Robert F. Kennedy Jr. makes the case that the 2004 presidential election was rigged in favor of Bush and especially in Ohio.
I am not big on conspiracy theories and have linked here to well less than 1% of the ones people have e-mailed me and urged me to promote. This one, at the very least, should be taken seriously…if not as proof that Kerry really won, then as appalling evidence of how sloppy our election process is. Even if no cheating went on, there should not be these many reported anomalies, these many questions.
I lost a good friend after the 2000 election. The fact that he was happy Bush won (or, more accurately, that Gore lost) was not the problem. I have plenty of good friends who felt that way, many who still do. But when I suggested that we ought to clean up the process — standardize ballots and provide paper trails and clarify, for example, how to handle military absentee ballots that arrive late — my comrade got hysterical. To him, any such efforts were a slimy attempt to cast doubts on an election that pleased him greatly. When I said, "But wouldn't you have been happier if Bush had won without all these questions about chads and butterfly ballots and qualified voters who weren't allowed to vote?", his reply was, "No, because there are no questions. Bush won and that's that." And then he got so personally insulting on the topic that…well, I never thought I'd be accused of subverting democracy for suggesting that after the ballots were counted, everyone ought to be satisfied that the vote was honest.
I am not saying that I believe that a calculated plot to suppress and miscount the vote is why John Kerry ain't in the White House. But I sure believe our elections could be a lot cleaner and more accurate. And just for reminding us of that, I think Kennedy's article is important.