Friday, July 29, 2005

Voting Integrity

Does it never occur to you, Bush, that you are presiding, with apparent complacency, over the end of the democracy you so piously preach to the rest of the world? That lies, secrecy, cover-ups, and spin are the enemies of democracy--because how can we, the people, evaluate your ideas and your actions with discernment when you do all you can to hide the truth from us? That aggression, oppression, and the deprivation of liberties are the enemies of free choice, and freedom of opinion?

And what about the vaunted system of democratic elections in this country? A reader sent me this link to Black Box Voting ,a site dedicated to the investigation and exposure of electronic voting fraud. It's alarming, Bush, to what extent the machinery of elections can be manipulated and controlled. And then, by one of those no-coincidence coincidences, I came across an article in the current Harper's Magazine about the John Conyers report on voting irregularities in the 2004 Ohio presidential election--the state that assured your reelection, Bush, last year; and about the media's complete failure to bring this startling report to the attention of the public.

It was a powerful and persuasive piece of reporting. I have always been a skeptic, Bush, when it comes to conspiracy theories. It's one of those things that was drilled into me so well in childhood that I've always had trouble challenging it as an adult: trust authority, I was told. If your teacher/parent/policeman/journalist/politician/president... tells you something, it must be the truth. (I fear there are many like me in this country, at least in this respect.) So I confess that I paid scant attention to the protests coming out of Ohio after the election. I was all too willing to believe what I was told by the mainstream media, by the election "authorities."

However, I do believe now that I was wrong--or at least that I was misled by an inattentive press. To say that you beat the probabilities there, Bush, is a vast understatement: in view of the projections and the overwhelming evidence of the exit polls, it's nothing short of a miracle that you won the election in that state. A miracle, or a scam. And personally, in retrospect, I'm inclined to suspect the latter. Count me among those who'll be clamoring for the truth--and for the assurance of fair elections in the future. Even if that means scrapping the electronic devices supplied by your Diebold and supervised by your Republican operatives.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

When Bush decided one day to go for it in politics, it wasn't a decision of what's good for us or the world. It was a decision of what's good for Bush. Just look at his family. This guy was a cheerleader! And that strut. And that footage of him with his Dad and cronies at the racetrack. He was driven by something to prove he could be a power player like his old man. One of the good ole rich boys that RULE the world. We're watching old world ideas being played out here. I see part Jeffersonian and part Henry VIII.
And you know what. It don't work no more. New safe guards and rules have to be written to prevent these royal type people from taking power.