Travellinguist's Musings

Maybe not so Red.

So more and more articles I read keep saying that at least two of our Red states might not have been as Red as we were led to believe. I mean it makes sense. There are three large swing states with exit poll results going Kerry and then the two states with Republican governors happen to go for Bush while the one with the Democrat goes for Rendell.

Of course one might say it is simply a matter of corruption from all three governors. Of course I would say that this is not the case. Pennsylvania was Blue in 2000 with Republican Tom Ridge as governor, while Ohio and Florida both went Red in both elections with Gov. Jeb (not to mention Secretary of State Katherine Harris- Chair of Bush-Cheney2000 in Florida) and Gov. Taft (not to mention, coincidentally, Secretary of State Kenneth Blackwell- Chair of Bush-Cheney2004 in Ohio). Incidentally Pennsylvania re-elected a Republican Senator (Arlen Specter- endorsed by Bush) while voting for a Democratic president, while both Florida and Ohio narrowly elected or re-elected Republican Senators and voting for Bush. I mean Specter was in a tight race with Democrat Joe Hoeffel so if PA was corrupt why not just give Hoeffel the Senate too but they didn't so I can discount the Democratic corruption conspiracy in PA.

So what we have then is Ohio and Florida using electronic-computerized voting machines, exit polls that don't meet final results and, in Ohio at least the CEO of voting-machine-making company, Diebold, giving thousands to Bush and promising him to "deliver Ohio." Then you have a state (Florida) with the BROTHER of the president sending his police (the Department of Public Safety answerable directly to the governor's office) to investigate elderly African-American voters (as Bob Herbert documented leading up to the election) for "voter fraud" BEFORE the election even took place, but then denying the right of voters to see his "felon list" and examine the voting machines beforehand while not fixing the machines when they totally screwed up in the March primaries!

But, I will stop since others have written a bit more eloquently on this topic and uncovered far more evidence concerning irregularities than I can.

http://ustogether.org/Florida_Election.htm , http://us together.org/election04/FloridaDataStats.htm, http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&cid=536&e=4&u=/ap/20041105/ap_on_el_pr/voting_problems , http://www.tompaine.com/articles/kerry_won_.php , http://www.commondreams.org/views04/1106-30.htm

So clearly some of these are partisan, but let's face it, would a Republican partisan even be digging around looking to uncover irregularities? No, I think not, so we can only expect partisans to investigate.
Kerry let me down by not fighting it more effectively, but hey Rep. Delay and Rep. Hastert made sure that voting machines couldn't have a paper trail, making any fight more difficult to wage, as well as an American electorate more willing to tolerate fraud than "instability." I guess the combination of American passivity and Republican legislative games have just managed to shut down democracy and enable vote stealing. If I were a Republican I would be worried too because just because the Republicans won this round of vote cheating doesn't mean Democrats won't be able to do it in the future and maybe even better. Our only guarantee would be a completely transparent and clear voting system. (not to mention stronger campaign finance reform which would keep these horrendous brainwashing ads off the news- from BOTH sides, and overturning the Supreme Court ruling that declares MONEY to equal free speech. I mean I always thought we enjoyed equal rights to free speech, but if money equals speech than a millionaire enjoys much more speech and far louder speech than I have which means we are not equal despite the Jeffersonian ideas in our Declaration of Independence and the 15th Amendment to our Constitution which guarantees Equal protection and assumedly equal voice under the law.

Oh yeah speaking of voting transparency. It is time we made Election Day a holiday. We have a holiday to celebrate Columbus who "discovered" the new world and managed to bring home syphillis and slaves to Europe, while abusing his crew and stealing their bounties (among other things). Of course he also helped begin what became a massive deliberate and accidental genocide of the native peoples here... anyway.... Columbus is not all the praise-worthy in my opinion yet we celebrate him so we should have Election Day be a national holiday since that would be more praiseworthy....

Since I have to respect the way Republicans affix BS names to their laws to hide their pernicious designs "Clear Skies Initiative" (to create pollution hotspots) "Health Forests Initiative" (to chop down forests) "Patriot Act" (to erode the rights patriot actually fought and died for) etc. We can all the Election Day holiday bill the "Freedom is on the March Bill" or "Celebrate Democracy by Voting bill"

I mean making Elections be on Tuesdays and also by making it difficult for people to register (except in Wisconsin where there is Election day registration and incidentally high voter turnout) we basically ensure that people who are struggling day to day cannot vote since they have to worry about jobs and paying bills rather than registering to vote a MONTH before the actual election, or getting up at 7AM to vote before heading to their 9-5 (or longer) job (and if longer than 9-5 with a lesser chance for overtime thanks to the new Bush Department of Labor regulations). With an election day holiday those long lines we saw at 7AM would not be an issue since we'd get all day to vote, or maybe heck why not make election day fall on a weekend when most of us are not actually working in the first place? Of course the reason that this hasn't happened is because those with the power really do not want a lot of people to vote so they leave it the way it is. I mean the "Founding Fathers" themselves spoke of this when they spoke of their fear of a "tyranny of the majority" or their fear of the "headless beast" which constituted the "masses." (Don't believe me? Read about Alexander Hamilton and the deliberations of the Constitutional Convention in Philadelphia which produced a Constitution reserving the vote only for white, male landowners)

So perhaps our next great democratic struggle should be to extend the voting franchise by making it easier to vote and by celebrating out democracy by creating Election day holidays. That would make us more of what we should be. I mean what better way to celebrate Democracy than by voting. Of course if what I suggest about voting machines above is accurate then perhaps we need to protect what little democracy we have before we can extend it.

posted by travellinguist @ 11:08 AM