Friday, January 26, 2007



Electoral fraud in the US

Everyone knows about the controversy over the 2000 US Presidential Election in Florida. But there were also concerns about the 2004 election, particularly in Ohio where Secretary of State Ken Blackwell filled multiple roles as the ultimate arbitrer of electoral processes, co-chair of the "Committee to re-elect George W. Bush", and Republican Gubnetorial candidate. These concerns have received little media coverage. And then you read something like this:

Two election workers were convicted Wednesday of rigging a recount of the 2004 presidential election to avoid a more thorough review in Ohio’s most populous county.

Jacqueline Maiden, elections coordinator of the Cuyahoga County Elections Board, and ballot manager Kathleen Dreamer each were convicted of a felony count of negligent misconduct of an elections employee. They also were convicted of one misdemeanor count each of failure of elections employees to perform their duty.

Prosecutors accused Maiden and Dreamer of secretly reviewing preselected ballots before a public recount on Dec. 16, 2004. They worked behind closed doors for three days to pick ballots they knew would not cause discrepancies when checked by hand, prosecutors said.

[...]

Ohio gave President Bush the electoral votes he needed to defeat Democratic Sen. John Kerry in the close election and hold on to the White House in 2004.

The prosecution stuck to what could be proved, and did not claim that this affected the outcome of the election. But thanks to these people, we'll never know. It's a clear example of how the US can't run an election properly, and why their practice of having partisans in charge of electoral arrangements at every level has to end.

6 comments:

"These concerns have received little media coverage. And then you read something like this:"

In terms of media attention, it still gets virtually none. I live in the US, and this is the first I've heard that anybody had been charged, let alone convicted.

Nobody here seems to want to talk about electoral fraud, it's quite weird. Anybody who brings it up gets slammed as a 'conspiracy nut'.

There may be more concern in states where the problem is more apparent -- OH and FL -- but I didn't get that feeling when I visited OH recently.

Posted by Anonymous : 1/27/2007 05:50:00 AM

Agreed and what's also freakin classic is the way the talking heads at the National Endowment for Democracy can busy themselves finding ways to undermine Venezuelan elections, but remain silent on the foxes in the henhouse.

Posted by Anonymous : 1/27/2007 03:36:00 PM

It is clear that the USA is no longer an honest democracy with adequate checks ana balances. This should concern the entire world given the amount of WMD they sit on.

Posted by Anonymous : 1/28/2007 12:35:00 AM

I believe the link should be:
http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/E/ELECTION_WORKERS_TRIAL

Posted by Anonymous : 1/28/2007 01:27:00 AM

Anon: Thi sis what happens when I forget to paste the link in.

The actual story was in the Boston Herald.

Posted by Idiot/Savant : 1/28/2007 11:25:00 AM

Electoral fraud, large and small, has been a feature of US political history since Adams ran in 1796. The outstanding example is the Hayes-Tilden contest. The real challenge would be to nominate an election in which electoral fraud wasn't perpetrated by one side or another.

M'lud

Posted by Anonymous : 1/28/2007 08:18:00 PM