerry believes the election was stolen. The dialog has been widely reported on the internet. Kerry has since seemed to deny it.

We have every reason to believe Miller. His recent book FOOLED AGAIN, has been making headlines along with our own HOW THE GOP STOLE AMERICA'S 2004 ELECTION & IS RIGGING 2008.

As in his campaign for president, Kerry has been ambivalent and inconsistent about Ohio's stolen vote count. Soon after the presidential election, Kerry was involved in a conference call with Rev. Jesse Jackson and a number of attorneys, including co-author Bob Fitrakis. In the course of the conversation, Kerry said "You know, wherever they used those (e-voting) machines, I lost, regardless if the precinct was Democratic or Republican."

Kerry was referring to New Mexico. But he might just as well have been talking about Ohio, where the election was decided, as well as about Iowa and Nevada. All four of those "purple" states switched from Democratic "blue" in the exit polls as late as 12:20am to Republican "red" a few hours later, giving Bush the White House.

My point here is not to express sour grapes. This isn't about Kerry winning over Bush. Truth be told, while I voted for Kerry, I don't particularly care for him.

No, to me, it's about discovering the truth and making sure that the will of the American people is obeyed.

In the [http://www.freepress.org/departments/display/19/2005/1559|second article] about election fixing that FreePress.org has posted, they go into more detail about how the Ohio legislature, through this last batch of apparent vote fixing, may have put the final nail in the coffin of democracy in said state. Here's an excerpt that talks about four issues that were up for vote last week that were all voted down:

Issues Two-Five were meant to reform Ohio's electoral process, which has been under intense fire since 2004. The issues were very heavily contested. They were backed by Reform Ohio Now, a well-funded bi-partisan statewide effort meant to bring some semblance of reliability back to the state's vote count. Many of the state's best-known moderate public figures from both sides of the aisle were prominent in the effort. Their effort came largely in response to the stolen 2004 presidential vote count that gave George W. Bush a second term and led to U.S. history's first Congressional challenge to the seating of a state's delegation to the Electoral College.

So, here are issues that are going to reform Ohio elections and they are backed by what FreePress.org calls a bipartisan group. However, the article goes on to explain that they are opposed by Christian groups (these are the folks that like bowing down to beings claiming to be more powerful than them) and guess what? The issues are voted down. You may be wondering if there was any evidence of tampering in this election. Well, when electronic ballot boxes are used you can assume that any real evidence won't exist--that's what's so dangerous about these things. However, the article finishes with:

Though there were glitches, this year's voting lacked the massive irregularities and open manipulations that poisoned Ohio 2004. The only major difference would appear to be the new installation of touchscreen machines in those additional 41 counties.

And thus the possible explanations for the staggering defeats of Issues Two through Five boil down to two: either the Dispatch polling---dead accurate for Issue One---was wildly wrong beyond all possible statistical margin of error for Issues 2-5, or the electronic machines on which Ohio and much of the nation conduct their elections were hacked by someone wanting to change the vote count.

If the latter is true, it can and will be done again, and we can forget forever about the state that has been essential to the election of every Republican presidential candidate since Lincoln.

And we can also, for all intents and purposes, forget about the future of American democracy.