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Paul Geary
David Rogers
Republicans gear up for poll-watching vigilance. They'll have to.
By Paul Geary
Tuesday, November 2, 2004
The New Editor
I still maintain that the headline Wednesday will be that the president will win by a
non-squeaker, though polls are showing near-ties in several states. The vast conspiracy to
deny ballots to thousands of starry-eyed new Democratic voters that we're hearing so much
about must not be working as planned.
Of course, the brilliant plot in 2000 to steal the election might not be so easy this time. In
2000, the Republicans merely had to 1) hinge the election on Florida, 2) make sure that
election officials in Democratic counties botch the counts, and 3) make sure the
Democrat-majority Supreme Court of Florida would clumsily toss aside Florida election
law, inviting the Supreme Court into the fray. It's not so simple this time; too many states in
play.
To listen to Democrats (which by proxy includes the major media) talk as though Florida
singlehandedly sealed our fate as a banana republic doesn't do the 2000 election real justice.
One could make the case that not only did George Bush not "steal" the election, he barely
prevented it from being stolen from him.
It's OK to be surprised. You won't get this kind of analysis on CNN, despite the glitzy
graphics. The folks at Time Magazine, as you'll see below, simply refuse to call the sky blue.
In 2000, five states totalling 55 electoral college votes had Bush and Gore within one
percent of each other. Bush won Florida's 25 by less than one percent. What many forget is
that Gore won four states -- Oregon, Iowa, Wisconsin, and New Mexico by less than one
percent. There were tales of impropriety in several of those states -- and egregious
examples of the appearance of impropriety in two other fairly close states -- Missouri and
Michigan -- won by Bush and Gore respectively. What they had in common was that all of
the charges were levied against Democrats.
Let's take a look at them.
OREGON
Gore won Oregon by about 6700 votes -- 0.4 percent. Republicans complained of missing
votes and other issues. Gore carried the Portland area by about 100,000 votes, and lost the
rest of the state by nearly that amount. Here's the basic story from The Oregonian; once
you get past the downplaying headline, it gets a bit interesting.
WISCONSIN
Gore won Wisconsin by under 6000 votes -- a 0.2 percent margin. A splash was made by a
U of Wisconsin student who claimed to have voted four times, but talk of rampant student
fraud was unfounded. However, the fact that there was not widespread student fraud did
not mean there was no fraud at all. Here's the story.
IOWA
Went for Gore by a little more than 4000 votes -- a 0.3 percent margin. No claims of
outright fraud, but the counting got a little testy. Interesting comment from the state's
Democratic party chair: he though counting Iowa's votes was "much ado about nothing
until we know what the final vote's going to be in Florida." It's nice that some Democrats
don't get high blood pressure over making every vote count.
NEW MEXICO
The Vice President nearly lost New Mexico by a mere 100+ votes, but ended up winning by
366, the smallest number-margin in the country. The difference? An assertion of a
handwriting error by an election clerk. From the Albuquerque Journal, November 14, 2000:
"Dona Ana County Clerk Rita Torres said election workers misread a 600-vote absentee
total for a precinct, mistaking the figure as 100. 'They wrote a six that looked like a one.
That's where the 500 for Gore comes from,' Torres said.
MISSOURI
In the show-me state, Bush won, but incumbent Senator John Ashcroft lost to dead
challenger Mel Carnahan. The zeal of the Democrats to beat Ashcroft was revealed in the
Scandal That Florida Overshadowed. The Democratic Party planned in advance to ask the
courts to extend the voting day in St. Louis with claims of voter turn-aways. A state court
granted a three-hour extension, with an appeals court shortening that to 45 minutes.
Charges flew. Months later, the Secretary of State issued his findings, and predictably they
were met with charges of partisanship.
MICHIGAN
Michigan appears to be in play this year, despite Gore having won the state by about 5
points in 2000. The close race in Michigan this year makes it's 2000 story particularly
relevant. Reports of huge turnout and huge margins for Gore in 2000 in Detroit contributing
to his 5% win here prompted complaints of fraud by Republicans. Democrats countered
with charges that Republicans simply weren't happy with success in getting
African-Americans to vote. I'll let the numbers do the talking. Detroit had under 50%
turnout. Of those who did show up, 94% voted for Gore. That's right - 94%. Detroit is
80% African-American. So, for that number to be accurate, all of Detroit's
African-Americans would have had to vote for Gore, and 70% of everyone else. With
results that would prompt Saddam Hussein to refrain from torturing anybody or make Kim
Jong-Il jealous, Bush got less than 10 votes in 385 precincts; Gore beat him in those
precincts 117,571 to 2,052. Here are the results of those precincts from the Michigan
Secretary of State's office.
Amazingly, Time Magazine online's analysis of Michigan this year would have one believe
Gore slam-dunked the whole state in 2000 -- then again they still have Arizona and Colorado
listed at "battleground" states. Fact is, Gore carried Michigan by 217,219 votes -- and
carried Wayne County, which includes Detroit, by 307,393 votes. Somehow Time
interpreted that to mean that Detroit alone didn't win it for him. Despite all this, the
Democrats in Congress created a report discussing the "undercounting" of votes in Detroit.
Enjoy your day watching the ubiquitous media reports of voter disenfranchisement -- but
remember that keeping felons from voting is clearly not the only way to tilt an election.
Paul Geary is a contributing editor for The New Editor.