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lavendertook Nov. 29th, 2004 10:57 pm)
lavendertook Nov. 29th, 2004 10:57 pm)The Rhetoric of Quietism: A Call for Journalistic Investigations of Voter Irregularities, Need For Recounts, and Election Reform for the 2004 US Presidential Elections
ie., Single World Superpower ISO Free Press for Committed Relationship
Is "conspiracy theory," with all its connotations of misguided obsessional thinking, a fair and balanced assessment of the concerns being voiced on the internet over the voting process of the US Presidential Election? When the CEO of Diebold, Wally O"Dell, was quoted saying his company is "committed to helping Ohio deliver its electoral votes to the President next year," suspicions that his company may have done just that do not seem out of line. Given that Diebold produced a large portion of the tabulating machines used for counting the votes on November 2nd, not calling for an investigation would be very naive, to say the least.
Serious voting irregularities did indeed occur in the state of Ohio on November 2nd. Therefore, calls for an investigation of the outcome, as well as suspicions about its legitimacy, do not constitute "paranoia" or "conspiracy theorizing," but every day common sense bolstered by researched concerns. Yet "conspiracy theory" is just the term the first wave of media coverage has used to describe these calls for voting accountability raised by many concerned citizens who are primarily expressing their questions, views, fears, evidence, and calls to action on the internet. These issues need to be aired and they need to be brought to the attention of the American public, whether John Kerry jumps fully into the fray or not.
Of course, Diebold's Wally O'Dell's frank revelation of his partisan Republican investments was not the only cause for wary consideration of this party's machinations leading up to the election. Whether or not the allegations that members of Sproul & Associates discarded the registrations of Democrats in Nevada, Oregon, Arizona, Ohio, and Pennsylvania prove true, the fact that they are a partisan Republican company that misrepresented themselves as a nonpartisan voter registration group demonstrates the use of tactics that not only Democrats, but anyone who values the democratic process would be foolish to ignore. Material evidence of voter misinformation distributed by Republicans, like the fliers in Ohio that told Democrats to vote on November 3rd, lead to legitimate suspicions that do not warrant accusations of "sour grapes" toward those who harbor such suspicions.
No matter what one's opinion is about how the vote was conducted in Florida in 2000, numerous reports of computer malfunctions around the country this November 2004 warrant a large scale investigation, regardless of suspicions of partisan tampering. Whether or not there was deliberate partisan manipulation over how voting equipment was distributed so that the longest lines in Ohio--some with 10 hour waits--occurred in predominantly low income, minority, college, and primarily Democratic voting precincts, this problem needs to be thoroughly investigated if it is to be resolved. So why is the media treating the proponents of an investigation of the election like the relative no one wants to admit is part of the family? And what effect does this denigrating treatment of legitimate concerns have on the public's awareness of what is at issue in allegations of voter fraud, as well as calls for a recount?
To begin to answer that, let's examine the rhetoric being used by the media to characterize these proponents of voting reform, along with the evidence they present. The New York Times first tackled the issue of voting concerns in an article titled, "Vote Fraud Theories, Spread By Blogs, Are Quickly Buried." The title suggests that the issue is moot and the allegations on the internet are already discredited. Reporting an issue as over while it is still percolating serves to quell discussion of the issue. This is an odd first approach to a subject the week after the election, unless one has investments in quelling the discussion for whatever reason.
The stand the article takes on the internet arguments is set in a first line of sensationalizing prose reporting that "the e-mail messages and Web-postings had all the twitchy cloak-and-dagger thrust of a Hollywood blockbuster." Keep in mind that this article is not presented as an editorial opinion piece but as a news report. The purple prose continues as internet writings on the election are labeled "dark ideas," "faulty analyses," "conspiracy theories," the "online rumor mill," a "breathless cycle," "Web log hysteria, and "second guessing." In case the reader has not guessed from the title that this New York Times vetted news article considers all conjectures of vote fraud or questioning of election data as dead wrong, the denigrating terminology attempts to make this conclusion unmistakable, without even any logical counter arguments being presented.
