Whiter than most, as my susceptibility to sunburn and freckles can attest. In all the years that I have voted in elections (beginning in 1976 when I cast my first vote for Gerald Ford for President) I've never had to wait more than 20 minutes in line, tops, to cast my ballot. I never faced anyone at my various polling places who questioned my right to vote. It's always been a pretty straightforward proposition: The poll worker looks me up in the book, finds my name and address, I sign where she or he indicates, and it's on to the voting machine.
Simple, easy, piece of cake. Very little disruption to my day, and I always left the polling place with a small self-satisfied smile for having been a dutiful citizen, having been one of the responsible crowd who cared enough to make our democracy work. Even when I was unhappy about my choices, or in those times when I was most cynical about politics, in general, I still did my duty. I wasn't one of those who couldn't be bothered to make the effort on Election Day out of apathy or disenchantment or sheer laziness. I was a good boy. I voted.
And I had no reason to suspect that anyone would ever tamper with my vote, or cheat, lie, stuff ballot boxes or otherwise steal an election. Sure, I'd read the stories claiming that JFK only beat Nixon in 1960 thanks to all the dead bodies who rose from the grave in Chicago to cast their ballot for the Democrats. However, all that talk of "political machines" run by corrupt politicians like Mayor Richard Daley in Chicago, or Tom Pendergast in Missouri, with the power to fix elections seemed like ancient history by the time I came of voting age.
The power of network television news to shine it's all seeing eye on political scandals, and the wave of reform that was ushered in after Watergate, made the possibility of crooked elections seem remote when I was young. Machine politics was dead, or at the very least comatose and in intensive care, clinging to the last dregs of life in ever fewer cities and small towns. Sure, corruption still existed (anyone here remember Abscam?), but the power to steal a Presidential election? That was long gone, never to be resurrected.
Or so the official narrative about our government that I had been raised on since birth told me.
Bush v. Gore
At the beginning of the 2000 election, I was a partisan of Senator John McCain. I knew he was a conservative, but his support for election campaign reform struck a nerve with me. As a lawyer, and a partner in my firm who had primarily represented Banks and other large corporations before my disability, I was well aware that our politics, at every level, had been consumed by the necessity for money to fund election campaigns.
Indeed, we had partners in our firm whose only qualification for their position were the connections and influence they wielded with state legislators or in the Governor's office. In essence, they were lobbyists for our clients and if they suggested that campaign contributions to this or that Political Action Committee were in order, that's what our clients did in order to "grease the skids" and obtain a resolution to their "government problems," as it were.
When McCain went down, thanks in no small part to the negative campaign tactics by the Bush campaign, I reluctantly switched my allegiance to Al Gore, even though I would have much preferred Senator Bill Bradley (I know, I was a bit schizoid in my political views back them). I wasn't terribly impressed with Gore, but Bush struck me as a non-entity, and quite frankly as someone who was not intelligent enough to be President. When election day came I held my nose and voted for Gore as the lesser of two evils.
Then came the travesty of the Florida recount. As a lawyer (I still hadn't given up my license to practice yet) I was consumed by all the legal maneuverings of the two campaigns. I read all the pleadings and briefs that were posted online, and watched the arguments that were televised in the Florida Court, as well as listening to the live radio coverage of the arguments in the Supreme Court. I'm not a great constitutional law scholar, but after considering the legal positions of the two sides, it seemed apparent to me that Gore and the Florida Supreme Court had the better case. The US Supreme Court's own precedents favored referring election law issues to the individual states, so I was fairly certain that the decision of the Florida Supreme Court would be upheld.
To say I was shocked by the Court's decision would be putting it mildly. I'm a great believer that, in litigation, all things being equal, usually the party with the best legal argument will win on appeal. Not always, but 90% of the time. The opinions that were written by the five Justices in the majority defending their decision can be considered, in the best light possible, as poorly drafted and deeply flawed in terms of their legal reasoning. You may never find more twisted logic or hypocrisy in any court's decision, than you will in the majority justices’ written opinion in Bush v. Gore.
