I guess I should have realized that tonight's Nightline coverage of election fraud in the 2004 election would be biased but I was surprised at how poorly they covered the story. It's late and I need to go to bed, but I was so mad I had to get this off my chest.
Basically, the first 10 minutes focused on debunking the allegations that the exit polls proved there had been fraud. There were interviews with Mitofsky and Mark Blumenthal (Mystery Pollster). They also showed video of some of the people in Ohio who have been active in bringing forward fraud allegations. I don't know any of these people, and I don't want to hurt anyone's feelings, but the way some of them look did nothing to dispel the notion that they were just a bunch of wacko conspiracy theorists.
The next 5 minutes they acknowledged there had been some problems--heavily Democratic precincts got fewer machines than in 2000, some machines were left in storage, there were long lines. They also made sure to mention there were also long lines at Republican precincts. They showed video of long lines but didn't talk about how long the lines actually were--at one point they mentioned 10 hours in one location but, for the most part the video made it look like the usual long lines you can expect when you deal with government bureaucracy. They did a brief interview with SoS Kenneth Blackwell who told them it had been a transparent, bipartisan election a "fact" they didn't try to dispute.
The final 10 minutes were devoted to... the history of election fraud. WTF?! Cokie Roberts and Haynes Johnson talked about allegations of fraud aagainst LBJ in his Texas Senate race and JFK in the 1960 presidential election.
All in all, it was the usual "nothing to see here, move along". For what it's worth, I did send an email to the show. Here's what I sent:
I just finished watching your show on allegations of election fraud and wanted to let you know how very disappointed I was with the reporting. By focusing on a small but vocal group of conspiracy theorists who insist that President Bush stole the election, you did a disservice to the thousands of people who, for various reasons, were disenfranchised. If we look at just Ohio, we know there were individuals whose voter registration forms were rejected because the paper wasn't heavy enough, whose absentee ballots never arrived and were then not allowed to vote in person, whose provisional ballots weren't counted if they weren't cast in the correct precinct, who could not vote because they were unable to stand in line for up to ten hours, who voted on outdated machines that are less accurate than newer ones and more likely to result in errors that keep the ballot from being counted (a la 2000's dreaded hanging and pregnant chads).
I could go on and on about legitimate concerns about how elections are run in this country--I only wish you had done so. Instead, your focus on a fringe group dismissed real concerns about our system of elections. The concerns that continue to be bandied about on the Internet are not about "stolen elections" it's about the future of our democracy. That's the real story and I hope the one that you will pursue.