Senator Aces

Senators:

Which of you senators will stand up and defend this Ohio Electoral Vote Count tomorrow? If you are experiencing hesitancy, just imagine if the situation were reversed and you needed to sign and swear that this election was remarkable in its uneventfulness. Would you? Could you?

Please share your evidence that we all can take confidence in what did not happen in the Buckeye State? You must have something that refutes the video-taped repression, exit polling aberrations, Warren County lockdown?

After all, these influences each by themselves certainly rise to the level of changing the outcome — at least at the battleground county level. And it only took a few counties to make the difference. Like Mr. Cheney’s energy task force and the war on terror, you must have additional intelligence that the common man is not privy to.

Let us hear you argue why Ohio is just dandy and we should move on.

Just yesterday, in apparent disregard for his nonpartisan role as Ohio’s chief election official, the Republican Secretary and chairman of Bush’s Ohio re-election campaign slammed Senator Kerry as a “disaster” who would have reaped “terrible” and “horrible” results on both Ohio and the United States. http://rawstory.rawprint.com/105/bl...

In addition, Blackwell in Ohio Official Refuses Interview Over Vote is unable or unwilling to justify the myriad of irregularities in his state. He also probably believes Clinton was a huge disaster.
http://abcnews.go.com/US/wireStory?...

It takes a great leap of faith to ignore Blackwell’s influence and partisanship as well as the long lines for Democrats outside Columbus and elsewhere. What about the fact that no Republican has come forward to say they waited longer than three hours to vote, or that not one irregularity has favored Kerry? Do we have any sensibility or have we been beaten into submission? Clinton was hardly a disaster: high employment, no 9/11, etc.

The "level" playing field resembles a snow ski run with the Democrats stuck on the chair lift going up.

Tomorrow does present an interesting crossroads to the next four years. One scenario has the senate democrats sitting on their hands and watching America enter its drunken frat-party phase. In this scenario, democrats parlay their impotency and allow Republicans to run rough-shod over Social Security, Ethics Rules, Pollution Controls, Election Reform, Medicare, Search-Seizure laws. It will be a Red wet-dream come true.

Or the Democratic Senators may realize that tomorrow offers our best opportunity to resist against full and complete submission to Republican will. One of you must challenge Ohio’s electoral votes. Pick a sacrificial lamb or get ready for the worse four years of our lives.

Senate democrats can set a tone of acquiescence or one of acknowledgement that there were problems that warrant a closer look. We can send a message that we are tired of playing nice guy. It is now a matter of survival. Worrying about tearing the country apart is moot — we are torn apart. Sometimes Jesse Jackson is right! Conyers seems like a reasonable man to me.

There is certainly something brewing since there are rumors that Delay’s ethics gambit may not succeed. See what happens when you don’t give in too early? We have some aces. It is time to play one.

We know there were problems so it is really a matter of threshold.

Ken Starr had Monica’s blue dress. We have videotapes, sworn affidavits, three Republican-owned voting companies, partisan election officials, Warren County, exit polling, and other statistical implausibilities.

Ken Starr spent $100 million dollars and he went back to his day job after his boondoggle fiasco. Mr. Starr achieved nothing and survived and one of you will survive too. Think of the book deal. Heck, if you are from California, Massachusetts, or New York you would get re-elected anyway.

What goes around, comes around. I thought it would be 2006 until Republicans started to see how our flawed election system could bite them on the rump. The Republican injury came much sooner to Rossi as a public records request filed with King County Elections Director Dean Logan. The GOP wants a list of all voters who submitted ballots in the Nov. 2 general election, including ballots that were counted as well as those that were rejected.
http://www.signonsandiego.com/news/...

Washington law allows any registered voter to challenge election results, and Republicans have begun asking that elections officials reconsider votes for Rossi that they say were wrongly rejected. Sounding like left-leaning, bleeding hearts: "We’re going to be going across the state demanding they make every vote count," Rossi spokeswoman Mary Lane said earlier Thursday. Official results from the manual recount will not be announced until today, after King County reviews the up to 735 disputed ballots. Republicans, who fought hard to keep those ballots out of the tally, vowed Wednesday to press election officials to consider several hundred other disqualified ballots cast in other counties. The results are almost certain to be contested. "This count, this election, is not over," said Chris Vance, the chairman of the state Republican Party. The Supreme Court, he said, "basically threw the door open to start all over again. I think that’s crazy." Vance said Republicans planned to "show up at 9 a.m." today "on the doorstep of every county auditor with people whose votes weren’t counted for Dino Rossi."
http://www.newsobserver.com/print/t...

I do not know about Washington state, but in Ohio and Florida it is indisputable that Republicans have received the benefit of the doubt regarding all of the presidential election decisions over the last four years. When I say benefit of the doubt I mean "call the valley people, the dike has burst." I hope Republicans know "what is good for the goose is good for the gander" and they better fix this election system. While these election shenanigans have certainly benefited the Republicans over the last four years, it is only a matter of time when Democrats decide to turn the tables and start voter suppression drives, hack into these voting systems, and play hard ball.

Like Jim Baker in 2000, we can be unreasonable fanatics too. He argued that manual counting would be subject to "human error, individual subjectivity and decisions to determine the voters’ intent" that would not occur if machines were used. "Machines are neither Republicans nor Democrats and therefore can never be consciously or even unconsciously biased," Baker said.
http://archives.cnn.com/2000/ALLPOL...

Can voting machines not be rigged? Can we not allow independent experts to examine the machines? Can we not have a paper trail when we vote?

Thomas Penn asks: "What if the people who controlled the election night exit polling, projections, and vote tabulations were able to intelligently (and corruptly) collaborate with the vote-counting equipment (and software) manufacturers, which program and adjust the voting equipment? Could Candidate A, who in reality has received 60 percent of the vote over Candidate B, find the numbers reversed when the networks announce that the exit polling and the vote tabulations agree that Candidate B has won out over Candidate A by a 60/40 margin? Could this happen? What recourse would anyone have if it did? What proof could anyone offer to decide the case one way or the other?"

He is not saying this has happened, is happening or will happen. He is asking the question: Why couldn’t it happen? There is enough conflict of interest, potential for manipulation, lack of disclosure and secrecy involved in the vote-counting process that it leaves him wondering if we can trust the vote tallies and vote totals in any electoral district in the country.
(Can we trust the vote count anywhere? In any race? In any election?
http://www.onlinejournal.com/evotin... )

Jim Baker stood on national TV November 2000 and repeated ad nauseum one of the greatest lies in U.S. history. Referring to the recounting of the vote, he gave tired half-smug smiles and said, "We’ve counted all the votes. Then we’ve counted them all a second time, then a third. How many time does Mr. Gore want them counted?"

There is no doubt that the Bush camp tries to halt recounts and they benefit from stonewalling. Interestingly, they were only counted once as the Supreme court halted the recount all together.

It is the Senate’s job to keep the recount going until there is satisfaction. Senator Richard Lugar, visiting Ukraine to observe the elections, called the polling a "concerted and forceful program of election day fraud and abuse." Turns out he was right.

What does Dick call Ohio? Why are you Senators afraid to look?

Maybe best yet, if one of you Senators steps forward I will stop publishing these articles for while and give everyone a break.

Robin Baneth
rbaneth@mindspring.com
919-828-3534

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