There's a relatively famous scene from the 1986 movie Crocodile Dundee in which Mick Dundee and love interest Sue are threatened by a mugger with a small switchblade. They have the following exchange:
Sue: Mick, give him your wallet.Listening to the petty claims of fraud tossed around in the wake of Bush's Ohio victory -- We had to wait in line! We were intimidated! -- and comparing them to the scandals surrounding other elections around the world, I feel like Mick Dundee looking at that tiny switchblade.
Mick: What for?
Sue: He's got a knife.
Mick (brandishing a massive machete): That's not a knife. This is a knife.
In Ukraine, opposition candidate Viktor Yushchenko was poisoned by his opponent, but stayed in the race. After his supporters rallied in the streets for days on end, he won a re-vote held because of massive fraud, including government thugs storming the polling places.
Armed thugs also made an appearance in the recent election of Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas, when Fatah gunmen invaded a polling station, shooting their rifles into the air and saying their relatives were denied a vote.
In Iraq, enemies of democracy are murdering Iraqi citizens in a wave of bombings and assassinations, hoping to derail elections altogether. The U.S. is deploying 35,000 troops in Baghdad to protect voters as they head to the polls on January 30.
And in a recent development in a story from last March, it now seems that Taiwan's President Chen Shui-bian faked the assassination attempt on himself and running-mate Annette Lu on the eve of the election there, to gain sympathy votes.
American elections can and must be improved. They need to run more smoothly and inspire more confidence in the results, not least because irregularities and inconveniences provide fertile ground for conspiracy theorists. But after looking at what people around the world endure to participate in the democratic process -- and remembering that millions of others still can't -- waiting in line a few hours to vote doesn't seem so bad.
3 comments:
Funny you should mention this, as it's been a topic I've been wanting to blog about myself. Jesse Jackson made the Ukraine=Ohio claim in a recent Op-Ed column in the Chicago Sun Times, and I just about fell off my chair! As if there were any remote connection between what happened to Viktor Yuschenko and John Kerry's losing the election.
On November 2nd, I worked at a poling place here in Chicago. This year, the Board of Electors in Cook County held an unprecedented eight hours of training, four prior to the primaries in April, and again for the changes in process that were to be applied on November 2nd. Every attempt was made to prevent disenfranchisement of any voter, and the Provisional Ballots were available for those who were fearful of being denied a ballot in the instance that it appeared they were not registered to vote in a particular precinct. Rightfully, those same Provisional Ballots were subject to heavy scrutiny, but no one single person was denied the right to vote. We had fewer voting stations than would have been ideal, but no one complained about having to wait in line. We had some people who had to wait upwards of 1 hour at a couple of points, but people understood that they were waiting because of the extremely high turnout of voters: in my precinct, 97% of registered voters cast a ballot. That is beyond extraordinary, and I was really excited by the turnout because I believed that, whatever the result, the high turnout would grant that result legitimacy. How do Jackson, Kerry and Boxer know that lack of machines or disenfranchisement were the cause of the long lines, and that people who chose to walk away rather than vote were not doing so becuase they lacked the patience to vote in the midst of a high voter turnout? They don't, and to claim fraud, etc. is dishonest in the main.
Even though I knew Illinois was a lost cause for Bush, I was amazed by the record number of voters. Only one person gave me a piece of his mind because I had a "Republican Judge of Election" name tag on my blouse, otherwise everyone was very patient and cordial.
The DNC had 5,000 lawyers in Ohio, ready to pursue any and all venues of contending the election results. DNC Memos were "leaked" showing that lawyers were encouraged to pre-emptively claim fraud prior to having actual cases, just in case. Therefore, any claims they make, then and now, are questionable.
What we are witnessing now is a continuation of that effort. The dems ought to be aware of the fact that such charades are turning off not only independent voters, but traditional democrats as well. The damage that they are doing to the integrity of the electoral process is reprehensible. However, they seem not to realize that they are damaging their own party as well. Ah, the continuing legacy of Al Gore!
Posted by Sharon
Thanks for the long and interesting comment. With Bush's 2nd-term inauguration now safely behind us, the claims of fraud should die down to a dull murmur amongst the hardest of the hardcore left.
America needs to eliminate irregularities and inconveniences in voting procedures, though, because they just provide fertile ground for the conspiracy theorists.
Posted by GaijinBiker
"America needs to eliminate irregularities and inconveniences in voting procedures, though, because they just provide fertile ground for the conspiracy theorists."
Agreed. However, no process of this scale will ever be perfect, and as long as the conspiracy theorists are left-leaning democrats, you'll be able to set your watch by the frequency of this recurring complaint.
Posted by Sharon
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