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Perhaps some of you would recognise this name, especially if you've been following the allegations of electoral fraud in the last two US presidential elections. I recognise the name from reading this article.

(If you can't be bothered reading about this, you can this Flash movie instead, or watch the start of Fahrenheit 9/11.)

As for the links in the parent post, those exit polls are just scary. From this, we know that (1) Ohio was a close result, (2) Diebold is based in Ohio, (3) Diebold is pro-Republican, (4) Diebold counted the Ohio electoral votes (essentially), and (5) at least six states that used electronic voting machines showed massive red swings against predominantly blue exit polls.

Will the US public still fall for Bush's claims to the legitimacy of his presidency? It depends if people do anything about it or not. Personally, I think that Katherine Harris, Jeb and George Bush, and the entire Diebold staff should all be thrown in jail for what happened in 2000, which amounts to nothing short of fraud - but hey, that's just me, right?

more in my journal

Uhh... you didn't mean this Milton Friedman, did you? The one who helped Pinochet double the poverty rate in Chile? Unlike Free/Open Source Software, which extends the purchasing power of government dollars, stimulates local industry, and builds local knowledgebases, Friedman's neoliberalism kills local industry and impoverishes local people. Cardoso's administration of Friedman's poison left his country a Switzerland inside an India, with the widest disparity between rich and poor in the world. I am equally excited that Lula is championing FOSS and calling for trade that is both free and reciprocal (as well as noting in his speech to the World Economic Forum in Davos that free and secure citizens are one of the main prerequisites for a free market). Friedman just doesn't relate.

Unfortunately, I don't have a copy of the list... does anyone know where it is available? However, Greg Palast has this screenshot on his website of a segment of the list. (Ignore for the moment that he apparently uses Windows, AOL, and has 16 non-standard icons in his system tray.) While I don't dispute that ChoicePoint used poor methods to determine matches, what else can we glean from the spreadsheet? For one thing, there are no "Hispanics" in the race column, despite there being two names that appear to be hispanic in origin. One is listed as unknown, and one as white. So, the argument that "hispanics have been removed because they tend to vote Republican" is probably bunk. Much more likely, ChoicePoint correctly identified Hispanics as an "ethinic group" and not a race. This would very reasonably explain why there are no "hispanics" on the list.

Greg Palast claims that in the last election, the GOP's efforts to *gasp* enforce the law and prevent felons from voting cost the democrats 22,000 votes. While I think that any vote denied is a tragedy and don't want to trivialize it, lets look at this 22,000 figure and some of the other "disenfranchisement" claims.

I will use this Wikipedia entry as my source. Let go through the various "disenfranchisement" claims.

From the article, 57,700 "felons" were struck from the voter list. These people were all contacted (although I assume it is reasonable that many of these people were not reached), of which 4,874 appealed. Of the 4,874 appeals, 2,430 were re-instated. Now, lacking an additional info, I assume that someone compared these two numbers, and figured that 50% of the listed names were incorrect, where in reality, it is only 50% of those on the list who came forward to dispute the error. Granted, anyone being denied a vote is tragic, but 2,430 (all of whom were reinstated) is a far cry from 22,000. Why didn't the other 53,000 people on the list appeal? More likely, most didn't appeal because outside of the 2,430, nearly all were convicted felons. Which brings us to ...List Demographics:

Voter demographics authority David Bositis, a senior research associate at the Joint Center for Political and Economic Studies in Washington, DC, reviewed The Nation's findings and concluded that the purge-and-block program was "a patently obvious technique to discriminate against black voters." He noted that based on nationwide conviction rates, African-Americans would account for 46% of the ex-felon group wrongly disfranchised.

Breakdown of the distribution for 3 major counties:

• Miami-Dade, 20% voters are Black, 66% names on list were Black (3,794)
• Leon County, 29% voters are Black, 55% names on list were Black
• None of the names on the list were Hispanic.

First off, David Bositis is expecting a 46% rate of black names on the ex-felon group list. What is his criteria? national averages. African Americans comprise 12.6% of the US population, but make up 46% of the ex-felon group (according to Bositis). Florida has slightly more aftican-americans than the national average at 14.6%. Lets look at Miami-Dade and Leon counties that the Bositis cites: Both counties have significantly higher (about double) the national average of African-Americans. Wouldn't it make some sense that the they would appear on the felon list with greater frequency than the national African-American breakdown of ex-felons? (46%)

Now lets go after that last bullet: None of the names on the list were Hispanic. Greg Palast has this screenshot on his website of a segment of the list. (Ignore for the moment that he apparently uses Windows, AOL, and has 16 non-standard icons in his system tray.) While I don't dispute that ChoicePoint used poor methods to determine matches, what else can we glean from the spreadsheet? For one thing, there are no "Hispanics" in the race column, despite there being two names that appear to be hispanic in origin. One is listed as unknown, and one as white. So, the argument that "hispanics have been removed because they tend to vote Republican" is probably bunk. Much more likely, ChoicePoint correctly identified Hispanics as an "ethinic group" and not a race. This would very reasonably explain why there are no "hispanics" on the list.

Bottom line, while I don't doubt that some African-American voters were disenfranchised, maybe even enough to change the outcome, I seriously doubt it was 22,000.

Please consider that source. Visit his website and ask yourself if he is capable of unbiased critical thought or is this another hatchet-job.

Please consider that source. Visit his website and ask yourself if he is capable of unbiased critical thought or is this another hatchet-job.

Please consider that source. Visit his website and ask yourself if he is capable of unbiased critical thought or is this another hatchet-job.

The Florida 2000 supression of majority-Democrat communities has been extensively documented by many, but Greg Palast has the clearest roundup. His article in the upcoming issue of Harper's magazine details how Jeb is building on that success to deliver several times more silenced voices.

Voters supporting Kerry might be "more in tune with the events and world attitudes surrounding the war in Iraq" but few recognize that Kerry is pro-war, Kerry voted to confirm Scalia, Kerry's health care plan won't cover everyone, and Kerry has not announced a plan on exactly what he'll give European countries to woo them to put more soldiers into this war. Kerry won't even call Bush a liar. The anti-war movement risks gutting its legitimacy by giving their vote to support someone who will plow billions more into this war and then asking him to please stop the war after they've given away their only bargaining chip.

This, of course, assumes that Kerry actually wants to win and isn't just playing the "good cop" to Bush's "bad cop" where both major parties are looking to drive more profits into their largely corporate campaign funders. Gore/Lieberman failed to convince on this ground after not acting to challenge those thousands of largely Black and Latino voters in Florida who were "scrubbed" from the rolls without good cause (most of whom would have voted Democrat, and most of whom still don't have their voting rights restored according to Greg Palast).

