Knappster: Election reform shouldn't be a partisan concern

By George Knapp

The incomparable Leola Armstrong, better known to readers as Mistress Lee, thinks there is a lesson for all Americans in the recent turmoil in the Ukraine. Mistress Lee, a local bodybuilder, learned a thing or two about political payback and dirty tricks after the story surfaced on the Internet about her alleged relationship with GOP morality poobah William Bennett, who reportedly became smitten with the Mistress during his many gambling trips to Las Vegas in those halcyon days before he kicked his slot machine habit.

Bennett's loyal and conservative supporters continue to target Mistress Lee with all manner of threats and harassment and nasty e-mails. She, in turn, hasn't been shy in dishing out scathing criticism of Republicans in general and the Bush crowd in specific. Those millions of Ukrainians who staged street demonstrations and refused to accept the results of a rigged election, she says, should be an inspiration to Americans, who seem all too content to turn a blind eye to any discussions of possible election funny business.

"The Ukraine is how citizens should respond when the results are fixed," Mistress Lee declares. "The irony is that sheepish Americans stand by and let this monster [Bush] steer them into the abyss."

It is just a tad ironic that Americans got so worked up about the legitimacy of the Ukranian election, and that our military personnel are dying at this moment to ensure that Iraqis get a chance for a fair election later this month, but few people seem to have much interest in the sanctity of elections here in the United States.

The other day, I read a Nevada editorial that summed up the winner-take-all attitude of Republicans and their faithful drum-beaters in the media. The editorial berated those congressional Democrats who raised questions about serious, widely reported problems with the last presidential election, characterizing these elected officials as "conspiracy theorists." Questioning the legitimacy of our election results, the editorial writer surmised, is the equivalent of believing that the CIA is behind the "chemtrail" mystery, or that U.N. troops will be here any day now to put us all in concentration camps. (Somehow, I'm surprised the UFO coverup didn't warrant a mention.)

Since this same theme has been repeated all over the country by the usual suspects (The Rush-meister, the entire stable of Fox Network loonies, that blond harpy), it might seem to a conspiracy-minded person like myself that perhaps this is a concerted, orchestrated effort to make sure that no one dares to push for investigations or reforms for fear of ridicule and chastisement. I don't know if Karl Rove handed out a list of talking points to his loyal media troops, but there is an amazing similarity in the message they have been espousing in recent weeks. Sen. Barbara Boxer, the only senator to vote against the certification of the presidential election results, has been savaged by conservative pundits for voting her conscience. (She was described locally as a Democrat from Shangri-La.)

Why is it goofy to question the legitimacy of elections when so many problems were reported all over the country? After the debacle of 2000 and the legions of problems reported nationwide in 2004, why is this not a topic worthy of public discussion and debate? My guess is that this strategy is being taken because of the end result. George Bush won, therefore the election was just fine. If John Kerry had somehow squeaked out a victory, one suspects there might be more of a hue and cry for investigations and reforms. If you doubt this, take a look at Washington state. When it appeared the Republican contender was going to be declared the winner, the GOP urged Democrats to concede the election for the good of the state. Now that a recount has determined the Democrat won by a whisker, the GOP is crying foul, calling for investigations, and even demanding an entire new election.

For the record, I don't think John Kerry won or that any investigation could possibly reverse the results of the '04 vote. Even Kerry himself concedes this. But overturning the election isn't the only reason to have a serious debate about how our election system is functioning in the 21st century. There are some pretty serious problems that have been documented around the country, including a few right here in Nevada. It doesn't have to be a partisan issue. Election reform is in the interests of all Americans, no matter what their political persuasion might be.

Rigged elections and dirty tricks on a large scale aren't exactly unknown in American politics. There is ample evidence, for example, that John Kennedy may have prevailed over Richard Nixon with the help of the Chicago Mafia, which employed the votes of a few thousand dead people to put Illinois into the JFK column, thus deciding the election. Years later, Nixon used burglars, wiretappers and dirty tricksters to gut the opposition long before the election was even held. These examples are not fictional. They really happened. Conspiracies? Yes. Fantasies? No.

"No American citizen should wake up the morning after the election and worry their vote wasn't counted," Sen. Kerry said last week. "No citizen should be denied at the polls if they are eligible to vote...our citizens should not be forced to vote on old, unaccountable and nontransparent voting machines from companies controlled by partisan activists."

