Tom Noe, a well-connected Republican who was married to another well-connected Republican party bigwig, was not mentioned in the article.

Noe is best known now for the CoinGate scandal in which he talked the state through his statehouse cronies into sinking millions of Workmen's Comp money into rare coins. Noe sold and spent millions of the state dollars on himself and his Republican buddies. The governor got free golf trips, etc.

A significant chunk of the state's (OUR) money was donated to the Bush-Cheney campaign. $45,000 was funneled to the campaign via $2000 "gifts" to friends, family, etc, who knowingly broke campaign finance law to support Bush. BC04 gave back the $6000 directly contributed by Noe and his family, but has steadfastly refused to return the rest of the state's money.

Even worse, the rumor is that The Toledo Blade, the newspaper that broke this story in 2005, knew of it before the election and sat on it until after it was over. Since this scandal touches pretty much every Republican in the state, it's no surprise that this decision helped Bush win the state in 2004.

Farhad Manjoo, replying to my comment on his article, asks, " I'd honestly like to know if you can tell me what about this explanation doesn't work for you."

What doesn't work is that your explanation falls short of any standard of "proof".

First of all, you don't answer my main objection to your article, that the 2000 elections were flawed as well. That was another instance where the best polling minds in the world called the election for Al Gore. When the dust settled, the guy with fewer votes managed to get into office. After that, the pollsters got together and tightened the procedures. Remember the Voter News Service? It's one thing to blow a prediction. It's another to be off by "as much as 9.5 percent " (according to the Kennedy article). You're comparing rotten apples to rotten apples.

Two election cycles after they went to work, the people who make their living on polls can't predict the outcome of an election after it's happened? One election? Maybe. A string of predictions over six years? Highly unlikely. (I don't believe Elizabeth Dole won either, but that's a different story.)

Second, you don't seem to counter Kennedy's high-level sources with anyone I trust. Kennedy cites Lou Harris -- 'Ohio was as dirty an election as America has ever seen,'' -- and John Zogby, who specifically answers your point about Mitofsky.

Third, your response isn't "proof", it's speculation. Your Mark Lindeman keeps saying things like, "it's possible" that Kerry voters in Bush strongholds "would" have been more likely to respond. The data, as reported by Kennedy, is that of a "careful examination of Mitofsky's own data by Freeman and a team of eight researchers." Exit polls are not "gospel", as Mitofsky points out, but surveys are used in almost all aspects of American life, and we're good at it.

To sum up my objections to the methodology in your article: You speculate about flaws in research but offer no proof, and the part of your analysis is to compare 2004 with the equally dirty 2000 and show how the exit polls were similarly wrong. We know Bush has no moral compass, and this is just one more disgrace.

Why not simply accept that a majority of Americans VOTED Bush in the 2nd time around? Frankly the speculations about Ohio seem like hairsplitting. IF the American public had been so overwhelmingly against Bush, they would have reacted - the same way as Ukranians did. By taking to the streets, by forcing the democratic exercise to take their voices into account. The reality is that at least the majority (by however fine a margin) did vote for Bush and his cabal. Of course beyond the US borders this is also perceived as proof that the majority also endorsed the war in Iraq and elsewhere. Inside the borders it means that Americans voted for civil rights being curtailed, unauthorized surveillance and limited or possibly no abortion rights.

It may not be the opinion most of us would have liked. But just as the Palestinians have a right to choose the Hamas as their representative, the Americans have the democratic right to choose the neo-cons as their leaders. After all, thats what a democracy is...remember? Even when we don't like the results!

Cheers

Several writers - including Mr. Manjoo himself – mentioned a variety of “Straw Men.” But the real straw man here is the one Mr. Manjoo sets up when he states:

“[T]o prove Blackwell stole the state for Bush, Kennedy's got to do more than show instances of Blackwell's mischief.”

Mr. Kennedy never claimed to have proved Blackwell stole Ohio; what he does arrive at is this:

“Given the scope of the GOP machinations, we simply cannot be certain that the right man now occupies the Oval Office -- which means, in effect, that we have been deprived of our faith in democracy itself.”

The rhetorical device of reframing an opponent’s position and then rebutting the reframed position rather than the original one is a familiar rhetorical device, albeit one I associate more with the likes of Rush Limbaugh than Salon. But an direct rebuttal of Kennedy’s conclusion would require Mr. Manjoo to declare that he himself can be, and indeed is certain that the right man now occupies the Oval Office, and that those of us (myself included) whose faith in democracy has been shaken by machinations of Blackwell con sui have no reasonable basis for that lamentable state.

Mr. Majoo states that “Blackwell issued a series of arbitrary and capricious voting and registration rules that could well have disenfranchised many people in the state;” and he acknowledges that many of the problems in Ohio Kennedy enumerates are accurate. His argument concerns the number of (non) votes that can be attributed to these legitimate problems. Most of these are inherently speculative, and reasonable minds will disagree on the most probable impact of any one problem, let alone the combination thereof. But by any count, they are substantial. Much as I would want to believe Kerry did (or should have) won the vote in Ohio and thus the nation, I cannot be sure of that. But is Mr. Manjoo really certain that Bush legitimately won Ohio, or is it enough for him that Mr. Kennedy, Mr. Conyers and others who have examined and expounded on the 2004 election have been unable to conclusively prove the contrary?

The way Mr. Manjoo approaches the issue suggests Mr. Blackwell’s critics have the burden of proving he changed what otherwise would have been the outcome. Does that mean that Mr. Blackwell may freely oversee an election in a partisan, arbitrary and capricious manner, just so as long he does not succeed in tipping the balance? Surly that is not the standard we should expect of election officials who are, in a very real sense, custodians of a vital part of our democracy. Whether or not anyone can conclusively prove that Blackwell, or Katharine Harris before him, was the proximate cause for Bush sitting in the oval office is really beside the point here. There is no reasonable doubt that they have corrupted the democratic process, and deserve our scorn and opprobrium. That is why an article like Mr. Manjoo’s which subtlety shifts the focus from this indiputable outrage to a sterile, legalistic analysis is so frustrating to read. Mr. Kennedy is right to point that we have to be able to trust the electoral process, and that anyone – Republican, Democrat, or other – who undermines that trust, must be held to account.