Victory Party?

Posted on November 4, 2004 in Accountability Campaign 2004

Voting fraud authority Greg Palast took a hard look at the results in Ohio and New Mexico. The exit polls, he concludes, weren’t so far off. John Kerry won the election.

Palast thinks it comes down to chads and spoiled ballots. They continue to congregate in precincts dominated by Democratic voters. The number of spoiled and provisional ballots in Ohio is enough to give the race to Kerry. The old Punch Card System wins out again.

Palast ends his article on a bitter note:

I used to write a column for the Guardian papers in London. Several friends have asked me if I will again leave the country. In light of the failure—a second time—to count all the votes, that won’t be necessary. My country has left me.

I’m not leaving America. There’s too much work to do here. I figure about four to eight more years of this kind of thing before we can get someone in office who will do the real work of uniting the country and fixing up what we’ve done to ourselves.

To those who feel America has let you down, please look at all your friends who voted for John Kerry. Look at people like me. I’m America, too. I know your pain. But I celebrate that you exist and that you care. You, too, are America. And I love this place because you are in it.

That they stole the election isn’t so big a deal because I know we can get our country back. But if you give up or leave it, now that will hurt.

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But what if John Kerry did press for Ohio and what if he had won the electoral college while losing the popular vote? His position would have been no better than that of Bush now. In retrospect, I am glad that he knew when to step down. John Kerry showed that he loves the country more than he loves power. I’d vote for him again in 2008. Character counts.

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Common Cause sees plenty wrong with the way the election was conducted.