Tuesday, November 23, 2004

Mum’s The Word

It’s not surprising, but very troubling nonetheless, that the mainstream media remains all but silent on the voting fraud evidence that is coming to light. This is potentially the most important national news story since the terrorists attacks of 9/11, yet network and cable news stations are dismissing it out of hand, rolling their eyes at all the Internet conspiracy theories. Yet it may be the Internet that ultimately saves us.

The Internet is allowing millions of people see the evidence of voter fraud firsthand, make their own judgments and add their own information. Now we don’t have to wait six months for a book to be published on the 2004 election fraud. We don’t have to rely on the dormant press to do their jobs. Citizens around the country and around the world have immediate access to crucial information, and they are the ones putting the puzzle pieces together.

This is a time-sensitive situation. There have already been reports of important voting documents being taken out of polling places and thrown in dumpsters. Who knows what’s happening in cyberspace. The longer this process is drawn out, the less chance there is that corroborating evidence will be found. And perhaps that’s exactly what the media is hoping for: If we put our fingers in our ears and go “Blah, blah, blah, we can’t hear you” long enough, all the bad news while go away, and we can go back to non-controversial stories about singing dogs and exotic diseases.

If there has been fraud, even if it doesn’t change the outcome of the election, we the voters deserve to know this. Whether malicious or simply human or machine error, it’s essential that problems are discovered and corrected or even the small percentage of eligible voters who do still vote will not turn out on election day.

Can you blame them? How many people are going to come out to vote if they feel an election is rigged? Our democracy won’t survive long if we can’t be sure our votes are counted and that the returns are an honest reflection of the will of the people. We’ve already had two elections fraught with doubt and skepticism, and there is little confidence there will be significant progress made to change things for the better over the next four years. Why mess with a system that got you elected and that can benefit other Republicans in the future?

We know from first-hand accounts that there was voter intimidation, discouragingly long lines to vote and misleading voting information given out in many of the swing states, yet even these “knowns” are getting scant attention from news organizations. If the ultimate truth is to come out about the legitimacy of this election, and perhaps prior elections, it will be up to intrepid Internet investigators to force the national media’s hand and make them do their job—which is to expose the truth.

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