Ohio 2004 Was Not Stolen, But it Was Not Fair Either

On Sunday I finally read Robert F. Kennedy Jr's argument that the 2004 Ohio elections were stolen.  I had been meaning to read it for over a week, ever since Bob Herbert mentioned it in the Times.  Kennedy says John Kerry would have won Ohio in a fair election, and thus become the President of the United States.

That night I was going to write an angry note denouncing the Bush regime.  It was salt in the wound that this happened in my home state, after Helen and I had done our part to campaign for Kerry in Columbus.

Then I came across Farhad Manjoo's rebuttal to Kennedy in Salon, which is not airtight but is persuasive.  He refutes Kennedy point by point on his major arguments:

1. Kennedy: There was an unprecedented and illegal purge of likely Democratic voters shortly before the election.  Manjoo: There is no way to know how these people would have voted, and the "purge" was actually Ohio law, which says that people who have not voted in two previous federal elections are off the rolls.

2. Kennedy: There was a statistically impossible gap between early exit poll results in Ohio, which showed Kerry winning comfortably, and the ultimate official outcome.  Manjoo: Exit polls are not nearly as reliable as Kennedy claims, and these polls were within the margin of error.

3. Kennedy: The Democratic Party found ample evidence of voter suppression in its post-vote analysis.  Manjoo: Yes, but the same investigation concluded that these irregularities were not enough to swing the vote.

4. Kennedy: Voting machines were horribly allocated, leading to long lines in Democratic areas even though officials should have known of the surge in Democratic votes. People left who wanted to vote. Manjoo: Yes, but voting machines are allocated by bipartisan election panels months in advance.  Why would Democratic officials disenfranchise their voters?

5. Kennedy: In many rural counties, an extremely liberal state Supreme Court candidate out-polled John Kerry.  Are we supposed to believe that rural Ohioans support George Bush and liberal justices.  Votes were suppressed.  Manjoo: Judicial candidates are not listed by party in Ohio, and there is every reason to believe that many people did not know who they were voting for.  Furthermore, this pattern of obscure candidates besting famous candidates is not as rare as Kennedy claims.

6. Kennedy: Ohio Secretary of State J. Kenneth Blackwell, who was Bush's campaign chair for the state and an advisor in the 2000 Florida theft, was an obviously partisan official.  Manjoo:  Just because he's a bastard doesn't make him a crook.

And so on.  Kennedy has a strong case, but Manjoo matches him.  I conclude that, while the election in Ohio in 2004 was very far from fair, it was not stolen outright.

Part of the problem, of course, is that Florida 2000 really was a theft.  This has caused progressives to assume theft again in 2004, because the reality of a Bush presidency is so painful.  But the evidence is not ironclad this time around.

Although I cannot agree with Kennedy, I am grateful that his article jumpstarted a discussion that should have been vibrant in 2004.  Our electoral system is rickety, and needs fixing.  Right now.

Comments

[Todd]

I was part of that election, working the Election night as a Franklin County employee, so I must have been an unwitting pawn of Evil Puppetmaster Blackwell too. Funny, I don't remember drinking any Kool-Aid, so they must have tranq'd me with a high-powered rifle when I wasn't looking.

I think it's absolute nonsense. I've seen the people set up the voting machines. I've met and worked with Matt Damschroder, Director of the Franklin County Board of Elections. In spite of Mr. Kennedy's demonization, they are good, honest, hard-working people. The fact is a LOT of people had to wait-Republican AND Democrat. I waited for over 20 minutes in the little church I vote in.

I also love how the Democrats lay claim to the inner city as if every voter that lives off of High Street is a liberal Democrat, would have voted for Kerry, and is a true-blue stark raving patron saint of their party. This happens in EVERY election; close or not, Democrat or Republican candidate notwithstanding.

You are correct in saying that the 2000 ELECTION (Supreme Court ruling not good enough for you, Marcus?) has made the issue hyper-sensitive and it has received more coverage, but once again the media is looking for something that isn't there.

As someone who has worked as part of the election process, I can say that it's not perfect, but it does not contain the witchery and subversion that people love to think it does.

The Democratic party, defeated at every turn for the past 8 years, has taken to the "We wuz robbed!" mentality now. It's sad, really, and unbecoming of a party that once held FDR and JFK in its ranks.

[Helen]

Marcus and I saw first-hand not everyone in the inner city is a Democrat. When we were in Columbus the weekend before the election passing out campaign materials in a poor neighborhood, we pumped into a woman who looked like all the other Kerry supporters we've been talking to that day. But when we approached her, she claimed to be a Republican and drove off. On the back of her car was a bumper sticker that said, "I VOTE PRO-LIFE." To some people, it is that simple.

[Matt]

As Marcus's's's's's lefty pal, I can safely say, he's not going to believe there's a shark in these waters until it swims up and bites him in the ass... then comes back, bites him again... then comes back says "hello", shakes his hand, then bites him again.

Of course the right wing is going to say it's not true! Give me a break, man!

I started to go point by point and argue the bullet points for your decision but there's no point to go after the points.

Look, we now live in a world where there are no longer "facts". No matter what happens, you can find someone to say it didn't. And even if the facts are right there in front of your face, for everyone to see... as long as we give the same credence to the person who says that 2+2=5 as 2+2=4... this is what we're in for.

If you think the evidence Bobby Kennedy laid out doesn't warrant an investigation... that there's nothing there... fine. It wasn't stolen. Bush is honest. Ken Blackwell is not a criminal. The occupation in Iraq is going great. (<-SEE, MARCUS & HELEN!!! "OCCUPATION")

[Eric]

Sorry Marcus and Matt, I'm not nibbling on this one either. Neither Ohio in 2004 nor Florida in 2000. Not that I think the election was perfectly transparent (no election in any country ever is), but if there was ballot suppression on the part on the part of Republicans, you can guarantee that the same took place among Democrats as well...affecting overseas soldiers, senior citizens, or other groups seen as likely to vote GOP. Why would any party ever hold a monopoly on moral purity and righteousness? Truth is, if Gore or Kerry had won, there would be right-wing rags carrying on the same unconvincing jeremiad. Election fraud could only have made an infinitesimal difference to the outcome, because Democratic corruption provides a strong counterbalance to Republican corruption. Like Todd, I think most people working the polls there remain disinterested and care about an impartial election. Besides, if the ballot stuffers were too successful and the results were ridiculously incongruous, the poll workers would be the first to come under greater scrutiny.

Claims of disenfranchisement don't seem to pass muster here any more than they did when people were whining about the polls being stacked against poor displaced African Americans from New Orleans--before the election even took place. Officials took extra care to avoid disenfranchising the poor for the mayoral elections here last month, only to be confronted with the problem of people stuffing the ballot, so to speak, by voting even when they had no intention of returning to the city.

Speaking of Chocolate City, I assume neither you nor Helen have had a change of heart, right Marcus? No possibility you are coming down to our crime-ridden, National Guard-patrolled city for the conference? Drop me a line.