...is that the republicans cheated, but it's okay because we can't prove that they cheated enough to change the results of the election? That is sickening. What happened in Ohio - and across the country, is NOT okay. I don't know if it turned the election or not. I don't even care, to tell you the truth. Disenfranchising people because of incompetence and political corruption is wrong, and we should care. I'm sick and tired of seeing people say "Well, Kerry would have lost anyway, so it doesn't matter". It doesn't matter how many were disenfranchised. It matters that anybody was.

I can't wade through this whole article. This hack is very partisan, and is certainly writing only to discredit, not to seek the truth. If I wanted to read this crap, I would not be a paying member of Salon. I did just renew, but kind of wished I had not.

That's why when accusations are made, the charges have to stick. Not to do so is like prosecuting a criminal on weak circumstantial evidence. No matter how guilty the defendent, he will be acquitted.

One of the best things voting activists have done is put under a microscope a flawed process that has been given little attention. But the way to present the argument is by detailing the facts and only going as far as the evidence permits.

If you go public with a mixture of valid and invalid arguments, a skilled debater will use the invalid arguments to tear your position to shreds. Didn't anyone see "Thank You for Smoking"?

The exit poll discrepancy, for example, does not prove fraud. This section of the Manjoo article is perfectly correct. He also points out other questionable parts of the Kennedy article -- enough to disguise the disturbing things that remain after the smoke has cleared.

The result is that Manjoo can tear apart the Kennedy article even while conceding Republican malfeasance. And he can even slip in what may be an important inaccuracy (removal of registration is illegal without voter notification).

The most productive activistm has been in the area of electronic voting, where it's been proceeding on the basis of provable vulnerabilities and known problems, and has not needed proof of election theft.

Most proponents of vote fraud know they are on to something -- the question is what and how it is known. Arguments in the public arena have to be pursued a certain way to be successful. Contributors like Mebane and Mitofsky know how to do this. Most activists seem to think that what's required is arguing more passionately and end up frustrating their own cause.

You say, "Freeman's statistic is essential, because it shows whatever happened in Pennsylvania, Ohio and Florida was DELIBERATE and not due to chance. Your assertion that the deliberate mistake was in the polling does not mean you are right and Freeman's number is irrelevant. It means Freeman's number points to _something_, and other evidence will determine what that something is."

Right, Freeman's statistic points to *something* -- but everyone agrees it was *something*. Nobody is saying it was just chance. The argument is about which something it was: A polling error, or an error in the count? (And the number does not show that what happened was *deliberate* -- it shows that what happened was *systematic,* meaning essentially that it occurred in the same way in those three states.)

The straw man is Freeman's suggestion that the other side in the debate is insisting -- against his odds -- that the error was due to chance. But again, nobody in this debate is saying the error was random.

Obfuscation mixed with wingnuttery.

I have to say that I too am disappointed that this piece wasn't covered by one of the other Salon writers. I would have liked to have seen another perspective other than Farhad Manjoo's. This is a serious enough topic that I think it deserves better coverage.

A bigger problem I have is that Mr. Manjoo seems to be obsessed with the letters to the editor section. I can understand wanting to clarify a position, but if you have to write multiple response (as of this count, three within the few hours that this article has been up), maybe you aren't doing the job you need to be doing in the article itself.

Not only is this kind of behavior slightly unseemly (it smacks of a desperate need for validation), but I'm not convinced it's necessary. If anything, Salon should know by now that readers are more than capable of poking holes in each other's theories, or in correcting each other when they've misread the article. This is not the first time that I've noticed Mr. Manjoo responding so often (and so quickly) to the letters section. With all due respect, you seem to take disagreement a bit more personally than a professional journalist should.

It must be nice to trust Republicans so much. Perhaps I am a little older than Ms. Manjoo, as I was a whopping -1 when Nixon spied on his political opponents. And I was already twenty-something when cancer-victim-divorcer Gingrich impeached Clinton for a blow job and named it "family values." And I was around thirty when Tom DeLay laundered campaign money in the name of children and Dick Cheney bankrupted our country and called it "fiscal responsibility" and George Bush skewed the intelligence and spied on and locked up and tortured and killed innocent people and named it "freedom."

I want to believe in your "democracy," Ms. Manjoo, I do! But they didn't get enough religion into the schools fast enough, I think.

I hope.

"So what you are saying is that the republicans cheated, but it's okay because we can't prove that they cheated enough to change the results of the election? That is sickening. What happened in Ohio - and across the country, is NOT okay. I don't know if it turned the election or not. I don't even care, to tell you the truth. Disenfranchising people because of incompetence and political corruption is wrong, and we should care. I'm sick and tired of seeing people say "Well, Kerry would have lost anyway, so it doesn't matter". It doesn't matter how many were disenfranchised. It matters that anybody was."

Thank you, Diane, this is exactly right. Farhad Manjoo's article is cynical, dispiriting and depressing. We will never know how many people were prevented or dissuaded from voting, how many votes were "lost" or switched, or whether they were enough to change the outcome in Ohio or elsewhere. 2000 showed us that the likelihood of overturning the results in a Presidential election is extremely remote. The point must be to prevent these things from happening in the future. As long as people like Manjoo keep insisting that it doesn't matter, I fear we never will.