So having examined the editorial invectives in this article, let's look at some of the logic it presents. Kathy Dopp of www.ustogether.org is introduced as an "Internet Enthusiast," while her masters degree in math is referred to only in parentheses. The article declares that her theory, supported by "other statisticians," that optical scan votes in Florida may be fraudulent, is completely discounted by a history of Republican voting in those counties as stated by 3 political scientists. The prestigious university affiliations of these latter authorities is pointedly listed in the article while where Dopp got her masters degree is not, thus downplaying her authority. No matter the authority of their credentials, the political scientists' counter argument still remains an unproven theory, no more plausible than Dopps without further investigation, which this very biased article not only fails to note but presents as a solved issue.
Furthermore, if we consider the topic of the article, which is internet allegations, this is an odd approach to an issue that 6 members of the House of Representatives have considered important enough to file for an investigation with the GAO (and which the GAO in turn later agreed to undertake for more reasons than the Congress-folks' request.) Official actions taken by elected representatives of the nation should be the most newsworthy item of such a report; tackling the issue of what is being said by citizens on the internet should be quite secondary. Yet the article buries the news of this legislative call for an investigation in a middle paragraph, and only as a corollary to its point about Dopp's research, stating that these members of Congress used it as reference. Since the article makes it a point to present Dopp's theory as discredited, it presents this important news as a misguided move by legislators who reference internet sources. On the contrary, this motion by members of Congress adds credence to the concerns raised on the internet and makes it harder to assert that the issue is "quickly buried." There is a lot more effort put into discrediting these arguments, with here-say rather than evidence, than to explore them in this article.
"Latest Conspiracy Theory--Kerry Won--Hits the Ether," an article presented by The Washington Post as a report rather than an editorial takes the same tone of epithet-dispensing, gleeful disdain for the "bloggers and mortally wounded party loyalists and the spreadsheet-wielding conspiracy theorists" who "are filling the Internet with head-turning allegations." The article makes the sweeping statement that "none of the most popular theories holds up to close scrutiny" before even trying to present evidence for any one theory, or counter theory, to begin with. Why such certainty? Why does this article even deem it necessary to express such certainty while calls for investigations are still being made, let alone before any thorough investigation can even be started?
The Boston Globe also approached the issue of voting irregularities and fraud from a stand of dismissal in an article so titled, "Internet Buzz on Vote Fraud is Dismissed," and thus closes the case before even opening it. This stand is once again presented as news rather than as an editorial, even though the article employs the language of pointed argument. Again the House of Representative's call for an investigation is presented paragraphs down in the article as a byproduct of the headline issue of internet "conspiracy theories", rather than the other way around. However, after this partisan opening focused on dismissing internet speculation, the article does go on to present many of the issues of contention in the election process and present authorities with differing views, leaving the issue in the end, properly open. If only it had begun that way, it would be a well-presented, unbiased news story. The Atlanta Journal-Constitution also weighs in with a news report with the editorial title, "Election Conspiracy Theories Persist," but after dismissing the internet speculation, like The Boston Globe article did, it continues on to report the issues involved.
A more balanced approach cannot be expected from an article in the San Francisco Chronicle that complains about "Web Rants" in its title. It counters the "rants" of fraud in Florida with its opening paragraphs by quoting a supervisor of elections from Lafayette County, Florida who informs us that, "there's still enough people who have enough Christian in them that they vote their morals over the pocketbook and praise God, because I'm one of them" in order to make the point that there are other explanations of why the county went Republican in such unexpected numbers, though this connection is not presented clearly in the article. What we have presented here is testimony from an election official who is clearly biased Republican with no corroborating statistics or historical information to support her points. Lest you conclude that the article is obviously presenting her testimony as that of a biased source in order to logically argue that there are two partisan sides to the issue of voter irregularities in Florida, the article follows her testimony with the declaration that "accusations of widespread organized voting fraud elsewhere in the country similarly wilt under scrutiny." Thus this article presents the above statement of a partisan voter, not only as a murkily presented counter argument to the internet allegations concerning heavily Democratically registered counties where Bush won, but as the definitive authority to dismiss those allegations. Not only is this an inadequate and partisan piece of reporting, but an inadequate application of logic. Is this the press so many commentators would have us believe is liberally biased? Is there any evidence that such a liberally-biased press exists today? I doubt that would be Dan Rather's experience, but his error is no more egregious than the one made in this article.
