The 2004 Election: It's Finally Over!

by Timothy Horrigan, November 2004-January 2005

This page includes a variety of items related to the socalled 2004 election. Hopefully, we will have another election in 2008!

I get a lot of hits here from people looking for pictures of the Bush Twins and/or the Bush family.  This page, however, is about the 2004 Presidential election.

There is a picture of the Bush family about halfway down the page, which you find readily enough if you feel comfortable using advanced internet techniques such as the "Scroll Bar" and/or the "PageDown key," but you may want to simply click on this link instead:

• My Bush Twins Page

or this URL:

• http://www.TimothyHorrigan.com/bushtwins.html

(January 6, 2005)

  The 2004 Presidential election is finally over. The last formality before the Inauguration on January 20, 2005 was the United States Congress's official count of the electoral college vote. This count was scheduled to happen on January 6 at 12:50pm Eastern Time, and normally would have ended around 1:30pm, just in time for a late lunch. But as soon as the Congress got to Ohio, Rep. Stephanie Tubbs Jones (D-OH) and Sen. Barbara Levy Boxer (D-CA) stood up to object. The Senate had a brief, relatively amicable debate in their chambers which lasted barely an hour and ended in a 74-1 vote. Meanwhile the House had a long, heated debate which climaxed with a passionate address by that great American hero, House Majority Leader Tom DeLay (R-TX.) He used his vast moral authority to rebuke those in the "Michael Moore wing" of the "Democrat" Party who would dare cast doubt on the validity of our Commander-in-Chief's victories in the 2000 and 2004 elections. This speech was every bit as stirring as the Bush Twins' address to the 2004 Republican National Convention! The House followed DeLay's address with a 267-31 vote in favor of Bush II & Cheney.

You may be able to see a re-run on CSPAN.

Cheney-Bush stole the election: now what?

If all goes according to plan, four years of George W. Bush, with at least one or two more wars, followed by eight years of Jeb Bush and more wars. But perhaps all will not go according to plan...

One Last Formality...

The last formality before the inauguration on January 21, 2005 is the official count of the Electoral College votes. This has been scheduled to happen on Thursday, January 6, 2005 (the third day of the 109th Congress. The Constitution states that the House of Representatives is responsible for counting the Presidential vote and the Senate is responsible for counting the Vice Presidential vote, though in practice the two bodies meet in joint session to count and approve both sets of votes.

Normally, this is a routine formality. Although there are the occasional "faithless electors" who vote for someone other than the two candidates they were elected to vote for, normally the electoral college vote is counted without controversy. In 2000, there was an attempt by some House Democrats to challenge the Florida electoral vote, but the leadership of both parties refused to allow any floor debate on this issue. (That was what was going on in that sequence in Fahrenheit 9/11 where Al Gore gavels down a series of African-American and Asian-American Representatives.)

This year, there is cause to doubt the validity of the Presidential votes in several states, most notoriously Ohio. A national coalition, whose leading spokesperson is long-time Congressman John Conyers (D-MI), will attempt to challenge the Ohio electors. If this challenge is upheld by the Congress (not too likely), a Democratic slate of Ohio electors may be recognized, in which case John Kerry & John Edwards win the election after all. Or, perhaps, if Ohio's electors' votes are not counted, the Presidential election will go to the House of Representatives and the Vice Presidential election to the Senate. The Senate simply takes a vote, but the procedure in the House is more complicated: each state's delegation has exactly one vote for President. The new Congress would almost certainly vote for both Bush II and Cheney.

For more info about January 6 protests and beyond, visit:

• http://contestthevote.org

PS: While doing the research for this article, I found an interesting academic paper by a French graduate student named David Madore entitled simply "US presidential electoral system". He turns the conventional wisdom about the electoral college upside-down by claiming that in fact it gives the largest states the most power. The conventional wisdom is, of course, that the small states (which have lots more electoral votes per capita) have the most clout.

The conventional wisdom also states that this disparity quote-unquote "protects" the smaller states, which are supposedly the more agrarian and more conservative and more truly "American" states, from the predations of the urbanized larger states. It is interesting to look at who the larger and smaller states really are. The tiny states with 3 electoral votes include only four conservative agrarian states (Montana, Wyoming, North Dakota, South Dakota) and 3 Eastern urban states (Rhode Island, the District of Columbia, Delaware), as well as a liberal Eastern state which is not exactly agrarian or urban (Vermont), in addition to Alaska which is also not agrarian and not urbanized. The slightly less tiny states with 4 electoral votes have only one or two conservative agrarian states amongst them: Idaho and perhaps Maine; the others are liberal urban states (New Hampshire, Hawaii, Rhode Island.) It's also interesting to note that 4 of the 5 most populous states (California, Texas, Florida, and Illinois) are also 4 of the nation's most productive agricultural states.

Oh No, Not Again!

Here is a very interesting message I received from a New Hampshire activist (and blogger) named Hannah Smith. She is also very familiar with the scene in Florida, where there was more vote fraud this time around, having lived in Alachua County for many years (which is where Gainesville and the University of Florida are):

Blackboxvoting.org (http://www.blackboxvoting.org ) has taken the position that there was significant fraud in the November 4th election. Ohio and Florida are prime suspects, but information is now being collected.  If you go to their site, you will see the status of their effort and a request for help from people who are familiar with computer technology (not the likes of me) to help with the analysis and to develop contact information.

http://ustogether.org/Florida_Election.htm on the other hand has hard information on the returns from Florida and why they are suspect.  Lots of registered Democrats suddenly voting Republican, but only in counties with opti-scan systems (even Alachua registered 17,000 more votes for Bush than would have been expected from their representation on the voter rolls)

Don't forget that the election is not over until the electors vote in December.  In Ohio, I've been told, the electors would have standing in court to challenge the numbers upon which they are to base their vote.

So, please forward this message to your email list (I have kept it brief on purpose) and ask people to bring pressure on the media to cover this story.  If there is no problem, we will at least have confidence in the knowledge that everyone did their best to have a fair election and have every vote counted.
M/H

For more info check out her blog: Hannah.Smith-Family.com

Also check out VoteCobb.org! David Cobb was the Green Party candidate for President, and he is now using his status as a candidate to force a recount of the Ohio vote.

Election 2004 Schedule

Click here for election results from CSPAN.org

Click here to read excellent commentary entitled "A Stolen Election?" about election problems by David Corn of The Nation.

• Click here to read more about the origins of Bush and Cheney's plans to go to war with Iran and Syria on behalf of the oil industry.

•  Click here to read the holiday classic, "The Twelve Days of the Election."