Voting Machines Distributed Equally
Published January 17, 2005
As recently as, um, today, people as highly placed and respectable as John Kerry were making statements such as this regarding the presidential election:
- "thousands of people were suppressed in the effort to vote."
"Voting machines were distributed in uneven ways. In Democratic districts, it took people four, five, eleven hours to vote, while Republicans (went) through in 10 minutes — same voting machines, same process, our America," he said.
- When they stood on the floor of Congress recently to protest the results of Ohio's presidential vote, Democrats told a national audience about their suspicious hunch: People in Democratic strongholds were short-changed on voting machines on Election Day.
Voter groups and activists have lobbed the same accusation for weeks. Long lines in urban areas, such as Cleveland, kept John Kerry supporters from voting, they say.
But a Plain Dealer analysis shows that, in Cuyahoga County at least, the elections board distributed machines equally to city and suburban polling locations.
The long lines at some locations appear to be more the result of timing, new voters and overwhelmed poll workers, not necessarily a shortage of machines.
Before the Nov. 2 election, the elections board allotted each Cleveland precinct one machine for every 117 registered voters within its boundaries - the same ratio of machines that suburban precincts received.
..And in the end, the busiest precincts - when measured by the number of ballots cast per machine - were actually in the suburbs, not Cleveland, according to a Plain Dealer analysis of records from the Cuyahoga County Board of Elections.
Countywide, voters cast an average of nearly 71 ballots on each of the county's 8,000 machines. In Cleveland alone, voters cast an average of 62 ballots per machine. In the suburbs, the average was 74.
....Long lines did form at some of Cuyahoga's 584 polling locations. And those on Cleveland's East Side - where problems were most anticipated - received the most attention from politicians, voter groups and reporters on the lookout for glitches.
- Voting Machines Distributed Equally
- Published: January 17, 2005
- Type:
- Section: Politics
- Writer: Eric Olsen
- Eric Olsen's BC Writer page
- Eric Olsen's personal site
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Comments on this articleComments
I was impressed that Kerry did not succumb to the "must have been someting other than, you know, actual votes" that some Democrats resorted to after the election - that is until now.
He didn't have time before. He's been too busy building troop morale and reaching out to Arab progressives.
Now, are you going to keep up this Rethuglikkkan whining of yours or can we get back to the healing?
I am but a simple independent who casts aspersions on all houses
Understood. I offer you this magnificent photo as an olive branch. "For of all sad words of tongue or pen, the saddest are these: 'It might have been!'"
that IS quite a shot
I fixed the first one - I would have sworn it was Photoshopped, classic!
Thanks, Eric - I had actually seen this several places today, but appreciate its dispersion to the greater web community!
The correct word is "demagoguery." For whatever bit of cheap political advantage they think they can get, Kerry and other left wingnuts are perfectly happy to dishonestly and with malice aforethought undermine the legitimacy of our entire democracy, trying to convince people that they were robbed and that Bush didn't really win.
Maybe they could make some half-legitimate sounding excuses to fool themselves for Florida 2000, but this is just stupid and selfish in the worst sense of the word.
John Kerry's making Richard Nixon look good. Even that crook would not tear down the whole country like this. He accepted being actually cheated out of his victory in 1960 rather than put the country through a crisis.
What a waste of skin.
"What a waste of skin."
Now, now. His skin is actually quite valuable, now that he's received all those Botox injections...
And then people wonder why so many millions of Americans decide not to vote at all.
I hope some of the self-righteous posters (of both political spectrums) will read this. There aren't any saints in the body politic. It's a dirty business. There is no monopoly on common sense and both sides have their dirty little secrets.
the central point is that Kerry, after showing admirable restraint for the last two months-plus, is now propagating and giving creedence to self-serving myth that he either knows to be false or should know to be false
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(Or ping: http://blogcritics.org/mt/tb/24330)
Now, now. This is a time for healing.