Hugh Hewitt was right!!!

If you haven't had the chance to get your hands on Hugh Hewitt's book "If It's Not Close, They Can't Cheat", you must, and then read this article by John Fund at WSJ.

The Dems in the State of Washington, furious with the notion that they lost a governorship to a Republican by a narrow margin, have endeavored to manufacture a bunch of votes, relying on liberal judges to ease the way for them, and actually "enhancing" ballots to make the intent of the voter just that much more clear. How kind of them. But I really love this quote from Fund:

Democrats demanded the names and addresses of [provisional
ballot] voters so they could contact them and correct the errors. County
officials responded that in requiring that all 50 states offer provisional
ballots Congress had stipulated that such votes remain private. Republican
lawyers argued that having partisans scavenge for votes would increase the
potential for fraud.

But Superior Court Judge Dean Lum said such arguments weren't as
important as the need to make sure every vote counted--an echo of Florida.

So if I get this right, the legal standard and the avoiding of voter fraud and harassment is less important than some feel-good political philosophy held by the judge. This reminds me of a Simpsons' episode where Bart was a witness to a crime and came forward to provide his version of the facts after the case was closed. The judge, upon allowing Bart's testimony said that the equivalent of, "I know that this is illegal and grossly unconstitutional, but I just can't say no to kids."

Their goal is very clear. They are going to manufacture vote after vote in the spirit of "counting every vote" until the Democrat wins, and then they will claim a victory of a few votes for their candidate, whereas that same slim margin in the hands of the Republican was somehow not unconvincing.

But this whole "every vote counted" mantra offered by the Democrats is twaddle. It sure sounds good, but the problem is that they have never wanted every vote counted. They want every opportunity to dig up votes that help THEM. And notice that this only comes up AFTER an election and never before. This commitment to "counting every vote" only arises when they think that more votes should have been cast for their candidate rather than were actually cast. But perception is reality with these people, and they live in their sordid little world of personal entitlement to power.

The problem is that there are judges who prefer politics more than the law they are duty-bound to uphold, and they can give these Democrats' smarmy perceptions some very real life. Once again, another example of just how important the judicial selection power is.

But to finish as I began, the burden is on the Republicans. If we are content with squeaker elections, then we are also choosing to be content with litigated elections but more likely, election mischief. "Enhancing" ballots and stuffing ballot boxes are unforgivable, but have been and remain mainstays of Democratic election tactics. They don't play fair and history shows it. But note what happened in Ohio just this month. Kerry was too far behind Bush at about 135,000 votes. If it were by about 5,000, we'd be dealing with recounts, including the Democrats' gold standard, the hand recount, which allows for fraud of all kinds.

If we can get real registered voters to their polling places to cast votes, and we can do it in numbers that trounce the Dems, we can avoid these problems. Because they still can't fake hundreds of thousands of votes.