Election Conspiracy Theories

This is a partial transcript from "The Beltway Boys", Nov. 20, 2004, that has been edited for clarity.

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FRED BARNES, CO-HOST: President Bush may be preparing for his second term, but election conspiracy theories are alive and well as we go beyond the Beltway.

From Iowa, then Florida, New Mexico, and even North Carolina, election conspiracy theorists are using the Internet and the airwaves to challenge election results and push the idea that George W. Bush (search ) once again stole the election.

I think it’s time for MoveOn.org (search) to move on, and, and drop this stuff. You know, the difference this time, there are always these theories that go around after some election, and it’s reasonably close, it’s not a landslide, but now everybody has a Web site. So they’re spinning these things out, and MoveOn.org is one.

The silliest notion of all is the one that the exit poll was right, you know, that the actual counting of the ballots was wrong. I mean, how would Bush do that, you know, how do you steal 3.5 million votes?

MORT KONDRACKE, CO-HOST: Yes. Look, the, the evidence on this, this "evidence," was, part of it was that in Florida, there were four counties where there were more Democrats than, than Republican voters, and yet Bush carried it by miles.

BARNES: Yes.

KONDRACKE: Well, these happened to be those panhandle counties which are Dixiecrat, basically where Democrats are, they’re registered as Democrats, but they always vote Republican, and they have, they have for elections. There’s no serious Democrat and no media organization, no serious media organization has found any evidence to support any of these things.

And the bloggers who are doing this, the crazies, are saying, “Ha, this is a media coverup, this is a Democratic coverup.” Believe me, if the media thought that this election had been stolen by George Bush they would be all over this story, and so would the Democrats.

BARNES: Yes, indeed.

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