PRESIDENT>>>EVER!!

Seems to me that Manjoo simply restated the assertions from his article without adequately addressing Kennedy's criticisms of them.

While Manjoo may well be correct that Kerry lost in Ohio with or without manipulation, I think the discussion misses the point. We can hem and haw about the numbers, but ultimately what is important is the intent.

So, the question is, was there an intentional effort to disenfranchise voters, particularly Democratic voters, during the 2004 election? That's the question we should be really asking here and if there was, then the 2004 election is entirely topical, not just generic voter reform. If the Republicans attempted to throw the election by unethical or illegal means, then that needs to be publicized and discussed, whether Kerry really won or not.

To that end, I highly recommend reading into the work of Greg Palast (http://gregpalast.com) who has done significant research in the subject and is well known for being what can best be called an old school muckraker.

If the answer is (or you have convinced yourself it is), no, there was no unethical/illegal, manipulation, then by all means the more global form of election reform is par for the course. However, while personally I am inclined to believe that Kerry would have lost regardless, we should remember that millions of Americans still believe that the Iraq War was built on a legitimate basis only because it is too hard to believe that their government and favored President could have pulled off such a grandiose lie. Sometimes truth is stranger than fiction.

OK, yes, Farhad seems like he's done a bit more homework on this. There is no incontrovertable proof of a conspiracy, and people are considered innocent until they're proven guilty - not just murderers, but even Republicans election officials in Ohio!

So the real question is, where do we go from here? How can we keep these issues from being a permanent fixture of American politics?

Here's my answer: Oregon's vote-by-mail system. No long lines. Pperfect election security (your voting envelope's signature is checked against your registration). If your signature changed or there's any other problem, you get a call BEFORE the election from the staff. Votes coming in for several weeks make last second smears an extremely hard to use tactic. Oh, and did I mention extremely high turnout?

Forward thinking innovation. It's the way we need to go.

...rhetorical arguments don't cut it. If absentee ballots were deliberately withheld, or voting machines meted out in a way to create long lines in Democratic districts, with the result that people didn't vote, it is not sufficient rebuttal to point out they don't technically count as "voters turned away".

It may be grammatically correct, but it approaches obtuseness given that we all understand the reality and tactics of voter suppression.

Additionally, merely supposing that voters probably don't know who a candidate is anyway (Connally) hardly constitutes a reasoned response. Presume they do, then explain the odd voting, please.

Manjoo has clearly demonstrated that he doesn't understand the math of the exit polls. His analyses of the polling numbers are first-quarter high school Intro to Stat errors of naivite.

He also fails to look at the numbers from the correct perspective. He doesn't look at it precinct by precinct, but he looks at it statewide. The fraud was on a precinct basis. The fact that it is within the margin of error statewide proves nothing.

He doesn't know enough about it to comment on it.

You at Salon are fools to pay him to do something he is clearly incompetent to do.

Hey, Mr. Manjoo! Get a clue on the math, or don't talk about it.

I am pleased to see that I am not the only individual in this world who believes that Farhad Manjoo has commited specious acts of anti-journalism in his reporting of the 2004 election results. I find it unfortunate, however, that Mr. Manjoo has chosen to cut his teeth on RFK, Jr.

In 15 years of educational testing and statistical reporting and measurement, I think I can tell when the statistics simply do not reasonably support a given position, or proposition -- and I can tell simply by looking at a properly constructed graph.

Farhad's contention that there is no, "proof," of election fraud in the 2004 results is simply dishonest.

I've said it before and I will repeat myself but once more: Farhad Manjoo needs to find another ship of fools to play, "Gilligan's Island," with. I am about done with this three hour tour with Salon and am certainly willing and able to take my customer loyalty, and my money, elsewhere.

the only number i needed to know about ohio was "four hour wait" in democratic districts in a republican-run state. perhaps you can't prove intent (though i've heard that top republican vote-counting officials met with karl rove and george bush right there on election day). how could two working voting machines for thousands and thousands of urban voters be anything but intentional?

another commenter is right that our vote-by-mail here in oregon is an excellent system. there's a paper trail, read by the same simple scantron machines that read multiple-choice tests in school. sure, the republicans will still try to throw out any ballots not marked in diebold(tm) number two pencil, but at least there will be ballots to throw out.

Bush won. He sits in the Oval Office. Kerry sits in the Senate. After the 2000 shenanigans, the Democrats had an army of lawyers, observers, etc., out on election day '04. Ohio was tallied. Kerry conceded. Maybe he won Ohio...and maybe Nixon won Illinois in 1960. Doesn't matter. November is not that far off, and the Dems can regain both houses of Congress. They cannot retroactively win the White House. Promulgating conspiracy theories does not help the liberal cause. Gas prices. Health insurance. Balanced budget. That helps the liberal cause.

Manjoo's pretending to lament our broken electoral system while continuing to give the Republican political machine a clean bill of ethical, legal and moral health is about as convincing as Bill O'Reilly's insistence that he isn't right-wing. Farhad -- you STILL haven't addressed the issues of the ridiculous "paper weight" requirement; the ballot-shifting in the counting machinery; or most of Blackwell's many other shenanigans. You may be right that none of the GOP dirty tricks Kennedy discusses would have made enough of a difference to change the outcome of the election, but are you truly content to hold the credibility of our government to THAT pathetic standard? To say that we cannot ABSOLUTELY PROVE that Kerry would have won in the absence of Republican treachery is cold comfort for what is supposed to be a functioning democracy.

No, I'm not going to cancel my subscription to Salon -- it still provides enough good reporting and good writing from others to make it worth sticking around. But I'm disappointed that the editors continue to assign important political stories to a dittohead.