As was mentioned in a previous Media Mouse news update, Democrats were able to mount a challenge to Ohio's electoral delegates in a joint session of the United States House of Representatives and Senate on Thursday. House Democrats were able to convince only one Democratic senator--Barbara Boxer of California--to stand with them in asking for an investigation of voting irregularities, a move that forced a debate on the issue. While Bush's re-election was never threatened, some commentators are counting it as a victory for Democrats and progressives showing that perhaps the Democratic Party is not entirely unwilling to respond to grassroots campaigns and still will occasionally take principled stands.
The corporate media's coverage of the debate was minimal, and where it was covered, it was viewed simply as a distraction from the real news-President George W. Bush being certified as the winner of the 2004 election by the electoral college. Most of the corporate media failed to report on the numerous voting irregularities in Ohio and largely ignored Representative John Conyers' lengthy report detailing the irregularities. The issue has also been reported through a partisan lens, with many Republicans and right-wing publications claiming that Democrats are simply upset with President George W. Bush's victory--adopting an attitude expressed by Michigan Republican Representative Candice Miller:
REP. CANDICE MILLER: Mr. Speaker, the American people must be watching this debate and literally shaking their heads. With all of the challenges facing our nation, we are spending our time debating the challenge to the validity of the presidential election simply because the Democratic Party cannot accept the fact that their candidate lost this election. They cannot accept the fact that their agenda, their vision for America has been rejected by the majority of Americans. They cannot accept the fact that President George W. Bush simply received more votes than Senator John Kerry. This election was very hard-fought on both sides. The American people have accepted the fact that it's over and they want this Congress to get to work, and to work in a bipartisan way. If this is the minority party's idea of bipartisanship, then let the people of our nation see it for what it is. Because in the spirit of bipartisanship, the Democrats are asking us to overturn the presidential election, which President Bush won by over 3 million votes nationwide, and by over 118,000 votes in the state of Ohio. In the spirit of bipartisanship, they say that somehow Karl Rove was manipulating votes from a secret computer in the White House, and that somehow these secret computers were changing the votes on punch cards and optical scan sheets that record actual votes. This language is in their challenge.
Readers interested in learning more about voting irregularities are encouraged to read John Conyers' report on voting irregularities.
