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What do we gain by completely open borders? Should we allow anyone with a criminal background to come into the US? Personally, I think we should go back to the model of allowing massive legal immigration of the best and brightest.

Too many illegal immigrants take jobs for below-legal wages, fail to obey other laws (illegal immigrants are 10 times more likely to commit a crime as compared to legal immigrants), and tend to depress wages - especially painful for those on the lower end of the economic scale.

If illegal immigration is such a wonderful thing, can you share a country that has totally open borders and welcomes all, with not immigration check or control?

" Over the past decade Texas has convicted 51 people of voter fraud, according the state's Attorney General Greg Abbott. Only four of those cases were for voter impersonation, the only type of voter fraud that voter ID laws prevent.
Nationwide that rate of voter impersonation is even lower.
Out of the 197 million votes cast for federal candidates between 2002 and 2005, only 40 voters were indicted for voter fraud, according to a Department of Justice study outlined during a 2006 Congressional hearing. Only 26 of those cases, or about .00000013 percent of the votes cast, resulted in convictions or guilty pleas. "
http://abcnews.go.com/Politics/OTUS/voter-fraud-real-rare/story?id=17213376

And yet I'm sure you think having to wait 3 days to purchase a lethal weapon is a burdensome and onerous infringement on your 2nd amendment rights.

"The problem with that thinking is that people are stuck on the concept of physically showing up to vote. As most states have some form of absentee voting system many of these fraudulent registrations can lead to actual votes.

There have already been reported cases of dead people voting through absentee ballots both federally and in the primaries."

Links? I mean, there should be tons of court activity if people were voting on behalf of dead people, at least after the fact. This seems like an over-generalization, sort of like the idea that everyone on any sort of state assistance is a "welfare queen", even though the vast majority of people on assistance are not gaming or abusing it.

The question becomes, are you okay with disenfranchising thousands of people on the *possibility* that a small minority may actually cast an extra vote in error? Sounds like the idea of killing social benefits because some people *may* be abusing the system. The last election that was "stolen" wasn't due to voter fraud, but rather due to throwing ballots out en masse, understaffing polls in densely populated areas, etc.

If you pay people to register people to vote, a few of them are going to game the system (as was said earlier in the thread) for money. It doesn't mean that "teh democrats are going to steal the election!" Silently purging voter rolls, on the other hand, might do some damage, even if it's apparently unintentional.

Yes, it is as bad. A fraudulent vote cancels out a valid vote, in effect taking a vote away from someone.

You mean in the same way that another person voting the other way negates it? That sounds like an excuse for dropping people from the voting rolls. Also remember that there are usually multiple votes cast at the same time for different government positions (President, Senate, House, local government, etc), and unless most people vote as a monolithic bloc, it's going to effect more than just a Presidential election.

Also, consider that the Governor's race in Washington (where known ACORN abuses occurred), required an additional 2 recounts, where the Republican won the first two counts and the Democrat won the last and final count.

In this case, the Democrats kept recounting and "finding" votes until they were over the top. Less than two hundred fraudulent votes were enough to win the election. So, in this case over a *million* votes were disenfranchised when the election was stolen.

To quote the prosecuting attorney in Washington (Dan Satterberg), the misconduct was done "as an easy way to get paid [by ACORN], not as an attempt to influence the outcome of elections." Yup, sure sounds like they kept "refinding" the votes in an attempt to swing the election.

The presidential election in 2000 could have had a completely different outcome depending on who was counting or how many times they've counted. I'm not excusing voter fraud, just saying that it's a much smaller problem than disenfranchising voters.

Funny you mentioned "a few of the workers" when the Wikipedia article mentions so many cases of voter fraud that it is obviously a standard practice in ACORN. They are against photo id, since that would impact their fraudulent voter drives.

You're starting with the premise that they must "obviously" be engaged in standard practices of voter fraud, which is clouding your argument.

Photo ID regulations generally disenfranchise one particular type of person, which is more likely to vote for a Democrat than a Republican. There were also a lot of reported voting "irregularities" in Florida and Ohio over the last few elections. I'm guessing that you wouldn't consider it the standard practice of polling places to purge rolls of minority voters, etc, simply because there are so many instances?

Did you read the post you linked to? http://www.usccr.gov/pubs/vote2000/report/ch2.htm

It does list people who were unable to vote, but not because of the felon purge.

Donnise DeSouza was told that her name was not on the rolls ... Furthermore, Ms. DeSouza learned that her name was actually on the rolls of registered voters

So, she was not purged.

Angenora Ramsey, an African American former poll worker with 18 years' experience, had changed her address prior to November 7. Based on her familiarity with election procedures, when Ms. Ramsey went to vote at Precinct 62 in Palm Beach County, she completed a change of address affidavit. But when the poll worker tried to call the office of the supervisor of elections to verify Ms. Ramsey's registration status, she was unable to get through.

Again - Not Purged

Margarita Green, a 75-year-old Cuban American woman, went to vote at the same precinct in Miami-Dade County where she had always voted since becoming a citizen in 1966. When Mrs. Green showed her registration card to the poll worker, she was told that her name was not on the rolls and that she must speak with another poll worker who would look into the problem. Mrs. Green recalled that it took a long time for the poll worker to reach the supervisor of elections because the phone line was busy. When she finally got through, the worker explained that according to their records Mrs. Green had called in 1998 and "erased" herself from the voter list.

Again - Not Purged in 2000

Marvin Rickles, Jr., a deputy at Precinct 74B in Palm Beach County, observed an African American school principal turned away, after waiting for two hours, because her name did not appear on the rolls and poll workers could not reach the supervisor of elections office. She returned to the precinct later that afternoon and was allowed to vote only after she discovered that her name had been misspelled on the rolls.[12]

So, you've called someone a liar and posted a link which contains not a single example of someone who was unable to vote due to the felon roll purging.

That is shameful to SlashDot.

Without question, some voters did encounter difficulties at the polls, but the evidence fails to support the claim of systematic disenfranchisement. Most of the complaints the Commission heard in direct testimony involved individuals who arrived at the polls on election day only to find that their names were not on the rolls of registered voters. The majority of these cases were due to bureaucratic errors, inefficiencies within the system, and/or error or confusion on the part of the voters themselves...
The Commission did not hear from a single witness who was actually prevented from voting as a result of being erroneously identified as a felon.

ChoicePoint/DBT originally produced a list of about 8000 voters to remove from the electoral rolls. Katherine Harris got back to them and told them to widen the net - by omitting a few data integrity requirements, such as middle names, dates of birth, and dates and details of their convictions - and assured ChoicePoint that they needn't worry about the number of false positives in the list. This increased the size of the list to about 58,000 voters, more than half of whom were African-Americans.

When the fraud was officially investigated, ChoicePoint admitted to a false-positive rate of up to 15%, which was already far in excess of Bush's lead in the Florida poll. Later, an independent investigation showed an error rate of more than 90% - some 55,000 voters, some 30,000 of whom were black.

