Posted on October 20, 2004, and tagged as
Used to be that money was the bell cow foretelling a campaign's priorities. Want to know which states are critical for an Electoral College win? Look at where a candidate spends his booty. But in an era of close races and hanging chads, a better indicator is where the lawyers hang out before Election Day.
Used to be that money was the bell cow foretelling a campaign's priorities. Want to know which states are critical for an Electoral College win? Look at where a candidate spends his booty. But in an era of close races and hanging chads, a better indicator is where the lawyers hang out before Election Day.
A lawsuit filed on Tuesday in New Jersey by a group that includes a Democratic state lawmaker and an ACLU-associated law professor seeks to prohibit the use of electronic voting machines in the election, which is less than two weeks away. Never mind that the Garden State has had few problems using electronic voting machines in the past. It's the specter of problems in other states that litigants say spooks them.
Nice try. The lawsuit looks like a cousin of the feigned voter-intimidation strategy: A Democratic Party manual leaked last week suggests that the best way to uncover minority disenfranchisement is to preemptively cry foul immediately after the election. A sort of scream-and-they-will-come move.
New Jersey (15 electoral votes) had been solidly blue until recently. But Gov. James McGreevey's harassment-related outing and his long goodbye, pervasive ethics scandals at many levels of government, and new silly laws such as a ban on holding a cell phone while driving have eaten away at a solid Kerry lead. So what's the Democrats best 11th hour bet if their guy loses in a close contest? Claim "we wuz robbed" and sue everyone in sight.