"When the Umpire Takes Sides" NYT editorial re 2004 election concerns

[flpoljunkie]

http://www.nytimes.com/2004/03/29/opinion/29MON1.html

When Katherine Harris had to decide which candidate won Florida in 2000, many people were disturbed to learn she was both the state's top elections official and co-chairwoman of the Florida Bush-Cheney campaign. This year, that kind of unhealthy injection of partisanship into the administration of a presidential election could happen again.

<>When international observers monitor voting in new democracies, a key factor they look for is nonpartisan election administration. (A guidebook monitors use instructs that this can be done by the use of either "mainly professional" or "politically balanced" administrators.) This advice is rarely followed here at home. Decisions about voting machines and voter eligibility, and about who has won a close election, are often in the hands of partisan officials. The private companies that are rapidly moving into the elections field have political ties as well. To remove the appearance, and perhaps the reality, of bias, this culture of partisanship in election operations should be dismantled.

<>Private companies are playing a large, and growing, role in election administration. This trend has the potential to "professionalize" the system, but unfortunately, most of these companies have hurt their own credibility by getting involved in partisan politics. The chief executive of Diebold, one of the leading electronic voting-machine manufacturers, made headlines when he wrote a fund-raising letter saying he was committed to seeing President Bush re-elected. Other leading companies have, more quietly, abandoned their own neutrality. Accenture, which put together a voter database for Florida and is preparing one for Pennsylvania, is a generous donor to both parties, although it gives about twice as much money to Republicans as Democrats.

The idea of getting the secretary of state out of partisan politics is a foreign one to many states, where the job has always been an elective one. But at the very least, no state official who helps run elections should continue to be involved in political campaigns or other partisan activity. Companies that do this work should not make campaign contributions, and states should not hire them if they do. This country should start holding its election system to the same standards of impartiality that its election monitors routinely apply to others.

[RichM]

1. Typical NYT: 3 1/2 yrs too late, they timidly acknowledge the obvious,

without drawing any impolite conclusions from it. They use coward-words, like "people were disturbed to learn..." as euphemisms for "Millions were OUTRAGED to learn..." (that Harris was both a Bush official & a state elections official).

This disgraceful editorial shows that they've understood perfectly well that Bush stole the election - they're just not willing to say so, because it would offend the wrong people.

[Bread and Circus]

6. NYT is pathetic. Do you here me NYT editors?

Our Democracy is withering and I point the finger at you.
You are helping to make it happen.

[Jacobin]

2. New York Slime continues its pathetic slide into irrelevancy

by stating the obvious YEARS too late.

Waiting for Tom Friedman to write a story about how its actually "beneficial" to have the junta running elections for purposes of "stability" in the war to conquer the middle east.

[Robb]

3. More "breaking news" from NYT.

This just in: water wet, NYT staff astounded. :eyes:

[frank frankly]

4. zing!

NYTimes. Are they stupid or corrupt? The answer is BOTH.

[RichM]

5. True, but no more so than the rest of the media. They simply set the

pace & tone for the others to follow.

[lostnfound]

7. Worse. A direct mouthpiece for neocons in Judith Miller.