The article then continues on to make the good point that some rumors, "like the swift boat veterans who attacked Kerry's Vietnam service record, play out on the nation's media stage." Yet now that this Republican-supporting rumor had been given full media attention to Kerry's detriment, the many concerns brought up on the internet and news of the House of Representative's request of the GAO, the GAO's decision to undertake the investigation, the work that the 17,000 lawyers for the Democratic Party are doing, and how the Ohio recount calls by third party candidates are playing out do not seem to merit much press coverage in the papers, and scant little mention in the television news media, except dismissal. The process by which the media decides a story is newsworthy does not seem to be serving the American public very well, let alone in a nonpartisan manner.
All articles I have examined above are also bundled together in the Washington Post's online article "The Election That Never Ends . . . Online", This web article is not clearly presented as an editorial or report, and is annotated to further the argument that the online allegations are the stuff of baseless rumors and "conspiracy theories". The article builds on The Boston Globe's argument to characterize the motion by the members of the House of Representatives as an example that "conspiracy theories can influence public policy," thus also dismissing the legitimacy of this legislative action.
The only coverage NBC televised national news made of the questioning of voter irregularities was to dismiss internet allegations by quoting sources that dismiss them and presenting no independent research of their own into the matter. NBC's reports from Keith Olbermann are researched and counter this stand, but are no where near as high profile as the network evening news. And he is the lone member of the mainstream media who has deemed the questions about the election process important enough to report.
After a week of the media coverage's focus on lambasting internet sources, the New York Times does take an alternate editorial stand:
Defenders of the system have been quick to dismiss questions like these as the work of 'conspiracy theorists,' but that misses the point. Until our election system is improved--with better mechanics and greater transparency--we cannot expect voters to have full confidence in the announced results.
This conclusion is all well and good but this is the same paper which earlier that week ran the report with the very purple prose denigrating the web allegations, and which was presented as news, not editorial comment as it should have been. And there has not been much follow-up of the ongoing investigations into irregularities and recounts in the New York Times, or even a report on the GAO's decision to investigate. This editorial stand by the paper needs to be followed by investigative reports on all the issues it raises.
The second week of coverage of allegations of voter irregularities and calls for recounts is answered solipsistically by The Boston Globe with an article entitled, "Media Accused of Ignoring Election Irregularities." This article reports various internet sites' critiques of the lack of media coverage. What does not appear in the paper yet is a report investigating any of the issues being discussed on the internet. Thus we see evidence of The Boston Globe's staffs' ability to do internet research but not provide any investigative reporting of its own. Needless to say, this is not helpful for elucidating the issue.
CNN's internet coverage has been in the proper form of unbiased reports, as in its report of irregularities in North Carolina and the Democratic suit in Washington State. Of course these reports are direct from the Associated Press releases. MSNBC also depended on AP sources for a report using informed sources on the Democratic position on the vote count in Ohio. At least the AP has been giving the issues coverage; the problem is that the media is loathe to present this information to the public, let alone do investigative work of their own.
So with all these biased arguments presented as news by the media there is a reason People For the American Way's website cautions us to "not let the reports in the news media fool you. The notion that the election ran 'smoothly' in contested states is just so much self-serving happy talk." In an editorial, properly presented as such, columnist for The Washington Post Donna Brit points out "that the mainstream media appear largely unconcerned" in her essay entitled "Worst Voter Error is Apathy Toward Irregularities." I would argue that the voter apathy has been fueled by not only the media's lack of coverage, but dismissive coverage for what little mention they have made about the irregularities while investigations are still ongoing and conclusions are still open. The League of Women Voters has joined in on the call for a full investigation of voting irregularities. Following in the footsteps of Adam Cohen's commentaries and calls to action throughout the past year at The New York Times Keith Olbermann of msnbc has been tirelessly covering what the rest of media has been ignoring. He could use some higher profile competition from other reporters or, at the very least, some investigative support.