Kerry says straight out that despite all the problems that popped up during the last election, no evidence has been uncovered that could change the outcome. So this discussion is not about the election of '04. It's about elections still to come.

In Ohio, the pivotal state in this last election, a computer error credited George Bush with almost 4,000 votes in a precinct where only hundreds of people actually voted. That problem clearly didn't tip the elction by itself, but isn't it something that needs to be addressed? Also in Ohio, there were 92,000 punch card ballots that were discarded altogether. They would not all have voted for Kerry or Bush, but that seems to be a pretty hefty number of voters who were disenfranchised because of mechanical problems. Doesn't that seem fixable? In that same state, there were statistical anomalies in the results, and questions about the distribution of the voting machines themselves, with fewer machines being sent to heavily Democratic areas. This isn't an out-of-this-world scenario that is too malevolent for some political operative to dream up, is it? Isn't it possible that someone really could think of something like this to chip away at the vote totals?

Back in October, when some of these concerns were first raised, Republican Congressman Bob Ney of Ohio promised his constituents--in fact, he "guaranteed"--that there would be congressional hearings after the elections to address the most serious concerns about election fraud, including the activities of the so-called 527 groups. Now that the election is over, however, the good congressman has fallen into lockstep with his GOP brethren and thinks full hearings into election allegations would amount to cooperation with the conspiracy nuts, this despite the fact that the House Judiciary Committee received an astounding 57,000 complaints about voting problems on Election Day. In Pennsylvania, for example, voters relied on four different machines and systems for casting and counting ballots. Why? We know that tens of thousands of voting machines were operated by a company that donated huge sums of money to the Bush campaign. Now seriously, wouldn't the GOP cry foul if they knew that Republicans were voting on machines that were owned and operated by George Soros? Would they be conspiracy theorists if they complained?

Here in Nevada, we have a lot of unanswered questions. Remember Eric Russell, the young man who says he saw a GOP-hired company, Voters Outreach of America, destroy the registration forms of those who identified themselves as Democrats? Allegations of similar skullduggery were leveled at the very same company in several other states. Russell told his story to the FBI, knowing he could face criminal prosecution if he lied. Other people came forward to tell similar stories about the registration drives they worked on. The Review-Journal found its own sources who said they bribed homeless people with booze and cigarettes so long as the bums registered to vote for the GOP. I recall that VOA filed a lawsuit against Eric Russell and threatened to do the same to those reporters who wrote negative stories about the company. So what happened to the lawsuits now that the election is over? Is anyone surprised to learn that they've evaporated? The GOP, by the way, which declared back then that it had "zero tolerance" for any sort of registration fraud, publicly thanked Voters Outreach for the fine job it did in '04.

Larry Lomax, the nonpartisan, very capable registrar of voters for Clark County, says there are several unanswered questions about the last election, things that need to be addressed. Lomax wants some sort of system that can keep better track of registration forms, so that if someone submits phony forms or destroys legit forms, they can be held accountable. Thousands of these forms are unaccounted from last year. Lomax also thinks there should be controls on the payment of a bounty for registrations, especially when it comes to petition efforts. And even though Nevada may lead the nation in terms of modern voting equipment, Lomax thinks the gear being used is "far from perfect" and needs to be standardized. Lomax isn't a conspiracy buff. He just thinks the system needs to be fixed and the issues debated.

Jon Summers works for the Nevada Democratic Party, so he has an ax to grind, but some of the issues he raises should be just as important to Republicans as they are to Democrats. On Election Day, for example, someone puled some really sneaky stuff here.

"We need to go back and look at who did these things, at who handed out fliers with the wrong voting locations or the wrong times to primarily Democratic precincts, at who knocked on doors and tried to mislead voters about when and where they could cast ballots," Summers says. "We can't just say Bush won and it's over, because someone could do this again."

Someone really did rip up and toss away voter registration forms that had been signed by citizens who thought they would be able to vote on Election Day. It happened. I saw the torn forms myself. Whoever did it committed a crime. The FBI started an investigation into this matter--and into a broader spectrum of election allegations--but we don't know if it is continuing.

Why wait for the FBI? Why can't we have an open debate about how to improve our election system and better protect our most basic right? People who want to avoid a repetition of these mistakes should not be smeared as conspiracy nuts. After all, the day may come when the shoe is on the GOP foot.