Democracy At Its Finest

With all the attention being given to the US election slated for 2008 (which in and of itself is worse than Christmas decorations showing up in Wal-mart before Halloween…), why would anyone still want to look back at the 2004 election? Well, apparently some folks do, and they’re willing to take legal action to make it happen.

It’s not getting much media attention, but there has been a reoccurring headline (albeit squeezed between the obituaries and the classifieds) in a few newspapers across the nation that reads “Ohio to Delay Destruction of Presidential Ballots”. Essentially, several independent reviews looking at small portions of the 2004 Ohio election ballots have uncovered enough irregularities that a number of groups want all of the ballots preserved until a comprehensive review can be completed.

What sort of irregularities you ask? How about:

• ballot tampering (applies to electronic, hand written and punch ballots)?


• counties where significantly more votes were tabulated than the number of people who actually voted?


• discrepancies of 5% or more between the people in the signature books and the “certified” results?

The majority of the abnormalities were seen in rural areas.

The groups spearheading the movement represent a surprisingly wide portion of the political spectrum, including a republican who is running for governor, the League of Women Voters, and the Center for Constitutional Rights.

This strikes me as rather puzzling. I can certainly understand the motivation behind certain “liberal” organizations, as they are convinced of an election conspiracy. After all, Ohio was one of the swing states that solidified the Bush campaign’s narrow victory, and with the process of Electoral College the rural areas carry a lot more political weight than their population justifies. It doesn’t necessarily take a lot of ballot stuffing in some small counties to turn the tide in an election that is neck-and-neck.

So, why would “conservative” groups be interested in preserving the ballots? The company line appears to be that they are either interested in “learning from the past to improve the future”, or in some backhanded way they want to prove that the election was legitimate. All I can say to that is "Be careful what you wish for, gentlemen..."

Regardless of the outcome, the underlying message is clear: in the most advanced democracy in the world, the election process is shabby and suspect. Last I checked, elections are the very foundation on which democracy is built. Need I go on?