Thursday, January 06, 2005

Democratic Senators to Challenge Ohio's Electors

It will be interesting to see how big a splash this makes. Several sources (including the Brad Blog) are reporting that at least six Senators have joined John Conyers' challenge of Ohio Electoral college votes:


Senator Barbara Boxer will stand to challenge, and will be supported by at least the following Democratic Senators: Hilary Clinton (NY), Harry Ried (NV), Barack Obama (IL), Dick Durbin (IL) and Christopher Dodd (CT). [from The Brad Blog]


Notably absent is Sen. John Kerry (boo!).

So, as I discussed in a previous post, this seems to be largely a symbolic gesture--since the outcome is decided by a simple majority of both houses of Congress (and this majority is, indeed, made up of simpletons). But, if it generates enough press, it might at the very least tarnish Bush's "mandate," and in the best case scenario, might create enough public outcry to get rid of partisan election officials and paperless electronic voting machines.There have been reports (that I'm not taking too seriously) about Republicans being concerned that absences by members of the House and Senate today, might:

  1. Prevent a quorum. Delaying the certification of election results until there are enough Congressman there to vote, or
  2. Actually give the Democrats a majority of votes in Senate--enough to disqualify Ohio's electors


Even in the "in your wildest dreams" scenario, all that could happen is that Ohio's electors are not counted, and then, I believe, the election goes to the House of Representatives (Bush wins no matter how this plays out).


Kind fun, though. No? It's the first sign of life from the Democrats (except Kerry--boo!) since the election.

1 comment:

TheBitterAmerican said...

OK,,..I'm late to posting this, since the Dems lost their bid, but a scenario that played out on November 5th was this: OK,...if Kerry challenges Ohio, Bush will challenge PA (my state). Kerry won PA by a smaller margin than Bush took Ohio. Was Kerry willing to lose PA to gain Ohio? Obviously not.