I've heard lots of accusations of Harris disenfranchising, etc... but never that ChoicePoint had "close ties to the GOP". You cite Greg Palast. Could you find a less biased source? Noam Chomsky Perhaps?

All sorts of deliberate errors were made in the scrubbing process, costing Gore a minimum 22 000 votes on election day 2000.

You obviously pulled these numbers from some reference (probably Palast's work) and didn't even bother to see if they make sense. Since you didn't cite any web references, I will use this Wikipedia entry as my source. Let go through the various "disenfranchisement" claims.

From the article, 57,700 "felons" were struck from the voter list. These people were all contacted (although I assume it is reasonable that many of these people were not reached), of which 4,874 appealed. Of the 4,874 appeals, 2,430 were re-instated. Now, lacking an additional info, I assume that someone compared these two numbers, and figured that 50% of the listed names were incorrect, where in reality, it is only 50% of those on the list who came forward to dispute the error. Granted, anyone being denied a vote is tragic, but 2,430 (all of whom were reinstated) is a far cry from 22,000. Why didn't the other 53,000 people on the list appeal? More likely, most didn't appeal because outside of the 2,430, nearly all were convicted felons. Which brings us to ...List Demographics:

Voter demographics authority David Bositis, a senior research associate at the Joint Center for Political and Economic Studies in Washington, DC, reviewed The Nation's findings and concluded that the purge-and-block program was "a patently obvious technique to discriminate against black voters." He noted that based on nationwide conviction rates, African-Americans would account for 46% of the ex-felon group wrongly disfranchised.

Breakdown of the distribution for 3 major counties:

• Miami-Dade, 20% voters are Black, 66% names on list were Black (3,794)
• Leon County, 29% voters are Black, 55% names on list were Black
• None of the names on the list were Hispanic.

First off, David Bositis is expecting a 46% rate of black names on the ex-felon group list. What is his criteria? national averages. African Americans comprise 12.6% of the US population, but make up 46% of the ex-felon group (according to Bositis). Florida has slightly more aftican-americans than the national average at 14.6%. Lets look at Miami-Dade and Leon counties that the Bositis cites: Both counties have significantly higher (about double) the national average of African-Americans. Wouldn't it make some sense that the they would appear on the felon list with greater frequency than the national African-American breakdown of ex-felons? (46%)

Now lets go after that last bullet: None of the names on the list were Hispanic. Greg Palast has this screenshot on his website of a segment of the list. (Ignore for the moment that he apparently uses Windows, AOL, and has 16 non-standard icons in his system tray.) While I don't dispute that ChoicePoint used poor methods to determine matches, what else can we glean from the spreadsheet? For one thing, there are no "Hispanics" in the race column, despite there being two names that appear to be hispanic in origin. One is listed as unknown, and one as white. So, the argument that "hispanics have been removed because they tend to vote Republican" is probably bunk. Much more l

"We did run some number stats and the number of blacks [on the list] was higher than expected for our population," says Chuck Smith, a statistician for the county. Iorio acknowledged that African-Americans made up 54 percent of the people on the original felons list, though they constitute only 11.6 percent of Hillsborough's voting population.

Smith added that the DBT computer program automatically transformed various forms of a single name. In one case, a voter named "Christine" was identified as a felon based on the conviction of a "Christopher" with the same last name. Smith says ChoicePoint would not respond to queries about its proprietary methods.

Nor would the company provide additional verification data to back its fingering certain individuals in the registry purge. One supposed felon on the ChoicePoint list is a local judge.

The biggest wholesale theft occurred inside the voting booths in black rural counties. In Gadsden County, one of the blackest in the state, thousands of votes were simply thrown away. Gadsden used paper ballots which are read by an optical reader. Ballots with a single extra mark were considered "spoiled" and not counted. The buttons used to fill out the ballots were set up - with approval from Bush and Harris - to make votes appear unclear to the machine. One in eight ballots in Gadsden was voided by the state.

The same ballots were used in Tallahassee County, which is mostly white. There only one in 100 votes was "spoiled." What made the difference? In Tallahassee, ballots were read on the premises, and if they were marked incorrectly, voters were sent to revote until they got it right. In the black counties, the votes were trucked off immediately. There were no machines on site. Voters weren't told that their votes were spoiled, and they certainly weren't permitted to re-vote.

"We did run some number stats and the number of blacks [on the list] was higher than expected for our population," says Chuck Smith, a statistician for the county. Iorio acknowledged that African-Americans made up 54 percent of the people on the original felons list, though they constitute only 11.6 percent of Hillsborough's voting population.

Smith added that the DBT computer program automatically transformed various forms of a single name. In one case, a voter named "Christine" was identified as a felon based on the conviction of a "Christopher" with the same last name. Smith says ChoicePoint would not respond to queries about its proprietary methods.

Nor would the company provide additional verification data to back its fingering certain individuals in the registry purge. One supposed felon on the ChoicePoint list is a local judge.

The biggest wholesale theft occurred inside the voting booths in black rural counties. In Gadsden County, one of the blackest in the state, thousands of votes were simply thrown away. Gadsden used paper ballots which are read by an optical reader. Ballots with a single extra mark were considered "spoiled" and not counted. The buttons used to fill out the ballots were set up - with approval from Bush and Harris - to make votes appear unclear to the machine. One in eight ballots in Gadsden was voided by the state.

The same ballots were used in Tallahassee County, which is mostly white. There only one in 100 votes was "spoiled." What made the difference? In Tallahassee, ballots were read on the premises, and if they were marked incorrectly, voters were sent to revote until they got it right. In the black counties, the votes were trucked off immediately. There were no machines on site. Voters weren't told that their votes were spoiled, and they certainly weren't permitted to re-vote.

"We did run some number stats and the number of blacks [on the list] was higher than expected for our population," says Chuck Smith, a statistician for the county. Iorio acknowledged that African-Americans made up 54 percent of the people on the original felons list, though they constitute only 11.6 percent of Hillsborough's voting population.

Smith added that the DBT computer program automatically transformed various forms of a single name. In one case, a voter named "Christine" was identified as a felon based on the conviction of a "Christopher" with the same last name. Smith says ChoicePoint would not respond to queries about its proprietary methods.

Nor would the company provide additional verification data to back its fingering certain individuals in the registry purge. One supposed felon on the ChoicePoint list is a local judge.

