An Open Letter to John McCain

Dear Mr. McCain,

When you said that you would rather lose the election than lose the war I believed you, and I still do. Now though I'm going to ask you to make the same pledge for another war, the wider war that we the American people are fighting to preserve our rights and liberties from those who would take them. You've already showed your commitment to one fighting on one front of this war by consistently opposing state-sponsored torture, and I thank you for that. However, with this election comes an even greater threat to the American values you've fought so hard to protect, a threat that you have complete control to stop.

I'm talking about voter fraud, and the potential it has to disenfranchise literally millions of voters. In the past two elections there have been substantial allegations of voting fraud by the Republicans against Democratic opponents. Ballots cast by Democrats, or by groups that tend to vote Democratic are thrown out, counted as “spoiled”. In 2000 the US Civil Rights Commission, a bipartisan, objective group found that in Florida 54% of rejected ballots were cast by African Americans, while African Americans only made up 11% of the electorate. Such tactics are shameful, and I hope that you choose not to use them.

Nor is the possibility for fraud limited to spoiled ballots. Electronic voting machines made by Diebold continue to be rolled out, despite the fact that multiple authorities have pronounced them to be highly insecure, to the point where California and Maryland have banned their use, and a team commissioned by the Ohio Secretary of State concluded that “All of the studied systems possess critical security failures that render their technical controls insufficient to guarantee a trustworthy election,”

I'm writing this not as a partisan Democrat, but as an independent who may end up supporting you. However, more than anything I want to see American democracy stay intact, and there is nothing more important than that. This is going to be a hotly contested election, and no matter what there are going to be bitter feelings once it's over. However, if after the election evidence of vote fraud arises it will cause even more Americans to lose faith in their government, something neither yourself or Mr. Obama can want. So please Mr. McCain, go to your aides, and your party, and tell them not this time. And even if you lose, you will have made the ultimate sacrifice, the sacrifice that you have made multiple times already – you will have put your country before yourself.