Presidents Day and Corrupt Elections in the US


Today is a public holiday for many in the US, Presidents Day. As we are forced to contemplate the benefits our beloved leaders have bestowed upon the nation, I came across a couple of articles about the long tradition of electoral fraud which has enabled some presidents to attain office. In recent memory there was the contested 1st Bush election and then the suspicions raised in Ohio in the second Bush election; Kennedy and Johnson immediately come to mind but the work of the British journalist Andrew Gumbel [and an interview with him] has cast a non-patriotic eye over American history and come up with some astounding history. He quotes a scathing comment by ex-president Carter:
A few days before the November 2004 election, Jimmy Carter was asked what would happen if, instead of flying to Zambia or Venezuela or East Timor, his widely respected international election monitoring team was invited to turn its attention to the United States. His answer was stunningly blunt. Not only would the voting system be regarded as a failure, he said, but the shortcomings were so egregious the Carter Center would never agree to monitor an election there in the first place. "We wouldn't think of it," the former president told a radio interviewer. "The American political system wouldn't measure up to any sort of international standards, for several reasons."
The decentralised state-based system allows for great variation in electoral practice and a gentleman's agreement between the two major parties means that each turns a blind eye towards electoral malfeasance in each other's territory. Once again, the US is no model for a thriving democratic regime to follow. My favourite quote is from an old governor of Louisiana who said he wanted to be buried in Louisiana so he could "remain active in state politics" after his demise.

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Posted: Mon - February 20, 2006 at 09:13 PM        

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