The biggest wholesale theft occurred inside the voting booths in black rural counties. In Gadsden County, one of the blackest in the state, thousands of votes were simply thrown away. Gadsden used paper ballots which are read by an optical reader. Ballots with a single extra mark were considered "spoiled" and not counted. The buttons used to fill out the ballots were set up - with approval from Bush and Harris - to make votes appear unclear to the machine. One in eight ballots in Gadsden was voided by the state.

The same ballots were used in Tallahassee County, which is mostly white. There only one in 100 votes was "spoiled." What made the difference? In Tallahassee, ballots were read on the premises, and if they were marked incorrectly, voters were sent to revote until they got it right. In the black counties, the votes were trucked off immediately. There were no machines on site. Voters weren't told that their votes were spoiled, and they certainly weren't permitted to re-vote.

"We did run some number stats and the number of blacks [on the list] was higher than expected for our population," says Chuck Smith, a statistician for the county. Iorio acknowledged that African-Americans made up 54 percent of the people on the original felons list, though they constitute only 11.6 percent of Hillsborough's voting population.

Smith added that the DBT computer program automatically transformed various forms of a single name. In one case, a voter named "Christine" was identified as a felon based on the conviction of a "Christopher" with the same last name. Smith says ChoicePoint would not respond to queries about its proprietary methods.

Nor would the company provide additional verification data to back its fingering certain individuals in the registry purge. One supposed felon on the ChoicePoint list is a local judge.

The biggest wholesale theft occurred inside the voting booths in black rural counties. In Gadsden County, one of the blackest in the state, thousands of votes were simply thrown away. Gadsden used paper ballots which are read by an optical reader. Ballots with a single extra mark were considered "spoiled" and not counted. The buttons used to fill out the ballots were set up - with approval from Bush and Harris - to make votes appear unclear to the machine. One in eight ballots in Gadsden was voided by the state.

The same ballots were used in Tallahassee County, which is mostly white. There only one in 100 votes was "spoiled." What made the difference? In Tallahassee, ballots were read on the premises, and if they were marked incorrectly, voters were sent to revote until they got it right. In the black counties, the votes were trucked off immediately. There were no machines on site. Voters weren't told that their votes were spoiled, and they certainly weren't permitted to re-vote.

"We did run some number stats and the number of blacks [on the list] was higher than expected for our population," says Chuck Smith, a statistician for the county. Iorio acknowledged that African-Americans made up 54 percent of the people on the original felons list, though they constitute only 11.6 percent of Hillsborough's voting population.

Smith added that the DBT computer program automatically transformed various forms of a single name. In one case, a voter named "Christine" was identified as a felon based on the conviction of a "Christopher" with the same last name. Smith says ChoicePoint would not respond to queries about its proprietary methods.

Nor would the company provide additional verification data to back its fingering certain individuals in the registry purge. One supposed felon on the ChoicePoint list is a local judge.

The biggest wholesale theft occurred inside the voting booths in black rural counties. In Gadsden County, one of the blackest in the state, thousands of votes were simply thrown away. Gadsden used paper ballots which are read by an optical reader. Ballots with a single extra mark were considered "spoiled" and not counted. The buttons used to fill out the ballots were set up - with approval from Bush and Harris - to make votes appear unclear to the machine. One in eight ballots in Gadsden was voided by the state.

The same ballots were used in Tallahassee County, which is mostly white. There only one in 100 votes was "spoiled." What made the difference? In Tallahassee, ballots were read on the premises, and if they were marked incorrectly, voters were sent to revote until they got it right. In the black counties, the votes were trucked off immediately. There were no machines on site. Voters weren't told that their votes were spoiled, and they certainly weren't permitted to re-vote.

"We did run some number stats and the number of blacks [on the list] was higher than expected for our population," says Chuck Smith, a statistician for the county. Iorio acknowledged that African-Americans made up 54 percent of the people on the original felons list, though they constitute only 11.6 percent of Hillsborough's voting population.

Smith added that the DBT computer program automatically transformed various forms of a single name. In one case, a voter named "Christine" was identified as a felon based on the conviction of a "Christopher" with the same last name. Smith says ChoicePoint would not respond to queries about its proprietary methods.

Nor would the company provide additional verification data to back its fingering certain individuals in the registry purge. One supposed felon on the ChoicePoint list is a local judge.

The biggest wholesale theft occurred inside the voting booths in black rural counties. In Gadsden County, one of the blackest in the state, thousands of votes were simply thrown away. Gadsden used paper ballots which are read by an optical reader. Ballots with a single extra mark were considered "spoiled" and not counted. The buttons used to fill out the ballots were set up - with approval from Bush and Harris - to make votes appear unclear to the machine. One in eight ballots in Gadsden was voided by the state.

The same ballots were used in Tallahassee County, which is mostly white. There only one in 100 votes was "spoiled." What made the difference? In Tallahassee, ballots were read on the premises, and if they were marked incorrectly, voters were sent to revote until they got it right. In the black counties, the votes were trucked off immediately. There were no machines on site. Voters weren't told that their votes were spoiled, and they certainly weren't permitted to re-vote.

"We did run some number stats and the number of blacks [on the list] was higher than expected for our population," says Chuck Smith, a statistician for the county. Iorio acknowledged that African-Americans made up 54 percent of the people on the original felons list, though they constitute only 11.6 percent of Hillsborough's voting population.

Smith added that the DBT computer program automatically transformed various forms of a single name. In one case, a voter named "Christine" was identified as a felon based on the conviction of a "Christopher" with the same last name. Smith says ChoicePoint would not respond to queries about its proprietary methods.

Nor would the company provide additional verification data to back its fingering certain individuals in the registry purge. One supposed felon on the ChoicePoint list is a local judge.

The biggest wholesale theft occurred inside the voting booths in black rural counties. In Gadsden County, one of the blackest in the state, thousands of votes were simply thrown away. Gadsden used paper ballots which are read by an optical reader. Ballots with a single extra mark were considered "spoiled" and not counted. The buttons used to fill out the ballots were set up - with approval from Bush and Harris - to make votes appear unclear to the machine. One in eight ballots in Gadsden was voided by the state.

The same ballots were used in Tallahassee County, which is mostly white. There only one in 100 votes was "spoiled." What made the difference? In Tallahassee, ballots were read on the premises, and if they were marked incorrectly, voters were sent to revote until they got it right. In the black counties, the votes were trucked off immediately. There were no machines on site. Voters weren't told that their votes were spoiled, and they certainly weren't permitted to re-vote.

