The Presidential elections of 2004 seem like ancient history to many people, especially young people like the average college student.

In the time since that election, many historically important events that have led to the current political climate in the United States have transpired, most notably Hurricane Katrina, the economic crash of 2007-2008 and, of course, the U.S. death toll doubling in Iraq. All of these represent fuckups of epic proportions by the Bush Administration. Yet most of them would never have transpired if the election of 2004 had not been manipulated by Bush cronies to put the dumbass-in-chief back in the White House for a second term.

When most people think of electoral manipulation by Bush and company, they tend to think of Bush V. Gore, the 2000 Supreme Court case that led to the appointment of George W. Bush as President of the United States. Most scholars agree that, given the voting data that came out of Florida in 2001, there was no way that Bush won the state, and that he had no legitimate claim to the presidency. Until 9/11, few believed that he would get re-elected. Most people believe he was narrowly re-elected by defeating Mr. Personality himself (aka John Kerry) by a narrow margin of less than one percent. Just like in 2000, however, the facts don’t bear that out.

A couple of practices were enacted in two key states in the election that year: Ohio and Florida (in addition to a few other places). The first was the purging of voting rolls, which is done every year to knock off the rolls dead voters, felons (in the two backwater states where they still do that) and people who have moved out of state since the previous election. Analysis of the purges shows that the overwhelming majority of those knocked off the rolls were racial minorities and Democrats. Many weren’t even felons; they just happened to have the same name as a felon, which is a crime in Florida, like voting Democratic.

Another awesome tactic used by Bush supporters to keep liberal-leaning voters from casting votes was designed to prey upon the ignorance (or just plain stupidity) of some people. Fraudulent phone calls from people claiming to be elections officials went out to registered Democrats, college students and minorities. The callers told people that, due to the increased voter turnout expected for the election that year, Kerry voters were to show up at polling places on Wednesday, November 4th—the day AFTER the election was decided.

These weren’t the only things that occurred on Election Day in 2004 that all but guaranteed a Bush victory. In Ohio, the man in charge of counting votes was Kenneth Blackwell, who also just happened to be the chairman of the Bush campaign in Ohio. If you want to win an election, it helps to have one of your goons in charge of counting the vote results. Try it sometime if you have the chance—Stalin suggested it and Republicans have listened. Thankfully, most states have outlawed or are in the process of outlawing electronic voting machines, which are problematic, in addition to enacting various electoral reforms. By no means are we safe from having this happen again. Vigilance is required for a democratic republic to thrive.