JIMMY CARTER'S WAR ON DEMOCRACY
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September 28, 2004

Long after most former presidents have settled down into an honored elder- statesman role, Jimmy Carter keeps chugging along like that battery bunny.

Now the ex-peanut farmer charges that Florida fails to meet the "basic international requirements" for fair elections in the November vote.

He claims that new Secretary of State Glenda Hood (who replaced Katherine Harris, the face of the Florida 2000 electoral recount) is biased and that the entire state is participating in a "suspicious process."

"It is unconscionable," Carter added, "to perpetuate fraudulent or biased electoral practices in any nation."

Oh, really?

Funny, Carter quickly endorsed the results of last month's recall effort against Venezuela's President Hugo Chavez.

Chavez, a pal of dictators from Saddam Hussein to Fidel Castro, officially beat back the recall with nearly 59 percent of the vote.

Oddly, that result was completely opposite the findings of an exit poll conducted by a well-regarded polling firm used often by the U.S. Democratic Party, which showed Venezuelan voters booting Chavez by the same 59 percent.

Other exit polls also pointed toward a comfortable recall win.

Carter's election observers were supposed to do a wide survey of the more than 20,000 electronic voting machines. Instead, they did only a quick check of a few. Only days later, in the face of major criticism, was an audit made of 150 of the machines — too late to affect any result.

Oh, and for good measure, a peaceful protest of the recall result was greeted by gunfire from a group of thugs loyal to Chavez. One woman was killed and several others were injured.

Yet Jimmy Carter said that the election was "free and fair."

And he presumes to judge American elections?

Yes, there are problems.

New York elections, for example, are replete with anecdotal evidence suggesting substantial polling irregularities. What do you suppose the odds are Carter will come to town to lecture fellow Democrats on how to hold fair elections?

Jimmy Carter seems to have a thing for heavy-handed rulers; before Chavez, there was his affection for North Korea's Stalinist thug, Kim Jong Il.

That's between the former president and his conscience, of course. But he would do well to butt out of America's sometimes flawed, but fundamentally fair, electoral processes.

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