Why Probe Russian Elections, When We Don't Probe Our Own
by James Glaser
December 3, 2007

Agence France-Presse (AFP) had this headline yesterday, "US urges Russia to probe election violations." The report went on with this:

The United States on Sunday urged Russia to investigate claims of election day violations, after partial results showed President Vladimir Putin's United Russia party had won 63.6 percent of the vote.

"Early reports from Russia include allegations of election day violations. We urge Russian authorities to investigate these claims," said White House spokesman Gordon Johndroe.

The Russian opposition has vowed to challenge what it said were widespread vote violations after early official results showed Putin's United Russia Party had won a huge majority in Sunday's parliamentary polls.

It seems strange to me that George Bush and his White House are worried about an election in Russia, while they did everything possible to stymie any investigation into elections here at home in 2000 and 2004.

It is not like there wasn't any reason to look into our elections, with thousands, no make that tens of thousands of American voters disenfranchised from their legal right to vote. Just think about Ohio in 2004 where strong Republican precincts had all the voting machines they could use, but those with a historical Democrat vote had so few that those who wanted to vote had to wait hours and hours due to lack of voting equipment. A lot of people wanted to investigate, but the White House did everything it could to stop any real probe.

The 2000 election should have had a real investigation into figuring out how with George Bush, losing the popular vote by over one half million votes, still won in key strong democratic areas.

To tell you the truth, I don't care how Russia conducts its election, and I am sick of our sticking our noses into everyone else's business. How arrogant of us! Russia and Russians can worry about their own election, and just maybe it is time that we start worrying about our own.

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