The Plain Dealer has reported that the Ohio Democratic Party, as well as Third Party Candidates, are pushing for a recount and The American public needs to see this issue followed-up throughout the media. This is not a story of only local interest; it needs to be covered nationally. Why is the mainstream press ignoring the AP release concerning Jesse Jackson's rally for election reform and a recount in Ohio, as well as the news of support of his efforts from the Kerry campaign? Why do I only find this news reported on Michael Moore's website and The Free Press website and not in mainstream sources? This is indeed mainstream news.
Do the arguments which state that the vote discrepancy in Florida counties using optical scanning machines is accounted for by a history of "Dixiecrat" voting hold up against the report presented by the Berkeley University research team? No report mentioning the Dixiecrat argument has provided statistics or clear historical evidence of any kind to support it; a report on this is in order. Interviews with authorities on both sides of the debate need pursuing.
If writers on The Daily KOS blog collective can present investigative telephone interviews with authorities, why doesn't the mainstream media do likewise? Bev Harris of blackboxvoting.org is doing research that deserves media coverage. The GAO is undertaking an investigation of voting irregularities. What information can we get on the kind of sources they will be working with and on estimates of a time frame for the research? What do the six members of the House of Representatives have to say about their expectations for this investigation? What about the various suits being undertaken by various organizations relating to recounts and election fraud? All these questions need coverage in the mainstream press.
In a democracy, one of the media's prime jobs is to help the public hold their elected representatives accountable. We cannot do this if the press does not report their activities. If nothing else, the GAO investigation deserves full media coverage foremost. We would all be better off without the media's unprofessional need to compete with and denigrate the independent citizen news reporters, disseminators, and blogging editorialists on the internet, and would be better served by the media treating these as additional sources for investigative tips and as a barometer of citizens' concerns. Instead the press has presented us with the rhetoric of quietism, the denigration of citizens' concerns it will not engage with and investigate. These citizens want to see coverage of this issue from the mainstream press. It is in the best interests of the democratic process that the media does so.
November 30, 2004.
ie., Single World Superpower ISO Free Press for Committed Relationship
Is "conspiracy theory," with all its connotations of misguided obsessional thinking, a fair and balanced assessment of the concerns being voiced on the internet over the voting process of the US Presidential Election? When the CEO of Diebold, Wally O"Dell, was quoted saying his company is "committed to helping Ohio deliver its electoral votes to the President next year," suspicions that his company may have done just that do not seem out of line. Given that Diebold produced a large portion of the tabulating machines used for counting the votes on November 2nd, not calling for an investigation would be very naive, to say the least.
Serious voting irregularities did indeed occur in the state of Ohio on November 2nd. Therefore, calls for an investigation of the outcome, as well as suspicions about its legitimacy, do not constitute "paranoia" or "conspiracy theorizing," but every day common sense bolstered by researched concerns. Yet "conspiracy theory" is just the term the first wave of media coverage has used to describe these calls for voting accountability raised by many concerned citizens who are primarily expressing their questions, views, fears, evidence, and calls to action on the internet. These issues need to be aired and they need to be brought to the attention of the American public, whether John Kerry jumps fully into the fray or not.
Of course, Diebold's Wally O'Dell's frank revelation of his partisan Republican investments was not the only cause for wary consideration of this party's machinations leading up to the election. Whether or not the allegations that members of Sproul & Associates discarded the registrations of Democrats in Nevada, Oregon, Arizona, Ohio, and Pennsylvania prove true, the fact that they are a partisan Republican company that misrepresented themselves as a nonpartisan voter registration group demonstrates the use of tactics that not only Democrats, but anyone who values the democratic process would be foolish to ignore. Material evidence of voter misinformation distributed by Republicans, like the fliers in Ohio that told Democrats to vote on November 3rd, lead to legitimate suspicions that do not warrant accusations of "sour grapes" toward those who harbor such suspicions.