The USCCR was unable to identify a single voter that was incorrectly prevented from voting because of the felon list.

It's surprising how many people don't know this when it's actually very well documented; in fact, the story broke long before the election actually took place. My suggestion to the doubters is to watch Unprecedented: The 2000 Presidential Election , a very thorough documentary on the topic.

Choicepoint is the firm that Katherine Harris, who simultaneously served in the Bush campaign and as head vote-counter in Florida (no other democracy allows that, by the way), used to come up with a felon list.

Wrong. Choicepoint was contracted to generate the list before Katherine Harris was in office. And they were hired by a woman named Ethel Baxter, who is a Democrat.

The list included thousands of blacks who weren't eligible to vote (at least 5,000).

Good. That was the goal- to identify the people that were ineligible. Like it or not, but Florida is one of a handful of states that do not allow convicted felons to vote. This felon list was generated to fulfull some of the requirements of a 1998 Florida statute passed by the legislature in response to problems with voter fraud during a 1996 mayoral election.

It was set up to disenfranchise everyone who had a similar name (even first initial and last name) as a felon.

The list was not "set up" to disenfranchise anybody. The Florida law that required the list was designed for an imperfect list. It clearly placed the burdon of verifying the names on the 67 individual county election supervisors. Oh, and white people were twice as likely as black people to be erroneously included in the list.

Considering that blacks voted 90-10 for Gore and that Bush only won the state (officially) by 537 votes, Bush owes his presidency to Choicepoint.

Bull crap. The USCCR was unable to identify a single voter that was incorrectly prevented from voting because of the felon list.

According to the US Commission on Civil Rights' http://www.usccr.gov/pubs/vote2000/report/ch8.htm investigation of voting irregularities in Florida in the 2000 election, electronic voting machines were not in use. There are other sources as well if you search for them. I stand by my reasoning.

Any decent American hates the destruction of democracy that you Republicans are counting on to "win" the election next week.

Oh brother...

Let's see a citation of any reasonable challenge to Palast's investigations, beyond the empty contradictions and denials like your post.

I already cited the USCCR Report. The dissenting opinion is a must-read. So, lets see, here are some of Palast's charges.

Claim: Jeb Bush and Katherine Harris conspired to disenfranchise minority voters using the felon scrub list.
Reality: The felon scrub list was mandated by 1997 law passed by the Legislature (yes, the Governor and Secretary of State cannot pass laws) before Jeb Bush or Katherine Harris were even in office. Neither Katherine Harris nor Jeb Bush could even remove anybody from the voter registrations- that responsibility lies solely on the County Election Supervisors.

Claim: DBT, the firm that was hired to make the felon scrub list, is a "Republican" firm, and they conspired with Harris to add false matches of minorities and democrats to the felon list to try to disenfranchise them
Reality: The firm was hired before Harris was in office by the then Supervisor of Elections Ethel Baxtor, who is a Democrat. The law recognized that the list would not be perfect. Instead, it intended for the list to flag as many "possible" felons as it could, and let the individual County Election Supervisors verify the names in each county. If somebody was incorrectly removed from the voter registration, it is the County Election Supervisor of his/her county that is to blame.

Claim: Over 90% of the names on the felon list were incorrect.
Reality: The USCCR heard testimony that of the ~58,000 names on the list, about 4,000 (or less than 7%) were incorrect. Also, the error rate of whites on the list was double the error rate of blacks on the list. Its also important to point out that being included on the list did not mean that you lost your vote. It was still up to the county election supervisor to verify the names before taking action, and at least 22 counties didn't use the list at all.

Claim: Thousands of Democrat voters were disenfranchised because of the felon list.
Reality: The USCCR was unable to find a single person that could testify that they were incorrectly identified as a felon and actually prevented from voting. On the contrary, the Miami Herald concluded that the biggest problem with the list was that it ended up allowing 6,500 convicted felons to vote in the 2000 election!

You see, Palast went into this trying to prove his preconceived idea that Bush had stolen the election. Similarly, the USCCR Commission Chairman Mary Frances Berry is on record saying that even though the commission had not seen any evidence to support their conclusions, they could justify them because they just "knew" that bad stuff had happened. I don't see how you can consider this "investigative reporting" when he ignored so many basic facts!

BTW, I note that you quote Al Capone in your .sig. You've got the wrong set of heroes - gangs of criminal thugs.

Who said Al Capone is my hero?

The list was 95% false positives, heavily leaning black and Democrat.

Untrue. According to the USCCR, there were ~4000 incorrect names on the list of 57,770 felons, or less than 7%. Whats more, the error rate of white people on the list was double the error rate of black people on the list.

Secondly, Choicepoint warned the Secratary of State, in writing, that there would be a large number of false positives. The Govenor's office wrote back with instructions to proceed saying they wanted it to be broad.

Right. That was the whole point of the 1998 law that commissioned the felon list (which was passed before Katherine Harris or Jeb Bush were in office, btw). The list was intended to "cast a wide net" and give the list of names to the individual county election supervisors. The county election supervisors were required to verify the names before they took any action. 22 counties didn't even use the list at all, which led the Miami Herald to conclude that the biggest problem with the list was that it ended up allowing 6,500 felons to vote.

The 2000 election was stolen. Greg Palast's evidence has been corraborated by two investigations.

No it hasn't. In fact, the USCCR didn't even hear from a single witness that was disenfranchised because they were incorrectly put on the felons list. Palast's writings most resemble the rantings of a blind partisan, not an "investigative reporter".

People should have gone to jail over the 2000 election

Why? For enforcing the law? Good luck with that.

You should try reading Palast's _The Best Democracy Money Can Buy_. He dissected that "felon list", and documents how something like 90+% of its names were wrongly listed. And how the Florida election board, run by Republican Katherine Harris (cochair of Bush's Florida campaign, and Secretary of State to Bush's brother, Governor Jeb), disqualified voters with any similarity to the listed names, including crossing gender lines, matching only initials, etc. The list was so bad that several counties refused to use it, but not enough.

And yet, interestingly enough, when the USCCR held hearings, they were unable to find a single person that would testify that they were actually incorrectly prevented from voting because of the felon list.

Yes, the felon list had mistakes (nowhere near 90%, though). But the law was designed for that! The county election supervisors were responsible to verify the names as actual felons before any action was taken. If somebody was disenfranchised, the blame lies solely on the Election Supervisor of the county that he/she lives in.

The problem is that the US Commission on Civil Rights failed to find a single person who would testify that they were incorrectly denied the right to vote.

Interesting, given the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights came to a different conclusion based on their evidence:

Supported by approximately 30 hours of sworn testimony from some 100 witnesses, the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights determined that the Florida presidential elections appear to have been marred by voter disenfranchisement.

