On the Elections, Again

I can't let this topic go, and the reason is so fundamental that no amount of peptalk from my other selves works: If elections are not fair and transparent, then there is no point to democracy. There's no point to planning what to do in 2006 if the votes on 2006 are determined by those who count them, not those who vote. In fact, there will be no democracy, just a dictatorship that will do whatever it wants.

So show me that these elections were fair. All I'm asking is the evidence so that I can retain some trust in the system. What's so bad about spending some money to recount votes so that all voters can accept the results? Why is asking for this labeled as tinfoilhattery? Why am I supposed to quietly accept an election outcome which was not supported by most of the signs and symptoms?
I'm not a stupid goddess, actually, I'm an extremely smart one, and I question what happened. So do many people who are smarter than me. Please give us a proper recount; that's all we are asking.

Let me tell you what's wrong with the sage advice I read a lot on the blogs: Let it go. Move on to 2006. Of course we should study the election results if we only had some evidence on fraud. But we don't have any evidence and that covers your arguments in tinfoil.

What's wrong with this (other than the fact that if fraud happened it will happen in 2006, too)is that the only way to get the evidence that would be required is to look for it inside the machines. But to be allowed to look inside the machines we need to have evidence! A Catch-22. The information about our voting machines is the property of business interests, believe it or not, and that's why we have no way of knowing what happened in the voting process. To even suggest a need for recounting is somehow bad, somehow evidence of yet another person who belongs to some far-left conspiracies. The situation is not balanced to begin with; not to question the election results is viewed as considered and rational. Yet if there is no evidence to prove fraud neither is there any evidence to show that it didn't happen.

The situation is not balanced otherwise, either. The government is not going to officially look into voting irregularities when the government equals the winning party. In fact, judges are not going to let such irregularities be studied if the judges are all Republicans. Most recently, it seems, an Ohio judge has declared that the recounting requested there by the third-party candidate cannot begin until after Ohio electoral votes are assigned, on December 13th.

I'm beginning to think that even this recount won't materialize. The result will be sad for many of us: previously law-abiding citizens will no longer have any faith in or respect towards their government. What that will produce remains to be seen.