RFK Jr. has an article about 2004 voting irregularities. I had no idea it was this bad!

RFK Jr. in Rolling Stone

Yes, the article is pretty bad, but then consider the sources - the privileged son of the Democratic elite and an unabashedly left-wing tabloid. It's also full of internal inconsistencies; Kucinich bemoans the lack of any Congressional investigation, but then the article relies upon just such an investigatioin performed by "Whining John" Conyers and fellow disgruntled minority members of a Congressional committee. (Who paid for their unauthorized efforts, BTW?) While the article is well-enough voiced, cf. written, to appeal to those who get whipped up over stories like this one, I wonder how other voting irregularities might fare under its jaundiced eye, say the Daley machine's throwing the 1960 election in favor of the author's uncle - talk about nepotism! - or the "walking around money" scandals of a few years ago in NJ. Sorry, it's a bit too partisan and dramatic to be believeable for me.

gmginsfo, exactly what are your statistical credentials? The author of the story is simply one who compiled the available evidence, from a broad variety of sources. The statistical anamolies, not to mention the known corruption of the leader's of Ohio's GOP, who ran the election, are indisputable.

What is this, CPT, Statistics 101? First, I think you need a little remedial reading: I didn't base my post on statistics, I based it, like the article itself, on politics, specificaly partisanship. Has someone from the DNC recently issued a talking points memo on how to use the "lack of statistics" to "demolish" all opponents' arguments - even when statistics aren't part of them? Howard Dean's still in charge over there, right, er, I mean, correct?

If you're going to play the "cite me the facts" game, where are yours to support your contention that the "leader's" of the OH GOP are [all] known to be corrupt? Yes, several OH GOPers have been charged with and convicted of crimes, but not all their leaders have. And didn't we read here a few months ago about some election mischief by a Toldeo Democrat? That RJDaley threw the 1960 IL election results in Kennedy's favor is well-enough established by now not to require citation, and I believe NJ court records, a/o FEC sources, will confirm the walking around money abuses by Demos in that state.

"Statistics" have nothing to do with it; judging the accuracy of an article by its facts, its author and the journal in which it appears do. This article contributes nothing to the overall goal of increasing not just voter participation but electoral integrity. I note that Kennedy took issue with IN's voter photo ID requirement instituted by my good friend, IN Sec. of State Todd Rokita, which has accomplished, apparently to Kennedy's chagrin, both of these worthy goals. You do agree with them, don't you? Or do you subscribe to the "sporting theory" of politics that says anything's fair game until you're caught?

Does this make it false?

Do you think a Republican author would publish something like this in a right-leaning tabloid if it were true?

Why be partisan about this? If the voting system can be stolen by anyone, isn't that the real issue? That's much scarier to me than who stole what.

I mean what if some complete buffoon gets in the White House, goes against the United Nations and starts a war we can't win? What then?

Indeed, and Kennedy's fault lies in looking for it only among his political opposition and then faulting those who take reasonable steps to end such corruption across the board, as he did in reaction to IN's voter photo ID law.

If Kennedy's article, and Conyers' grandstanding, were directed at political corruption wherever found, each would have a lot more credibility in my book. But they didn't - and so they don't. And yes, the same goes for any GOPer, Libertarian or whatever who acts in such a blinkered way. In fact, that can be seen as a form of corruption in itself.

The issue isn't political corruption alone (of which there is more than enough under investigation as I type this), but systematic destruction of our democratic system through manipulation of the voting process. RFK Jr.'s article is sloppy and inadequately sourced, but there have been numerous other credible reports on the problems with the United States's voting systems, particularly over the last six years.

There's another thread here that details the recent conviction of Tom Noe, a major Republican operative in Ohio, who, in addition to being charged with extensive financial crimes, was laundering money for the Bush-Cheney 2004 campaign. Noe's wife has been linked to voting irregularities, and Noe himself has close links to Ken Blackwell, the Republican operative and gubernatorial candidate whose actions disadvantaging Ohio voters have also drawn public scrutiny.

Here's another excellent critique of the Kennedy story's sloppiness, in the larger context of left-wing journalism generally. Link to story.

What? No link to mAnn Coulter?

The point is our elections should have NO doubts. The election process should occur with no room for criticism and no question about integrity. The election was fraught with edicts by the Ohio Secretary of State that were found to be illegal... by court order. These things should not happen, yet they do.

To mimick our friends on the right, lets just label the as right-wing pandering.

Whew.

Now with that out of the way, I'll just comfort myself with the knowledge that sometimes justice catches up with these creeps.

Win at any cost

Yes, that's the "uber-liberal" Boston Globe. Geez, you really expect right-wing media to expose their own?