The have a chapter in their report entitled "First-Hand Accounts of Voter Disenfranchisement" in which they document people denied the vote:

Undeterred by these delays, Ms. Jackson returned to her precinct after work to try to vote again, but the poll workers were never able to verify her registration status and refused to allow her to vote.

...

When Ms. DeSouza asked if there was an absentee ballot that would allow her to cast her vote, the poll worker explained that there was nothing he could do.

The page is full of stories from individuals and poll workers, all named.

The Miami Herald, on the other hand, estimates that 5,600 convicted felons voted in the Florida 2000 election because counties completely scrapped the felon list.

This is, admittedly, completely off topic, but I find it odd that any state would deny the vote to felons who had served their time. Why not just let them vote? It's one thing to remove directly life-threatening things from a felon (guns), but another to remove their voting rights. In essence every single felony sentence adds "... and you may never vote in this state again." That seems a little harsh while completely useless as a deterrant. (Gee, I was going to steal this car, but I might lose by voting rights!) Are we attempting to protect society from those dangerous felons? I somehow doubt that we're going to see politicians pandering to the felon vote. We give released felons arguably much more dangerous freedoms (notably freedom of speech), letting them vote seems relatively harmless. Those states where released felons can vote manage to avoid having that sort of problem. As an added bonus, our states don't need to spend millions of dollars trying to keep those released felons from voting. I suppose it's Florida's right to decide this, but it just seems weird to me.

The problem is that the US Commission on Civil Rights failed to find a single person who would testify that they were incorrectly denied the right to vote.

Interesting, given the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights came to a different conclusion based on their evidence:

Supported by approximately 30 hours of sworn testimony from some 100 witnesses, the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights determined that the Florida presidential elections appear to have been marred by voter disenfranchisement.

The have a chapter in their report entitled "First-Hand Accounts of Voter Disenfranchisement" in which they document people denied the vote:

Undeterred by these delays, Ms. Jackson returned to her precinct after work to try to vote again, but the poll workers were never able to verify her registration status and refused to allow her to vote.

...

When Ms. DeSouza asked if there was an absentee ballot that would allow her to cast her vote, the poll worker explained that there was nothing he could do.

The page is full of stories from individuals and poll workers, all named.

The Miami Herald, on the other hand, estimates that 5,600 convicted felons voted in the Florida 2000 election because counties completely scrapped the felon list.

This is, admittedly, completely off topic, but I find it odd that any state would deny the vote to felons who had served their time. Why not just let them vote? It's one thing to remove directly life-threatening things from a felon (guns), but another to remove their voting rights. In essence every single felony sentence adds "... and you may never vote in this state again." That seems a little harsh while completely useless as a deterrant. (Gee, I was going to steal this car, but I might lose by voting rights!) Are we attempting to protect society from those dangerous felons? I somehow doubt that we're going to see politicians pandering to the felon vote. We give released felons arguably much more dangerous freedoms (notably freedom of speech), letting them vote seems relatively harmless. Those states where released felons can vote manage to avoid having that sort of problem. As an added bonus, our states don't need to spend millions of dollars trying to keep those released felons from voting. I suppose it's Florida's right to decide this, but it just seems weird to me.

African Americans had a significantly greater chance of being listed on Florida's mandated purge list. The probability of names of African Americans appearing on the list in error was significantly greater than the likelihood of the names of whites being erroneously included on the purge list.

The state of Florida's use of this purge list, combined with the state law that places the burden on voters to remove themselves from the list, resulted in denying countless African Americans the right to vote.

You are confusing two distinct situations. Nobody is claiming that the DBT list contained false positives -- it is clear that it did. However, there are no documented cases of legitimate voters actually being denied the right to vote as a result of this list. The USCCR certainly didn't receive testimony from anybody who were not allowed to vote.

In addition, those statements that you quoted are misleading at best and blatantly wrong at worst. Whites were almost twice as likely to be incorrectly included on the felon list than blacks. An evaluation of the Miami-Dade felon list revealed that 5.1% of the blacks on the list were identified as mistakes and cleared to vote, but 9.9% of the whites on the list were identified as mistakes. The error rate for Whites was nearly double the error rate for blacks.

Translation: we [the Gov. and SecOfState] can fuck up as much as we want, and blow a few million of taxpayer's money, because it's the counties fault if they actually use the list we give them.

Brilliant defense, there.

You can translate that however you want, but the simple fact is that for the 2000 election, Florida State Law placed the burden of voter registration rolls soley on the county election supervisor. There was a clear procedure set up by the Florida legislature where the supervisors were to verify, contact, and review all of the names that appeared on the list. State election officials had absolutely no say in who ended up on the registration rolls.

No, I was countering the argument that the sole responsibility for maintaining voter rolls is on the counties. Federal law places the responsibility on the state, not the county. It doesn't matter what Florida law says anymore, since it's been pre-empted by federal law.

Right, and this still has absolutely no bearing on what happened in the 2000 election.

Very clever of you to quote from the dissent, there. You know ... the /losing/ argument. The conclusion of the majority report stated.

Nope. Thats not from the dissenting statement. That is directly from the Majority's Executive Summary of the report. Reading the report only makes the following clear:

The USCCR did not claim that Jeb Bush or Katherine Harris stole the election or consipired to disenfranchise voters

The USCCR did claim that many black voters were disenfranchised

The USCCR did not provide any solid evidence proving their claims of disenfranchisement beyond flawed statistical analyis and anecdotal evidence

The report generated a harsh dissenting statement from the minority commission members who sharply disagreed with the conclusion of the majority

While you are claiming that 19 legitimate voters were "tossed" in order to get 1 felon off the list, the USCCR failed to find a single person who actually was not allowed to vote as a result of being incorrectly identified as a felon.

If that's the case, why did the findings include this item:

• African Americans had a significantly greater chance of being listed on Florida's mandated purge list. The probability of names of African Americans appearing on the list in error was significantly greater than the likelihood of the names of whites being erroneously included on the purge list.
• The state of Florida's use of this purge list, combined with the state law that places the burden on voters to remove themselves from the list, resulted in denying countless African Americans the right to vote.

Florida election law is very clear that voter registration rolls are maintained by the elected County election supervisors. The statewide maintenance list was generated as a result of a law passed by the Florida Legislature (before Jeb Bush was in office, by the way), and was to be sent to county election supervisors for action.

Translation: we [the Gov. and SecOfState] can fuck up as much as we want, and blow a few million of taxpayer's money, because it's the counties fault if they actually use the list we give them.

Brilliant defense, there.

Wait. You are faulting Jeb Bush in the 2000 election because Florida did not follow a law that went into effect 3 years after the 2000 election?

No, I was countering the argument that the sole responsibility for maintaining voter rolls is on the counties. Federal law places the responsibility on the state, not the county. It doesn't matter what Florida law says anymore, since it's been pre-empted by federal law.

