Is It Stealing When We Hire a Biased Referee?

The big story in the liberal blogosphere the past couple of days has been this article (thanks to jedi jaywalker for the link) by Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. in the current Rolling Stone called "Was the 2004 Election Stolen?" In it, he lays out a fairly detailed and thoroughly footnoted (think law review style) case that so much chicanery went on in Ohio during the 2004 presidential election that the GOP stole the election from Kerry. All this proceeds from an investigation into why the previously reliable exit polls were so wrong in so many key states in '04.

Whether the election was "stolen" or not, it's clear that the outcome was effected by Ohio Secretary of State Kenneth Blackwell's decisions before, during, and after the election. Blackwell, in addition to being the chief vote overseer for the Buckeye State was also co-chairman of Dubya's re-election committee in Ohio. The article lays out several decisions Blackwell made, either by interpreting existing laws and regulations or by enacting new ones, that disenfranchised voters in largely Democratic areas. As sleazy as that is, should we be surprised?

The Secretary of State's office in Ohio, as in many states (West Virginia included), is an elected position, complete with partisan elections. It is also not a final destination for any ambitious pol - it's merely a stepping stone to higher office. Remember Katherine Harris, Florida's Secretary of State during the 2000 election, who also led Dubya's campaign in that state? She rode her role in 2000 to a seat in the House. Blackwell, not coincidentally, is now running for Governor in Ohio.

Given all that, why should be be surprised that a partisan elected official would use the power of his office to sway an election in favor of his party? Wouldn't it really be more surprising if he'd done it differently?

Allow me, for a second, a soccer analogy. Let's say I'm the referee in next month's World Cup final between Brazil and Germany and I want Germany to win it all. I would not be so bold as to be blatant enough to kick a ball into Brazil's net and count the goal for Germany. Instead, I'd favor the Germans in situations where a call (or no call) was close. Gerald Asamoah would get more benefit of the doubt in offside decisions than Ronaldo would, for example. And any German who went down in the box would get a PK, whereas the Brazilians would need a police report to get one. At the end of the day, there's a pattern that shows bias, but close examination of each call would make it hard to say it was wrong enough to simply be the product of bias.

That is what, it appears to me, happened with Blackwell in Ohio. Every chance he had to skew things towards Dubya and away from Kerry he took. There certainly is a pattern there. But each individual decision is at least arguably correct, and therefore it's hard to say that they were all the product of bias.

What's my point? That's what we get when partisans oversee our elections. Why on Earth should we let a man who is running a candidate's campaign be the final arbiter of whether that candidate won the election? When, prior to the Champion's League final between English club Arsenal and Spanish champs FC Barcelona, one of the Norwegian linesmen/referee's assistants was photographed wearing a Barcelona jersey there was no debate - he was replaced immediately. Even the hint of bias was enough to require a new official. Shouldn't something as important as our elections be entitled to the same protection?

I suppose a better headline for this post would be "If It's Stealing When We Hire a Biased Referee, Do We Have Anybody to Blame but Ourselves?"