- Originally published by the Chicago Sun Times on January 4, 2005
BY JESSE JACKSON
This Thursday in Washington Rep. John Conyers (D-Mich.), the senior
minority member of the House Judiciary Committee, will formally object
to the counting of the Ohio electoral vote in the 2004 presidential
election. If any senator joins him, the counting of the vote is
suspended and the House and the Senate must convene separately to hear
the objections filed, and to vote on whether to accept them.
The grounds for the objections are clear: The irregularities in the
Ohio vote and vote count are widespread and blatant. If the Ohio
election were held in the Ukraine, it would not have been certified by
the international community.
In Ohio, the gulf between exit polls and counted votes is vast and
glaring. Blatant discrimination in the distribution of voting machines
ensured long lines in inner-city and working-class precincts that
favored John Kerry, while the exurban districts that favored President
Bush had no similar problems.
Systematic efforts were made to suppress and challenge the new voters
in Kerry precincts, whether students or African Americans. Some
precincts were certified with more votes than the number registered;
others were certified with preposterously low turnouts. Voting
machines, produced by a company headed by a vowed Bush supporter,
provide no paper record. Ohio's secretary of state, the inappropriately
partisan head of the state's Bush campaign, has resisted any systematic
recount of the ballots.
The systematic bias and potential for fraud is unmistakable. An
in-depth investigation is vital -- and the partisan secretary of state
has opposed it every step of the way. In this context, Conyers and his
colleagues in the House are serving the nation's best interests in
demanding an investigation of the irregularities in Ohio, and objecting
to business as usual in counting the vote.
If Harry Reid, the new leader of the Democratic minority in the Senate,
has any sense, he will lead members of the caucus to support their
colleagues from the House and demand a debate that will expose the
irregularities in Ohio. If Kerry wants to establish his continued
leadership, he will stand first to join with Conyers and demand a
debate.
Will the debate overturn the outcome of the election? That is doubtful,
although the irregularities in Ohio suggest that Kerry may well have
won if a true count could be had. But the debate is vital anyway. This
country's elections, each run with different standards by different
states, with partisan tricks, racial bias, and too often widespread
incompetence, are an open scandal.
We need national standards to ensure that we get an honest count across
the country. National standards, accompanied by a constitutional
amendment to guarantee the right to vote for all Americans, will be
passed only if leaders in the Congress refuse to close their eyes to
the scandal, and instead stop business as usual.
Conyers, Reid and Kerry will face harsh criticism for violating what
might be called the Nixon precedent. When Kennedy beat Nixon by a few
thousand votes in an election marked by irregularities in Illinois and
Texas, Nixon chose not to challenge the result. Gore essentially
followed that rule after the gang of five in the Supreme Court
disgraced themselves by stopping the vote count in Florida. But the
effect of the Nixon precedent is to provide those who would cheat with
essentially a free pass. Particularly when the state officials are
partisans, they can put in the fix with little fear of exposure so long
as they win.
So Conyers will step up, accompanied by other courageous members of the
House. They will object to the count and demand a debate. To force that
debate, they need only one member of the Senate to join them. Reid
should lead the entire caucus to join them. Kerry should stand alone if
necessary to demand clean elections in America.
If America is to be a champion of democracy abroad, it must clean up
its elections at home. If it is to complain of fraudulent and dishonest
election practices abroad, it cannot condone them at home. But more
important, if our own elections are to be legitimate, then they must be
honest, open, with high national standards.
The time has come to stand up for clean elections, and to let it be known that massive irregularities will not go unchallenged.