Greg Palast claims that Jeb Bush and Catherine Harris "stole" the election for G.W. Bush. The commission found:

The report does not find that the highest officials of the state conspired to disenfranchise voters. Moreover, even if it was foreseeable that certain actions by officials led to voter disenfranchisement, this alone does not mean that intentional discrimination occurred

Very clever of you to quote from the dissent, there. You know ... the /losing/ argument. The conclusion of the majority report stated

While some of those denied the right to vote in the November 2000 election no doubt were legally denied that right, others who should have been legally entitled to vote were also denied that right. Indeed as this report demonstrates, Florida state law in some instances virtually guaranteed that some citizens who were legally entitled to vote would be denied that right. The statute's silence on other instances provided tacit approval for the denial of some to vote. Not all voices were heard on Election Day, and the law provides no meaningful way for their voices to now be heard.

-jdm

Like it or not, felons who have not received clemancy are not allowed to vote in Florida. You cannot fault Florida election officials for trying to enforce a law that has been on the books for decades.

Actually, yes. Yes I can. Let's replace "Florida election officials" with "the RIAA and MPAA", "felons who have not received clemency" with "consumers without a distribution license" and "vote in Florida" with "share copyrighted songs on the Internet".

Say to yourself "the ends do not justify the means". Now say it again. Try it a few more times until it sinks in. If I toss out 19 legitimate voters for every 1 felon, that's not even close to making a halfway decent effort. I can fault them for being wrong 95% of the time. If you're wrong in school 95% of the time, you don't even come close to passing. You fail. And I can fault them for foisting a failure of a list onto county officials.

Florida Election Laws clearly place the responsibility of maintaining county voter registration rolls on the county election officials. There was no legal way for Jeb Bush or Catherine Harris to remove registered voters from the rolls.

OK, if it's not the responsibility of the state to maintain voter rolls, what the hell were they doing spending $2.3 million of taxpayer money to make a list of people that shouldn't have been on the county rolls? The sure sounds like the state trying to have its say in maintaining the voter lists. And even if that was the case in 2000, it's no longer true. The Help America Vote Act requires states to centralize their voter database as of 01/2004.

The only "references" you provided were from Greg Palast, whose assertions were thoroughly debunked by the US Civil Commission on Civil Rights.

What, these findings? Ones that say things like

• During Florida's 2000 presidential election, restrictive statutory provisions, wide-ranging errors, and inadequate resources in the Florida election process denied countless Floridians of their right to vote.
• The state of Florida's use of this purge list, combined with the state law that places the burden on voters to remove themselves from the list, resulted in denying countless African Americans the right to vote.
• There were no clear guidelines from the governor, the secretary of state, or the director of the Division of Elections to subordinates to employ list maintenance strategies that would protect eligible voters, particularly historically disenfranchised populations, from being wrongfully removed from the voter registration rolls.
• An official of the Division of Elections dictated to representatives of the private firm to employ a strategy that resulted in a disproportionate number of eligible African American voters being removed from the voter registration rolls in error.
• Supervisors of elections had no uniform method to verify the information on the exclusion lists.
• There is no evidence that in preparation for the 2000 presidential election, the director of the Division of Elections took proper steps to ensure that supervisors of elections were informed about the errors in the exclusion lists.

Recommendations include

• The U.S. Department of Justice should immediately initiate the litigation process against the governor, secretary of state, director of the Division of Elections, specific supervisors of elections, and other state and local officials responsible for the execution of election laws, practices, and procedures[...]
• The U.S. Department of Justice should immediately initiate the litigation process against Florida state officials whose list maintenance activities during the 2000 presidential election discriminated against people of color in violation of federal law or resulted in the denial of people of color to have equal access to the

indeed we have a winner, this popped up in the NY Times
Bush's Civil Rights Record Is Criticized (by the US Gov itself)

i guess words like "shame", "honour" and "responsibility" counts for nothing thesedays

"The Commission found that the problems Florida had during the 2000 presidential election were serious and not isolated. In many cases, they were foreseeable and should have been prevented. The failure to do so resulted in an extraordinarily high and inexcusable level of disenfranchisement, with a significantly disproportionate impact on African American voters."

- Voting Irregularities in Florida During the 2000 Presidential Election, from the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights

Bush "won" Florida by 537 votes. Tens of thousands were turned away at the polls. That's not what I call a "just fine" election.

If you read the Official Report on the investigation of voting irregularities and possible disfranchisement, there were various reported incidents but none involved the felon list. Most of the incidents seem like they were a result of misregistration. Not one witness came forward to say that they were prevented from voting because of the felon list. And a final thought about the correlation between incidents and skin color is that the sample space may be skewed, because if a white person is prevented from voting, it is not highly probable that they would blame racism for it, and hence be far less likely to report it. Not saying a deliberate and systematic effort to disenfranchise a certain demograhic didn't happen, but I doubt it. A plan of this scale would need be in the hands of more clever and compentent folks. I understand why people spout off about the felon list, it does make for a better sound bite.

Quote from that website:
The variables for Democratic and African American supervisors are negative; the coefficient for Republican supervisor is positive. The only justifiable conclusion from these results is once again that there is no statistically significant relationship between whether election supervisors are Democratic, Republican or African American and either overall ballot rejection rates or racial disparities in ballot rejection rates.

Your source has failed to indicate a Republican conspiracy. Here is a direct link to the chapter where I found the above quote. If you can find a better quote suggeting a conspiracy, please include it along with an exerpt in the reply.

Who? Where? Please provide examples of a credible (ie. non-conspiracy theorist) source suggesting that Republicans might abuse a security hole.

Try the US Civil Rights Commission. (Their report on the Florida electoral fraud is available here: http://www.usccr.gov/pubs/vote2000/report/main.htm )

If you have a link around you could post, I'd be grateful.

One link I can find quickly is to the report of Voting Irregularities in Florida During the 2000 Presidential Election.

IMHO, the gov't reports are typical bureaucratic-speak which tries too hard to be non-judgemental and non-offensive (remember, this report was being written when the authors knew that Bush would be in office for 4 years -- thus, the political price of taking a strong position would be substantial). Combining the gov't analysis with reports from even the mainstream corporate media (LA/NY Times, etc.) gives a much more thorough picture. If you add in coverage from British or other "friendly" overseas media, it's becomes far more clear what happened.

Then allow me to quote from the Dissenting Statement from 2 commission members:

VI. The Commission's Analysis of the Felon List is Misleading The report asserts that the use of a convicted felons list "has a disparate impact on African Americans." "African Americans in Florida were more likely to find their names on the list than persons of other races." Of course, because a higher proportion of blacks have been convicted of felonies in Florida, as elsewhere in the nation. But there is no evidence that the state targeted blacks in a discriminatory manner in constructing a purge list, or that the state made less of an effort to notify listed African Americans and to correct errors than it did with whites. The Commission did not hear from a single witness who was actually prevented from voting as a result of being erroneously identified as a felon. Furthermore, whites were twice as likely as blacks to be placed on the list erroneously, not the other way around.