This point was made most forcefully by majority's opinion when it expressly stated that Bush v. Gore should not be considered as binding precedent in any future cases. When a judge tells you that their decision shouldn't be binding on future cases, that's a clear sign that something smells, and I don't mean by that a pleasing odor. To be blunt, it stunk.
Bush’s First Term
In the weeks following the election, as more and more evidence of chicanery by Florida's Governor, Jeb Bush, and by it's Secretary of State, Katherine Harris, surfaced, it became harder and harder for any objective observer to deny that the election in Florida had been stolen, and that the Presidency had been awarded to the wrong man. Yet the mainstream press and television news organizations essentially ignored this story. It was perhaps too uncomfortable to believe, or maybe they simply were looking forward to someone other than a DLC Democrat assuming the mantle of "Leader of the Free World."
Whatever their justification, the story of the Great Florida Caper faded from public view and comment, and in large part faded from my consciousness as well. Too bad, I thought. Bush is President. Still, in a post Cold War world what's the worst he could do? I imagined him serving a single term like his Father, and repeating the historical arc of the last Father and Son to both hold the office. Looking back now, it's obvious I was stuck in a pre-9/11 mindset.
For 9/11 really did change everything about our politics. It saved Bush from his declining approval ratings, sending them up into stratospheric levels rarely seen since the days of FDR during WWII, it gave republicans a blank check, and (or so I though at the time) gave them complete control of the Senate in 2002. I confess, at the time I was unaware of the highly questionable election in Georgia which deposed both a Democratic Governor and popular Senator, and Vietnam veteran, Max Cleland. Instead of suspecting fraud, as now seems entirely plausible, I bought the line that Cleland's opponent, Saxby Chambliss, won solely on the strength of his negative ad campaign. I was still asleep.
The 2004 Election
By the time 2004 came around, I had been radicalized in my political thinking by the whole host of scandals and atrocities that had been carried out in our country's name by the Bush administration. Lies. Torture. Illegal war. Downing Street Memos. Global warming denials. Faith based idiocy. The Patriot Act. Well, you know the drill as well as I. No need to dwell on them all.
For the first time in my life I became an active contributor to political campaigns, both in a monetary sense, and as a volunteer. In September of that year, I signed up to be a Kerry campaign volunteer "traveler" to Ohio.
My Cincinnati Trip
On a Friday before the first weekend of October, my daughter and I drove the ten hours from our home to Cincinnati. The next day we showed up at the Kerry/Edwards headquarters downtown, and worked the phones calling people in the surrounding area to either volunteer, or making cold calls to persuade the uncommitted to vote for Kerry. It was a bit of a disorganized effort, but we were proud to be doing anything to help.
Sunday morning we went out canvassing. My daughter, an elderly woman and I drove to one of the projects operated by the Cincinnati Metropolitan Housing Authority. For the next several hours, as we went from one identical stoop to the next, handing out literature and encouraging people to vote for Democrats on November 2nd, we were the only non-African Americans we saw. Most of the people we met were polite, but all carried with them a certain weariness, which you could see in their wan smiles and stooped posture. No one seemed terribly enthusiastic, though almost all of them said they were registered to vote, knew the location of their polling place, and would show up on Election day to cast their ballot.
Many of them had the look of people who knew something I didn't, something important, but what that something might be I couldn't tell. It was almost as if as if they were amused by our determined little effort to get out the vote, three white people adrift in the kind of place we rarely saw on TV, much less visited in real life. A washed out, dilapidated landscape of dead grass, broken glass and buildings a monotone shade of tan that resembled military barracks more than a place raise a family.
It's a hot day, I told myself. And this is a despairing place to live. Worse than any place I'd ever called home. Worse than any I'd seen since my days as a cab driver in Denver. I told myself their attitude was shaped by that, not by what we were asking them to do. After all, they all told us they'd be voting for Kerry.
In that sense we'd had an easy time of it, compared to volunteers sent into suburban Republican strongholds. All we had to do was shake hands, smile, and share a few mutual gripes about Bush. I ignored the feelings that their odd attitude had engendered in me. At least my daughter and I were doing something. We left Cincinnati the next day, convinced we'd made a difference, if only a small one.
