Objection to Counting of Ohio Electoral Votes
OBJECTION TO COUNTING OF OHIO ELECTORAL VOTES -- (Senate - January 06, 2005)
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Mr. DeWINE. Mr. President, I find it almost impossible to believe that I am actually standing on the floor of the Senate today engaged in a debate over whether George Bush won Ohio in the 2004 Presidential election. Clearly he did and did so by 118,000 votes.
Because I am limited under the rules to 5 minutes, I will not have time to address all of the wild, incoherent, and completely unsubstantiated charges that have been made about the 2004 Ohio Presidential election. What might be a better way for me to explain the absurdity of the suggestion that Ohio did not go for President Bush is to quote from numerous editorials that have been written in Ohio newspapers.
The Cleveland Plain Dealer, a newspaper that did not endorse either President Bush or JOHN KERRY, said in an editorial this past Tuesday addressing those in Ohio and those from out of State still contesting Ohio's results:
The election horse is dead. You can stop beating it now. Not one ounce of political flesh remains on that carcass. Ohio has counted and recounted: President George W. Bush received 118,775 more votes than your man Sen. John Kerry.
The senator had the good grace and sense to acknowledge the abundantly obvious, go home, and resume his life. You might consider emulating his excellent example, because what you are doing now--redoubling your effort in the face of a settled outcome--will only drive you further toward the political fringe. And that long grass already is tickling your knees.
The 176 Democrats who sit on Ohio's 88 county election boards pondered their jurisdictions' results, accepted their subordinates' good work, and are turning their energies toward the future. Are they all dupes in some Machiavellian Republican scheme? Or do they simply have a firmer grasp of reality than that displayed by the two of you and a handful of unrelenting zealots still ranting in the January rain, eight weeks after the November voting?''
The headline for the Akron Beacon Journal's editorial from December 24, 2004 was:
We wish John Kerry would have won Ohio. He didn't.
The piece went on to say:
The allegations being thrown around are of the flimsiest nature ..... Not one shred of evidence has been presented to show that Ohio's strictly bipartisan system of running elections was manipulated.
The Columbus Dispatch, in an editorial dated December 12, 2004, said:
On Monday, the 20 Ohio members of the Electoral College will cast their votes to elect the next president of the United States. When those votes are added to those from electors in the other 49 states, George W. Bush's re-election will be official.
But that won't stop the conspiracy theorists who claim that Bush stole his victory. Though they are small in number, these naysayers are loud and repetitious. So the truth bears repeating, too: Bush won because more Ohioans voted for him than for Senator John Kerry.
Kerry understands that George Bush legitimately won the election, which is why he conceded on November 3rd. Those who claim that Ohio's vote was rigged have produced nothing that approaches credible evidence, nor have they explained how a conspiracy could be carried out successfully in a decentralized system involving 88 separate, bipartisan county election boards.
Such a conspiracy would have to involve scores, if not hundreds, of Democratic election-board members actively working against their own party and presidential candidate.
It is terribly unfortunate that this body is meeting under these circumstances. I urge my colleagues to act unanimously in seating Ohio's electors.
I ask unanimous consent to have the full text of the above-mentioned articles printed in the RECORD.
There being no objection, the material was ordered to be printed in the RECORD, as follows:
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