The compilation of the purge list was part of an anti-fraud measure enacted by the Florida legislature in the wake of a Miami mayoral election in which ineligible voters cast ballots. The list for the 2000 election was over-inclusive, and some supervisors made no use of it. (The majority report did not bother to ask how many counties relied upon it.) On the other hand, according to the Palm Beach Post, more than 6,500 ineligible felons voted.

Based on extensive research, the Miami Herald concluded that the biggest problem with the felon list was not that it wrongly prevented eligible voters from casting ballots, but that it ended up allowing ineligible voters to cast a ballot. The Commission should have looked into allegations of voter fraud, not only with respect to ineligible felons, but allegations involving fraudulent absentee ballots in nursing homes, unregistered voters, and so forth. Across the country in a variety of jurisdictions, serious questions about voter fraud have been raised....

The table reveals that 239 for the 4,678 African Americans on the Miami-Dade felons' list objected when they were notified that they were ineligible to vote and were cleared to participate. They 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. Thus, the error rate for whites was almost double that for blacks...

Most notably, the Commission did not hear from a single witness who was prevented from voting as a result of being erroneously identified as a felon. One witness did testify that he was erroneously removed from the voter list because he had been mistaken for another individual on the felon list whose name and birth date were practically identical to his. However, he was able to convince precinct officials that there had been a clerical error, and he was allowed to vote.

So, basically, the majority opinion of the USCCR study concluded that most of the people that were not allowed to vote were incorrectly included on the list even though they didn't receive testimony from a single person who fit this scenario. That sounds like some good investigative work.

Let's see; from the US Commission on Civil Right's Is America Ready to Vote? Election Readiness Briefing Paper, page 50, last paragraph:

In 2000, the Commission also found that prior to the elections, officials in Florida had removed thousands of names on the grounds that they were convicted felons. In fact, only a fraction of those removed actually had felony convictions; most were Floridians who had similar names. After the election, state officials ordered the names replaced on the rolls, but affected Floridians had already been barred from voting.

-Ed

This has been researched and debunked by the US Commission on Civil Rights in this report. There was one complaint about a checkpoint -- two miles away from the polling place, on a different road, and citing 16 people in the 90 minutes it was in operation, 12 of them white.

In addition, more whites were more likely to be removed from the voting list than blacks on the basis of convictions, and yet a total of some 6500 felons voted.

Unless you have some facts to back up your assertions instead of wild claims that just won't die, I'm sticking to my views.

Yep.

Your politicians will do anything for a vote.

Ah, if only.

It has turned out to be simpler to block the people most likely from voting a certain way so they can't vote at all.

The legislators will really do anything for... a campaign contribution.

Unfortunately, most people can be counted upon to vote for the incumbent, or the slate from the same political party with which their parents identified themselves. And patent reform is too esoteric of a subject to capture the interest of most folks.

Democracy was great, in theory...

<grrr>

What in the hell are you talking about?

First of all, Disney is a private corporation- they have nothing to do with free speech. Freedom of speech does not mean that a private entity like Disney is required to distribute every crap-filled documentary that Michael Moore makes.

And your claim about Jeb Bush is even more laughable. Jeb Bush doesn't have the authority to remove ANYBODY from voter rolls. According to Florida law, that responsibility falls on the election supervisor in each county. It was that way in 2000, also. And after all of the hoopla about the felon list in the 2000 election, the USCCR was only able to identify 4 people that were wrongly removed from voter registration, and 3 of them were allowed to vote anyway.

But don't let the facts get in the way of our hate-filled rant.

The report does not find that the highest officials of the state conspired to disenfranchise voters. Moreover, even if it was foreseeable that certain actions by officials led to voter disenfranchisement, this alone does not mean that intentional discrimination occurred.

(e) Upon hearing evidence at the hearing, the supervisor of elections must determine whether there is sufficient evidence to strike the persons name from the registration books. If the supervisor determines that there is sufficient evidence, he or she must strike the name.

• Defendants have taken an oath to support, protect and defend the Constitution and laws of the United States and of the State of Florida, and are dedicated to act in a manner consistent with the requirements of federal, state and local election law. Plaintiffs have not alleged that Defendants acted in a purposefully discriminatory manner toward any group.

A law that was passed before they were in office

A voter "felon" list that was comissioned by a Democrat and wasn't even used by the entire state

Voter registrations that were removed by Democrat county election officials in Democratic counties

Intentional Voter Disenfranchisement, even when the U.S. Civil Rights Comission concluded that:

• The report does not find that the highest officials of the state conspired to disenfranchise voters.

The same U.S.C.C.R struggled to find 5 voters who were "disenfranchised", 4 of which were allowed to vote and the 5th had been convicted of a crime.

A list of 57,000 names where it is unknown A) How many names were incorrectly included, B) How many names were actually scrubbed of the voter registration by county election officials, C) How many were in a county that actually used the list, D) How many who were incorrectly on the list didn't dispute the list as they were entitled to do up to 1 week before the election, E) Who these people would have voted for if they were allowed to vote and F) How many would have bothered to go and vote in the first place

Whatever alternate reality you are in, that must be some pretty good stuff you're smokin.

• Defendants have taken an oath to support, protect and defend the Constitution and laws of the United States and of the State of Florida, and are dedicated to act in a manner consistent with the requirements of federal, state and local election law. Plaintiffs have not alleged that Defendants acted in a purposefully discriminatory manner toward any group.

A law that was passed before they were in office

A voter "felon" list that was comissioned by a Democrat and wasn't even used by the entire state

Voter registrations that were removed by Democrat county election officials in Democratic counties

Intentional Voter Disenfranchisement, even when the U.S. Civil Rights Comission concluded that:

• The report does not find that the highest officials of the state conspired to disenfranchise voters.

The same U.S.C.C.R struggled to find 5 voters who were "disenfranchised", 4 of which were allowed to vote and the 5th had been convicted of a crime.

A list of 57,000 names where it is unknown A) How many names were incorrectly included, B) How many names were actually scrubbed of the voter registration by county election officials, C) How many were in a county that actually used the list, D) How many who were incorrectly on the list didn't dispute the list as they were entitled to do up to 1 week before the election, E) Who these people would have voted for if they were allowed to vote and F) How many would have bothered to go and vote in the first place

Whatever alternate reality you are in, that must be some pretty good stuff you're smokin.

Here is a reminder of what happened to you last time you tried to bring this up. Some Democrats never learn....

Here is what the inquiry acually found:

The report does not find that the highest officials of the state conspired to disenfranchise voters. Moreover, even if it was foreseeable that certain actions by officials led to voter disenfranchisement, this alone does not mean that intentional discrimination occurred. Instead, the report concludes that officials ignored the mounting evidence of rising voter registration rates in communities.

Neocon, your points on England, the Netherlands, and Denmark, compare civil penalties, restrictions, and impositions to criminal imprisonment. I agree that prior restraint, restrictions and impositions on the practice of journalism, and warrantless searches are bad, but who thinks that they are anywhere near as bad as the U.S. pandering to powerful prison guard unions resulting in mandatory minimum sentencing fiascos?

