Michael Keefer: The Strange Death of American Democracy: Endgame in Ohio

[helderheid]

http://www.vheadline.com/readnews.asp?id=34681

Published: Wednesday, May 18, 2005
Bylined to: Michael Keefer

Michael Keefer: The Strange Death of American Democracy: Endgame in Ohio

University of Guelph (Ontario, Canada) Associate Professor of English Michael Keefer writes: So who ever thought the 2004 US presidential election had the remotest chance of being honest and democratic?

Not, one might guess, the electronic voting security experts like Ken Thompson, Roy Saltman, Rebecca Mercuri, Bruce Schneier, Doug Jones, Victoria Collier, Aviel Rubin, Lynn Landes, and Bev Harris, who have for years been warning that the new voting technology coming into use in the United States offers unprecedented opportunities for electoral fraud.<1>

Probably not Osama bin Laden, who made his much-anticipated Jack-in-the-Box video appearance three days before polling day: wearing a gold-lamé hospital gown in front of a blank shower curtain, and with a nose that looked to have been quite recently punched flat, he landed some anti-Bush shots that Rush Limbaugh and the other ring-tailed roarers of the American right were happy to interpret as a last-minute endorsement of John Kerry.<2>

And certainly not Republican Congressional Representative Peter King, who made an equally notable video statement on the afternoon of November 2nd, long before the polls closed, in the course of a White House function that seemed to have put him into a celebratory mood. "It's already over," he told the interviewer. "The election's over. We won." Asked how he knew at that early hour, King replied: "It's all over but the counting. And we'll take care of the counting."<3>

One of the people who took care of the counting--and who was responsible as well for some of the most decisive crookedness of the election, and the most flagrant illegalities of the post-election cover-up--is J. Kenneth Blackwell, Ohio's Republican Secretary of State.

<snip>

[helderheid]

1. be glad I didn't post the entire article!

it's 24 pages!!!

[hvn_nbr_2]

20. Hope I find time to read the whole article before I forget how to find it.

Oh, I know. If I email some friends a link to the article, I'll have it in my "sent" folder. Then I can find it again.

BTW, for those scared off by the length of the article, about a third of it is footnotes, so the basic article is shorter than 24 pages.

[Botany]

2. kick N/T

[helderheid]

3. I thought Rep King said that before Nov 2

"And certainly not Republican Congressional Representative Peter King, who made an equally notable video statement on the afternoon of November 2nd, long before the polls closed, in the course of a White House function that seemed to have put him into a celebratory mood. "It's already over," he told the interviewer. "The election's over. We won." Asked how he knew at that early hour, King replied: "It's all over but the counting. And we'll take care of the counting."<3>

[garybeck]

10. he said it in summer 2003.

I hope the rest of the article is more accurate than that!

[helderheid]

14. you can email him that info

His email is at the end - I'm sure he'd appreciate hearing that!

[smartvoter]

17. I know. And the GOP will use a single error to discredit all of it. nt

[helderheid]

4. TRUTHISALL IN THIS ARTICLE!

I'm still reading (and what a GEM this one is!! BEST so far!!)

"If George W. Bush didn't win the vote tally in Ohio--and the evidence that he didn't is cumulatively overwhelming--then he didn't properly win the Electoral College vote either.

And the popular vote? For the sake of completeness, and of decency, let's briefly lay to rest the idea that some tattered shreds of democratic legitimacy can be reclaimed for Bush's presidency through the pretense that he must, after all, have won the popular vote on November 2nd.

I am not going to rehearse here any part of the rapidly accumulating body of analyses that shows Republican electoral fraud to have been carried out in many other states from coast to coast with much the same energy and inventiveness as in Ohio.<61> For as the mathematician who posts his analyses of exit poll data at the Democratic Underground site under the name 'TruthIsAll' has intimated, and as Dr. Steven F. Freeman has shown in a major new study which he has kindly shared with me in draft form, there is a simpler way of showing that, in the big picture, the numbers which underlie Bush's supposed victory in the popular vote simply don't add up.<62>
"

[helderheid]

5. BEST 2004 WAS STOLEN ARTICLE EVER

Please email him - his email is at the end of the article

[KaliTracy]

6. Thank you! this Ohioian appreciates it! *smile* Maybe if several

of us send this to Franken and Springer they will wake up?

[snot]

7. Terrific article.

Here's hoping versions get printed in more publications (in addition to the Venezuelan Electronic News).

[helderheid]

8. forward forward forward!!!

This article needs to make the rounds. It's terrific!

PLEASE NOMINATE!!

[thjay]

9. FANTASTIC!

The best article I've read yet, clearly laying out all the facts. The questions is, How many will take the time to read it, especially if they are predisposed to believing election fraud is for conspiracy theorists?

[smartvoter]

11. It's the most comprehensive overview yet. nt

[Tigress DEM]

12. Um, John Conyers did 900 pages, but yeah, overview. got it.

[Fly by night]

15. No. R.H. Phillips did 900+ pages, Conyers did 102. n/t

[smartvoter]

16. ??? Yes. Overview. People are so stuck on one-ups around here. nt

[Tigress DEM]

21. I wasn't one upping. I made an honest mistake.

I was differentiating on the types of reports and trying to present the attitude that many have and still are working on this problem - sometimes because the news coverage is so disjointed and things happen so fast here we all miss pieces.

So often someone comes on and because it hasn't been reported in mainstream media thinks this is the first someone has dealt with an issue. I know it's happened to me and I missed that someone else actually prepared that larger report. I checked my facts and you're right Conyers report was merely a "list of the irregularities in Ohio at 102 pages."

I must have read somewhere that Connyers was in on following up with the presentation of that 900 page report and I missed the actual author.

So much fraud, so little time.

Peace. :hippie:

[helderheid]

22. the dude abides!

:) So much fraud, so little time. is RIGHT!

[Tigress DEM]

23. Kinda catchy, "So much fraud, so little time."

Maybe I'll rework it into my sig line somehow.

[vince3]

13. AWESOME

Momentum is growing.
TIA and DU are mentioned.
Thanks for the link.

[Kota]

18. Nicely done. Congrats to TIA!

[furman]

19. Keefer's article dates back from January 2005

This article originally appeared on January 24, 2005 on the Centre for Research on Globalisation's website:

http://www.globalresearch.ca/articles/KEE501A.html

-furman

[Stevepol]

24. Kick!! n/t