Wednesday, October 26, 2005

Fooled Again: How the Right Stole the 2004 Election & Why They'll Steal the Next One Too (Unless We Stop Them) by Mark Crispin Miller

Miller has done his homework, and his sources are numerous and scrupulously footnoted. He comes close to convincing an open-minded reader that the 2004 election was a gigantic fraud. His exhortation to Democrats "not to milk it for partisan advantage but to use it to promote, and realize, electoral reform" is the book's stated purpose, and Miller does make a strong case for reform.
Among other things, he recommends doing away with electronic voting, which he says "can never be entirely secure," and using standard paper ballots instead. He also would federalize the electoral system so as to replace "local bigots or politicos" with trained civil servants at the polls.
Miller makes it clear that there is much to dislike and distrust about a political movement -- evangelical conservatism -- that pretends to get its politics directly from God. Unfortunately, this is an unabashedly partisan book that is often as overwrought as its title. That tends to undermine Miller's credibility to a degree that can frustrate the reader.
Still, he provides considerable evidence to support his argument, and while it is mostly circumstantial, that kind of evidence isn't necessarily inferior, especially when there's a lot of it. And Miller doesn't scrimp.

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