"We did run some number stats and the number of blacks [on the list] was higher than expected for our population," says Chuck Smith, a statistician for the county. Iorio acknowledged that African-Americans made up 54 percent of the people on the original felons list, though they constitute only 11.6 percent of Hillsborough's voting population.

Smith added that the DBT computer program automatically transformed various forms of a single name. In one case, a voter named "Christine" was identified as a felon based on the conviction of a "Christopher" with the same last name. Smith says ChoicePoint would not respond to queries about its proprietary methods.

Nor would the company provide additional verification data to back its fingering certain individuals in the registry purge. One supposed felon on the ChoicePoint list is a local judge.

The biggest wholesale theft occurred inside the voting booths in black rural counties. In Gadsden County, one of the blackest in the state, thousands of votes were simply thrown away. Gadsden used paper ballots which are read by an optical reader. Ballots with a single extra mark were considered "spoiled" and not counted. The buttons used to fill out the ballots were set up - with approval from Bush and Harris - to make votes appear unclear to the machine. One in eight ballots in Gadsden was voided by the state.

The same ballots were used in Tallahassee County, which is mostly white. There only one in 100 votes was "spoiled." What made the difference? In Tallahassee, ballots were read on the premises, and if they were marked incorrectly, voters were sent to revote until they got it right. In the black counties, the votes were trucked off immediately. There were no machines on site. Voters weren't told that their votes were spoiled, and they certainly weren't permitted to re-vote.

The infamous "butterfly ballot" was designed by a Democrat.

You mean Theresa LaPore, the former Republican who was a Democrat for all of six years (1996 - 2002), before she switched back to an "Independent", and is now working with the Republicans again? That Democrat?

All the counties that Gore requested recounts in were run by Democrats.

And thanks to the tireless efforts of those crooked Democrats, President Gore has done a fine job.

It is estimated that there were still many thousands of illegal votes placed by felons in the 2000 election in Florida.

Ah, yes, those spooooky felons trying to cast votes. The reason for the big crackdown? It turns out that felons cast about 100 votes in the 1997 Miami Mayoral election, out of a few hundred thousand cast.

The "felon roll" was a list created by the state but it was up to the individual counties to decide what to do with the list.

Ah, the "pass the buck" game. "We're going to make this list of tens of thousands of felons, and you have to guess which ones are actually felons!" Bullshit. If the state is going to spend 2.3 million dollars for a list that's 95% wrong, it is squarely the fault of the people who paid for that list. And if she tries to make a list for 2002, even when the FL legislature passed a law saying she couldn't, I imagine that's the fault of the Democrats, too?

The facts are far too challenging.

The facts are far too challenging for you? I've noticed. That's probably why you didn't have any references, just assertions.

-jdm

The infamous "butterfly ballot" was designed by a Democrat.

You mean Theresa LaPore, the former Republican who was a Democrat for all of six years (1996 - 2002), before she switched back to an "Independent", and is now working with the Republicans again? That Democrat?

All the counties that Gore requested recounts in were run by Democrats.

And thanks to the tireless efforts of those crooked Democrats, President Gore has done a fine job.

It is estimated that there were still many thousands of illegal votes placed by felons in the 2000 election in Florida.

Ah, yes, those spooooky felons trying to cast votes. The reason for the big crackdown? It turns out that felons cast about 100 votes in the 1997 Miami Mayoral election, out of a few hundred thousand cast.

The "felon roll" was a list created by the state but it was up to the individual counties to decide what to do with the list.

Ah, the "pass the buck" game. "We're going to make this list of tens of thousands of felons, and you have to guess which ones are actually felons!" Bullshit. If the state is going to spend 2.3 million dollars for a list that's 95% wrong, it is squarely the fault of the people who paid for that list. And if she tries to make a list for 2002, even when the FL legislature passed a law saying she couldn't, I imagine that's the fault of the Democrats, too?

The facts are far too challenging.

The facts are far too challenging for you? I've noticed. That's probably why you didn't have any references, just assertions.

-jdm

Investigative journos use people with computer skills all the time. Greg Palast used some help to decrpyt two CDs with rather embarrassing info to Jeb Bush and Katharine Harris a couple of years back. As a journo and a hacker, I find the two pursuits quite similar in many ways: solving problems, finding the truth, trying to understand what's under the surface and so on.

-Democratic forms get tossed in the trash, but not Republican forms...

If that is what happened. All that is certain is that some forms were brought to the FBI that had been ripped in half. We don't know who did the ripping, or why. Maybe these were duplicates - people filling out two forms. Maybe the people turning in the forms to the FBI did it. Who knows?

-It's Texas Republicans who are Gerrymandering in their redistricting efforts...

Both parties have done this forever. It's wrong, but you should see the Congressional districts in Democrat-controlled Illinois. Also, the minority party always cries gerrymandering to get leverage. Whether it's happening in Texas, and what effect it finally has, who knows.

-Sinclair wishes to put an obviously anti Kerry Docuganda on TV...

You can't ignore the overwhelming mainstream media bias. Besides, Mr. Kerry is proud of his service to the country in Viet Nam. Those who served with him recall it differently. There are other groups who do honor his service, though.

-Flordia 2000 -- Black voters are disenfranchised by the thousands. Guess which way they lean?

Ah yes, the 'disenfranchised Florida voter' myth. Here is the reality:

Prior to the 2000 election (in the race for Miami Mayor), there was a scandal about convicted felons voting. The Miami Herald ran a series of Pulitzer Prize-winning stories about the Florida voter rolls having thousands of felons and deceased voters. In response to the public outcry, Florida Legislature mandated that the Secretary of State clean up the voter registration rolls.

Anybody who's ever maintained a list of names and addresses knows that they are error-prone. Complicating this, some states don't bar felons from voting, while Florida does. A felon moving from a voting-felon state should continue to vote, while a felon shouldn't be able to move from a non-voting-felon state in order to vote. (Can you say "reform"?)

So five months before the election, the Secretary of State sent the state purge list to the counties. They keyed on full name, since that's the only common field in both databases. They also gave the aliases that the felons were known to have used. Apparently at least one county election official was on the list! As a result of the flaws in the state list, many counties continued to get their lists from the courts, illegally ignoring the official state list.

People were given an chance to re-register if they could show that they were not a convicted felon or dead, but merely had the same name. From glennbeck.com, (conservative site, but the figures are in the ballpark, anyway):

Research revealed that 239 [of] the 4,678 African Americans on the Miami-Dade felons' were eventually cleared to vote which represented 5.1 percent of the total number of blacks on the felons list. Of the 1,264 whites on the list, 125 proved to be there by mistake-which is 9.9 percent of the total. The error rate for whites was almost double that for blacks.

