Wait A Minute

emily0 and i just had an interesting thought.

maybe john kerry is wilier than we thought. there are a *lot* of stories now coming to the surface about election irregularies related to the no-audit-trail voting machines and voter intimidation in the swing states. do a google search on it yourself. i'm too tired to bother linking right now.

so -- let's assess the situation:

millions of votes are still uncounted because the absentee ballots aren't all in yet, and there are still a whole lot of provisional ballots. if kerry tried to challenge bush right now, the democrats would be accused of trying to steal the election, especially given that bush is so far considered the winner of the popular vote. the democrats would be on the defensive, and rove would probably try to sue for victory like he did last time.

as it stands now, bush's campaign team think he has won and they are off their guard. meanwhile, in order to certify the election, the outstanding ballots have to be counted. meanwhile, the vote fraud stories filter into the public consciousness.

so, what if the count is completed and kerry emerges as the winner of ohio? this is plausible because the provisional ballots broke heavily for gore the last time, and they are from districts that lean heavily towards the democrats. it's entirely possible that we could come to a situation where a recount is triggered. if bush tries to take it to the courts, he confirms a lot of people's suspicions that he's willing to litigate his way to a victory instead of allowing it to be decided by the will of the people. after all, that's all he's talked about since election night -- the will of the people, the people have spoken, etc.

trying to win the election in the courts will utterly destroy his new-found shiny so-called 'mandate' as well as sweep away any pretense that the will of the people matters. especially if it turns out that he actually doesn't have the popular vote, and more importantly if he doesn't have a clear hold on the electoral vote.

interesting times.