Why don't they want the vote audited?

Of course I know why. It's a rhetorical question. But Karl Rove's lackey in Ohio, Ken "Katherine Harris The Sequel" Blackwell, is sure trying hard to make sure that the vote count in Ohio can't be audited.



Press release from John Conyers' office, December 12:

Yesterday, it came to the attention of the House Judiciary Committee Democratic Staff that efforts to audit poll records in Greene County, Ohio are being obstructed by County Election officials and/or Ohio Secretary of State Ken Blackwell. According to Joan Quinn and Eve Robertson, two election observers researching voting records, Greene County officials initially gave Quinn and Robertson access to poll records, and then abruptly withdrew such access. Greene County Director of Elections Carole Garman claimed that she had withdrawn access to the voting records at the direction of Secretary Blackwell. Regardless of who ordered the denial of this access, such an action appears to violate Ohio law. Later, at the same office, election observers found the office unlocked, and what appeared to be locked ballot boxes, unattended. Prior to the withdrawal of access to the books, observers had found discrepancies in election records, and possible evidence of minority vote suppression.



House Judiciary Committee Democrats wrote a letter to Blackwell on December 2 requesting answers to 34 questions about election irregularities and fraud in Ohio. This letter included questions about major discrepancies in Perry County poll books. Since that letter, additional documentation has been provided to the Democratic staff demonstrating similar problems in other counties.



Because of the urgency of the Greene County matter, Congressman John Conyers, Jr., Ranking member of the House Judiciary Committee, has requested that Ms. Quinn testify at a hearing scheduled Monday in Columbus, Ohio. Ms. Quinn has agreed to do so and will also present sworn statements from corroborating witnesses. Conyers issued the following statement:



"The Recount effort is simply a search for the truth of what happened during the 2004 Presidential election in Ohio. We have now repeatedly seen election officials obstruct and stonewall this search for the truth. I am beginning to wonder what it is they are trying to hide."

Will Pitt is right (emphases mine):

President John F. Kennedy once said, "We are not afraid to entrust the American people with unpleasant facts, foreign ideas, alien philosophies, and competitive values. For a nation that is afraid to let its people judge the truth and falsehood in an open market is a nation that is afraid of its people." It appears all to evident today that the government of this nation is afraid of its people, afraid of the truth.



This is nothing new. Alexis De Toqueville observed long ago that, "The surface of American society is covered with a layer of democratic paint, but from time to time one can see the old aristocratic colors breaking through."



We are seeing those colors breaking through today in the privatization of the vote, in the denial of access to the results of that vote, and in the complete blackout by the mainstream news media of the simple fact that this is happening. Yet here we stand, and here we will remain. I support the effort to pass a constitutional amendment establishing the explicit right to vote in this country. A federal right to vote would bolster the National Voter Registration Act standards for voter registration activities, while also prohibiting voter intimidation and granting the Attorney General the power to intervene where voting irregularities of fraud occurs.



You may groan at that last bit, remembering who sits in the AG chair today, and who will sit there when Ashcroft is gone, but this is a fight for the future, and we will clean that house one day and seat an attorney general who is not...how do I put this? One day we will seat an attorney general who understands his or her job involves more than frightening people on cue whenever Bush lands in political hot water. A federal right to vote makes all of the things we have seen happening since the November election a matter of constitutional law. Diebold would be exposed by this. Blackwell would be exposed by this. The truth would be exposed by this.



I can think of nothing more important than the defense of our right to vote, I can think of nothing more important than the demand that all votes be counted, and I can think of nothing more important than the fight to cleanse our system of those who would steal from us these basic, essential democratic requirements. I can think of no coherent argument against enshrining our right to vote within the sacred document that defines us as a nation.



This is not a partisan political issue. I do not know what the party registration was of the woman going through chemotherapy, who fainted in line while waiting to vote. She left the line without voting because the line was too long, because there were not enough machines at her polling place. I do not know the party registration of the single mom who would have gotten fired from her job had she stood in that long line to vote. What about the man who was in the hospital and did not receive his absentee ballot, so he stood in that line with an IV in his arm. I have no idea who these people would of voted for. I couldn't care less. These people, and millions more besides, were disenfranchised in this last election. This is intolerable. Period.