This Crazy Notion of Counting All the Votes

We've said it time and time again. The most hotly contested presidential election in recent history still only had about 58% of the registered voters in the country bothering to vote. The very fact that a voter makes the effort to show up MUST be rewarded by having that vote counted. No matter wat the outcome is, we'll accept it AS LONG AS EVERY VOTE IS COUNTED, and the winner wins fair and square.

This (apparently) unique idea is dramatically playing out in San Diego this morning. In today's L.A. Times, the first paragraph says it all. "IF all votes had been counted."

Is there any damned reason why they WOULDN'T be?

Ballot Review Favors Frye
Counting San Diego's disputed votes shows write-in candidate would have beaten the incumbent mayor, already sworn in.

SAN DIEGO — The hotly disputed race for mayor here took a sharp turn Tuesday as a review of disputed ballots showed that Councilwoman Donna Frye would have beaten incumbent Mayor Dick Murphy if all votes had been counted.

Tuesday's review looked at ballots that had not been counted in the official tally. It was conducted at the request of The Times, four other news organizations and two pro-Frye voters.

The results threw the politics of the state's second-largest city into confusion more than a month after the Nov. 2 election. The disputed election comes at a high-stakes time for San Diego. Whoever is mayor will face a deep financial crisis and a federal investigation of city officials. Both stem from the city's failure to properly fund its employee pension plans.

As the candidates and their lawyers and advisors plotted their next moves, Republican and Democratic political consultants and activists said the ballot review had severely weakened Murphy's position. Just a week ago, Murphy, a Republican, was sworn in after being certified as the winner with a margin of 2,108 votes over Frye, a Democrat who was a write-in candidate.

The ballot review Tuesday uncovered at least 4,854 additional, uncounted votes for Frye. That total will probably grow today as thousands more absentee ballots are surveyed. In all, 455,694 votes were cast.

"Dick Murphy is now the phony mayor," said Scott Barnett, former executive director of the San Diego County Taxpayers Assn. and a Republican. "He already had only about a third of the vote; now there's an incredible cloud over him."

Comments

[David Hilton]

I guess winning an election has nothing to do with how many votes you won... I wonder what it feels like to get up in the morning knowing you lost an election, yet by the letter of the "LAW" you win anyway. Whats next?? 2 + 2 = 5????

[Mark Richards]

If I were Frye I'd just show up for work and have the city police arrest the tresspasser.

Fair, and square.

[Alex]

When quasi-hyper-legalities rule and VOTES don't count, we truly have slipped into a dollarocracy.

To revive democracy, start a nonprofit association or nonprofit corporation, have elections 6 times a year, and be VERY PUBLIC with the elections, videotape EVERY BALLOT! Then your association will do good works and prosper all, and you and many others will say: Finally, we had an election where ALL VOTES were counted, NONE were thrown out, and it's good!

[JC]

Amazing how the results can change when all the votes are counted.

What a concept.

How did the democratic party cede supervision of elections to Republicans across the country? How can partisans be trusted to run fair elections and count all the votes?

Welcome to the Bushland. How many Republicans are illegitimately in office??? Besides Bush, and the Mayor of San Diego?

wgoeshome.com

[Craig R. Lane]

It won't stop. So, get used to it! "Offer up the other cheek" to your enemy, like Christ says. Or we can start to arm ourselves and start our OWN insurgent war. Make them burn and make them bleed and make the enemies of what is right die in the streets, (Democrat OR Republican). This country has already been overthrown. How do we get it back? I say BLOOD AND FIRE. Anyone with me? I fully expect to die at the hands of "my fellow Americans". I don't plan on going peacefully, OR ALONE!

[Allen M. Abrahams]

I could not agree less with you Craig Lane. The Bush administration though obviously does agree though. Evidence: Asault weapons are back on the market, jobs outsourced and a tax code that creates poverty; a devaluation of the currency; faith based science, privitization and monopolization of all public resources. Sounds like the conditions for destablization and armed conflict.

Seems that the idea of corporate citizenship should be rethought and their citizenship revoked (as if that can happen).

Kerry went out with class, and thats the problem: he was more interested in maintaining his social status quo than winning a fair election. Class polatics is incidious.

[Robert L. Mills]

I'd been wondering why so many San Diego County residents have signed the Recountthevote petition for the presidential election. Now I understand.

There's a better way to take back the country than by dying in the streets, as Craig Lane plans to do. First, continue to expose the Nov. 2 fraud (I saw discriminatory machine allocation and electronic vote flipping as a poll watcher in Florida---it wasn't just in Ohio). Hammer away, constantly, with letters to elected officials, protests, and letters to the editor. Don't give up, even after Bush is inaugurated. Tell every friend you have what happened. Second, boycott every product sold by every one of Bush's top 25 contributors (list is available on-line). It isn't as if we NEEDED Coca-Cola, McDonald's, American Express, Bristol Myers Squibb, Citicorp, the Disney Channel, etc. etc. Bush doesn't give a rat's rear what any of us thinks...but he cares a whole hell of a lot about his friends' profits.