From the July 2000 report, Poor Prescription: The Costs of Imprisoning Drug Offenders in the United States:

Nearly one in four persons (23.7%) imprisoned in the United States is currently imprisoned for a drug offense. The number of persons behind bars for drug offenses (458,131) is roughly the same as the entire prison and jail population in 1980 (474,368).

From a utilitarian perspective, this situation is pointless because as far as I can tell, both prescription and illicit drugs are as available now as they were in 1980. And crime rates in general are within 20% of 1980 levels -- but we have four times as many people in prison! Does that trend lead you to believe that we are becoming more or less free?

For what reason do you suggest that prior restraint and the Official Secrets Act make people less free than mandatory minimum drug sentences? You can compare the two by simply determining whether the other nations in question have a greater proportion of people in prison for violations of the laws you cite. There is no greater loss of freedom experienced in the industrialized world than to be put in prison, save for execution (which, of those countries, is only practiced in the U.S., by the way.) To compare imprisonment to restrictions on freedom of speech resulting in civil penalties, or even warrantless searches, is simply absurd. I'll agree that we are more free in some ways, but nowhere near the most free overall.

DEMOCRACY:

``disqualification of voters'': this accusation ... is nothing more than FUD -- extensive investigations by a number of groups have failed to turn up any significant number of people who were disqualified from voting who were not, in fact felons.

Not according to:

• John Ashcroft's Justice Department
• The New York Times, contrary to your assertion
• The United States Civil Rights Commission -- excerpt:

  Estimates indicate that approximately 14.4 percent of Florida's black voters cast ballots that were rejected. This compares with approximately 1.6 percent of nonblack Florida voters who did not have their presidential votes counted.

• direct inspection of the database tables used

of the nations you name, only one, Australia, uses anything resembling preferential voting of any sort, as you can verify at the Center for Voting and Democracy. Other than them, only Ireland, Malta, and Nauru, in all the world, use any form of such voting. Secondly, this system does not, as you seem to think, necessarily result in a `more democratic' outcome.

While you are technically correct about Austrailia, the systems in use in Canada and Brazil, and parts of England, e.g., the metropolitan London area, and France, also serve to eliminate the spoiler effect. Without the spoiler effect, Ross Perot would not have kept G.H.W. Bush from being re-elected, so this cuts both ways. Any nation incompetent enough to eliminate the spoiler effect, so easily done, is centuries behind in democracy.

POVERTY:

Article on Salon...

Guess you missed this correction.

Harpers...

Here is Katherine Harris' response to the garbage the Palast published.

You might also want to read the USCCR Report, which states in part:

The report does not find that the highest officials of the state conspired to disenfranchise voters. Moreover, even if it was foreseeable that certain actions by officials led to voter disenfranchisement, this alone does not mean that intentional discrimination occurred. Instead, the report concludes that officials ignored the mounting evidence of rising voter registration rates in communities..

The Dissenting Statement is also a worthwhile read on the subject.

Article on Salon...

Guess you missed this correction.

Harpers...

Here is Katherine Harris' response to the garbage the Palast published.

You might also want to read the USCCR Report, which states in part:

The report does not find that the highest officials of the state conspired to disenfranchise voters. Moreover, even if it was foreseeable that certain actions by officials led to voter disenfranchisement, this alone does not mean that intentional discrimination occurred. Instead, the report concludes that officials ignored the mounting evidence of rising voter registration rates in communities..

The Dissenting Statement is also a worthwhile read on the subject.

You're forgetting: the duty to produce a list of voters who should NOT be allowed to vote because of their ex-felon status was delegated to a private firm.

This firm was hired in 1997 as a result of Florida Statute Section 98.0975, which mandated the use of a private firm to provide the names of potentially ineligible voters who remained on the voter-registration rolls. They were hired by the Florida Director of Elections, Ethel Baxtor (a Democrate), before Harris was even in office.

This firm produced a list and gave it to Harris saying 'hey, this list is over populated and needs to be rechecked by your officials - who should know who really IS an ex-felon in your state.' KH said 'No problem, just make it as "comprehensive" as you can, we'll sort it out!' So, the overloaded list was handed to KH... what did she do? She turned around and distributed it to the counties and their polling places, as is, and claimed that it was carefully reviewed before being put in to use.

That's what she was required to do by Florida State Law. The legislature, not the Department of State, required county supervisors to remove the names of these persons from the voting rolls if they were unable to determine that this information was incorrect.

End result? Hundreds, if not thousands, of eligible voters were turned away at the polls.

The US Civil Rights Comission struggled to find 5 such people (and 4 of the people they did find were eventually allowed to vote).

By the way, most modern industrialized (and even some not so industrialized) nations have realized that blocking ex-felons from voting is just another way of disenfranchising a class of voter - akin to poll taxes and the like. Reconstructionist bullshit, to put it nicely.

This isn't isolated to just Florida. 9 states have a lifetime voting ban on convicted felons, and another 32 states have some sort of restriction on felons voting. This is hardly something that can be blamed on those evil republicans.

The Civil Rights Commission found no one who was unfairly denied the right to vote despite it being in their institutional and personal interest to do so.

That's funny, because this link says they found "it was widespread voter disenfranchisement, not the dead-heat contest, that was the extraordinary feature in the Florida election. The disenfranchisement was not isolated or episodic. And state officials failed to fulfill their duties in a manner that would prevent this disenfranchisement."

So I ask you AC, are you lying or just misinformed?

Ah so a dissenting statement by a group of Republicans proves that there was no electoral fraud!

And a factless report by a group of partisan Democrats does prove it?

BTW the dissent disputes the findings by rejecting all the testimony and facts found as 'anecdotal' they provide no contradictory claims, nor do they dispute the evidence in detail, they dispute the claim that the returning officer and governor had responsibility, which is odd when you look who was responsible for compiling the list at the center of the claims and for distributing the wrong and illegal advice to the returning officers.

Lets look at the "facts" represented by the USCCR report.

