Reply #178: but it isn't true (although other stuff in the article is) [View All]

In fact, two big mistakes here.

"In what may be the single most astounding fact from the election, one in every four Ohio citizens who registered to vote in 2004 showed up at the polls only to discover that they were not listed on the rolls, thanks to GOP efforts to stem the unprecedented flood of Democrats eager to cast ballots."

No, absolutely not. That would be astounding, if it were true. I don't know how the Rolling Stone fact checkers missed this. Here's what RFK's source (the DNC report) actually says: "Our investigation and analysis reveal that more than one quarter of all voters in Ohio reported some kind of problem on Election Day, including long lines, problems with registration status and polling locations, absentee ballots and provisional ballots and unlawful identification requirements at the polls." These are all big problems, but they aren't all being "not listed on the rolls."

"And that doesn?t even take into account the troubling evidence of outright fraud, which indicates that upwards of 80,000 votes for Kerry were counted instead for Bush. That alone is a swing of more than 160,000 votes -- enough to have put John Kerry in the White House."

Well, that particular evidence is very weak. It rests on the argument that a Democratic candidate for the Ohio Supreme Court could not have gotten more votes than Kerry in 12 rural counties. But in 2000, a Democratic candidate for the Ohio Supreme Court got more votes than Gore in 81 counties. So that dog won't hunt. It was an interesting argument in late 2004, but it doesn't hold up under scrutiny.

Personally, I really really wanted us to weed out the bad arguments before they ran in Rolling Stone. Oh well.