Electoral Politics

Unhappy Democrats Must Wait to Get Into Canada

David Ljunggren, Reuters

OTTAWA (Reuters) — Disgruntled Democrats seeking a safe Canadian haven
after President Bush won Tuesday's election should not pack their bags
just yet.


Canadian officials made clear on Wednesday that any U.S. citizens so fed
up with Bush that they want to make a fresh start up north would have to
stand in line like any other would-be immigrants — a wait that can take
up to a year.

"Kerry Won"

Greg Palast

Bush won Ohio by 136,483 votes. Typically in the United States, about 3 percent of votes cast are voided — known as “spoilage” in election jargon — because the ballots cast are inconclusive. Palast’s investigation suggests that if Ohio’s discarded ballots were counted, Kerry would have won the state. Today, the Cleveland Plain Dealer reports there are a total of 247,672 votes not counted in Ohio, if you add the 92,672 discarded votes plus the 155,000 provisional ballots.

Kerry won. Here's the facts.

I know you don't want to hear it. You can't face one more hung chad. But I don't have a choice. As a journalist examining that messy sausage called American democracy, it's my job to tell you who got the most votes in the deciding states. Tuesday, in Ohio and New Mexico, it was John Kerry.

"Election 2004: 'Sour Grapes' or Voter Fraud?"

Mike Whitney



If you believe that George Bush won last nights election "fair and
square" then forget about reading this article. If you know however
that tens of thousands of people who lined up for up to four hours at
a time in Ohio and Florida to have their vote counted, were not
standing there to endorse the aggression and suicidal policies of the
current administration then read on.


The unprecedented high turnout coupled with new registrations (that
were overwhelmingly in favor of John Kerry) suggest that there was
foul play at the voting booths. As a result, consumer investigator and
activist Bev Harris (founder of Black Box Voting) "is conducting the
largest Freedom of Information action in history. On election night,
Black Box Voting blanketed the US with the first in a series of public
records requests, to obtain internal computer logs and other documents
from 3,000 individual counties and townships."


If the Bush people are so confident in their victory let them "put up
or shut up."

"America Implodes"

Thiago Opperman

Well, what do people think? What are some readings of this? Somehow, it's
hard to believe that this was just a matter of there being indifference to
the options (turnout was the highest in forty years) and it's pretty
difficult to argue there was no difference between candidates. It's also
pretty difficult to say it doesn't matter.


So why is it that when faced with a rich kleptocratic lying swindler
fundamentalist and a rich technocratic opportunistic swindler aristocrat,
people chose the former? It's very hard not to gather the impression that
the American proles — the sprawlingly ugly, fat, lazy, contented, bigoted,
analphabetic, credulous, stupid, cruel, humourless wastes between the
Appalachians and the Sierra Nevada — really do prefer to have messianic,
one-eyed idiots as their rulers. But why? It's a question of serious import
to any class analysis with the slightest interest in the human material that
composes the lower class in the most advanced capitalist country.

"Democrats in End Time:

Republicans Gain Shattering Victory; Who to Blame This Time?"

Alexander Cockburn
and Jeffrey St. Clair, Counterpunch

The crusade that George Bush called for in 2001 against terrorism from abroad came to fruition yesterday in a more homely context as Christians flocked to the polls in stronger numbers than in 2000 to battle against such manifestations of post-modernity as gay marriage.

"Why Kerry Lost"

Doug Ireland, Z-Net

John Kerry has definitively lost the popular vote by some three and a half million votes. That makes an all-out lawyers’ war in Ohio devoid of moral force (and I doubt that in the end there’ll be one).


Kerry ran a tactical campaign, devoid of vision or explicable alternatives, utterly lacking in message discipline, and riddled with misjudgments--it was one of the most incompetently run presidential campaigns by a Democrat in my lifetime. In addition, the voters just didn't like the rich stiff--and, as I've often observed, Americans don't want a president thay can't like. (In the exit polls, 76% said the one candidate quality which mattered most in how they voted for president was "he cares about people like me," which is the way pollsters determine likeability).

Bush Campaign Convinced of President's Reelection

Prensa Latina

Washington, Nov 3 (Prensa Latina) — White House Chief of
Staff Andrew Card said early Wednesday that President
George W. Bush has won re-election, according to CNN.


George W. Bush and John Kerry are waiting for presidential
election projections in just three states, but Bush Chief
of Staff Andy Card told supporters of the Republican
campaign he is convinced the president has won re-election.


Republicans are projected to retain control of the House
and Senate, adding to their majorities in both chambers
with strong showings in Southern states.


Ohio is too close to call, and results also are delayed in
Iowa and New Mexico. Democratic vice presidential candidate
John Edwards said, "We´ve waited four years for this
victory. We can wait one more night."


Bush is expected to have won 28 states, with 254 electoral
votes, and a win in Ohio would assure him of at least 274
votes, more than the 270 he needs for a majority Electoral
College.


Bush would become the 12th of the 17 incumbent presidents
who have sought re-election since 1900 to win a second
term.


But the John Kerry Campaign has refused to concede defeat,
insisting that 250,000 provisional and absentee ballots
cast in the Buckeye State might change the outcome.


The US and the world will know the final results after 11
days of the election. Ohio Secretary of State Ken Blackwell
said that by law provisional and absentee ballots will not
be counted until 11 days after the election.

"Deputy Tackles, Arrests Journalist for Photographing Voters"

Jane Daugherty, Palm Beach Post

A widely published investigative journalist was tackled, punched and
arrested Sunday afternoon by a Palm Beach County sheriff's deputy who
tried to confiscate his camera outside the elections supervisor's
headquarters.

"Political Trick Or Treat in Hartford, CT:
Author Gore Vidal Skewers Bush, The Press"

Frank Rizzo, Hartford Courant


It was a bit of a Gorefest Saturday afternoon at Hartford Stage when
the noted author, playwright and wit Gore Vidal talked politics
following a reading of his new play, "On the March to the Sea."

The onetime political candidate — he ran for Congress in New York in
the 1960s and the Senate in California in the '80s — was serious,
playful and outspoken when "interviewed" by actress Estelle Parsons,
who was part of the original "Today" show in the 1950s before her
acting career.

League of Pissed Off Voters Guide to New York City Candidates

Complacent


Here we are in the eye of the storm. After an epic and
endless weekend living loud on the streets of New York City,
we pause and prepare for the coming election day. Tuesday
will be historic and you get to be in the thick of it. But
who will mislead this country for the next four years is
only one of the decisions we need to make as we step into
the voting booth tomorrow.

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