- Originally published in the Chicago Sun Times; December 01, 2004
by Jesse Jackson
In the Ukraine, citizens are in the streets protesting what they charge
is a fixed election. U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell expresses
this nation's concern about apparent voting irregularities. The media
give the dispute around-the-clock coverage. But in the United States,
massive and systemic voter irregularities go unreported and unnoticed.
Ohio is this election year's Florida. The vote in Ohio decided the
presidential race, but it was marred by intolerable, and often
partisan, irregularities and discrepancies. U.S. citizens have as much
reason as those in Kiev to be concerned that the fix was in. Consider:
In Ohio, a court just ruled there can't be a recount yet, because the
vote is not yet counted. It's three weeks after the election, and Ohio
still hasn't counted the votes and certified the election. Some 93,000
overvotes and undervotes are not counted; 155,000 provisional ballots
are only now being counted. Absentee ballots cast in the two days prior
to the election haven't been counted.
Ohio determines the election, but the state has not yet counted the
vote. That outrage is made intolerable by the fact that the secretary
of state in charge of this operation, Ken Blackwell, holds -- like
Katherine Harris of Florida's fiasco in 2000 -- a dual role: secretary
of state with control over voting procedures and co-chair of George
Bush's Ohio campaign. Blackwell should recuse himself so that a
thorough investigation, count and recount of Ohio's vote can be made.
Blackwell reversed rules on provisional ballots in place in the spring
primaries. These allowed voters to cast provisional ballots anywhere in
their county, even if they were in the wrong precinct, reflecting the
chief rationale for provisional ballots: to ensure that those who went
to the wrong place by mistake could have their votes counted. The
result of this decision -- why does this not surprise? -- was to
disqualify disproportionately ballots cast in heavily Democratic
Cuyahoga County.
Blackwell also permitted the use of electronic machines that provided
no paper record. The maker of many of these machines, the head of
Diebold Co., promised to deliver Ohio for Bush. In one precinct in
Franklin County, an electric voting system gave Bush 3,893 extra votes
out of a total of 638 votes cast.
Blackwell also presided over a voting system that resulted in quick,
short lines in the dominantly Republican suburbs, and four-hour and
longer waiting lines in the inner cities. Wealthy precincts received
ample numbers of voting machines and numerous voting places. Democratic
precincts received inadequate numbers of machines in too few polling
places that were often hard to locate; this caused daylong waits for
the very working people who could least afford the time.
In Ohio, as in Florida and Pennsylvania, there was a stark disconnect
between the exit polls and the tabulated results, with the former
favoring John Kerry and the latter George Bush. The chance of this
occurring in these three states, according to Professor Steven Freeman
of the University of Pennsylvania, is about 250 million to 1.
In one of dozens of examples, Ellen Connally, an African-American
Supreme Court candidate running an underfunded race at the bottom of
the ticket, received over 257,000 more votes than Kerry in 37 counties.
She ran better than Kerry in the areas of the state where she wasn't
known and didn't campaign than she did where she was known and did
campaign.
There should be a federal investigation of the vote count in Ohio, with
the partisan secretary of state removing himself from the scene.
In Cleveland, as in Kiev, Ukraine, citizens have the right to know that
the election is run fairly and every vote counted honestly. Citizens
have the right to nonpartisan election officials. Citizens have the
right to voting machines that keep a paper record and allow for an
independent audit and recount.
This country needs no more Floridas and Ohios. This shouldn't be a
partisan issue. We call for a constitutional amendment to guarantee the
right to vote for all U.S. citizens and to empower Congress to
establish federal standards and nonpartisan administration of
elections. Harris and Blackwell are insults to the people they
represent, and stains upon the president whose election they sought to
ensure. Democracy should not be for export only.
© 2004 Chicago Sun Times