Tuesday, October 26, 2004
Election 2000,Redux
Remember that 36 day period following the 2000 election? Remember what a mess that was? Remember how bitter people felt when the Supreme Court stepped in and stopped the election, allowing Florida to go to George Bush and with it, the presidency? Remember the bipartisan commission lead by former presidents Jimmy Carter and Gerald Ford that urged changes to avoid another election 2000? Then remember President Bush signing the "Help America Vote Act" in 2002 that was supposed to do just this (as an aside, look at the private signing ceremony language versus the public one)?
Well here we are just a week before the election and guess what? The Department of Justice, with four years to prepare, are cited by the GAO for being woefully unprepared to handle complaints on election night of voter irregularity. After the 2000 election, the GAO found that complaints to the DoJ were not logged nor documented, and thus never investigated.
Representatives John Conyers and John Dingell wrote to the DoJ to see what changes have been made to prepare for another tight election, and have found very little. The GAO found that in the 2002 election cycle, complaints were logged but done with very little attention to detail--such as where the problem took place--an important detail, some may argue.
For the 2004 election, the DoJ will place 39 Department attorneys on hand to receive complaints--an increase from 2000 of--are you ready for this? Eight!
Thank Goodness the Bush administration is taking no chances that votes will be fairly made and counted in this election cycle. I mean we have to be sure to set an example for the Iraqis, who are going to hold a democratic vote in January with, at best, 25% of the people able to vote.
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Well here we are just a week before the election and guess what? The Department of Justice, with four years to prepare, are cited by the GAO for being woefully unprepared to handle complaints on election night of voter irregularity. After the 2000 election, the GAO found that complaints to the DoJ were not logged nor documented, and thus never investigated.
Representatives John Conyers and John Dingell wrote to the DoJ to see what changes have been made to prepare for another tight election, and have found very little. The GAO found that in the 2002 election cycle, complaints were logged but done with very little attention to detail--such as where the problem took place--an important detail, some may argue.
For the 2004 election, the DoJ will place 39 Department attorneys on hand to receive complaints--an increase from 2000 of--are you ready for this? Eight!
Thank Goodness the Bush administration is taking no chances that votes will be fairly made and counted in this election cycle. I mean we have to be sure to set an example for the Iraqis, who are going to hold a democratic vote in January with, at best, 25% of the people able to vote.