I know. As Yoda would say: Quite naive, I was.
Election Protection
Not satisfied with volunteering for Kerry, I called to be a volunteer with ACT for their get out the vote (GOTV) effort in Ohio. However, after the person on the other end of the line heard I was a lawyer (even though non-practicing one), she suggested that I sign up with Election Protection, the election monitoring effort by a coalition of progressive organizations including the NAACP, the League of Women Voters and The People for the American Way. EP needed volunteers with legal training to help monitor polling places across the country, and Ohio was one of the states that was most in need. So, after a short time considering my options, I took her advice and signed up at the EP website.
I still wasn't convinced that the GOP could steal another election, especially with Bush polling so low, but I'd read enough news stories about GOP shenanigans with regards to fraudulent voter registration programs to go with the better safe than sorry approach. And at least with EP I could put my legal training to good effect, as opposed to just being another grunt on the front lines of the progressive GOTV effort. I downloaded EP's legal training handbook from their website and "participated" in an conference call training session (i.e., I listened to an EP staff lawyer go over the main points of the handbook as they applied to Ohio).
Soon I was fluent regarding the more arcane provisions of HAVA (the Help America Vote Act) and Ohio election law, as well as the various lawsuits and counter suits swirling around Kenneth Blackwell's and the Republican Party's pre-election ttempts to suppress the vote in minority (a/k/a Democratic) precincts. The more I learned the more nervous I became. This seemed to be far more serious than I had originally expected.
In numerous pleadings filed in these cases, the GOP strategy was becoming evident: stop as many voters as possible in Democratic Districts from being allowed to vote. Republicans were doing everything possible before Election Day to disenfranchise Democratic voters, from having their voting registrations rejected to having the voting rolls purged based on a non-response to a GOP letter asking the addressee to verify their address through return mail.
Even the right to cast a provisional ballot (a requirement of HAVA) in cases where people may have been wrongfully denied their right to vote was being questioned by Blackwell. He sought the strictest interpretation of the law regarding who could cast a provisional ballot, and which provisional ballots, if any, should be counted as valid votes.
Election Day, 2004 in Cleveland
I'd chosen to volunteer for EP in Cleveland because it was closer to my home. It would prove to be a fateful decision.
By luck of the draw, I was asked to stay at the local field headquarters and field calls from our non-legal volunteers out at the polling places, and brainstorm solutions for any problems they encountered. I also documented the complaints and reports of voting irregularities, as well as communicating what they told us with the EP staff so that they could coordinate strategy . I also passed along requests for more voting machines the local Board of Elections ( which proved to be a futile exercise) and tracked down a Temporary Restraining Order which the DNC had obtained against the RNC prohibiting Republicans stationed at the polling places from challenging a person’s right to vote based on lists that the RNC had unlawfully prepared. Handouts of that TRO were passed to every volunteer, as well as my explanation as to what it required of election officials (distribution of these copies proved to be needed because a number of officials had posted these lists at their precincts in the mistaken belief that they could lawfully be used to challenge Democratic voters).
I’ve talked before about my experiences that day, so to save time, let me quote a comment I made a while back in my RFK Jr. diary:
Everything I read in Kennedy's story I saw or heard about from my fellow volunteers that day: the long lines, the broken machines, the refusal of the BOE to respond, outrageous election challenges by GOP operatives, cars with bullhorns cruising minority neighborhoods warning people that police would arrest people who owed past due child care or parking tickets, names purged from voting rolls, last minute changes to polling places, refusals to hand our provisional ballots, violations of court orders prohibiting the use of GOP generated lists to deny the vote to legitimate residents, the banning of election monitors, the lockdown of some precincts while the vote was being counted, ballots being transported in unsealed containers by GOP part officials to where they were to be counted, etc. etc. etc. We took numerous affidavits of people regarding these and other abuses, argued with election official (sometimes successful, sometimes not) to stop unlawful practices such as requiring photo id for Spanish speaking and/or Hispanic looking voters, and documenting as well as we could the "atrocities."
