Carter/Baker Report can't face how the GOP stole America's 2004 election & is ri

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Carter/Baker Report can't face how the GOP stole America's 2004

election & is rigging 2008

 

 

by Bob Fitrakis & Harvey Wasserman

September 20, 2005

 

The stolen elections of 2000, 2002 and 2004 are nowhere to be found in

the milquetoast Carter-Baker Report now passing for wisdom on

America's broken electoral system.

 

And unless the public is ready to face the reality that we no longer

live in a nation with credible elections, the 2008 balloting is all

but over.

 

As investigative reporters and registered voters living in central

Ohio, we witnessed firsthand the outright theft of the 2004 election.

We also endured the unwillingness of the Democratic Party to face up

to a carefully choreographed " do everything " strategy that gave the

presidency to George W. Bush for a second time, and which could make

all elections to come virtually moot.

 

The just-issued report of a special commission headed by former

President Jimmy Carter and Bush family consigliore Jim Baker is of

little real value.

 

The report warns that public confidence in the electoral system is

disappearing. But it fails to point out the most obvious cause: in

both 2000 and 2004, the presidency was stolen, and the Republican

Party made a mockery of those who took the time and effort to vote. It

did the same in Georgia in 2002, when it overrode the public will to

install a Republican US Senator and Governor. The US Senate races that

year in Minnesota and Colorado are also suspect, to say the least.

 

Much controversy surrounds the Carter-Baker report over its

recommendation that photo IDs be required of all voters. This is the

electoral equivalent of blaming the people of New Orleans for

Hurricane Katrina (which, of course, this administration has

essentially done).

 

A wide range of critics have pointed out that this requirement is

racist and repressive. It is the equivalent of a poll tax and

discriminates against people of color, the poor, the elderly, and

civil libertarians who object on principle to a national

identification card.

 

The report also recommends that officials who run elections should not

be aggressive partisans. But the horse is already out of the barn on

that one. Florida 2000 and Ohio 2004 were administered by co-chairs of

the state Bush-Cheney campaigns. Secretaries of State Katherine Harris

and J. Kenneth Blackwell were both extremely outspoken Republican

advocates allegedly running non-partisan elections. It's now clear

that their fraudulent, illegal vote fixing twice gave George W. Bush

the White House.

 

Among the panel's 87 recommendations is also a warning that electronic

voting machines must have verifiable paper trails. On paper this is

important. But there are many ways to use electronic voting machines

to steal elections, even with a paper trail, if the likes of Karl Rove

and Dick Cheney are running the show.

 

In the most laughable Carter/Baker punch line, the commission warns

that " had the margin of victory for the [2004] presidential contest

been narrower, the lengthy dispute that followed the 2000 election

could have been repeated. "

 

In fact, in our own preliminary report, we have unearthed more than

180 bullet points dealing with exactly how the GOP did steal the

presidency in Ohio. A " do everything " Republican assault on democracy

used intimidation, fraud, vote theft, computer rigging, machine

distribution manipulation, a fake Homeland security alert, trashing of

provisional ballots, denial of a recount and dozens more " dirty

tricks " to produce a 118,775 " official " margin for Bush that was an

utter fiction.

 

Exit polls in nine swing states showed Kerry a clear winner as late as

12:21 am on election night. Nationwide exit polls showed him with a

1.5 million vote margin in the popular vote.

 

But somehow, against all statistical probability, Bush wound up with a

popular vote victory of nearly 3.5 million. And somehow, against all

statistical probability, he carried Ohio and three other states (Iowa,

Nevada and New Mexico) where he had been the clear loser in the exit

polls. Ohio alone was sufficient to give him a second term, just as

Florida had been in 2000.

 

Such an outcome is beyond implausible -- unless you saw how the

Rove-Blackwell machine stole the vote.

 

The tactics the GOP perfected in Ohio 2004 are now being honed for

re-use in 2008. Neither Al Gore nor John Kerry nor the core of the

Democratic Party has been willing to face the reality that elections

in the United States are all but over. This latest wimp report from

the Carter-Baker whitewash commission does no better.

 

Unless our electoral system gets a total top-to-bottom revamp by an

informed public willing to deal with the systematic poisoning of

American democracy, there is no reason to bother printing the ballots

or plugging in the voting machines in 2008.

 

--

Harvey Wasserman & Bob Fitrakis are co-authors of HOW THE GOP STOLE

AMERICA'S 2004 ELECTION & IS RIGGING 2008, now available in a special

release at http://freepress.org and http://harveywasserman.com.