Willie D. Whiting, Jr., a member of the clergy and registered voter in Tallahassee, who went with his family to vote at his assigned polling place, Precinct 42 in Leon County. When Apostle Whiting presented his driver's license for identification purposes, the poll worker said his name was not on the registration list and called the supervisor of elections for Leon County to verify his registration status. Apostle Whiting asked to speak with a supervisor at that office, and he was told that an individual named Willie J. Whiting, born two days after Apostle Whiting, had been convicted of a felony in the state of Florida. Consequently, Apostle Whiting learned he had been wrongfully removed from the registration list. After Apostle Whiting threatened to contact an attorney, he was allowed to vote.[204]

William J. Snow, Jr., a Miami-Dade resident, testified that he received notice that he would be ineligible to vote in the November 2000 election because of a felony conviction. Receiving the notice "caused a great stress" upon Mr. Snow's heart because he had never been convicted of a felony. Mr. Snow testified that the problem has been corrected. Mr. Snow has been a Miami-Dade County resident for more than 33 years and voted in the 1996 election without incident.[205]

Marilyn Nelson, a poll worker with 15 years of experience in Precinct 232 in Miami-Dade County, encountered "quite a few" people whose names did not appear on the rolls at her precinct. When she called the supervisor of elections office, she was told that their rights had been taken away from them due to an alleged felony conviction. She was further instructed by the supervisor's office that she could not inform those voters of the reason for their removal from the rolls, but she was instructed to "tell them to call downtown at a later date."[206]

Professor Darryl Paulson testified that the Hillsborough County supervisor of elections estimated that 15 percent of those purged were purged in error and they were disproportionately African American. According to Professor Paulson, another source estimated that 7,000 voters, mostly African Americans and registered Democrats, were removed from the list.[207]

According to news reports, even those who had received a full pardon for their offenses were listed on DBT's exclusion list.

Reverend Willie Dixon, a Tampa resident, received a full pardon for drug offenses in 1985, and has since become a youth leader, a bible preacher, and a "pillar of the Tampa African American community who has voted in every presidential election."[208] But despite his 15 years of voting status, Pam Iorio, the supervisor of elections for Hillsborough County, sent Reverend Dixon a letter informing him that he had been removed from the rolls because of a prior conviction.[209] Eventually, Reverend Dixon was able to verify his status as a registered voter.[210]

Media accounts also captured the impact of list maintenance activities and the frustration they caused for Florida voters.[211]

Wallace McDonald, in 1959, was convicted of a misdemeanor, vagrancy, for falling asleep on a bench in Tampa while he waited for a bus. In 2000, Mr. McDonald received a letter from Ms. Iorio informing him that

The allegation that Jeb Bush and Harris fixed the poll was confirmed by the commission

Bull. Did you even read the commission report? From the Executive Summary:

The report does not find that the highest officials of the state conspired to disenfranchise voters. Moreover, even if it was foreseeable that certain actions by officials led to voter disenfranchisement, this alone does not mean that intentional discrimination occurred. Instead, the report concludes that officials ignored the mounting evidence of rising voter registration rates in communities.

The guy who was unearthing this was Pallast. The US press would not publish him but the UK guardian, the BBC and the international press did.

Isn't it interesting that the only "source" for these allegations is a so-called "reporter" who has renounced his US citizenship? It's quiet apparent that he has a vested interest in discrediting the Bush Presidency.

The US press only reported the story in July 2001 after the commission confirmed the evidence and Bush had been installed.

Again, Bull. Read the USCCR report before you look like an ass. The report did not find voter fraud, it found votor "disenfranchisement".

The Commission found that the problems Florida had during the 2000 presidential election were serious and not isolated. In many cases, they were foreseeable and should have been prevented. The failure to do so resulted in an extraordinarily high and inexcusable level of disenfranchisement, with a significantly disproportionate impact on African American voters

This conclusion led to a harsh Dissent from comissioner Abigail Thernstrom and Russel Redenbaugh, who said in part:

The Commission's report has little basis in fact. Its conclusions are based on a deeply flawed statistical analysis coupled with anecdotal evidence of limited value, unverified by a proper factual investigation. This shaky foundation is used to justify charges of the most serious nature--questioning the legitimacy of the American electoral process and the validity of the most recent presidential election. The report's central finding--that there was "widespread disenfranchisement and denial of voting rights" in Florida's 2000 presidential election--does not withstand even a cursory legal or scholarly scrutiny. Leveling such a serious charge without clear justification is an unwarranted assault upon the public's confidence in American democracy.

The only reason you won't see the US media looking into this story is simply because there is no story at all to report.

The allegation that Jeb Bush and Harris fixed the poll was confirmed by the commission

Bull. Did you even read the commission report? From the Executive Summary:

The report does not find that the highest officials of the state conspired to disenfranchise voters. Moreover, even if it was foreseeable that certain actions by officials led to voter disenfranchisement, this alone does not mean that intentional discrimination occurred. Instead, the report concludes that officials ignored the mounting evidence of rising voter registration rates in communities.

The guy who was unearthing this was Pallast. The US press would not publish him but the UK guardian, the BBC and the international press did.

Isn't it interesting that the only "source" for these allegations is a so-called "reporter" who has renounced his US citizenship? It's quiet apparent that he has a vested interest in discrediting the Bush Presidency.

The US press only reported the story in July 2001 after the commission confirmed the evidence and Bush had been installed.

Again, Bull. Read the USCCR report before you look like an ass. The report did not find voter fraud, it found votor "disenfranchisement".

The Commission found that the problems Florida had during the 2000 presidential election were serious and not isolated. In many cases, they were foreseeable and should have been prevented. The failure to do so resulted in an extraordinarily high and inexcusable level of disenfranchisement, with a significantly disproportionate impact on African American voters

This conclusion led to a harsh Dissent from comissioner Abigail Thernstrom and Russel Redenbaugh, who said in part:

The Commission's report has little basis in fact. Its conclusions are based on a deeply flawed statistical analysis coupled with anecdotal evidence of limited value, unverified by a proper factual investigation. This shaky foundation is used to justify charges of the most serious nature--questioning the legitimacy of the American electoral process and the validity of the most recent presidential election. The report's central finding--that there was "widespread disenfranchisement and denial of voting rights" in Florida's 2000 presidential election--does not withstand even a cursory legal or scholarly scrutiny. Leveling such a serious charge without clear justification is an unwarranted assault upon the public's confidence in American democracy.

The only reason you won't see the US media looking into this story is simply because there is no story at all to report.

The allegation that Jeb Bush and Harris fixed the poll was confirmed by the commission

Bull. Did you even read the commission report? From the Executive Summary:

The report does not find that the highest officials of the state conspired to disenfranchise voters. Moreover, even if it was foreseeable that certain actions by officials led to voter disenfranchisement, this alone does not mean that intentional discrimination occurred. Instead, the report concludes that officials ignored the mounting evidence of rising voter registration rates in communities.

The guy who was unearthing this was Pallast. The US press would not publish him but the UK guardian, the BBC and the international press did.

Isn't it interesting that the only "source" for these allegations is a so-called "reporter" who has renounced his US citizenship? It's quiet apparent that he has a vested interest in discrediting the Bush Presidency.

The US press only reported the story in July 2001 after the commission confirmed the evidence and Bush had been installed.

Again, Bull. Read the USCCR report before you look like an ass. The report did not find voter fraud, it found votor "disenfranchisement".