Most of the people who were made to re-register did so without difficulty. There were a handful of people who didn't get themselves re-registered for various reasons.

While that is a hassle for those handfull of people, and it's clear that the system is flawed, it certainly doesn't represent a systematic effort to disenfranchise Democratic voters, African-American or otherwise.

As

-Democratic forms get tossed in the trash, but not Republican forms...

If that is what happened. All that is certain is that some forms were brought to the FBI that had been ripped in half. We don't know who did the ripping, or why. Maybe these were duplicates - people filling out two forms. Maybe the people turning in the forms to the FBI did it. Who knows?

-It's Texas Republicans who are Gerrymandering in their redistricting efforts...

Both parties have done this forever. It's wrong, but Texas is not the only place where redistricting efforts have been charged with foul play. You should see the Congressional districts in Democrat-controlled Illinois. Also, that's what the out-of-power party always says, in an effort to get leverage. Whether it's happening in Texas, and what effect it finally has, who knows.

-Sinclair wishes to put an obviously anti Kerry Docuganda on TV...

What about CBS-ABC-NBC-CNN? You can't ignore that media bias. Besides, Mr. Kerry is proud of his service to the country in Viet Nam. There are others who served with him who recall it differently. There are other groups who honor his service, though.

-Flordia 2000 -- Black voters are disenfranchised by the thousands. Guess which way they lean?

Ah yes, the 'disenfranchised Florida voter' myth. Here is the reality:

Prior to the 2000 election (in the race for Miami Mayor), there was a scandal about convicted felons voting. The Miami Herald ran a series of Pulitzer Prize-winning stories about the Florida voter rolls having thousands of felons and deceased voters. In response to the public outcry, Florida Legislature mandated that the Secretary of State clean up the voter registration rolls.

Anybody who's ever maintained a list of names and addresses knows that they are always filled with errors. This was complicated by the fact that some states don't bar felons from voting, while Florida does. A felon moving from a voting-felon state should continue to vote, while a felon shouldn't be able to move from a non-voting-felon state in order to vote. (Can you say "reform"?)

So five months before the election, the Secretary of State sent a list to the counties to use to purge their individual voter registration lists of felons and the deceased. They keyed on full name, since that's the only common field in both databases. They also gave the aliases that the felons were known to have used. Apparently at least one county election official was on the list! As a result of the flaws in the state list, many counties continued to get their lists from the courts, illegally ignoring the official state list.

People were given an chance to re-register if they could show that they were not a convicted felon, but merely had the same name. From glennbeck.com, (conservative site, but the figures are in the ballpark, anyway):

Research revealed that 239 [of] the 4,678 African Americans on the Miami-Dade felons' were eventually cleared to vote which represented 5.1 percent of the total number of blacks on the felons list. Of the 1,264 whites on the list, 125 proved to be there by mistake-which is 9.9 percent of the total. The error rate for whites was almost double that for blacks.

Most of the people who were made to re-register did so without difficulty. There were a handful of people who didn't get themselves re-registered because they couldn't wade throught

"If we do not suppress the Detroit vote, we're going to have a tough time in this election cycle."

-- State Rep. John Pappageorge, (R-Troy, MI) while discussing election strategy at a meeting of the Oakland (MI) County Republican Party

or were you talking about less subtle stuff like this:

THE GREAT FLORIDA EX-CON GAMEHow the 'felon' voter-purge was itself felonious

There are conservative claims that liberals are trying to supress votes, but they so far seem based on handwaving, rather than documented details like the above two. Maybe it's because Dems have favored populist vote fraud efforts: Vote early, vote often. Nobody gets their feelings hurt, nobody gets disenfranchised, and we still win.

How you can possibly compare that to removing tens of thousands of black people from the electoral role because they are the same race and have the same name as a felon without even bothering to check if they have the same social security number or date of birth? If you cannot see these are two totally different things, you're an idiot.

The decision to have a recount was up to each county official. Gore initially called for a statewide full count, and all the counties refused. Gore then asked Bush to join him in calling for a statewide count, and Bush refused.

It was after this that Gore started lobbying individual counties, "cherry picked" for having 4 or 5 digits worth of uncounted votes instead of the 2 digits worth that most counties had. Time Magazine had a map at the time. There was literally an order of magnitude's difference in the number of uncounted votes between the counties Gore was lobbying and the ones he wasn't. It surely didn't hurt that Democrats were in charge of all the counties which had the most uncounted votes, and the other (better-run) counties were mostly run by Republicans.

The Florida Supreme Court ordered a full statewide count of all the ballots, but was rebuffed by the U.S. Supreme Court. The first full statewide count to take place, conducted by a media consortium, showed Gore won the state by a statistically insignificant margin under any standard of counting a vote, chads or no chads. Add in the scrub list (thanks to gadzuki for the link) and other acts of election fraud, and the case becomes strong that Gore should have (or, to some, did) won Florida. It also makes you seriously question the sanity of the Floridans who rewarded Katherine Harris with a seat in Congress.

Tell that to the people on Harris' Scrub list who were NOT felons and were not allowed to vote. I doubt you'd be saying things like "Sore/Loserman" if you went to your polling place and was turned away because the county is so corrupt it put together an especially messy list to discriminate against black voters.

Article w/ screenshots of the DB here.

Electorial fraud has a colorful history in the US and its not limited to just Florida. How about Illinois during JFK/Nixon? Blacks in the south in the 60's? How about the recent scandels around Baltimore, Philadelphia, New Orleans and Milwaukee ? Funny how all those cities are in swing-states, generally.

The US needs observers more than ever, especially with electronic voting. I do believe there is a federal law which disallows this. It will be interesting to see how it plays out.

And supported laws that hinder health care


-Colin

The controversy over funding is just the tip of the iceburg wrt the NCLB.

The Florida Supreme Court ruled that the Secretary of State must accept vote counts from county Canvassing board after the deadline set by the Law. (See See 102.166(5), Fla. Stat. (2000)). It demands that the intent of the voter be determined...this precedent was never established by the Legislature

The demand that the intent of the voter be determined comes straight out of Florida law: No vote shall be declared invalid or void if there is a clear indication of the intent of the voter as determined by the canvassing board. (The law has been changed since then.)

It was not an invention or imposition of the court! This assertation is simply not correct.

As far as the deadline, IIRC the law held that the Secretary may accept late counts; the Florida courts requirement that she do so was reasonable and serving the legitimate interests of the people.

