The Unelected Truth

I'm posting this email I just sent to my sister Melanie. I won't post her portion of the email, but it was similar to her comments about our voting system posted on her blog. After emailing my reply to her, I looked it over and thought, "Well, this sums up the whole election right here," so why not let the rest of y'all see it?

You're exactly correct on all counts. This really should be a nonpartisan issue, but unfortunately, it isn't. And there's no actual proof of these machines being used to purposely disenfranchise voters, but nobody who is educated on the topic cn truthfully say that manipulation wouldn't be easy, and that's the problem.

Then there's other election gaffes. Kerry would have likely won Ohio, and the presidency, if the minority communities weren't given punch card ballots to vote on. I have to confirm this, but rumor has it that there are over 200,000 overvotes/undervotes/hanging chads in Ohio this years -- all of them "spoiled votes" from mainly minority communities, votes that don't count. And while the white suburban communities got all the voting equipment they needed, some polling places handed out provisional ballots to people who had waited in line for too long. Again, these were in minority communities. I know of one college campus in Ohio whose polling station had two voting booths, and people were waiting in line until 2am wednesday morning just to cast their ballot.

The man who is supposed to be in charge of all this, Ohio's Secretary of State Kenneth Blackwell, was also in charge of Bush's Reelection Campaign in Ohio. Along with states passing laws barring felons from voting even after they've served their time, meaning 12% of our black population nationwide simply doesn't have the right to vote period, this is really how Republicans win elections.

Yes, I know this will piss off Republicans, but the hard truth is that if this election was held fairly, George W. Bush would be packing his bags as we speak. As for the Democrats, you can blame the Evangelicals, Kerry's bad campaign, and anybody/anything else all you want. Certainly those are factors, but Kerry lost because the Republicans cheated. And we have to put a stop to this.