|
|
|
The Free Congress Commentary:
By Paul M. Weyrich
"Whether George Bush or Al Gore wins, we have a serious problem here. We have several close Congressional and Senate races out there, which well could be decided by election fraud," stated Deborah Phillips, president of the Voting Integrity Project, a guest on the "Endangered Liberties" television program. Phillips said the Voting Integrity Project is non-partisan, "so we try very hard to not take sides, but there are certain things that are very revealing about what the press is focusing on in this election. First of all, no one seems to be talking about the issues that really matter in this election - the fundamental failures that have been wrought on the system by passage of a Federal law in 1993 called the National Voter Registration Act. That law opened up the registration process so far, and then also wiped away any controls that today virtually any one or anything can register and vote in the United States of America. You don't have to prove you're a citizen, you don't have to prove you actually exist - you can do this by mail and in many jurisdictions you can vote by mail. So that is the fault line where almost all election failures are resting today". Co-host Lisa Dean asked Phillips, "What is happening in Florida right now, what sort of precedent does it set for the future?" Phillips replied, "Realistically, the smoke will clear and this will be forgotten because that is what happens in all election failure scenarios, that once the press has gone home, very little does happen, very little precedent is set. And every election failure has a uniqueness about it - you have to look at what system is involved; you have to look at the unique qualities of the failure. And so, there is no universal lesson that can be drawn from what's happening in Palm Beach or Miami-Dade. And my concern is that there's going to be a push to establish some sort of Federalized system for elections - one universal system - and I do believe that our integrity is best served by keeping it as local as possible." Paul Weyrich is president of the Free Congress Foundation
|