If a State has not selected its electors, it forfeits its votes. The US Supreme Court found, like the Florida Supreme Court, that the Florida Legislature has a bigger interest in ensuring that its votes as a state are recognized.

There was no danger of that. The legislature had the power to select electors directly. This would have been legally valid, and put Bush into office legitimately, but politically it would have been disasterous for both the legislature and Bush.

I have looked long and hard, as have others. The name of one person denied his/her legitimate vote has never been presented.

I find that hard to beleive, as five minutes with Google found these.

You someone how hold the Republicans responsible for having more up to date voting equipment.

No, merely noting the existance of a condition of equal protection. It's a nationwaide problem. It makes no difference whether the counties in question were run by Democrats; a condtion where one citizen's vote is 95% likely to be registered while another's is 99.9% likely is a serious problem.

Again with the ballots. Who approved the design of the ballot? Theresa LePore, Palm Beach County Elections Supervisor. An elected Democrat.

Irrelevant. The incompetence of a state offical of the same party as a candidate you wish to vote for doesn't change your right to vote.

Answer me this honestly. If everything had of happened the same except that Bush had lost by ~500 votes instead of Gore losing by a few votes, would you still be pissed off about Florida?...Elsewise, you are just yet another partisian pissed off your guy lost.

If you asked that in December 2000, I would have said I would have been about 75% as pissed off; I had a visceral dislike of Bush that accounted for about an extra 25% piss-off factor, but otherwise found little difference between them. Certainly that would be higher today, given his record. But yes, I would still be pissed off about Republican votes not being counted.

And Gore wasn't "my guy", as I voted Nader. Over the years I have voted for Democrats, Greens, Libertarians, and even Republicans. I simply want every vote to count.

1. Ugga Bugga has good charts/info compression and researching.
   
2. Wonkette for shear entertainment value. She's great, and she has "scooped" the mainstream press, too.
   
3. Majority Report Radio has a blog that can be a good news source.
   
4. News Hounds, the anti-Fox. "We watch Fox so you don't have to."
   
5. Greg Palast has a very informative and well-researched blog.
   
6. Salon's War Room '04 is awesome, even if you have to watch a 30-second ad to read the whole thing. Not really a "blog" per-se, but sort of blog flavored...
   

Might I direct you here: Bill Gates: Killing Africans for Profit and P.R., by Greg Palast

The short summary is he cost them more because of IP laws than he gave back.

-Colin

Wow, that's a really cool site, thanks for passing it along. But you're wrong about the results.

Every permutation I could do showed Al Gore winning every recount by as slim a margin as 105 votes or as large a margin as 424 votes.

So I'll back up the original asserter's statement that "Al Gore won every recount" by your own evidence. =)

It's moot anyway, the dirty tricks of the GOP ensured that at least 50,000 black Democratic ballots were not cast; LePore's butterfly ballot cast thousands of Gore votes mistakenly for Buchanon; and the GOP illegally got the Pentagon to send it the email addresses of overseas soldiers so that any who had not voted could send absentee ballots in after the date of the election (illegally). (Greg Palast, Best Democracy Money Can Buy )

It's a testament to the strong force of progressive values that, despite all these votes missing or cast late against him, Al Gore still won the recounts.

On a complete aside, I would like to comment that no politician had any principles that day. The day that Democrat Al Gore was championing states-rights when the Florida Supreme Court ordered that recounts would continue until all votes had been recorded, and Republican W was championing a strong, central federal power by appealing to the Supreme Court to overrule Florida (which violated its own principles by agreeing to hear the case in the first place). Al Gore was trying to selectively recount certain counties because he was worried that recounting more than that might cost him the victory, whereas in fact only recounting the whole state would give him the win. And Bush was maintaining his "My brother said I won it fair and square, and he should know, since he's the one who rigged it" line and trying to stop any recount (in other words, not worried about disenfranchising any and all voters) that might take victory from him.

It should not be surprising that, in a system that rewards the desire for power with power, men who crave power over their ideals will sit at the top.

Blackboxvoting.org is the best source for any election-machine info (such as which party's contributors run Diebold).
Greg Palast is an American living in England who writes news for the London Sunday Observer.

I also check out, Indymedia, CNN, The BBC, and Google News.

The fact is that Every source you turn to is biased. I'm of the opinion that there is no such thing as unbiased journalism becuase journalists are people with finite amounts of time on their hands and finite column-inches to fill. They have to decide who they interview and how much of that material to use. I doubt that most of them (save those at Fox News) go into it with a definite story in mind and ignore all evidence to the contrary. Nevertheless, biases appear in reporting. Couple this with the fact that all news outlets have a distinct audience and that their preceptions of that audience shapes their reporting to the extent that they wish to attract new audience members and avoid losing old ones. This qorks out differently for Indymedia than it does for CNN but the pressure is still there.

The bottom line is that all you can do (as others have pointed out) is to cast as diverse a net as possible and then to look, as much as is possible, for the nuggets of truth in each one. Just be wary for many people the line between reality and fiction is no longer a barrier.

As to government documents, I wouldn't diss them. They are the one true source of info that we have about the workings of our government. And, so long as Some People can be held in check

Gee, would you rather the information came from Democratic Congressman? Would that make it any more relevant? How about if the same information came from the award-winning journalist's own web site? Would that make it "more true"?

Somehow I suspect that your gripe about the information isn't with the source of the information, it is instead the facts cited in the information.

You may already know about him, given your mention of the BBC, but he's one of the many bloodhounds that aided substantially in ferreting out the irregularities that helped install Bush. Well worth a look for anyone disillusioned with the major corporate media outlets of the US.

www.gregpalast.com

I must forgo my mod points for this thread to respond to your post.

disenfranchised because they share the same name as people who were previously convicted of crimes in other US states,

All the people who were purged from the rolls for felony convictions were notified of the fact, well before the election, by a letter to their registered mailing address, which gave the procedure to correct any error and the necessary contact information to make it convenient.

Are you claiming that a disproportionate number of people who have names that might be mistaken for a felon's are Democrats? Or are you REALLY upset because the preponderance of felons who are registered to vote, illegally or otherwise, are registered as Democrats?

I see a number of problems here. Allow me to elucidate:

1. All the people who were purged from the rolls for felony convictions were notified of the fact
   Doubtful. From an article on Salon.com:

   most counties appear to have used the [central voter] file as a resource to purge names from their voter rolls, with some counties making little -- or no -- effort at all to alert the "purged" voters.

