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Joan:<BR>
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It is certain there was fraud in this election. There always is in any national election. The question is, does the fraud add up the margin of Bush's victory in votes in say, Ohio and Florida, to pick two critical examples. And to be "fair and balanced" (I'm hoping to get my own show on Fox) the democrats need to be looked at for fraud helping them. Regardless of whether Bush stole this one, or not, we need a Marshall Plan to invest in the voting systems in the US to monitor and improve everything. It is astonishing the problems reported that you describe with this election! <BR>
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The way elections are financed, supported and organized in the US is a scandal, a violation of the fundamental principles of democracy, a shocking revelation of what a phony bunch of propaganda it is to state we are "the world's greatest democracy." We are the world's greatest capitalist consumer society, the world's greatest military power, no doubt about it, but in terms of the health of our participatory democracy, we are down the list somewhere.<BR>
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How do we expect to bring democracy to Iraq when we have a mess of one right here? We don't even run our own elections very well, so we are going to tell the Iraqis how to do it? I feel sorry for them, though they will learn all sorts of tricks to steal an election, which should come in handy.<BR>
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Ted Moffett</FONT></HTML>