My friend Wil (who does not like permalinks, apparently) misses the point on the "election fraud" meme:
While I'm sure there are real irregularities, I'm extremely doubtful anyone can make the case Kerry had the election stolen from him.But that really just confuses one issue with another. Whether or not Kerry won the election is one point. Whether or not every vote was or will be counted is entirely different. We have no business getting all high and mighty and telling people that every vote counts if we then turn around and act like some don't. Apparently, some votes don't count - or, at least it's not worth taking a moment to make sure they do. After 2000, the least the Democrats and Kerry could have done is chill out for a few days. It would be good for the nation to have a buffer between the all out campaigning season and the season where half the country get to be depressed..
And there's a larger issue here, too - the "rule by consensus" mentality that has been reached. The acceptance of Bush as the acknowledged winner is itself used as the reason not to give credence to allegations of irregularities. Perhaps the currently known irregularities are not sufficient to change the outcome, as Wil points out. But the point of bringing irregularities to light is NOT to use them as arguments to overturn the outcome. The point is to provide a basis for further scrutiny, so that we can have a legitimate, widely agreed upon outcome - ya'know, the one that matters. The point is to have an election where the final results are trusted. Which implies the need to wait till said results are final.
I don't think taking our time in getting the count right is too much to ask after the hijinks of 2000. Hell, there may be irregularities we haven't even conceived of. We don't know unless we take the time and effort to look. But the media at large seems bent on squelching any and all doubt in the outcome, as if the outcome is all that matters. It is not all that matters, unless you only want to satisfy the pundits, who can box this outcome into their neat little package. Nobody is served when consensus, and not a fair and open investigation, determines whether or not the vote was legit.
Will there be wild accusations? Yes! Baseless assertions? Yes! Is it nice that, for a change, people actually give a crap about politics? Yes! These are all good reasons to make sure people trust the outcome, instead of making them feel like their concern has no merit. After 2000, nobody should be made to feel bad about questioning the system. And the fact that this mentality of labelling anybody who is skeptical of the system a "conspiracy theorist" or worse is being adopted again by the media intelligentsia - the very media who, after, all, themselves admitted that they messed up this and the last election cycle - is nothing but a slap in the face to us consumers.
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