Eric Zuesse
In 2006, Robert F. Kennedy Jr. headlined at Rolling Stone “Was the 2004 Election Stolen?”
and he presented an argument that it had been — by George W. Bush.
Below is the argument that I had already prepared to the same effect but
never (until now) sought to publish:
Of course, Ohio was the critical state
in the 2004 U.S. Presidential election. Concerning specifically the
theft of the Ohio election, such articles as www.freepress.org/departments/display/19/2004/914
“Stealing Votes in Columbus,” by Richard Hayes Phillips, Ph.D., on
November 23rd, made manifestly clear just how much the U.S. major media
were lying to say that the 2004 U.S. Presidential election was honest
and fair. A detailed analysis was presented there of the politicized
allocation by Republicans of voting machines in one Ohio city. Phillips
found such things as: “Of the 60 precincts with the fewest voting
machines per registered voter, only 5 were won by Bush, and 55 were won
by Kerry.” In other words, people in Kerry precincts were shortchanged
on voting machines; the votes were suppressed there, but not in Bush
precincts. Was this supposed to be coincidence? Statistical studies had
already been performed of some of 2004’s electoral anomalies and found
that they almost certainly weren’t coincidence. The U.S. major
media simply ignored them anyway. In his summation at the end, Phillips
said: “Thus I conclude that the withholding of voting machines from
predominantly Democratic wards in the City of Columbus cost John Kerry
upwards of 17,000 votes.” Other articles at the same freepress.org
website provided first-person testimony as to how this politicized
allocation of voting machines might very well have thrown the “election”
to Bush. For example, www.freepress.org/departments/display/19/2004/886
“Hearings on Ohio Voting Put 2004 Election in Doubt,” by Bob Fitrakis
and Harvey Wasserman, includes such testimony as this from a voter in
Columbus:
“What I saw was voter intimidation in
the form of city employees that were sent in to stop illegal parking.
Now, in Driving Park Rec Center there are less than 50 legal parking
spots, and there were literally hundreds and hundreds of voters there,
and I estimated at least 70 percent of the people were illegally parked
in the grass around the perimeter, … and two city employees drove up in a
city truck and said that they had been sent there to stop illegal
parking, and they went so far as to harass at least a couple of voters
that I saw. … I saw 15 people who left because the line was too long.
The lines inside were anywhere from 2½ to 5 hours.” Frustrated
Democratic election officials presented testimony at http://freepress.org/images/departments/4254PublicHearing
“Public Hearing, New Faith Baptist Church … November 13, 2004.” One
speaker was Joe Popich, Kerry/Edwards field organizer in Fairfield and
Perry Counties. On November 4th, he had visited the Perry County Board
of Elections to audit the count, and found “a total of 393 votes that
should be attributed to that precinct. However, the Board of Elections
is attributing 96 more votes to that precinct than what this log book
reflects.”
Richard Hayes Phillips posted to the
internet an “AFFIDAVIT December 10, 2004,” summarizing the evidence
which his statistical analyses, thus far, of the vote-counts in Ohio,
had provided indicating systematic fraud. The eighth item listed was as
follows:
“8. There are still 92,672 uncounted
votes in Ohio, exclusive of any uncounted provisional ballots. According
to unofficial results provided by the Ohio Secretary of State, there
were 5,574,476 ballots cast, and 5,481,804 votes counted, which leaves
92,672 regular ballots (1.66%) still uncounted. The official results,
now certified, do not include these ballots, but differ from the
unofficial results only in the addition of provisional ballots and some
absentee ballots to the tally. In Montgomery and Hamilton counties,
these uncounted votes come disproportionately from precincts that voted
overwhelmingly for John Kerry. In Montgomery County there are 47
precincts, all of them in Dayton, where the percentage of uncounted
ballots is 4% or more. Kerry won all 47 of these precincts, by a margin
of 7 to 1 in the aggregate. County wide in Montgomery County, the
percentage of uncounted ballots was 1.70%. In Hamilton County there are
26 precincts, 22 of them in Cincinnati, where the percentage of
uncounted ballots is 8% or more. Kerry won all 26 of these precincts, by
a margin of 10 to 1 in the aggregate. Altogether there are 86 precincts
in Cincinnati where the percentage of uncounted ballots is 4% or more.
Kerry won 85 of these precincts, by a margin of 5 to 1 in the aggregate.
County wide in Hamilton County, the percentage of uncounted ballots was
2.34%. Although I have not yet had time to examine similar data for
Cleveland, Columbus, Toledo, Akron, Youngstown, Canton, or elsewhere, it
is possible that the same pattern will emerge in these cities as well.
If these 92,672 uncounted votes were cast for Kerry by a 5 to 1 margin,
this would reduce the statewide margin between the candidates by another
61,781 votes.”
The national news media ignored all of Dr. Phillips’s analyses and findings.
Ohio’s electors in the electoral college met on December 13th to vote George W. Bush into a second term.
A story that finally did receive some
slight national coverage in the major media appeared just two days
later, on December 15th, in The New York Times, where Tom Zeller
Jr., headlined “Lawmaker Seeks Inquiry into Ohio Vote.” He reported
that, “The ranking Democratic member of the House Judiciary Committee,
Representative John Conyers Jr. of Michigan, plans to ask the Federal
Bureau of Investigation and a county prosecutor in Ohio today to explore
‘inappropriate and likely illegal election tampering’ in at least one
and perhaps several Ohio counties.
