Thursday, September 16, 2004
THE REPUBLICANS AND DEMOCRACY
Here's a very good quote from Nick Burbules of Progressive Blog Digest:
"Here then we see another legacy of the wholesale Republican hijacking of the electoral process. By jobbing every aspect of primaries, convention dates, absentee voting, redistricting, campaign financing, FEC rules, digital voting machines, and even the ways in which votes get counted — all with a guise toward maximizing their electoral chances — they have left in tatters a basic principle essential to democracy: a set of fixed ground rules and procedures that apply to every vote, regardless of whom they might help or hurt. When every decision is made opportunistically ad hoc, and the rules keep changing, the essence of one person/one vote and every vote counting is compromised beyond repair. Not that this prospect concerns them: they’ve been clear from the beginning that the vestiges of true democracy — accountability, openness, responsiveness to public questioning, acceptance of protest and opposition — are mere nuisances to them."
To be fair, the Democratic Party doesn't have perfectly clean hands on this issue. But there's no question that the Republicans in the last four years have taken electoral manipulation to a whole new level.
Here's a very good quote from Nick Burbules of Progressive Blog Digest:
"Here then we see another legacy of the wholesale Republican hijacking of the electoral process. By jobbing every aspect of primaries, convention dates, absentee voting, redistricting, campaign financing, FEC rules, digital voting machines, and even the ways in which votes get counted — all with a guise toward maximizing their electoral chances — they have left in tatters a basic principle essential to democracy: a set of fixed ground rules and procedures that apply to every vote, regardless of whom they might help or hurt. When every decision is made opportunistically ad hoc, and the rules keep changing, the essence of one person/one vote and every vote counting is compromised beyond repair. Not that this prospect concerns them: they’ve been clear from the beginning that the vestiges of true democracy — accountability, openness, responsiveness to public questioning, acceptance of protest and opposition — are mere nuisances to them."
To be fair, the Democratic Party doesn't have perfectly clean hands on this issue. But there's no question that the Republicans in the last four years have taken electoral manipulation to a whole new level.
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