It was a long hard day. I stayed at the EP headquarters from 6:00 in the morning until 8:30m that evening. I don’t think I had one minute to myself that entire time.
One of the last phone calls I fielded was from a volunteer who had witnessed some election officials carrying the official ballot box at her precinct into a room where no one else could see what was going on. When she was prevented from following she called me. I asked her if any Democratic poll watchers had been present as the box was carried off. She said she wasn’t sure but that she’d try to check. She called back in a little bit to say she couldn’t be sure, but that now the ballot box had been taken out to someone’s car and placed in his trunk. She had noticed that the official seal had been broken before the man got in his car to leave.
It doesn’t seem right. Should I follow him? she asked me.
It was late. I knew she’s been there all day in the rain. I knew the early reports had Kerry winning Ohio (and much of the rest of the country) based on the exit polling. Most of all I was tired and ready to get back to my Hotel and get some dinner. I made an executive decision.
No, don’t worry about it, I told her. I’m sure one of the Democratic Party observers knows what’s going on. Come on back.
Are you sure? She asked.
Yeah, I’m sure. Just write up a report when you get back.
She said okay, and hung up.
Later that night, sitting on my hotel bed, watching TV as the “official” returns came in, I got a sick feeling in my stomach. Miraculously, stunningly, what had appeared to be an easy Kerry victory was fading away leaving behind a bitter taste in my mouth, as state after state switched from the Kerry column to the Bush column. I kept remembering that last phone call. A gnawing anxiety, fueled by my guilty conscience, began worming its way through my gut. I’d made the wrong decision. I’d fucked up big time. I finally turned off the television around 1:00 a.m. too depressed to keep watching.
In the weeks and months that followed I read as much as I could about the trail of “dirty tricks” by Republican operatives, the myriad of “irregularities” that somehow always favored Bush over Kerry, the affidavits from voters of intimidation, long lines, etc., that made it difficult to vote if you lived in a Democratic precinct, and all the various statistical analyses that tended to show just how improbable Bush election had been. But I didn’t need convincing at that point. I already knew the election had been stolen.
I’d know since that night lying on a bed in a Hilton Hotel, far from my family and friends. Known even before I got a call from my daughter, in tears over Kerry’s defeat, and anxious for her older brother, about what a Bush victory could mean for his future. I knew because I’d just been a witness to it. Nothing I’d done had prevented it. Not the money I contributed, nor the time I had put in as a volunteer. Not one damn thing.
Why am I writing this?
Some think that we shouldn’t talk about stolen elections. You’ll only suppress the vote, they tell us. And you’ll hurt our credibility with the national media. Better to keep quiet. Keep working hard to rebuild the Democratic Party so that we can win back at least one house of the Congress.
Well, with all due respect, those people are wrong. I finally get what the poor people in the Cincinnati projects I canvassed for Kerry were trying to tell me with their weary postures, rueful grins and knowing looks. We don’t have a democracy. At least not the kind where each vote counts the same as every other one. What we have is a broken electoral process. No, more than just broken, our elections have been corrupted. They are a sham and a mockery, and its past time to be talking about that fact if we ever want to return a modicum sanity, honesty and common sense to our politics.
Because at present we are at the mercy of a silent coup. One where the media and the leadership of the Democratic Party have been effectively muzzled. One that is watered by a spigot of corporate money pouring into the coffers of Republican politicians and lobbyists. And one that is beholden to the radical agenda of certain fundamentalist right wing Christian pastors whose congregations provide the organizational muscle to pull it off.
So I’m writing this diary to let them know that I believe that these elections have been stolen. And there are many more like me. We’ll have their backs if they ever have the guts to do what Mark Crispin Miller and Robert F. Kennedy Jr. have done, which is simply to speak the truth. Our elections are a sham and its about time more people started saying so, inside the Democratic Party, and out in the progressive net roots. Because until we conquer our fear of this topic, until we confront our denial of the truth, we have no hope of taking back our country from the criminals and fanatics that are now in charge.
That’s why.
I hope you’ll join me.
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