   Never mind the rational argument questioning where these "registered addresses" would have come from, and positing the likelihood that they may no longer be correct. Never mind that some of these "felons" were booked in the future, making it extremely unlikely any of the data is correct, let alone true. And never mind that the list was kept secret, requiring a court order to be made public, thus further reducing the probability that those on it would have found out in time to try to fix their status.

2. Are you claiming that a disproportionate number of people who have names that might be mistaken for a felon's are Democrats?
   I didn't coin the phrase, but in some circles it's known as Voting While Black , a disenfranchisable offence in far too many places in the US.

   How could Florida's Republican rulers know how these people would vote? I put the question to David Bositis, America's top expert on voting demographics. Once he stopped laughing, he said the way Florida used the lists from a private firm was, 'an obvious technique to discriminate against black voters'. In a darker mood, Bositis, of Washington's Center for Political and Economic Studies, said the sad truth of American justice is that 46 per cent of those convicted of felony are African-American. In Florida, a record number of black folk, over 80 per cent of those registered to vote, packed the polling booths on November 7. Behind the curtains, nine out of 10 black people voted Gore.

   Mark Mauer of the Sentencing Project, Washington, pointed out that the 'white' half of the purge list would be peopled overwhelmingly by the poor, also solid Democratic voters.

3. Or are you REALLY upset because the preponderance of felons who are registered to vote, illegally or otherwise, are registered as Democrats?
   Felons or not, the facts are that the vast majority of those who simply 'disappeared' from the Florida voting rosters were those who historically have voted for the Democratic candidate. Given that Bush's lead was reportedly only some 570, and that those wrongfully denied the right to vote likely numbered in the thousands (given a total voter purge list of 94,000 names, the size of which only came clear thanks to

I must forgo my mod points for this thread to respond to your post.

disenfranchised because they share the same name as people who were previously convicted of crimes in other US states,

All the people who were purged from the rolls for felony convictions were notified of the fact, well before the election, by a letter to their registered mailing address, which gave the procedure to correct any error and the necessary contact information to make it convenient.

Are you claiming that a disproportionate number of people who have names that might be mistaken for a felon's are Democrats? Or are you REALLY upset because the preponderance of felons who are registered to vote, illegally or otherwise, are registered as Democrats?

I see a number of problems here. Allow me to elucidate:

1. All the people who were purged from the rolls for felony convictions were notified of the fact
   Doubtful. From an article on Salon.com:

   most counties appear to have used the [central voter] file as a resource to purge names from their voter rolls, with some counties making little -- or no -- effort at all to alert the "purged" voters.

   Never mind the rational argument questioning where these "registered addresses" would have come from, and positing the likelihood that they may no longer be correct. Never mind that some of these "felons" were booked in the future, making it extremely unlikely any of the data is correct, let alone true. And never mind that the list was kept secret, requiring a court order to be made public, thus further reducing the probability that those on it would have found out in time to try to fix their status.

2. Are you claiming that a disproportionate number of people who have names that might be mistaken for a felon's are Democrats?
   I didn't coin the phrase, but in some circles it's known as Voting While Black , a disenfranchisable offence in far too many places in the US.

   How could Florida's Republican rulers know how these people would vote? I put the question to David Bositis, America's top expert on voting demographics. Once he stopped laughing, he said the way Florida used the lists from a private firm was, 'an obvious technique to discriminate against black voters'. In a darker mood, Bositis, of Washington's Center for Political and Economic Studies, said the sad truth of American justice is that 46 per cent of those convicted of felony are African-American. In Florida, a record number of black folk, over 80 per cent of those registered to vote, packed the polling booths on November 7. Behind the curtains, nine out of 10 black people voted Gore.

   Mark Mauer of the Sentencing Project, Washington, pointed out that the 'white' half of the purge list would be peopled overwhelmingly by the poor, also solid Democratic voters.

3. Or are you REALLY upset because the preponderance of felons who are registered to vote, illegally or otherwise, are registered as Democrats?
   Felons or not, the facts are that the vast majority of those who simply 'disappeared' from the Florida voting rosters were those who historically have voted for the Democratic candidate. Given that Bush's lead was reportedly only some 570, and that those wrongfully denied the right to vote likely numbered in the thousands (given a total voter purge list of 94,000 names, the size of which only came clear thanks to

I must forgo my mod points for this thread to respond to your post.

disenfranchised because they share the same name as people who were previously convicted of crimes in other US states,

All the people who were purged from the rolls for felony convictions were notified of the fact, well before the election, by a letter to their registered mailing address, which gave the procedure to correct any error and the necessary contact information to make it convenient.

Are you claiming that a disproportionate number of people who have names that might be mistaken for a felon's are Democrats? Or are you REALLY upset because the preponderance of felons who are registered to vote, illegally or otherwise, are registered as Democrats?

I see a number of problems here. Allow me to elucidate:

1. All the people who were purged from the rolls for felony convictions were notified of the fact
   Doubtful. From an article on Salon.com:

   most counties appear to have used the [central voter] file as a resource to purge names from their voter rolls, with some counties making little -- or no -- effort at all to alert the "purged" voters.

   Never mind the rational argument questioning where these "registered addresses" would have come from, and positing the likelihood that they may no longer be correct. Never mind that some of these "felons" were booked in the future, making it extremely unlikely any of the data is correct, let alone true. And never mind that the list was kept secret, requiring a court order to be made public, thus further reducing the probability that those on it would have found out in time to try to fix their status.

2. Are you claiming that a disproportionate number of people who have names that might be mistaken for a felon's are Democrats?
   I didn't coin the phrase, but in some circles it's known as Voting While Black , a disenfranchisable offence in far too many places in the US.

   How could Florida's Republican rulers know how these people would vote? I put the question to David Bositis, America's top expert on voting demographics. Once he stopped laughing, he said the way Florida used the lists from a private firm was, 'an obvious technique to discriminate against black voters'. In a darker mood, Bositis, of Washington's Center for Political and Economic Studies, said the sad truth of American justice is that 46 per cent of those convicted of felony are African-American. In Florida, a record number of black folk, over 80 per cent of those registered to vote, packed the polling booths on November 7. Behind the curtains, nine out of 10 black people voted Gore.

   Mark Mauer of the Sentencing Project, Washington, pointed out that the 'white' half of the purge list would be peopled overwhelmingly by the poor, also solid Democratic voters.