The Commission found that the problems Florida had during the 2000 presidential election were serious and not isolated. In many cases, they were foreseeable and should have been prevented. The failure to do so resulted in an extraordinarily high and inexcusable level of disenfranchisement, with a significantly disproportionate impact on African American voters

This conclusion led to a harsh Dissent from comissioner Abigail Thernstrom and Russel Redenbaugh, who said in part:

The Commission's report has little basis in fact. Its conclusions are based on a deeply flawed statistical analysis coupled with anecdotal evidence of limited value, unverified by a proper factual investigation. This shaky foundation is used to justify charges of the most serious nature--questioning the legitimacy of the American electoral process and the validity of the most recent presidential election. The report's central finding--that there was "widespread disenfranchisement and denial of voting rights" in Florida's 2000 presidential election--does not withstand even a cursory legal or scholarly scrutiny. Leveling such a serious charge without clear justification is an unwarranted assault upon the public's confidence in American democracy.

The only reason you won't see the US media looking into this story is simply because there is no story at all to report.

Election procedures are controlled by the individual County Elections Supervisors. Out of the 25 counties with the highest ballot "spoilage" rates, 24 of the counties were supervised by a democrat, and the 25th was supervised by an independent.

The NAACP, who was called in to represent these minority voters that you claim were disenfranchised, were very clear that they don't allege that anybody "acted in a purposefully discriminatory manner toward any group."

Dr John Lott of Yale University did his own study, and he concluded that coefficient on the percent of voters who were black to the number of spoiled ballots was not statistically significant.

Election procedures are controlled by the individual County Elections Supervisors. Out of the 25 counties with the highest ballot "spoilage" rates, 24 of the counties were supervised by a democrat, and the 25th was supervised by an independent.

The NAACP, who was called in to represent these minority voters that you claim were disenfranchised, were very clear that they don't allege that anybody "acted in a purposefully discriminatory manner toward any group."

Dr John Lott of Yale University did his own study, and he concluded that coefficient on the percent of voters who were black to the number of spoiled ballots was not statistically significant.

The Commission did not hear from a single witness who was actually prevented from voting as a result of being erroneously identified as a felon. Furthermore, whites were twice as likely as blacks to be placed on the list erroneously, not the other way around.

The USCCR held hearings on this issue and heard testimony from those affected in the 2000 election. Look at Chapter 5 of the report. Scroll down to the section titled "Human Consequences of Felon Exclusion List". There are 6 anecdotal testimonies about voter exclusion list inaccuracies. Of these testimonies, only one person testified that they were not allowed to vote, but their inclusion on the list was accurate because of a criminal conviction in the 1950's. The rest of the testimonies are either vague ("Marilyn Nelson, a poll worker with 15 years of experience in Precinct 232 in Miami-Dade County, encountered "quite a few" people whose names did not appear on the rolls at her precinct") or the problem was corrected. Yet, the comission concluded that there was "widespread disenfranchisement and denial of voting rights" in the 2000 election based on these testimonies.

This prompted a harsh dissent from commissioner Abigail Thernstrom and Russel Redenbaugh about the conclusions of the USCCR report. They wrote, in part:

The Commission's report has little basis in fact. Its conclusions are based on a deeply flawed statistical analysis coupled with anecdotal evidence of limited value, unverified by a proper factual investigation. This shaky foundation is used to justify charges of the most serious nature--questioning the legitimacy of the American electoral process and the validity of the most recent presidential election. The report's central finding--that there was "widespread disenfranchisement and denial of voting rights" in Florida's 2000 presidential election--does not withstand even a cursory legal or scholarly scrutiny. Leveling such a serious charge without clear justification is an unwarranted assault upon the public's confidence in American democracy.

The USCCR held hearings on this issue and heard testimony from those affected in the 2000 election. Look at Chapter 5 of the report. Scroll down to the section titled "Human Consequences of Felon Exclusion List". There are 6 anecdotal testimonies about voter exclusion list inaccuracies. Of these testimonies, only one person testified that they were not allowed to vote, but their inclusion on the list was accurate because of a criminal conviction in the 1950's. The rest of the testimonies are either vague ("Marilyn Nelson, a poll worker with 15 years of experience in Precinct 232 in Miami-Dade County, encountered "quite a few" people whose names did not appear on the rolls at her precinct") or the problem was corrected. Yet, the comission concluded that there was "widespread disenfranchisement and denial of voting rights" in the 2000 election based on these testimonies.

This prompted a harsh dissent from commissioner Abigail Thernstrom and Russel Redenbaugh about the conclusions of the USCCR report. They wrote, in part:

The Commission's report has little basis in fact. Its conclusions are based on a deeply flawed statistical analysis coupled with anecdotal evidence of limited value, unverified by a proper factual investigation. This shaky foundation is used to justify charges of the most serious nature--questioning the legitimacy of the American electoral process and the validity of the most recent presidential election. The report's central finding--that there was "widespread disenfranchisement and denial of voting rights" in Florida's 2000 presidential election--does not withstand even a cursory legal or scholarly scrutiny. Leveling such a serious charge without clear justification is an unwarranted assault upon the public's confidence in American democracy.

There is a vast amount of evidence that large numbers of people were denied the right to vote because they had a similar name to that of a known criminal

So how come the US Civil Rights Comission failed to find a single person who was denied to vote on this basis?

Those running the election (Katherine Harris) employed a company now owned by Diebold (I believe) to construct the list used

No, Katherine Harris didn't employ ChoicePoint (formally DBT Online). She wasn't even in office when Choicepoint was comissioned. They were hired in 1997 by Ethel Baxtor, who was the Florida Director of Elections (and who is also a Democrat).

This list included people from other states who had prior criminal records but were allowed to vote under FLORIDA law - however they were removed from the voter's role.

No, this list did not remove anybody from the voters role. That was the responsibility of the local county election officials after they had verified the names on the list and given notice to those who were ineligible to vote. This is how the state law was written.

this deliberate policy of ignoring FLORIDA state law by it's governer and the electoral commitees disadvantaged the Democrats as most poor and black voters vote democrat.

Lets go back to Government 101. The Executive Branch (i.e., the Governor) do not write the laws. In this case, the Florida Legislature passed chaptor 98.0975 in 1997 (before Jeb Bush was elected to office) requiring the list to be compiled, (ironically it was the Democrats who were calling for this list because of supposed votor irregularies in the 1997 Miami Mayoral race). No laws were ignored. The list was compiled because the legistlature passed a law requiring it.

You might want to check a few facts before you start foaming at the mouth trying to discredit the Bush presidency.

Um, DBT/Choicepoint was hired before Katherine Harris took office, and they were hired by a Democrat named Ethel Baxtor.

Oh- and although the list was pretty inaccurate, the Florida law accounted for this and required each individual county election supervisor to verify the names on the felon list (many of them are democrats too!). Many counties ignored the list completely. In fact, when the USCCR held hearings on the Florida elections, they were unable to interview a single person that was incorrectly prevented from voting because of the felon list (A link of the dissenting opinion that supports this claim)

Since you seem to want people to back up their information with links, where were your links to back up your claims? Please use something better than a Greg Palast op-ed or a link to democrats.com.