Senators should object to Ohio vote

JESSE JACKSON

_T his Thursday in Washington
Rep. John Conyers (D-Mich.),
the senior minority member
of the House Judiciary Committee,
will formally object to the counting
of the Ohio electoral vote in the 2004
presidential election. If any senator
joins him, the counting of the vote is
suspended and the House and the
Senate must convene separately to
hear the objections filed, and to vote
on whether to accept them.
The grounds for the objections
are clear: The irregularities in the
Ohio vote and vote count are wide-
spread and blatant. If the Ohio elec-
tion were held in the Ukraine, it
would not have been certified by the
international community.
In Ohio, the gulf between exit
polls and counted votes is vast and
glaring. Blatant discrimination in
the distribution of voting machines
ensured long lines in inner-city and
working-class precincts that favored
John Kerry, while the exurban dis-
tricts that favored President Bush
had no similar problems.
Systematic efforts were made to
suppress and challenge the new vot-
ers in Kerry precincts, whether stu-
dents or African Americans. Some
precincts were certified with more
votes than the number registered;
others were certified with preposter-
ously low turnouts. Voting ma- chines, produced by a company
headed by a vowed Bush supporter,
provide no paper record. Ohio's sec-
retary of state, the inappropriately
partisan head of the state's Bush
campaign, has resisted any system-
atic recount of the ballots.
The systematic bias and potential
for fraud is unmistakable. An in-
depth investigation is vital -- and
the partisan secretary of state has
opposed it every step of the way. In
this context, Conyers and his col-
leagues in the House are serving the
nation's best interests in demanding
an investigation of the irregularities
in Ohio, and objecting to business as
usual in counting the vote.
If Harry Reid, the new leader of
the Democratic minority in the Sen-
ate, has any sense, he will lead mem-
bers of the caucus to support their
colleagues from the House and de-
mand a debate that will expose the
irregularities in Ohio. If Kerry wants
___________________
We need national
standards to ensure we
get an honest count.

to establish his continued leader-
ship, he will stand first to join with
Conyers and demand a debate.
Will the debate overturn the out-
come of the election? That is doubt-
ful, although the irregularities in -
Ohio suggest that Kerry may well
have won if a true count could be
had. But the debate is vital anyway.
This country's elections, each run
with different standards by different
states, with partisan tricks, racial
bias, and too often widespread in-
competence, are an open scandal.
We need national standards to
ensure that we get an honest count
across the country. National stand-

ards, accompanied by a constitu-
tional amendment to guarantee the
right to vote for all Americans, will
be passed only if leaders in the Con-
gress refuse to close their eyes to the
scandal, and instead stop business
as usual.
Conyers, Reid and Kerry will face
harsh criticism for violating what
might be called the Nixon preced-
ent. When Kennedy beat Nixon by a
few thousand votes in an election
marked by irregularities in Illinois
and Texas, Nixon chose not to chal-
lenge the result. Gore essentially fol-
lowed that rule after the gang of five
in the Supreme Court disgraced
themselves by stopping the vote
count in Florida. But the effect of
the Nixon precedent is to provide
those who would cheat with essen-
tially a free pass. Particularly when
the state officials are partisans, they
can put in the fix with little fear of
exposure so long as they win.
So Conyers will step up, accompa-
nied by other courageous members
of the House. They will object to the
count and demand a debate. To
force that debate, they need only
one member of the Senate to join
them. Reid should lead the entire
caucus to join them. Kerry should
stand alone if necessary to demand
clean elections in America.
If America is to be a champion of
democracy abroad, it must clean up
its elections at home. If it is to com-
plain of fraudulent and dishonest
election practices abroad, it cannot
condone them at home. But more
important, if our own elections are
to be legitimate, then they must be
honest, open, with high national
standards.
The time has come to stand up for
clean elections, and to let it be
known that massive irregularities
will not go unchallenged.