Meanwhile, on the federal level, Bush and congressional Republicans delayed appointments to a key federal elections oversight committee and prevented electronic voting machines from having mandatory paper trails. Things were so bad that the nonpartisan National Research Commission on Elections and Voting has just released a study of the 2004 election that includes a terrifying admission: It cannot say for sure that Bush won the popular vote in Ohio.

The commission’s Dec. 26, 2004, press release stated, “While [the commission] found no evidence to support allegations of concerted fraud, it nevertheless determined that non-uniform standards in voting data collection and election administration make it impossible to definitively put theories and accusations of fraud to rest.”

As if the uncertainty about the 2004 electoral outcome isn’t bad enough, 2000 was worse: The losing candidate took office. A nonpartisan report commissioned by America’s major newspapers states clearly and unequivocally that if the vote counting in Florida had been allowed to proceed in December 2000, former Vice President Al Gore would have won under every possible scenario, with or without hanging chads. That’s right: Gore won. This is not the conclusion of wild-eyed conspiracy theorists. This is the conclusion of the major newspapers that commissioned the vote-counting project. Read it for yourself at www.aei.org/docLib/20040526_KeatingPaper.pdf.

Why don’t you know about this key fact? Because the report was released on Sept. 12, 2001. A major incident had occurred the previous day that resulted in Democrats and Republicans singing patriotic songs together in the halls of Congress. No one was paying attention, and if anyone was, no one was seeking to undermine the president’s authority when the full extent of the terrorist attacks was not yet conclusively understood.

Coming back to the 2004 election, let’s assume for argument’s sake that Bush won the election in Ohio and therefore the nationwide Electoral College vote. What type of “mandate” has he won? Given the almost even 50-50 nationwide split that includes the tainted vote counts, the only mandate I see coming out of campaign 2004 is for Bush, Sen. John Kerry and the rest of us to get behind some serious voting reform. As soon as the inaugural is over, all Americans should start pressuring their legislators to pass the single most important piece of legislation in the 109th Congress: Rep. Jesse Jackson Jr.’s Voting Rights Amendment to the federal Constitution.

The amendment would create an affirmative right to vote that is based on federal standards and protections like the other constitutional guarantees. As the 2000 and 2004 elections proved, our “states’ rights” form of democracy — with 50 states; 3,067 counties; and 13,000 different election jurisdictions — perpetuates separate, unequal and unfair voting standards, especially for minority and poor voters.

Tragically, we are one of only 11 democracies in the world that do not have an affirmative right to vote in their constitutions; 108 other nations are ahead of us on this key issue. How can we serve as a role model to Iraq and other nascent democracies when our own voting system, the foundation of the world’s oldest continuous democracy, has not been effectively overhauled in more than 200 years?

Now that the election and inaugural are over, we await Bush’s answer to this vital question.