No matter what one's opinion is about how the vote was conducted in Florida in 2000, numerous reports of computer malfunctions around the country this November 2004 warrant a large scale investigation, regardless of suspicions of partisan tampering. Whether or not there was deliberate partisan manipulation over how voting equipment was distributed so that the longest lines in Ohio--some with 10 hour waits--occurred in predominantly low income, minority, college, and primarily Democratic voting precincts, this problem needs to be thoroughly investigated if it is to be resolved. So why is the media treating the proponents of an investigation of the election like the relative no one wants to admit is part of the family? And what effect does this denigrating treatment of legitimate concerns have on the public's awareness of what is at issue in allegations of voter fraud, as well as calls for a recount?
To begin to answer that, let's examine the rhetoric being used by the media to characterize these proponents of voting reform, along with the evidence they present. The New York Times first tackled the issue of voting concerns in an article titled, "Vote Fraud Theories, Spread By Blogs, Are Quickly Buried." The title suggests that the issue is moot and the allegations on the internet are already discredited. Reporting an issue as over while it is still percolating serves to quell discussion of the issue. This is an odd first approach to a subject the week after the election, unless one has investments in quelling the discussion for whatever reason.
The stand the article takes on the internet arguments is set in a first line of sensationalizing prose reporting that "the e-mail messages and Web-postings had all the twitchy cloak-and-dagger thrust of a Hollywood blockbuster." Keep in mind that this article is not presented as an editorial opinion piece but as a news report. The purple prose continues as internet writings on the election are labeled "dark ideas," "faulty analyses," "conspiracy theories," the "online rumor mill," a "breathless cycle," "Web log hysteria, and "second guessing." In case the reader has not guessed from the title that this New York Times vetted news article considers all conjectures of vote fraud or questioning of election data as dead wrong, the denigrating terminology attempts to make this conclusion unmistakable, without even any logical counter arguments being presented.
So having examined the editorial invectives in this article, let's look at some of the logic it presents. Kathy Dopp of www.ustogether.org is introduced as an "Internet Enthusiast," while her masters degree in math is referred to only in parentheses. The article declares that her theory, supported by "other statisticians," that optical scan votes in Florida may be fraudulent, is completely discounted by a history of Republican voting in those counties as stated by 3 political scientists. The prestigious university affiliations of these latter authorities is pointedly listed in the article while where Dopp got her masters degree is not, thus downplaying her authority. No matter the authority of their credentials, the political scientists' counter argument still remains an unproven theory, no more plausible than Dopps without further investigation, which this very biased article not only fails to note but presents as a solved issue.
Furthermore, if we consider the topic of the article, which is internet allegations, this is an odd approach to an issue that 6 members of the House of Representatives have considered important enough to file for an investigation with the GAO (and which the GAO in turn later agreed to undertake for more reasons than the Congress-folks' request.) Official actions taken by elected representatives of the nation should be the most newsworthy item of such a report; tackling the issue of what is being said by citizens on the internet should be quite secondary. Yet the article buries the news of this legislative call for an investigation in a middle paragraph, and only as a corollary to its point about Dopp's research, stating that these members of Congress used it as reference. Since the article makes it a point to present Dopp's theory as discredited, it presents this important news as a misguided move by legislators who reference internet sources. On the contrary, this motion by members of Congress adds credence to the concerns raised on the internet and makes it harder to assert that the issue is "quickly buried." There is a lot more effort put into discrediting these arguments, with here-say rather than evidence, than to explore them in this article.
"Latest Conspiracy Theory--Kerry Won--Hits the Ether," an article presented by The Washington Post as a report rather than an editorial takes the same tone of epithet-dispensing, gleeful disdain for the "bloggers and mortally wounded party loyalists and the spreadsheet-wielding conspiracy theorists" who "are filling the Internet with head-turning allegations." The article makes the sweeping statement that "none of the most popular theories holds up to close scrutiny" before even trying to present evidence for any one theory, or counter theory, to begin with. Why such certainty? Why does this article even deem it necessary to express such certainty while calls for investigations are still being made, let alone before any thorough investigation can even be started?
