Nightline 1/19: Election 2004 -- Fair or Fraud?

[Bozita]

from the show's email:

VOTE 2004: FAIR OR FRAUD?

Jan. 19, 2005   

In this very partisan atmosphere, it may not surprise you to hear that there are some people out there who believe the winner of the 2004 U.S. presidential race was John Kerry -- that he should be the focus of the extravagant inaugural parade that will make its way up Pennsylvania Avenue to the White House tomorrow. These very vocal critics believe that because of voting irregularities in Ohio on Election Day, George Bush actually lost the election. Some go even further to say that the Republicans conspired to steal it. Washington has been dressed up once again for the festivities, so it seems a little late, but tonight we'll listen to the arguments and see if they have any merit.


If there had been more voting machines and less partisan oversight of the voting in Ohio, John Kerry would have carried the state, and had the electoral votes to carry the election. That's what some people think. Many of these arguments need to be looked at in the context of the vote in 2000, which also had serious problems and where partisan politics did play a role. It ended up in the Supreme Court and there are still people who believe Al Gore won it fair and square. But do the irregularities in Ohio rise to the same level? Or are we being subjected to much more concentrated criticism because of that anonymous engine of information called the Internet?

Part of the problem surrounding the various arguments about what happened in Ohio (and other states) is that those exit polls threw people off once again. By early afternoon on Election Day the poll results were being leaked very early on, showing that John Kerry was in the winner's column. Those results were turned upside down later by the actual results. But those early results had a lot of people convinced. "Nightline" correspondent Chris Bury, who was in Ohio on Election Day, sorts through all of this to see if any of the arguments that George Bush lost have any merit.

And what about some of the political shenanigans in past presidential elections? There are many great stories about the way political machines used to operate and who got paid to make them run. Ted Koppel will chat with two entertaining Washington watchers who will gingerly remove those political skeletons from the closet, just for some perspective.

We hope you'll join us.

Gerry Holmes & The Nightline Staff
Senior Producer
Washington Bureau

[nadinbrzezinski]

1. more rewriitng of the past I see

thiose who control the past... control the future

George Orwell, 1984

[SharonRB]

2. Should be a good show,

Just too little too late. I'll have to tape it -- it's on way past my bedtime!

[Stephanie]

3. Yes it IS a little late

Why didn't you cover it before?

[Wisc Badger]

4. You do realize that most historians

accept the fact that Richard J. Daly and his Cook county political operation (machine) stole the 1960 election for John Kennedy.

There is a lot more proof of that election theft than in 2004 for the shrub.

Democrats have been known to steal elections, it is one of the early things that turned me to the GOP at the time (I am now a recovering Republican). I watched as Da Mayor got away with any and all sort of fraud all in the name of his precious Democrat party.

I want the Democrats to do well now, but lets not lose sight of the fact that some serious manure was pulled by Dems in the past and if it is bad now it was bad then and consistency demands that we say so.

BTW: Say what you will about Nixon, at least he gave the nation a service by not contesting the 60 election, believe me he had serious grounds for doing so.

[hang a left]

5. Hmmmmmmmmm

Enjoy your stay.

[Stephanie]

6. Yes, what happened 45 years ago is MUCH more important than

what happened last week. Whatever.

[KC21304]

7. The reason Nixon did not contest the election is because

he knew what the GOP had done in downstate Illinois. And it wasn't pretty. Probably a toss up.

[wellst0nev0ter]

13. Actually, It's Because Even If He Had Won Illinois

He wouldn't have gotten enough electoral votes.

[On the Road]

8. Yes, Big City Machines and the Rural South

had a lot of Democratic fraud. On the other hand, a lot of that has changed parties, in NYC for example. Republicans used to be the clean-government party against the corrupt Democrats. No more.

[Hamlette]

9. "most historians"? Hogwash.

you have your facts mixed up.

Even if Daly "stole" Illinois for Kennedy, Nixon would have lost. Kennedy had 303 electoral votes to Nixon's 219.

You can't post lies here an get away with it. Some of us lived it.

[JHB]

12. Those "historians" are wrong

The election didn't hinge on Illinois. The electoral count was 303-219 for Kennedy, and Illinois had 27 electoral votes. If the state had gone for Nixon Kennedy would still have won.

And two things about the "service" Nixon did for the nation by not contesting that election:

1) That was just the public smiley-face at the top. Recounts and court actions by state groups went on into December;

2) Looking back, do you really think it was a service that no comprehensive investigation went forward? I don't. I was born a few years after it, and for my entire lifetime Republicans in general and conservatives in particular have whipped out the 1960 election whenever they needed to nurse a grudge or impugne Democrats, whenever they need to justify twisting the process in their own favor. What they haven't done is lead the way in cleaning up electoral irregularities.

I live too close to the haunts of the old Tammany Hall to have any illusions about Democratic purity on this subject, but it IS time to champion cleaning up the process, and the Democrats are the ones who can do it. All it takes is declaring that Nixon was wrong.

And how hard is THAT for a Democrat to do, eh? ;)

[PROGRESSIVE1]

16. Nixon did the same thing downstate.

Also, without Illinois, Kennedy would have still won both the Popular and Electoral Votes.

[seabeyond]

17. nixon also did his own playing around in calif

why he had to graciously not contest, he didnt want to get caught in his own crookedness. a lot of people talk about the 1960 elections and leaves that out

i agree with you though. i dont give a rats ass if it is dem or repu. i do know though since i have been watching the last handful of elections, i have only see the 2000 and 2002 nad 2004 election consistantly be repug theft, suppression and intimidation. i am sure there is some playing around with dems, yet,.......the few times i heard the dems do it or dems talk about doing something wrong on this board, the overwhelming majority opposed it, rejected it

i will take that party anytime

further, in all we have heard in 2004 again the overriding majority was in favor of bush, hand down

[earth mom]

10. Hope it's reported objectively... n/t

[DireStrike]

11. "Some believe gore won FL"

Isn't that what NORC said? Gore would have won if all the votes were counted?

It seems that in this case, "some" means "whoever is informed and doesn't deny the truth."

[Bozita]

14. kick

[Pork Chop]

15. It might not be fraud

I have no way of knowing for sure, so I won't make any assumptions. Although, I would like to think that it's fraud - it scares me that so many people could actually be stupid enough to vote for Bush.

[seabeyond]

18. texas and new mexico machines

hit straight dem ticket and a vote for bush pops up. try and try and maybe try a couple more times to get bush off so you can vote kerry

started in early voting and was never fixed thru election day. just a quirky machine or two

i say fraud