Letters to the Editor
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In defense of Salon (and I never expected to be writing this)...
When I first began to read Salon, 5 or 6 years ago, it presented a range of political opinion (remember when David Horowitz wrote a regular column, folks?) which clearly slanted left, but was always compelling. When Salon had its major financial crisis, everyone but the hard-left "base rousing" authors were ditched and this place essentially became a left-wing echo chamber. If anything, articles like Manjoo's are a return to the past, not a sharp change from what has come before - and in my opinion it is a change for the better. I'm center-left; I like to read a range of opinion on an issue before I make up my mind.
Those condemning Salon on this issue have been ridiculously shrill and hypocritical - for example, I find this quote illustrative:
Salon, like America's democracy, was founded upon a people’s right to question. There was a time when it represented all that was positive about the internet and journalism. Nothing has so convinced me that that time has passed as Joan Walsh's letter in defense of Manjoo's transparency.
How on earth can one justify the second statement in light of the first? Salon published an article questioning the "common wisdom" of the liberal blogosphere (i.e. that the election was stolen). Salon has freely published every letter criticizing Manjoo's original article and has also published RFK's rebuttal to Manjoo. Does Salon only have the "right to question" issues that do not offend its readership? Those that are cancelling their subscriptions over this issue have no idea what supporting free press truly means. I cancelled my subscription when the site became an echo-chamber; the direction that the magazine has taken recently has tempted me to renew it. I laud your efforts, Walsh & Manjoo, and I hope they continue.
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Think This Through
The infamous 'oo election brought to the fore something Americans did not want to acknowledge: our voting system is not perfect. Florida's election result sat within the margin of error.
We have now had all sorts of legal claims the hint at trying to federalize a process that was very clearly stipulated in the constitution as being a state issue to decide. As always the broad interpretation of the 14th amendment under the buzzword of Equal Protection is being used as they stalking horse to take away another item clearly stipulated as the state's purview.
And just how would we federalize equal voter access? Would this be by the number of registered voters per machine? Would it be by average wait time? Would it be by average distance? Any one of those three options will have "issues" when mapped against a nation with dense city populations and barren rural areas. Likewise, how does one account for average turnouts which time and again show lower income people to be less likely to vote than more affluent people and hence why Zogby's care to profile "likely" voters makes for more accurate predictions in years past.
In my rural community of 3,500 where I was recently elected a selectman, a small coterie of generally older folks gather round and socialize as they go through the votes, which are generally 400 to 800 of the 2,000 registered voters. They yack and catch up and sometimes lose track and have to recount. The one voting precinct still uses paper ballots and an old wooden hand crank box to tabulate the votes. In the most recent local election of 450 votes, it took 5 hours to get the final tally.
The town from which I moved (and was also a selectman) discarded the procedure about 8 years ago for scanning systems for their three precincts of 5,800 registered voters. The ballot has SAT test-like boxes to color in and then have the ballots scanned. "Clean ballots" fall into one bin, while those with write-ins drop to another for manual counting. Clean raw vote totals are tallied in a manner of minutes. Indeed, I learned I had been elected 20 minutes after the polls closed while I was in the shower warming up after standing out in the drizzling rain for 12 hours prior.
I also find the partisan attacks of voter suppression somewhat amusing as well. I can also throw in my own little personal anecdote of the exact opposite. In the early 1980s I lived in a poor, rough section of Boston, MA called Dorchester. In front of a supermarket was a voter registration drive. There activists cornered unwitting suspects and encouraged them to register to vote. I personally overheard an interchange where the enrollee noted that she did not know what party she liked better. Rather than check the lady off as an independent and move on, the over eager dilletante keep using encouraging words to get the woman to register as a democrat, calling them "better" among other things.
Our electoral process is left to the states. It is quote clear on this such that one has to really stretch the levels of credulity to propose federalization of same. Article II, Section 1 is really quite clear on this:
" Each state shall appoint, in such manner as the Legislature thereof may direct, a number of electors, equal to the whole number of Senators and Representatives to which the State may be entitled in the Congress:"
What part of "in such manner as the legislature thereof may direct" is difficult to understand vis-a-vis intent?
Take this back to Florida in 2000 and the appeal to extend the deadline. That legislature had the right to make the call, and they made the call. They did not extend the deadline. Call it sleazy, call it unethical, call it what you want.
But do not call it unconstitutional if you have the reading comprehension of a 3rd grader.
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Stay the course, Joan and Farhad
I'm not shocked to see such emotional, thoughtless letters on this topic, because I've seen it before from a select group of Salon readers, attacking news stories, opinions, and movie reviews. In the five years I've been a subscriber though, this seems to be the worst.
Ms. Walsh, I fear you have broached a topic which is simply too complicated to be understood by many of your readers. In response, you receive personal attacks and "threats" of subscriber cancellation, representing the type of emotional, reactionary thinking which long kept humans living in caves and worshipping sticks.
Attention--fellow Salon Readers: This is how science works. It is evidence-based thinking, and when disagreements occur, they are argued and debated. If you believe Kennedy has better evidence than Manjoo, then fine, believe what you will. But don't attack the intentions or motivations of the other side, or of those who presented the debate to you, or you'll be joining the ranks of Hannity, Limbaugh, and Coulter.
The crux of the current argument centers on statistics; it seems though that the technical end is beyond many readers, and so they fall back on emotionalism, believing what their "hearts" tell them. I suspect though, that statisticians familiar with these data, including those hired by Kerry and the Dems, feel that there simply is not enough evidence to pursue this matter legally. So Kerry and the Dems have moved on.
To those who seem certain the evidence exists to prove that Ohio was stolen, why not pursue it? I'm no lawyer, but I believe those who live in Ohio can file suit for infringement of civil rights. Oh, you don't think you'll get very far? That's probably how Kerry and the Dems feel, too. So shut up about it, or go out and dig up better evidence than what's already there.
Articles like Mr. Manjoo's (and Mr. Kennedy's) are exactly the reason I subscribe to Salon. I strive always to hear both sides of an issue.