The 2004 pretend election. Just like Gore, Kerry gave up
too soon:
After the 2004 presidential election, [Ohio] Cuyahoga County election workers secretly skirted rules designed to make sure all votes were counted correctly, a special prosecutor charges. [...]
But the fix was in at the Cuyahoga elections board, [Erie County Prosecutor Kevin] Baxter charges.
Days before the Dec. 16 recount, workers opened the ballots and hand-counted enough votes to identify precincts where the machine count matched.
"If it didn't balance, they excluded those precincts," Baxter said.
"The preselection process was done outside of any witnesses, without anyone's knowledge except for [people at] the Board of Elections."
On the official recount day, employees pretended to pick precincts randomly, Baxter says.
So now we have a pretend president for the second four-year term, all because of the ineffective gentility and lack of bloodlust in a couple of Democractic presidential candidates.