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Edited on Mon Feb-09-04 02:46 PM by dsc
Let me be perfectly clear here. I am not alledging fraud against Kerry or anyone else. And for the most part, I am not criticising the amatures who did the grunt work for the caucuses.. But that said, we have a major problem on our hands.
In three states, WA, MI, and ME, we look like the keystone cops. First, and by far the most serious, Michigan mistakenly disinfranchised thousands of minority voters in Detroit, Ypsilanti, and Flint. Unless you believe that landlords in three different cities all decided at the last minute to not hold these events and lie about why, the Michigan Democratic party rented a bunch of places without telling the owners why. This is utter incompetence. Remember the major sources of litigation in Florida were, to begin with, matters of incompetence not venality.
In WA, we have at least one report of the wrong numbers being entered into the system and no attempt to fix it. We also, still have, 65 precincts that haven't reported yet.
In ME, we have partial results released to the media and then a cessation of counting apparently to go to sleep.
The excuse that these are volunteers doesn't cut it. Democracy matters. Elections matter. The party needs to find the money to pay for real elections. Just how are we supposed to complain about incompetence in FL or anywhere else, if we can't run elections better than this. Michigan was a disgrace, and Washington State and Maine are at least disgrace lites. Was there fraud? Most probably not. Do I totally trust the results of these elections? In Michigan, no way. In the other two, I have no idea. Kerry certainly won in all three places but there are other things at stake. Kucinich was close to double digits in Washington, Sharpton may have lost a delegate or two, Dean may have as well. For those delegates it mattered.
But most at stake, is our right to be taken seriously when we discuss flaws in other elections. We can't run Haitian style elections when we are in charge and then be taken seriously when we demand first world ones in the general election. This matters. We should have spent the money. I am appalled we didn't.
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