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Oh great. Here we go again.

Katherine Harris was both George W's presidentail campaign co-chair and Florida secretary of state in charge of elections ie who was allowed to be on the roll and vote counting. No conflict of interest here?

Every single decision she made followed the law and held up under international scrutiny.

Katherine had anyone "suspected" of commiting a felon removed from the rolls

I assume you got this from the BBC's Greg Palast since he is really the only person that thinks this is a story. A quick look at his webpage will show you how partial he is (he seems to have staked his entire career on undermining the Bush presidency).
Now for the real facts:

• In 1998, after it was discovered that there was widespread fraud in the Mayoral elections in 1997 (several dead people and convicted felons ended up voting), the Florida Legislature (not Katherine Harris or Jeb Bush) passed a statute designed to prevent that from happening again (that link might not work- looks like the server is down).
• The statute called for a statewide list of potential felons to be compiled. This list was passed to the election supervisors in every county.
• The county elections supervisors were not even required to use the list at all, but if they did decide to use it, they (the county supervisors, not Catherine Harris) were required to verify the names as actual felons before they were removed from the voter registration. Therefore, if somebody was incorrectly removed from the voter registration, it was the county supervisor's fault.
• If somebody was removed from the voter registration based on the list, they were given written notice months before the election with a procedure to dispute the removal

In 1998, Florida Division of Elections Director Ethel Baxter, a democrat, hired the firm Database Technologies to compile this list. The list had around 100,000 names on it.

One of these "supposed felons" was Linda Howell, elections supervisor of Madison County, Florida. The only way to get back on the roll was to agree to fingerprinting. Ie guilty until "proven" innocent.

Once again, nobody was required to use the list (several counties including Madison County didn't use it at all), but if they did use the list, they were required to independently verify the names before any action was taken. The fingerprinting was only required to dispute the removal if the person actually was "verified" by the county supervisor and removed from the voter registration- otherwise they probably never knew they were on the list. With all of his complaining, Mr Palast has only found about a half a dozen people that were incorrectly removed from voter registrations and forced to dispute the removal.
So it boils down to this:

• An unknown number of innocent people were put on the original list of 100,000 names
• Of that unknown number, an unknown number lived in counties that actually used the list
• Of that unknown number, an unknown number were actually removed from the voter registration lists by the county election supervisor
• Of that unknown number, an unknown number failed to dispute the removal
• and of that unknown number, less than 50% turned out to vote anyway (general voter turnout)

There is only anecdotal evidence that any legitimate voter was actually prevented from voting because of this list. Rep Corrine Brown, a democrat, claimed that she saw "2 or 3" black people get incorrectly turned away, but when the media pressed her, she was unable to give any details.
So were minority voters specifically targeted? The NAACP, who came in to represent these minorities, stated VERY plainly in this settlement that

And the senate bill number is S-1078 (following the parent comments mention of H-0079).

The thing is, in the florida bills I don't see the language that Felten is complaining about. It just seems to expand the current cable laws for having/making/selling devices for stealing cable service to all communications service. There is no text about "conceal[ing] from a communication service provider ... the existence or place of origin or destination of any communication".

See for yourself and tell me if I'm wrong. Here is a link to the text of the florida bill.

-blurp

Yes- I have read that article by Greg Palast.

First, ask yourself if the author of that article is really objective when it comes to President Bush. It looks like he has staked his career on undermining the Bush Presidency. Surprizingly enough, he is the only one making these claims- it was never picked up by other "mainstream" media. There is a good reason for this- it is a complete non-story. In fact, Salon.com ran a correction 15 days after that story for some of the untrue things in the article (Catherine Harris did not hire the firm).

I mean the African Americans that brother Jeb Bush struck off the register for having names that *sounded like* convicted felons.

Ok- lets start out with the blatent lies in that statement. Jeb Bush had nothing to do with the story. In 1998, after discovering widespread fraud in the elections where several conviced felons and dead people ended up voting, the Florida Legislature passed a law (yes, the legislative branch makes the laws, not the Governor) that called for the creation of a statewide list of possible felons. That year, Florida Division of Elections Director Ethel Baxter, a democrat, hired the firm Database Technologies to compile the list. The list had around 100,000 names on it.