3. Or are you REALLY upset because the preponderance of felons who are registered to vote, illegally or otherwise, are registered as Democrats?
   Felons or not, the facts are that the vast majority of those who simply 'disappeared' from the Florida voting rosters were those who historically have voted for the Democratic candidate. Given that Bush's lead was reportedly only some 570, and that those wrongfully denied the right to vote likely numbered in the thousands (given a total voter purge list of 94,000 names, the size of which only came clear thanks to

[...] but the polls have both parties monitoring, counting, and watching the process. Announcing the fact that the machines aren't fool proof or perfect is a wonderful thing for the process - aka more eyes will be watching and helping protect our election process.

See: www.gregpalast.com

This is a bald-faced "Urban Myth" go back and review the facts of the 2000 election and you'll find the Supreme Court in reality ended up being a non-factor in the outcome of the election.

Recently on a radio interview I heard the investigative reporter Greg Palast make this exact point, with the addition that the fiasco will be by design. Palast also said that, as bad as the electronic voting machines are, this year the real problems will be happening outside the polling place, with policies and programs such as the "Help America Vote" act, which are designed to disenfranchise voters the same way they were disenfranchised in Florida in 2000.

Palast points out that there is a decidedly racist agenda to these voting shenanigans, which he believes are bipartisan, and I believe he is also in favor of using simple paper ballots a la Canada, or using on-site optical readers the way they were used in the non-hanging chad parts of Florida in 2000

The point then is that the chaos likely to occur in November will cover up / give room to maneuver to those who wish the election to go a certain way.

Anyway, I've been looking all over the web to find that program to link to it, but maybe I actually heard it on a real radio this time, because it's nowhere to be found.

I did find a link to a Palast article from the San Francisco Chronicle that touches on this problem of voting disenfranchisement. It's subtitled "It's not too hard to get your vote lost -- if some politicians want it to be lost" Here's another link to an article in The Nation Magazine entitled Vanishing Votes

For those interested in more of Palast's writings, they can be found at www.gregpalast.com

Oh! I remember now. It was a video on CSPAN on the Washington Weekly program. It's an hour-long interview and call-in show with Palast located here

The Cato institute for REAL research? Haha, I'll be damned before I'll believe that right wing think tank.

No, personally I prefer to read Greg Palast's work. This is what Moore has based most of his opinion on anyways. Like Greg says, Michael is just a funny guy in a monkey suit that draws people's attention to alternative news because it is not POSSIBLE any longer to report objective news in the US.

BTW, Greg Palast works for the BBC and covered the whole voting scam even before Gore conceded. He covered the whole Venezuela scam. He's an awesome investigative reporter without the pranks Michael Moore uses to get Americans out of their comfort zone.

If it's just a scam, you have nothing to fear. Sure a few place might have be bad for HF for a year, but that's nothing new. A scam doesn't last, doesn't grow. I've seen no sign this is a real threat.

Are you sure? What about Herbalife? What about homeopathy? What about Microsoft? What about Scientology? What about Bush? Are you sure that scams don't last and don't grow? Or maybe just because I am paranoid there are no conspiracies in the world whatsoever? I wouldn't be so sure there is really "nothing to fear." Hell, I wouldn't probably even have posted those links if I wasn't sure my arse is covered! I think it is very important to talk about the Broadband Over Power Lines scam, exactly because it is a scam.

I think we need to admit the AlGore robot to the hall of fame. Not only was he a revolution in cybernetics, but he was almost elected president.

What are you objecting to? The idea that Bush used unfair and malicious means to win the election? Or just the use of the word "stole" to descrive that action?

Nobody seems to disagree that the Republicans unfairly prevented thousands of people from voting by mistakenly labeling them as felons. The real question of course was if it was an honest mistake, or if there was a nefarious motivation.

There doesn't seem much doubt that the Republicans paid people to go protest in Florida. (Unfortunatly i can't give you any good links for that one, most of the pages i've found reference a Wall Street Journal article, which i can't find because i'm not a paid subscriber.) Those protests delayed the recount enough to give the Supreme Court the excuse of declaring that Florida had passed the deadline and the recount shouldn't be considered. I think the intent of the Republican Party was pretty clear in that instance. They had no interest in finding out who the people actually wanted, they just wanted to make sure the initial verdict was maintained despite Florida law to the contrary.

"Steal" may be a bit of hyperbole, but certainly Bush was trying to claim something that did not yet legally and might never have legally belonged to him.

You can certainly claim that Gore wanted to win the election too. I can't speak for Gore personally of course, but although as a democrat i wanted him to win the election, i didn't think the rules should have been changed to allow him to win. After most elections in which the Democrats lose (which happens far to often in my opinion of course) i don't regularly protest that the election was flawed and that some kind of do-over should be made, unless i'm shown clear evidence of corruption and bribery or such.

In the case of Florida the close results triggered an automatic recount, as was mandated by the Florida constitution. Although that certainly gave me hope that the recount would favor Gore, i wanted the recount to happen fairly and if the new results still favored Bush i would have accepted that. That wasn't good enough for the Republicans however who seemed to feel that the same rules shouldn't apply to them.

There are a lot of accusations against Bush and his administration that fall under the conspiracy theory nonsense. (Bush hearing that a plane had hit one of the WTC towers and then deciding to continue on to an appearance at an elementary school is evidence of his vast stupidity, not an indication that he planed the 9/11 attacks.) However in this case there is pretty clear evidence that _something_ was going on. It's just a question of how much was by accident and how much be design, and who was arranging the by design bits. Yes the election was closely watched by a lot of people, however the stuff i cited still apparently happened. I haven't seen any news sources refuting it, in fact i've seen the felon thing repeated quite a number of times since, including reports that it may be happening again for the next presidential election. The problem is that even though news agencies knew about these issues, they don't seem to care and don't report them very much. Just like the whole slew of e-voting machine problems it seems.

However to get back to one of your original comments, i agree with you that Moore is a bloody idiot. He seems to twist facts at best and just make up shit outright at worst, and in the long run he's not really helping the democrats. And this is in spite of the fact that i seem to agree with most of his basic mesages.

How does the government separate the junk data from what may actually be worth looking at?

In the case of the 2000 Florida elections and the woefully inaccurate convicted felons database, the answer was simple: assume the database is correct, especially if it contains a political demographic that is likely to vote Democrat. The ~50,000 non-felons who were denied their right to vote were too poor to sue, so no big deal. I may remind our gentle readers that the Florida presidential elections were decided by less than 600 votes.

It chills me to think that in this age of terrorism paranoia, this kind of approach will be repeated when searching for "terrorists". Hopefully, some of those who are wrongfully "detained" will have the means to fight.

It happened in 2000.

Click here

What they are doing with removing votes recently.

How they are preparing to use E-voting to do it again...

And to the guy who modded it flamebait....Fuck you