News Was the 2004 US Presidential election rigged?

[edward]

It's really tough when you have to explain statistics to geeks. Anybody who doesn't believe the 2004 election was a free and open election must read the July 31, 2006 edition of The New Yorker article "Holy Toledo" by Frances Fitzgerald.

This doesn't make the election sound open and free.

On Election Day, voters in traditionally Democratic areas encountered a variety of obstacles, among them Republican challengers at the precincts, the improper purging of names from voter rolls, and, the most serious, a scarcity of voting machines. In suburban and rural areas, there were plenty of machines, but in urban precincts, where many African-Americans voted, and in other Democratic-leaning precincts, such as those around college campuses, people had to stand in line for as long as ten hours, and many of them just gave up.

After the election, more irregularities were discovered, among them spoiled ballots, voting-machine errors, provisional ballots mistakenly invalidated, and biased sample recounts. Blackwell dismissed most of the complaints as “partisan jibber-jabber” and asserted that none of the Election Day “glitches” were “of a conspiratorial nature, and none of them would have overturned or changed the election results.” Blackwell has, however, reignited the controversy by interpreting a new election law with rules on voter registration so restrictive they could halt most registration drives in Ohio. A coalition of six civic groups is suing on the ground that the law will disenfranchise poor and minority voters, and Democrats are protesting that Blackwell should not be overseeing his own election.

http://www.newyorker.com/fact/content/articles/060731fa_fact1

Nor does this:

The Ohio election was marred by numerous irregularities, and whether Blackwell discharged his duties impartially and in accordance with the law remains a matter of dispute. Republicans defend his conduct, but Democrats and voting-rights advocates maintain that he deliberately suppressed the vote of Democrats and minorities. Dozens of lawsuits and official complaints were filed, and Representative John Conyers, Jr., of Michigan, and the Democratic staff of the House Judiciary Committee launched an investigation, fielding more than fifty thousand complaints from Ohioans. Blackwell’s rulings have thus far stood up in court, but Democrats, who point out that Blackwell simultaneously served as the honorary co-chair of the Bush-Cheney campaign in Ohio, see a pattern of partisanship in his actions. A month before the registration deadline, Blackwell directed the County Boards of Elections to reject all voter-registration forms not printed on eighty-pound-stock paper. He rescinded the order three weeks later—even his own office didn’t have paper that heavy—but in the meantime many voters who tried to register could not.