Was the Presidential Election Between Bush And Kerry Rigged?

Was the Presidential
Election Between Bush
And Kerry Rigged?

"It's not who votes that counts. It's who counts the votes."
-- Joseph Stalin

By J. F. Miglio

In my last column, "Top Ten Reasons Why Kerry Will Defeat Bush," I predicted that John Kerry would win the presidential election by four or five percentage points-- as long as the election was "legitimate." As it turns out, more and more reports are coming in from various sources that the election was not legitimate, that once again it was rigged.

The modus operandi this time was similar to the 2000 presidential election, but this time it also had a more insidious component: computerized voting machines that have no paper trail.

Last year, when I first heard that states and counties across the country were actually in the process of buying computerized vote counting machines without a paper trail, I thought it was a joke. Surely, no one would be stupid enough or gullible enough or even corrupt enough to go for this idea.

At the time, progressive operatives, like Greg Palast (www.gregpalast.com) and Bev Harris (www.blackboxvoting.org), warned the public that the companies that manufactured these paperless vote-counting machines, specifically Diebold and ES & S, were closely affiliated with the Republican Party. In fact, as has been widely reported, the CEO of Diebold, Walden O'Dell, actually wrote in a campaign letter that he was "committed to helping Ohio deliver its electoral votes to the president next year."

Naturally, I assumed that once Democratic Party operatives became aware of this story, they would be all over it like a cheap suit and immediately bring legal action against these companies. In addition, I thought they would bring it to the public's attention and make it a campaign issue.

Unfortunately, only Robert Wexler (D-FL) and a few other Democrats brought legal action against the companies that sold these machines, and the Democratic National Committee never made the issue a cause celebre. It goes without saying that the mainstream news media gave the stories little attention and even less analysis.

When I realized that nothing serious was being done, I began to panic. But when I heard Kerry proclaim that "every vote would be counted" and that he had "10,000 lawyers" ready to pounce on any state or precinct that tried to throw the election, I assumed he had taken the paperless voting boxes into account and had either neutralized them in some way, or at very least, stood ready to challenge their validity if he lost the election.

As it turns out, he did neither. Which begs the question: Why did Kerry and the Democrats stand around with their dicks in their hands when these Republican-owned companies were selling their paperless, easily hacked, computerized voting machines to state governments across the country? And why did Kerry concede so quickly to Bush before all the votes were counted and before all the accounts of voter "irregularities" were checked? (As of this writing Bev Harris is pushing for a recount in Ohio.)

http://www.onlinereviewofbooks.com/index.html

Why did Kerry and the Democrats stand around with their dicks in their hands when these Republican-owned companies were selling their paperless, easily hacked, computerized voting machines to state governments across the country?

Hmmm... how would Terry answer this?
:eyes: