The Election’s Last Gasp
A NY Times Editorial.

Congressional Democrats staged an unusual protest yesterday when Senator Barbara Boxer of California and Representative Stephanie Tubbs Jones of Ohio objected to certifying the results of the 2004 election. Supporters of the defeated (and absent) John Kerry then spent two hours making speeches, most of which began with the declaration that George W. Bush had definitely won.
It could not have been a totally satisfactory afternoon for the president’s angry supporters or for the conspiracy theorists who still believe that Bush operatives managed to steal Ohio’s electoral votes. The final count showed that Mr. Bush had won the state by more than 100,000 votes, and the Democrats who rose to complain about the process prefaced their remarks by saying things like “the irregularities in Ohio would not have overturned the results.”
But the Democrats were right to call attention to the defects in the system. Our elections need to do more than produce a legitimate winner. They need to do it through a process that seems fair to all reasonable citizens. On that count, the United States has a way to go.
Electronic voting machines that do not produce a paper trail that can be rechecked in contested elections create worries that a contest could be stolen by computer hacking or by tampering with the machine software. Those concerns seem to have been unfounded in the last election, but it did not require paranoia to think that such things might happen.
It is not illegal to require voters to stand in lines so long that they wind up being forced to give up or to skip work, but it is unfair – particularly when such delays happen mainly in poor and minority neighborhoods. It is not illegal to leave election operations in the hands of a partisan elected official, but such a situation will make the system seem biased to voters from the other side of the political divide. That is what happened in Ohio, where the secretary of state was also a co-chairman of the Bush campaign in that state.
Democrats were obviously most vocal about the sloppy and highhanded way the election was run in many places, but the Republicans should also object. Mr. Bush won the most votes, but he has been deprived of universal confidence in the way they were counted.

Senate, House Reject Challenge To Ohio Electoral Votes

Challenge Mounted By U.S. Sen. Barbara Boxer

President George W. Bush has been declared the winner of the electoral vote, with 286 votes. Democrat John Kerry got 251 votes, and his running mate, John Edwards, received one.
The declaration came after the House and the Senate have overwhelmingly rejected a Democratic challenge to awarding Ohio’s 20 electoral votes to President George W. Bush.
The Senate vote was 74-1, with only Sen. Barbara Boxer, D-Calif., voting to support it. The vote in the House was 267-31.
Boxer and U.S. Rep. Stephanie Tubbs Jones, D-Ohio, lodged a formal protest to the Ohio results, prompting several hours of debate. If a senator hadn’t signed on, the protest wouldn’t have been heard.
They and others cited a lack of voting machines, unusually long lines and other problems that plagued some Ohio districts, many in minority neighborhoods…
By law, any such challenge that’s signed by members of both houses compels each chamber to meet for up to two hours to consider the complaint.
As a result of the move, House and Senate members went into separate meetings for a debate focusing on alleged voting irregularities in Ohio on Election Day.
The challenge, which was expected, disrupted the mostly ceremonial reading of the electoral vote count of each state…
The delay didn’t jeopardize Bush’s win. The outcome of the race is not in doubt, since Republicans have majorities in both the House and Senate. After the debate, lawmakers reconvened and finished hearing the reading of the electoral votes.
Democratic leaders — including Sen. John Kerry — distanced themselves from the challenge. Some said they feared it would make them look like sore losers.

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Bush carries Electoral College after delay
Democrats challenge Ohio vote, push back official certification
On the CNN website.

President Bush officially won a second term in the White House after electoral votes from all 50 states were counted Thursday during a joint session of Congress.
The normally perfunctory ceremony of counting and certifying Electoral College votes was delayed for about four hours as Democrats unsuccessfully challenged Ohio’s votes for Bush…
The challenge was defeated 267-31 by the House and 74-1 by the Senate, clearing the way for the joint session to count the votes from the remaining states…
The objecting Democrats, all of whom are House members except Boxer, said they wanted to draw attention to the need for aggressive election reform in the wake of what they said were widespread voter problems.
In a letter to congressional leaders Wednesday, members of the group said they would take the action because a new report by Democrats on the House Judiciary Committee found “numerous, serious election irregularities,” particularly in Ohio, that led to “a significant disenfranchisement of voters.”
“How can we possibly tell millions of Americans who registered to vote, who came to the polls in record numbers, particularly our young people … to simply get over it and move on?” Tubbs Jones said at a press conference with Boxer…
It was only the second such challenge since the current rules for counting electoral votes were established in 1877. The last was in 1969 and concerned a so-called “faithless elector,” according to congressional researchers.
Four years ago, after the disputed election results in Florida, members of the Congressional Black Caucus attempted to block Florida’s electoral votes from being counted.
In a scene recalled in Michael Moore’s movie “Fahrenheit 9/11,” lawmaker after lawmaker was gaveled down by Vice President Al Gore because no senator would support the objections, as the rules require.
House Democrats involved in this year’s protest worked for weeks to enlist the support of a senator in their party, and Boxer agreed to join the effort Wednesday.
“This is my opening shot to be able to focus the light of truth on these terrible problems in the electoral system,” Boxer told the joint press conference with Tubbs Jones.
“While we have men and women dying to bring democracy abroad, we’ve got to make it the best it can be here at home, and that’s why I’m doing this.”…
Kerry released a letter Wednesday saying he would not take part in the protest.
“Our legal teams on the ground have found no evidence that would change the outcome of the election,” Kerry said.
Bush carried Ohio by more than 118,000 votes — the Buckeye State win providing the margin of victory in the Electoral College race. The president received 286 to Kerry’s 252 electoral votes.
“There are very troubling questions that have not yet been answered by Ohio election officials,” the senator said.
“In the coming months I will present a national proposal to ensure transparency and accountability in our voting process.”

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This is not from today – Jan 6, 2005, this is from December 8, 2004.
(The Jan 6 stuff goes up this weekend — I’m just catching up.)
I haven’t even had a chance to look at these yet, but I wanted to make sure you knew they were up. It’s several hours of hearings split up into 20 MB chunks.
Enjoy!

December 8, 2004 Hearings At DC On Ohio Voting Irregularities

Executive Summary: House Judiciary Dems