The Florida statute stated that this list was to be sent to each county elections board as a guideline. The counties were not required to use the list (many chose not to use it at all), but they were required to verify the accuracy of the names on the list if they did decide to use it. Therefore, if a voter was incorrectly struck from the voter registration, by law it is the county supervisor's fault, and not Catherine Harris' or Jeb Bush's fault.

Now, every voter that was removed from the voter registration based on this law was notified months in advance and given a procedure to dispute the removal. Greg Palast was only able to find 5 or 6 people that claim this was the case (they were incorrectly removed, so they had to dispute). Aside from that, there is only anectodal evidence of innocent people actually losing their vote (Rep Corrine Brown, a democrat, claimed that she saw "2 or 3" black people get incorrectly turned away, but when the media pressed her, she was unable to give any details).

So it boils down to this:

An unknown number of innocent people were put on the original list of 100,000 names

Of that unknown number, an unknown number lived in counties that actually used the list

Of that unknown number, an unknown number were actually removed from the voter registration lists by the county election supervisor

Of that unknown number, an unknown number failed to dispute the removal

and of that unknown number, less than 50% turned out to vote anyway (general voter turnout)

Really- there is NOTHING to this story.

So were minority voters specifically targeted? The NAACP, who came in to represent these minorities, stated VERY plainly in this settlement that there is no allegation of discrimination or misconduct in regards to this voter list. They did file suit because of the sloppy implementation of the list, but they admitted that most of the changes that they were seeking were already implemented by the state of Florida by the time the suit was filed.

If innocent people were prevented from voting, that is a tragedy, but it is not the huge scandal that Mr Palast wants it to be. It also has nothing to do with the parent's claim about the US Supreme Court.

Wrong. I don't know who this Greg Palast is but I highly doubt he is an objective researcher if he concluded that only five people on the list for wrong reasons. If that was an actual fact Florida would not have settled.

He isn't an objective researcher- he is a partisan reporter devoted to attacking Bush, and he still couldn't come up with anything more substantial than that.

Wrong. They were in charge, you can't be in charge and then pass the buck on to your underlings. If that's their line they are really foul people. Give people orders and then when shit hits the fan point to them and say "it wasn't my fault", how slimy can you get.

Actually, you are wrong. A quick look at the 1998 Florida Statute shows that by law the individual county election supervisors were responsible for verifying the names on the list, and not the Governor or Secretary of State or anybody else. Take a look at section 98.0975(4):

(4) Upon receiving the list from the division, the supervisor must attempt to verify the information provided. If the supervisor does not determine that the information provided by the division is incorrect, the supervisor must remove from the registration books by the next subsequent election the name of any person who is deceased, convicted of a felony, or adjudicated mentally incapacitated with respect to voting.

If somebody was incorrectly on the list and they were prevented from voting, by law it is the county supervisors fault. Also, the private firm that made the list (DBT) was contracted in 1998 by the Florida Division of Elections Director Ethel Baxter, and she is a Democrat. Katherine Harris wasn't even Secretary of State then.

It was an effort to put obstacles in front of black people to discourage and prevent people from voting.

No, it was an effort to prevent a repeat of the widespread fraud in the 1997 elections where several dead people and convicted felons somehow ended up voting. Remember that the NAACP isn't even claiming discrimination.

I said it before but apparently you did not even bother reading my last post. You can not prevent people from voting unless they jump through your hoops

And apparently you didn't bother reading my last post where I agreed that it wasn't fair. Guess what? Florida agreed too because they changed the process. The 2000 election was the first election after the 1998 law was passed, so they had no way of knowing it would fail so bad. But in spite of the failures, NOBODY has been able to find a single person that actually was prevented from voting (and several reporters have tried). Mr. Palast found these 5 names that were wrong on the original list, and a Democrat Florida congresswoman claimed that she saw "2 or 3" black men told they were convicted felons and turned away at a precinct, but she refused to give any more details when reporters questioned her about it.

Jeb Bush set the clock back to Jim Crow with this one.

Jeb Bush was responsible for this? That's funny, I thought the legislature writes and passes laws, not the Governor...

Republicanazi response number two. "Anybody who disagrees with me is a commie, socialist, pinko fag, atheist, tree hugging feminst facist". I have heard it many times from dittoheads like you.

That was so riddled with hypocrisy I don't think I need to respond to it.

The fact that the American media has not followed this story tells me that the media is overwhlmingly republican. Liberals have no voice.

If you truly believe that, then you probably think that Karl Marx would have been a Republican too.