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The scandalous voting practices that have lead to the decimation of this country are like global warming. If they aren’t fixed…well, nothing else really matters does it?

Let’s go back to yesteryear when, for the first time in our country’s history, the US president was appointed by the Supreme Court. Star date 2000. As we all remember, things got a little dicey in Florida that year. Democrats, not ever wanting to look like sore losers, certainly weren’t going to get into fisticuffs with the Republicans over hanging chads. What do you think we are? Barbarians? So while dripping with class and good-sportsmanship they held the door for the self-proclaimed compassionate conservative and cleared his way to the White House.

I mean, it’s George W. Bush. At worst he’s Eddie Haskall. Right? “Good morning Mr. And Mrs. Cleaver. Fine day isn’t it?” But what caused the next four years to become the presidency from hell, was that Eddie Haskall’s running mate was Norman Bates.

So, after four deadly years, just as the founders envisioned it, we get another chance to use our electoral process to make sure that roving bands of sociopaths aren’t allowed to destroy everything in their way for yet another four years.

Believing in the old adage…fool me once…the Democrats hired 30,000 lawyers and trained thousands of poll watchers to keep an eye on things just in case there was any electoral hanky-panky.

The first thing we heard that night was that in certain districts exit polls showed Kerry had won. But somehow these districts ended up being called for Bush. One of the theories regarding why this happened was that people were too embarrassed to say they voted for Bush so they lied. Ha! You’ve got to love that.

Then other notable irregularities began to surface. One district had a machine that tabulated a negative amount of votes. Another counted around 150,000 votes in a district that only had 30,000 people of voting age. People in predominately black districts having to wait in line for 9 hours. Coincidentally??? this all took place in Ohio. The state where the election commissioner was a contributor to the RNC and the manufacturer of the voting machines promised Bush he’d bring home a winner.

So hearing all of this will wake the Democrats up to mobilize the 30,000 attorneys, right? And we’ll wait for the reports from the poll watchers just to make sure there weren’t any other feats of magic exhibited by these insidious machines. Yes? NO.

John Kerry, the democratic candidate for president, an environmentalist, a decorated war veteran, a successful attorney, a respected member of the US senate, an anti-war activist with a billionaire wife conceded the election just 14 hours after the polls closed in California. GODDAM DEMOCRATS.

And just to add a little more despair to the nightmare, liberal internet journalists, not wanting to be seen as sore losers either, ridiculed everyone who had anything to say about the previous night’s nefarious events.

It’s just a lose-lose when your party throws in the towel before the count has even begun and your most left-leaning journalists bail just when you need them most. You’re investigative journalists for chrissakes. Go investigate something.

This is for Joan Brunwasser, who asked me to write something about the DVD “Invisible Ballots.” I’m sorry Joan, but after watching the voting machine procurement process in PA, in my humble opinion, we’re beat. The states are buying up these electronic voting machines so fast you’d think they were being paid by the government to do so. Oh wait. They are being paid by the government.

So I think that now the question is not – How can we stop them from buying these infernal machines? It’s - How do we stop them from using these machines to steal the next election?

I think a contingency plan is in order…and here’s my idea. It’s really a no-brainer so I won’t take a whole lot of credit for it.

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LET’S BEG OUR CANDIDATES NOT TO CONCEDE THE ELECTION UNTIL ALL OF THE RED FLAGS ARE LOWERED.
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There. Not so difficult. What’s wrong with taking several weeks or however long it takes to shake everything out before we announce the final winner? It happens all the time in other countries. Heck, even Powerball reserves the right take as much time as they need before certifying their results.

Hey team…it’s a game. We’re losing because they’re cheating. But we’re too afraid to do anything about it because we don’t want to be thought of as sniveling losers. Some day the game will be over and no amount of yelling, “Hey. No fairs,” will help. Our side will be wiped out while theirs will be doing victory laps and the only thing left for us to do will be to bend over and kiss our planet goodbye.

Authors Bio:
Ms. Burgwin's writings have appeared in Time, Newsweek, New York Magazine, Counterpunch, Alternet, Out2 and OpEdNews as well as several other online Op Ed sites. She is emerging from an year and a half hiatus due to grief over the 2004 election. She's ready for action.