The Boxer Rebellion

[PrincessFiona]

Apparently, Senator Boxer is the first senator to come out and stand with Conyers-led challenge to the Ohio electors. Currently, they have a 110 page document outlining things that went wrong in Ohio... I have not follwed this story very closely, so I'm not sure what evidence has been piling up...I gave up thinking about this topic a long time ago. However, it appears that Clinton and Obama may also sign.

Apparently, the representatives needed at least one senator to sign in order for this to move forward.

Has anyone else followed this more closely than I have? Thoughts?

kris

[HeartRN]

I haven't followed it any more closely....but my feelings are generally that since John Kerry gracefully conceded victory, the race is over. I think other people should respect his decision and be done with it. There's always 2008.

[DCJenn]

This is the never-ending problem with the Dems- the tendency to want to focus on the last election rather than begin the hard work of finding a decent candidate (s) and moving the F along. I actually emailed Pelosi and the DNC to tell them that this is just a way to look like a bunch of whiners.

Move on, people. It sucks, I can't stand the man, but it's OVER.

Jeez, when I run the world, people will have to stop annoying me.

Jenn

[spotty_dog]

As an Ohio voter I have to admit it buoys my hopes to think that the massively corrupt mishandling of this election is being called into the spotlight. If it doesn't affect the outcome for 2004, at least we can put mechanisms in place to avoid quite so much of a farce next year and/or next Presidential election.

I think that everyone must realize that there is corruption on the right and the left. There were many reports of corruption and political mishandling on the left side as well as the right side. I was satisfied with the turn out in the 2004 election because I was a Bush supporter. Having said that, I my self called and reported illegal electioneering that was happening at the pole where I went and voted. I am from Kentucky where Kerry really did not have a chance of winning because of Bush's popularity in our state. My point is that Boxer and other dems can challenge the election results on the bases of corruption and I am sure there are plenty of people waiting around to point out all of the corruption from the left as well.


L-

Sorry, I was not logged in a second ago. The previousguest post is from me.

L-

[PrincessFiona]

I have mixed feelings on the issue. I think that the only way that they could really highlight the problems and draw attention to this was by taking this action...I listened to the hearings on npr while I drove to the U and nearly every person who stood up said "we do not expect to change the election results...Bush and Cheney will be elected...but we are trying to bring these very real issues to the forefront". I was surprised by some of the things that happened in Ohio... What they charged was that there was a 'help america vote act' that was passed in 2002 but that it was not put into action (or something) and that there was a need to remind the house/senate that the types of things that happened in Ohio denied many people their right to vote.

The most striking thing to me was the discussion about voting places....republican precincts had many voting machines and practically no waiting time to vote....traditionally poorer dem areas has waiting times to vote of up to 10 hours. Many of the complaints that they received came from people who stood in line for hours only to have the machine break down or have to leave to pick up children or go to work.....

If this brings out change then it may not be such a bad thing.

I don't know.....I asked myself yesterday if there had been another forum to bring this up in....With so many things wrong in Ohio after the 2000 election fiasco I think the people who stood up just wanted to make sure that this same problem didn't crop up in 2008...

[PrincessFiona]

Re: Corruption from the left...AMEN to that! One of the Republican senators yesterday asked why the complaint didn't include the drug addicts paid by the left to register with a dead man's name and 25 diff. addresses...He was paid for his service in CRACK....


I didn't hear an answer to that one.

[spotty_dog]

The point isn't that all misdoing was coming from the right, it's that a severely partisan person had complete control over the election proceedings. Yes, in this case the partisanship resulted from the Republican official holding that state office, but the point is that the people have to have faith in the process, and I think it's going to take a serious overhaul to re-instill that faith.

If I had confidence that the outcome reflected the will of the voters, I'd be OK with it. But as I've seen written recently, "An election isn't stolen from a candidate, it's stolen from the voters." We in Ohio have a right to a fairly conducted election. I do not believe that's what happened here in November.

[PrincessFiona]

Alison....some of the testimony about blackwell and co was certainly frightening, wasn't it? Despite the attacks from the right the problem is that what was being presented were facts and not feelings.....I do hope that now that bush has been certified that something good will come of the hearings...like investgations and changes.

We decided that the election in the Ukraine was fraudulent due to the exit polling results and we use them as a stick by which to measure he validity of international elections....yet when our own exit polling went awry we had a good excuse handy. It is unusual. Jimmy Carter said his organization couldn't even oversee the elections in our country because we allow partisan contributors to political parties to oversee the election process.

I believe Bush was elected (much to my dismay) and we must move on. But I also believe that the election process is screwy and unless something is done to fix it, voters will lose faith in the election process and not even make the effort to vote next time. Or, they will try to vote next time, but won't be able to because they'll be faced with another 10-hour wait. In one precinct in my state, there were 4,000 more votes than registered voters. It apparently was a "glitch" with the electronic voting machines. I know this happened in several other precincts across the nation and something needs to be done about this soon or we will face the same problems in the next election.

[SueC]

I was reading a little more about this last night. You would have thought after the debacle that happened in 2000, any problems that need to be worked out would have been taken care of over the last 4 years. If we once again stick our heads in the sand, won't we be having this conversation in 2008? Yes, Bush won the election. I can accept that, but I'd be really pissed off if I was a democrat in Ohio and I didn't feel like my vote was properly represented. I'd want to make damn sure that it doesn't happen in 2008. I don't know what the difference is between voting practices in OH versus MO, but I live in a populous, low-income, mostly Democratic part of Kansas City and I didn't hear any reports of long lines or voters getting turned away.

[Rapunzel]

This reminds me of the first election experience I had after I moved to Massachusetts.

It was the year Romney was elected governor.

I remember watching the local news that night for election returns and hearing some interesting stories. Two that were particularly disturbing:

* Union officials were paying union members to vote.

* Democratic party members were "volunteering" to accompany new immigrants INTO the polling booths to help them "translate" their ballots. Apparently that was happening quite a bit and only stopped when Romney's campaign people started videotaping it.

I felt so naive watching these blatantly unethical (and illegal) activities! It was a real wake-up call, believe me! I think if we had true voting reform Boston would probably be turned over on its ear!!!

Jennifer