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• Sunday, June 4, 2006 01:45 PM

  Yes, but RFK Jr.

  doesn't effectively make the case. That's too bad, from someone who was on the ground in Ohio '04 and whose friends were either litigants or litigators in Moss v. Bush.

  Palast claims roughly a quarter million votes were stolen; Kennedy adds another 100K for a figure of 350,000, but Kerry would have to have polled a landslide 65% of those phantom votes to have eked out a couple thousand vote victory. And votes not voted aren't votes -- whether due to registration problems, intimidation, disinformation, or long lines.

  While I disagree with Mr. Manjoo's conclusion, he is correct that

  to prove Blackwell stole the state for Bush, Kennedy's got to do more than show instances of Blackwell's mischief. He's got to outline where Blackwell's actions could possibly have added up to enough votes to put the wrong man in office.

  I'm afraid RFK Jr. hasn't.

  This is not to say Manjoo's piece is not without omissions, for example, missing that not only R.C. § 3503.19 but § 3503.21 detail procedures for cancelling a registration and both require the board of elections to attempt to contact the voter first. We don't know from either Kennedy's article or Manjoo's critique whether or not that occurred.

  I hope Manjoo will apply the same level of analysis he applied to RFK Jr. to his own work in the future. And I truly hope someone will take RFK Jr.'s work as a second- or third draft and put together a convincing piece. It's out there...

  —John Burik
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