The Boston Globe also approached the issue of voting irregularities and fraud from a stand of dismissal in an article so titled, "Internet Buzz on Vote Fraud is Dismissed," and thus closes the case before even opening it. This stand is once again presented as news rather than as an editorial, even though the article employs the language of pointed argument. Again the House of Representative's call for an investigation is presented paragraphs down in the article as a byproduct of the headline issue of internet "conspiracy theories", rather than the other way around. However, after this partisan opening focused on dismissing internet speculation, the article does go on to present many of the issues of contention in the election process and present authorities with differing views, leaving the issue in the end, properly open. If only it had begun that way, it would be a well-presented, unbiased news story. The Atlanta Journal-Constitution also weighs in with a news report with the editorial title, "Election Conspiracy Theories Persist," but after dismissing the internet speculation, like The Boston Globe article did, it continues on to report the issues involved.
A more balanced approach cannot be expected from an article in the San Francisco Chronicle that complains about "Web Rants" in its title. It counters the "rants" of fraud in Florida with its opening paragraphs by quoting a supervisor of elections from Lafayette County, Florida who informs us that, "there's still enough people who have enough Christian in them that they vote their morals over the pocketbook and praise God, because I'm one of them" in order to make the point that there are other explanations of why the county went Republican in such unexpected numbers, though this connection is not presented clearly in the article. What we have presented here is testimony from an election official who is clearly biased Republican with no corroborating statistics or historical information to support her points. Lest you conclude that the article is obviously presenting her testimony as that of a biased source in order to logically argue that there are two partisan sides to the issue of voter irregularities in Florida, the article follows her testimony with the declaration that "accusations of widespread organized voting fraud elsewhere in the country similarly wilt under scrutiny." Thus this article presents the above statement of a partisan voter, not only as a murkily presented counter argument to the internet allegations concerning heavily Democratically registered counties where Bush won, but as the definitive authority to dismiss those allegations. Not only is this an inadequate and partisan piece of reporting, but an inadequate application of logic. Is this the press so many commentators would have us believe is liberally biased? Is there any evidence that such a liberally-biased press exists today? I doubt that would be Dan Rather's experience, but his error is no more egregious than the one made in this article.
The article then continues on to make the good point that some rumors, "like the swift boat veterans who attacked Kerry's Vietnam service record, play out on the nation's media stage." Yet now that this Republican-supporting rumor had been given full media attention to Kerry's detriment, the many concerns brought up on the internet and news of the House of Representative's request of the GAO, the GAO's decision to undertake the investigation, the work that the 17,000 lawyers for the Democratic Party are doing, and how the Ohio recount calls by third party candidates are playing out do not seem to merit much press coverage in the papers, and scant little mention in the television news media, except dismissal. The process by which the media decides a story is newsworthy does not seem to be serving the American public very well, let alone in a nonpartisan manner.
All articles I have examined above are also bundled together in the Washington Post's online article "The Election That Never Ends . . . Online", This web article is not clearly presented as an editorial or report, and is annotated to further the argument that the online allegations are the stuff of baseless rumors and "conspiracy theories". The article builds on The Boston Globe's argument to characterize the motion by the members of the House of Representatives as an example that "conspiracy theories can influence public policy," thus also dismissing the legitimacy of this legislative action.
The only coverage NBC televised national news made of the questioning of voter irregularities was to dismiss internet allegations by quoting sources that dismiss them and presenting no independent research of their own into the matter. NBC's reports from Keith Olbermann are researched and counter this stand, but are no where near as high profile as the network evening news. And he is the lone member of the mainstream media who has deemed the questions about the election process important enough to report.
After a week of the media coverage's focus on lambasting internet sources, the New York Times does take an alternate editorial stand:
Defenders of the system have been quick to dismiss questions like these as the work of 'conspiracy theorists,' but that misses the point. Until our election system is improved--with better mechanics and greater transparency--we cannot expect voters to have full confidence in the announced results.
