Letters to the Editor
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The four possibilities
I make no judgment about who's right in all this, but it seems to me there are logically only four possibilities:
1. Americans intended to elect George W. Bush, and did, because they prefer the policies and the kinds of governance he represents over the alternatives.
2. Americans intended to elect John Kerry (and Al Gore before him), but instead got George W. Bush, because of election fraud -- and then acquiesced in this result.
3. Americans intended to elect George W. Bush, and did, not because they prefer his policies and so forth, but because lots of them are ill-informed and don't really understand what's happening, making them suckers for Karl Rove-style disinformation and smear tactics.
All three of those possibilities paint a grim picture of America, frankly. That leaves this fourth possibility as, amazingly, the most hopeful:
4. Americans intended to elect John Kerry (and Al Gore before him), but instead got George W. Bush, because the American electoral system -- due to incompetence, poor design, mismanagement, etc. -- is incapable (at least in close elections) of doing what such a system is supposed to do, which is accurately register the people's will. Oh, and Americans nonetheless acquiesced in the result: The presidency of a man whom less than one-third of them now believe to be doing a good job.
Is this a great country, or what?
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Draw the line clearly
I'll stand on the side that is fed up with vote fraud and the intentional manipulation of the vote, Republican or Democrat. I'll stand on the side of reporters who are agressively investigating the issue like Kim Zetter of Wired, not those who reporting on the reporters and investigating the investigators. I'll stand with Rep. John Conyers, Jr., Rep. Melvin Watt, Rep. Jerrold Nadler, Rep. Tammy Baldwin who want answers to the questions and issues Mr. Kennedy poses. Hopefully when I look to my left, Salon will be standing with me.
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Hmmmm Where'd his conclusion go?
Joan Walsh wrote the title of Manjoo's article is "Was the 2004 Election Stolen?"
I distinctly recall there was a "NO" somewhere in the title. That was one of my main problems with it, but maybe Ms. Walsh agrees that "NO" isn't provable with our unverifiable way of American voting.
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OOps
I reread the first line and Ms. Walsh meant the title was of RFK's article, hence I'm still disappointed.
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For soon to be ex-subscriber
I will admit, Farhad didn't write the headline on his original piece and neither did I, and with hindsight I think it shouldn't have been so definitive. I think all we could have said with certainty is "Was the 2004 election stolen? No one has proven it yet, including RFK Jr." I do think the headline on Friday pushed Farhad's piece a bit beyond where it landed on its own. So thanks for pointing that out.
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Small Victory
Hey, I'm just glad that someone at Salon, in addition to Farhad, has weighed in on this issue. At this point I'm not sure what is going to be accomplished. But the more doubt that is placed on the actions of the Republican party, the better, regardless of what actually gets "proven." I'm not saying we are--or should--"swift boat" them.... but it's more like "Hey, you guys (Republicans) have to answer for a lot of things before this can blow over."
And, let me say this again, for those who need iron-clad proof--you aren't going to find it. Why do you think that the main charge against Scooter Libby is "obstruction"? The real proof in this case has been destroyed and or buried. If this group of Republicans knows anything, they know obstruction. Somewhere, Machiavelli is looking down over Kenneth Blackwell's shoulder saying, "Bravo!"
ps--No, I'm not even thinking of cancelling my subscription... I love this place! I'd freak out if I agreed with every word that was written here.
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Joan!
Farhad Manjoo has an axe to grind and an ass to cover here. PLEASE DO NOT ask him to write about this issue again. He is not to be trusted, and every time he adds something, he protests too much! He is a lost cause on this issue and should be given other assignments.
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Jane, I'm really curious
I respect you and I really want to understand, what evidence do you see that the election in Ohio was stolen, rather than the result of routine and familiar GOP efforts to suppress the votes of low-income and African American people -- efforts that are mostly legal, if despicable? Why do you think it's useful to talk about a "theft?" What is it that proves to you it was stolen?
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Rebuttal to Farhad Manjoo's critique of RFK Jr.'s Rolling Stone Article
While I’m sure Farhad Manjoo believes everything he says, his article is problematic. But before going into details, here are some opening observations.
- A number of Manjoo’s rebuttals invoke the official conclusions
of the Democratic Party, which, while often laying out the same
material as Kennedy, always concludes that the election turned out
correctly. Is this evidence that folks like Robert Kennedy Jr. are
crazy? Not really. Let’s say the Democrats did conclude that their
own 2004 research constituted a case for election-swinging
fraud. That would mean that Kerry and the party – both of whom
refused to challenge the election when it counted – let their own
voters down in the worst of ways. Which means regardless of their
official conclusions, Democrats can’t cross the “stolen” line (in
fact, they must defend that line). Consequently, the party's
conclusions about Ohio do not constitute evidence for either
side.