Not only do I expect it, Orsi, I find it, as when the conservative, Republican San Diego Union-Tribune broke the story on the Duke Cunningham scandal and then won a Pulitzer for doing so. And how do you call Leo's article "pandering" when he provide facts, some from Salon.com, a decidely left-wing organ, showing the inaccuracies in Kennedy's article. You DID read both articles, didn't you?

That said, I agree with you, as I've said before, that ALL political wrongdoing, like ALL crime, should be vigorously prosecuted. (That IS what you're saying, right? I don't want to misquote you.) However, one-sided, purely partisan vendettas like Kennedy's do nothing towards advancing that goal and only perpetuate the problem.

Identifying a problem does not perpetuate it. Identification is the first step towards a solution.

True enough, Orsi, but Kennedy's article didn't identify anything that hadn't been noticed before. And, when you add in his inaccuracies, his muddying the waters only helped to misidentify the problem through his partisanship. In sum, I'd call it a case of "mistaken identification."

I think everybody feels that voting irregularities are wrong, should be investigated and, where applicable, punished. But where do you start? Whichever election gets investigated will immediately be open to charges of

(a) political grandstanding
( wasting of taxpayers money
© needlessly dividing the country, and
(d) partisanship, since the resources could/should be spent on the (opposite party)'s irregularities in (district/city/state)

In other words, it ain't gonna fly.

Was Bush's victory a "fudge"? Probably. Did the Democrats owe it to the Republicans for far more blatantly stealing the 1960 election? Depends on who you ask, I guess.

LXN

LXN, I think the best place to start is with the voter registration process, by requiring positive photo ID when registering to lay the foundation for an accurate voter list. Then, follow that up at the polls, with photo ID again required. Finally, all voters should be given some sort of indexed receipt to prove they voted as and as who thay voted. That doesn't solve all the problems, but I think it's a pretty good start and, by tracking the natural voting process, it eliminates a lot of the side issues you mention that might otherwise arise.

Political photo ID was enacted in Georgia. It was contested and the bodies that are supposed to enforce civil rights law said it was discriminatory, but AG Alberto the Torturer overturned. The law is in court.
Blacks, seniors, poor people, rural people are all less likely to have photo ID.
In fact the problem with voting has really not been Mary voting as Betsy. The problem has been all that is being done to keep people from voting and to keep votes from being (accurately) counted. I don't doubt there is an occasional Mary voting as Betsy but it has not been anywhere near the big problem.

It was also enacted in IN, where it has actually increased voter participation, as detailed on the IN SOS' site.

Since the photo IDs are free and there is A LOT of "outreach" made to those who might have a problem - or have misprioritized - getting to where they can obtain one, there is really no excuse for not having one where required. You can lead a horse to water, ...

The way to ensure that people are neither prevented from voting nor having their votes go uncounted is to enforce strictly and evenly the voting laws now in place and, where they are insufficient, to enact penalties that will increase their fair and efficient operation.

In Georgia the ID's are not free and can only be procured in a few locations. Metropolitan Atlanta has no ID location at all. This is one of the reasons for the challenge, it was seen as a variation on a poll tax.
Still doesn't change the main point even if IDs are free.

Um, no, I simply meant that if you are going to attack an article that is based, at least in a large part on a host of indepedently discovered statistical errors that simply cannot be due to chance - e.g., errors that benefited Bush overwhelmingly (like 80 - 99% of the time), you should do so from a statistical, not a rhetorical, standpoint.

As for the leadership in Ohio, those very leaders who were responsible for setting, interpreting and implementing voting policies are exactly the ones who are under a huge cloud of suspicion right now. Should we really be surprised that the same people involved in potential fraud totalling millions of dollars would also be implicated in clearly unfair practices aimed at reducing voter turnout in Democratic areas (you know, like much fewer voting machines than necessary, expulsion of people from polling places who were in line when the polls closed, that sort of thing).

I am not saying the Ohio vote was rigged, but if it was, that requires a response from anyone who claims to be ethical - and saying "they all do it" is not sufficient.

Agreed, CPT, but I've never just said "they all do it" - I've said "they should all be prosecuted for doing it." Go back to posts even earlier, as well as subsequent, to the one who replied to, and you'll find my saying that over and over, on any number of issues involving criminal behavior of one sort or another.

BTW, speaking of other crimes, with the ridiculously light sentence that Kennedy's cousin drew today after copping a plea to his DUI charge, I wonder whether the author didn't write this article to run cover for his fellow House member? Whatever, Son of Ted got off INCREDIBLY easy.

Bullsh*t. Most of the clients at our tax office this season were black, senior, poor or some combination of the above, and they had NO trouble obtaining state ID. Many are even DRIVING with it (and no licence!). And as far as being difficult to obtain, at least in NC all DMV offices that offer licences offer state ID as well.