Recount Hysteria!

I am getting sick/alarmed about the Democratic Party's continual efforts to delegitimize President Bush's election by fomenting insane conspiracy theories about electronic voting fraud in Florida using Diebold machines, etc. Lest you think the national Democratic Party isn't really behind the speculation, here's quote from the Ohio Democratic Party's own website: "If you would like to urge Kerry to withdraw his concession or share information about election fraud, Cameron Kerry, John’s brother is collecting comments. His email is: vri@dnc.org." Eeek!

Here's the gravamen of their claim:

1. Forget that President Bush won the popular vote by 3.3 million votes.
2. Forget that we all (meaning the Dems) took the position in 2000 that the popular vote somehow mattered.
3. We only lost in Ohio by 68,000 votes. (This is the new mantra you see in Democratic circles, with the reasoning being that, although Kerry lost by 136,000 votes to Bush, he would have only had to convince 68,000 Bush voters to vote the other way, see?, so it's OK if we claim that we only lost by 68,000 votes, because it doesn't sound like as much as 136,000 votes.)
4. If Ohio had gone the other way with those extra 68,000 votes, Kerry would have won the electoral college by 272-266. (And see Nos. 1 and 2 -- we now believe that only the electoral college matters.)
5. Finally, forget that, if only 4,600 votes had gone the other way in New Hampshire (margin of victory for Kerry of 9,200), or 5,400 had gone the other way in Wisconsin (Kerry margin = 10,800), either way Bush would have won even if Ohio had gone for Kerry.

This is why we have elections on a particular day and why grown-up Americans throughout history have accepted the results of those elections. The system will crack up and fall apart if Democrats continue to try to delegitimize every Republican victory.