Election results open to question

E.M. Hudlicka Roanoke.com   07 January 2005

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Hudlicka lives in Blacksburg. Today, the Congress will meet in joint session to certify the presidential election. This has largely been a formality in years past. Not this year.

Rep. John Conyers, D-Mich., is planning to challenge the election outcome because of the more than 57,000 problems reported in sworn testimonies in his ongoing investigation.

The problems range from what appears intentional lack of access to voting machines and distribution of misinformation about where and when to vote, to computer mishaps and suspicious behavior by both voting machine service personnel and election officials.

A number of individuals involved in these investigations are beginning to doubt whether George W. Bush in fact won in Ohio and elsewhere. But the contesting of the Electoral College vote isn't necessarily about overturning the election outcome. It is about whether or not we have fair elections in America. And the emerging evidence, unfortunately, indicates that we do not.

It is ironic, at best, that we are in the business of exporting democracy, at great cost in American and civilian lives, yet our own election system is so flawed that former President Carter refused to be an election monitor - stating that the system was too prone to mishaps. (He was willing to monitor a number of elections in developing countries.)

But the most outrageous aspect of this fiasco is that it is largely being ignored by the mainstream media.

I grew up in a totalitarian country, where it was customary to determine what was really important by noticing what was not being reported in the media. Have we reached the same state of affairs in America?

Many dismiss any questioning of the elections, both the process and the outcome, as conspiracy theories. But that label is highly subjective. Certainly the media did not eschew conspiracy theories regarding the link between Saddam Hussein and al-Qaida - and many people still believe this to be true. One person's conspiracy theory may be another's justification for waging a war.

The only way we will know whether the reported "irregularities" in November can be dismissed as conspiracy theories is if they are properly investigated. It is the role of the media to report on these ongoing investigations, and on the efforts of our elected officials to repair our broken electoral system.

The infrastructure supporting fair elections is the very essence of democracy. We should all do everything in our power to make sure that this system functions fairly, that all voters have adequate access to the polls and that every vote is properly counted.