Final flap over the election

I suppose today we will see the last gasp from those protesting the election. In the next few hours there will be some kind of challenge to the presidntial election intended to delay making the results "official". Given Kerry's own lack of participation, it is hard for me to imagine that the effort will go very far.

For my own records, if not for anyone else, here are a few notes...

Debi White posted a heads-up a few days ago. "Truthfully, I don't know if this is real or not, and am not sure what to make of it. I just now found it on an ABC.com message board, and thought I would publish it with this disclaimer." The link to Contest the Vote site was gone by then on the message board, but she snagged it and posted it. (I didn't pass it on because it seemed like peeing in the ocean, and there was no reason I should further alienate some of my already-barely-tolerant readers.)

Today she posted a letter she received from John Kerry distancing himself from the effort.

He said, in part, "Tomorrow, members of Congress will meet to certify the results of the 2004 presidential election. I will not be taking part in a formal protest of the Ohio Electors. ...Despite widespread reports of irregularities, questionable practices by some election officials and instances of lawful voters being denied the right to vote, our legal teams on the ground have found no evidence that would change the outcome of the election."

If I read that correctly, he is saying that he knows that there are widespread reports of instances of voting irregularities, but his political leverage as a Senator might be compromised if he fails to behave like a gentleman and let the matter slide. What a wimp. I guess it's a good thing he isn't in the White House. (Miss Debi also feels betrayed, to put it mildly.)

Michael King, one of our local guys from Mableton, Georgia, picked up the story in his Ramblings' Journal. I used to work over there near him. I sent him an email a couple of days ago, but never got a reply. Either he's too busy, or never got it, or doesn't really want to get connected with an old white liberal. Anyway, he linked to yesterday's Keith Olberman story at MSNBC.

A bit of googling took me to one of the smoking guns for this story, an account of the Clinton Curtis affidavit describing how he, a programmer, was asked by someone in Florida to write a program that would enable vote fraud. The Blue Lemur, a serious muckraking site, carries not only the story, but a long comments thread, including a comment (Number 140) with a spate of links to other incriminating sites.

A snip from the NY Times, linked by The Raw Story (See Jan 6 "won't challenge 'little fuss'"), gives insight into why the story will die today...

A formal challenge would not affect the outcome of the election, because both houses of Congress are controlled by Republicans, who promise to certify Mr. Bush as the winner. But it would force lawmakers to abandon the ordinarily polite ritual, which takes place in the House chamber. Instead, the House and Senate would retreat to their own chambers, on opposite sides of the Capitol, for a two-hour debate and a formal vote on the objection.

Such a debate could prove uncomfortable for Democrats, who do not want to be viewed as sore losers. But Republicans seemed eager for it.