Reply #24: Justice Department is Reducing Elections Monitoring [View All]

[kpete]

Justice Department is Reducing Elections Monitoring and Ignoring State Noncompliance With Electoral Improvement Laws
Submitted by BuzzFlash on Wed, 11/01/2006 - 2:39pm. Analysis
A BUZZFLASH NEWS ANALYSIS

Today's report that the Justice Department will dispatch hundreds of election monitors to the polls next Tuesday should do little to assuage voters' fears of Republican prevarication. After all, a skilled magician may be the only one who knows what he is keeping up his sleeve, regardless of how many people are watching.

With the vast amounts of credible evidence proving that voting machines can be discretely rigged behind the scenes -- either onsite or ahead of time -- what exactly are these inspectors looking for? Unless they are all expert computer technicians, their mere presence at voting places will not prevent or uncover machine tampering.

Unfortunately, the fact that some federal officials will be casually monitoring a few elections will give Republicans more ammunition to dismiss charges of fraud should they once again mysteriously do better than the exit polls predict. Alberto Gonzales would likely be made aware of any swindling schemes to make sure the Bush Administration could establish plausible deniability, and he would know full well that sending in his henchmen would pose little risk to being discovered.

The Administration also gets to claim that they are seeking to prevent racial discrimination at the polls, but they are actually cutting by more than 20% what were clearly inadequate monitoring levels in 2004. While the Democratic Party is trying to do everything it can to protect voting rights by employing an army of 7,000 lawyers across all 50 states, the Bush Administration is only mustering about 800 Justice officials in just 20 states.

more at:
http://www.buzzflash.com/articles/analysis/138