- I read RFK Jr.’s article before Manjoo’s. If Kennedy portrayed
his article as “new and earth-shattering” dirt on the election, as
Manjoo suggests, I didn’t pick up on it. Manjoo here is pulling a
slight of hand, dismissing all past questions before explaining
himself (his tone suggests it is beneath him to confront Kennedy’s
"old" arguments, setting them in a tawdry light before feebly
engaging them).
- Most revealing, a close read shows Farhad proves or disproves nothing. Indeed, all he does is patch holes in the official story using rhetoric that suggests he has debunked serious questions. This is a particularly pernicious tactic in DC – don’t prove your explanation, just produce statistically unlikely scenarios to obfuscate holes in that explanation (Republican machinations defending their tax cuts as help for the poor come to mind).
Now let’s look into the details:
CLAIM / REBUTTAL:
There were anomalous voting patterns, based on down-ballot results.
Manjoo refutes questions raised by Bush voters’ apparent support for a down-ballot liberal judge by comparing the unusual correlation to a similar example in the 2000 race (in some counties in 2000, voters went more for a Democratic judge than for Gore). First, using 2000 as a control given what happened in Florida demands at least a caveat, which Manjoo fails to provide. But even if we assume there was no chicanery in Ohio in 2000, the comparison may still be apples to oranges. In the examples he gives from 2000, Majoo does not include analysis of the ideological proximity of the 2000 down-ballot judge to Gore, which is part of Kennedy’s argument in his 2004 example. Therefore, Manjoo must be assuming that a lack of voter knowledge about down-ballot candidates just happened to run upstream with Bush in the official results (and pretty much says so). This makes for a weak case. Even if we accept Manjoo’s explanation as plausible, it in no way disproves Kennedy. Manjoo has simply come up with a statistically unlikely alternative to Kennedy’s interpretations.
CLAIM / REBUTTAL:
Blackwell scrubbed voters.
Manjoo defends against the acknowledged voter scrub by pointing out that current Blackwell-backed Ohio law scrubs at a higher rate legal voters who choose to participate less often or move more often – a.k.a. Democratic and minority voters. Well my goodness, if the law is used to suppress voters, then it must not be suppression, right? Manjoo is historically thick here – or contemporarily callous.
CLAIM / REBUTTAL:
Long Lines.
Here Manjoo blames documented long lines on the ineptitude of Ohio government officials. This is a stretch given that the “ineptitude” came from employees of a partisan Secretary of State and benefited that Secretary’s party. Oh, but Manjoo tells us that Bush and Kerry voters were equally affected by long lines. This is flat out wrong, and it is not clear on what Manjoo rests this claim. There is a mountain of evidence showing the disparity of lines to be radical depending on the likely disposition of the voter.
CLAIM / REBUTTAL:
Exit polling means something.
Manjoo claims that disparities between exit polls and official results are cause for further scrutiny in the Ukraine but not in the US; the disparities in the US were closer to the polling margin of error, he argues. But what Manjoo largely ignores is the more salient point that exit polls were wrong in one direction – favoring Bush – in not just one US state, but in multiple large battleground states across the nation. Statisticians would call these nonrandom results. Moreover, the fact that polling discrepancies were concentrated in certain counties and precincts within battleground states, while largely absent in others, seriously undermines the hypothesis that Bush voters avoided or lied to pollsters. (That Republicans lied where it mattered and didn’t where it didn’t would require a conspiracy to rival all conspiracies – and to what end?)
Here it is important to note that Majoo’s argument, at root, absolutely requires buying into the hypothesis that Republicans in key electoral locations were more likely to lie than Republicans in non-contested areas. Of course, there is no evidence for this. This major pillar of Manjoo’s argument is simply an untested hypothesis that is, statistically speaking, highly unlikely.
For Manjoo, long lines didn’t disenfranchise enough people to swing the election. Lines and voter purges, together, didn’t disenfranchise enough people to swing the election. Lines, purges and voter challenges didn’t sway the election. Lines, purges, challenges and seemingly partisan machine failure didn’t sway the election. Where does it stop? All of these things happened to one degree or another – that is beyond dispute even for the Democratic Party, behind which Manjoo frequently stands. Manjoo is just arguing degree, and his method is to chip away at the corners of massive, throbbing outrages by way of strategic Republican lying and other crackpot flights of fancy.
I challenge Manjoo to prove his hypothesis about selective Republican lying. The outcome of his proof will tell us whether or not we live in a democracy. The burden is on Manjoo, not Kennedy.
- A number of Manjoo’s rebuttals invoke the official conclusions
of the Democratic Party, which, while often laying out the same
material as Kennedy, always concludes that the election turned out
correctly. Is this evidence that folks like Robert Kennedy Jr. are
crazy? Not really. Let’s say the Democrats did conclude that their
own 2004 research constituted a case for election-swinging
fraud. That would mean that Kerry and the party – both of whom
refused to challenge the election when it counted – let their own
voters down in the worst of ways. Which means regardless of their
official conclusions, Democrats can’t cross the “stolen” line (in
fact, they must defend that line). Consequently, the party's
conclusions about Ohio do not constitute evidence for either
side.