By: Dave Astor Tribune Media Services columnist Robert Koehler has once again become a rare mainstream-media voice discussing major problems with the 2004 election.
In his current column, Koehler writes: "Some news is so big it won't fit into a headline. For example: WIDESPREAD VOTER DISENFRANCHISEMENT IN 2004. Sorry. It may be true, but it's a no-go on the front pages and TV news programs of America."
He adds that the election had "widespread malfunctioning of electronic voting machines that continually worked to the benefit of George Bush over John Kerry; Jim Crow-style spurious challenges of African-American and other likely Democratic voters; preposterously long lines in inner-city neighborhoods while unused machines sat in warehouses; mysteriously inaccurate exit polls that picked Kerry until Bush suddenly emerged victorious; dirty tricks galore; more than 100,000 uncounted provisional ballots in the bitterly contested state of Ohio alone; and now, a just-released General Accounting Office report on electronic voting in 2004, which found evidence of lost and miscounted votes, sloppy security, and other problems."
Koehler also wrote about a scene at a recent Kerry fund-raiser. Mark Crispin Miller -- author of "Fooled Again: How the Right Stole the 2004 Election and Why They'll Steal the Next One Too (Unless We Stop Them)" -- gave Kerry a copy of the book and told him: "You were robbed, Senator!" According to Miller, Kerry replied: "I know!" But a Kerry aide later denied the senator said that.
"I recount this controversy," commented Koehler, "not to insert myself into the middle of a 'he said, he said' standoff with no possibility of independent corroboration either way, but because it captures the enormous frustration of voting-rights activists who believe a terrible wrong occurred on Nov. 2, 2004... ."
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