This conclusion is all well and good but this is the same paper which earlier that week ran the report with the very purple prose denigrating the web allegations, and which was presented as news, not editorial comment as it should have been. And there has not been much follow-up of the ongoing investigations into irregularities and recounts in the New York Times, or even a report on the GAO's decision to investigate. This editorial stand by the paper needs to be followed by investigative reports on all the issues it raises.
The second week of coverage of allegations of voter irregularities and calls for recounts is answered solipsistically by The Boston Globe with an article entitled, "Media Accused of Ignoring Election Irregularities." This article reports various internet sites' critiques of the lack of media coverage. What does not appear in the paper yet is a report investigating any of the issues being discussed on the internet. Thus we see evidence of The Boston Globe's staffs' ability to do internet research but not provide any investigative reporting of its own. Needless to say, this is not helpful for elucidating the issue.
CNN's internet coverage has been in the proper form of unbiased reports, as in its report of irregularities in North Carolina and the Democratic suit in Washington State. Of course these reports are direct from the Associated Press releases. MSNBC also depended on AP sources for a report using informed sources on the Democratic position on the vote count in Ohio. At least the AP has been giving the issues coverage; the problem is that the media is loathe to present this information to the public, let alone do investigative work of their own.
So with all these biased arguments presented as news by the media there is a reason People For the American Way's website cautions us to "not let the reports in the news media fool you. The notion that the election ran 'smoothly' in contested states is just so much self-serving happy talk." In an editorial, properly presented as such, columnist for The Washington Post Donna Brit points out "that the mainstream media appear largely unconcerned" in her essay entitled "Worst Voter Error is Apathy Toward Irregularities." I would argue that the voter apathy has been fueled by not only the media's lack of coverage, but dismissive coverage for what little mention they have made about the irregularities while investigations are still ongoing and conclusions are still open. The League of Women Voters has joined in on the call for a full investigation of voting irregularities. Following in the footsteps of Adam Cohen's commentaries and calls to action throughout the past year at The New York Times Keith Olbermann of msnbc has been tirelessly covering what the rest of media has been ignoring. He could use some higher profile competition from other reporters or, at the very least, some investigative support.
The Plain Dealer has reported that the Ohio Democratic Party, as well as Third Party Candidates, are pushing for a recount and The American public needs to see this issue followed-up throughout the media. This is not a story of only local interest; it needs to be covered nationally. Why is the mainstream press ignoring the AP release concerning Jesse Jackson's rally for election reform and a recount in Ohio, as well as the news of support of his efforts from the Kerry campaign? Why do I only find this news reported on Michael Moore's website and The Free Press website and not in mainstream sources? This is indeed mainstream news.
Do the arguments which state that the vote discrepancy in Florida counties using optical scanning machines is accounted for by a history of "Dixiecrat" voting hold up against the report presented by the Berkeley University research team? No report mentioning the Dixiecrat argument has provided statistics or clear historical evidence of any kind to support it; a report on this is in order. Interviews with authorities on both sides of the debate need pursuing.
If writers on The Daily KOS blog collective can present investigative telephone interviews with authorities, why doesn't the mainstream media do likewise? Bev Harris of blackboxvoting.org is doing research that deserves media coverage. The GAO is undertaking an investigation of voting irregularities. What information can we get on the kind of sources they will be working with and on estimates of a time frame for the research? What do the six members of the House of Representatives have to say about their expectations for this investigation? What about the various suits being undertaken by various organizations relating to recounts and election fraud? All these questions need coverage in the mainstream press.
In a democracy, one of the media's prime jobs is to help the public hold their elected representatives accountable. We cannot do this if the press does not report their activities. If nothing else, the GAO investigation deserves full media coverage foremost. We would all be better off without the media's unprofessional need to compete with and denigrate the independent citizen news reporters, disseminators, and blogging editorialists on the internet, and would be better served by the media treating these as additional sources for investigative tips and as a barometer of citizens' concerns. Instead the press has presented us with the rhetoric of quietism, the denigration of citizens' concerns it will not engage with and investigate. These citizens want to see coverage of this issue from the mainstream press. It is in the best interests of the democratic process that the media does so.
November 30, 2004.