- Walter Lippmann, Public Opinion, 1922

 
Double Standard for Election Standards
According to today's New York Times, as reported on GregPalast.com, "the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe, the European Parliament, the NATO Parliamentary Assembly and the Council of Europe - released a preliminary report on Monday declaring that the election [in the Ukraine] did not meet democratic standards." There were many reported abuses but that, in and of itself, is not surprising or remarkable.

Here's where the story turns strange indeed. One of the election complaints surrounds the discrepency between exit polls and "official" results. The observers' findings were seconded by Republican Senator Richard G. Lugar of Indiana, chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee.

"Citing the disturbing fact that official results diverged sharply from a range of surveys of voters at polling places, Lugar said, 'A concerted and forceful program of election-day fraud and abuse was enacted with either the leadership or cooperation of governmental authorities.'" Well said, but a little strange to hear from a Republican. No mention was made that the same conditions he complained about in the Ukraine also were present in Ohio, Florida, New Mexico and virtually every state and precinct where e-voting touch screens were used. These discrepencies are exactly the same as the ones the talking heads talked about early election night and then just as quickly abandoned when they could not explain the anomalies without confronting uncomfortable truths.

So in the Ukraine they were a problem, but not here in the land of the free, the birthplace of modern democracy. Here the exit poll scandals were nothing to concern ourselves with. Ok, Bewildered Herd, nothing to worry about here, Go back to bed, America.


- posted by J @ 1:57 PM