Tuesday, November 21, 2006

Is this any way to run an election?

The Republican candidate, Vern Buchanan was declared the winner by 6 votes in this Florida district where thousands of votes may have been lost by electronic machines that did not register more than 18,000 votes.
The Republican, Vern Buchanan, won by 369 votes in the Nov. 7 election, according to results confirmed by the Florida Elections Canvassing Commission, which is made up of Gov. Jeb Bush; Tom Gallagher, the state chief financial officer; and Senator Daniel Webster of Winter Garden, all Republicans. The results, which fill the seat given up by Representative Katherine Harris, a Republican, were confirmed in a machine recount and a manual one.
How long is the world's leading democracy going to let elections be handled by one political party? Would election observers in a third-world country declare the elections to be free and fair if one of the political parties was in charge of the entire election apparatus and also in charge of judging the honesty and accuracy of the outcome?

I think not.