Handicapping the 2004 Race

By Bernard Weiner
Co-Editor, "The Crisis Papers."
November 11, 2003

Twelve months from now, the most important American presidential election since the Depression will take place. It will determine whether the country continues its imperial warring abroad -- the next potential targets appear to be Syria and Iran -- and whether domestically we will continue our quick slide away from Constitutional protections into an even more militarist, police-state society. The stakes are that high.

It might prove useful one full year before that vote, therefore, to take a step back and see where we are in a variety of areas that might influence American voters.

--snip

DIRTY TRICKS AND COMPUTER-VOTING

All signs point at this stage to yet another extremely close election in 2004. Which means that, once again, we can anticipate dirty tricks being employed in numerous large electoral-vote states -- last time in Florida, more than 90,000 voters were illegally purged from the roles in advance of the balloting, and similar ploys may be tried this time in several key states. In addition, the potential computer-voting scandal could well become actual.

If several thousand votes could determine elections in those key states, it is not outside the realm of possibility that the vote-counting computer software could be fiddled with to determine the winner.

As mainstream press outlets finally are starting to report, those computer-voting software codes are mainly controlled by three major Republician-supporting corporations -- the CEO of one of those companies, Diebold, promised to "deliver" Ohio to Bush in 2004 -- and they refuse to permit examination of those codes by outside inspectors. Reason enough to push for paper ballots for the 2004 election, counted by hand; computer-voting technology is simply too new and too open to manipulation. A journalist recently demonstrated how easy it is to enter into the machines, manipulate the tally numbers, and exit without leaving any trace of having even been inside the system. There is some evidence to suggest that such vote-tampering may have taken place in the 2002 elections in key states.

Given how close the 2004 vote might be, and the built-in problems with the vote-counting software, it is incumbent on all of us interested in the democratic process to lean on our state and county election officials not to certify those touch-screen computer-balloting machines until the software codes can be certified and until a paper-trail of votes cast can be built into the process. For more information on all this, see the Electoral Integrity file on The Crisis Papers, and Congressman Rush Holt's bill on computer-voting.

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