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Republicans Plan Voter Challenges in Florida
An anonymous reader writes "Greg Palast, the journalist who first reported on the initial Florida voter scandal (Warning large PDF), thinks he's found a new threat for this election, reported here at the BBC. He did uncover some interesting shenanigans last time, is this significant, or is he just fishing this time?"
Ohio has counties with 30,000 more registrations than there are people, and we're talking about 1200 questionable registrations in Florida.
In other news, a box of paperclips was found in a local Republican campaign office. Regional Democrats agreed that said paperclips could only be used for evil.
[PowerPoint] is a tool for capitalist presentation
If they are so worried about keeping likely Democratic voters from casting ballots, maybe they really don't have root on all the electronic voting machines.
Quantum materiae materietur marmota monax si marmota monax materiam possit materiari?
Isn't it possible that someone wanted to send letters them letters asking them to vote for Bush?
Please consider that source. Visit his website and ask yourself if he is capable of unbiased critical thought or is this another hatchet-job.
"It takes considerable knowledge just to realize the extent of your own ignorance." - Thomas Sowell
What would really be funny is if all 1,886 of those black voters switched their affiliation to the Republican party to get "the man" off their backs, voted for complete idiots at the primaries, and then still voted Democrat on election day.
The idea behind voter challenges is that anyone can challenge the legitimacy and eligibility of a voter. This is especially important in states like Florida, Texas, Arizona, and California where there are large numbers of illegal immigrants who may be influenced to illegally vote. This is also a problem because there are even American citizens who are not eligible to vote such as felons.
Unfortunately, this law is also a door to abuse. Indiscriminate use of the challenge procedure is akin to Scientology's use of lawsuits to silence the opposition. It produces a chilling effect and keeps people away from the polls.
However, despite this list being available, the article (neither of them) does not delve deeply into the names nor the reasoning behind them, only going so far as to say that it could possibly be a Republican plot. However, if the names all belong to felons who are not eligible to vote in the first place, such a list is absolutely necessary.
This is a story looking for more research, not more explosives. Unfortunately, most people would rather toss bombs than to do the hard work of finding out what is really going on.
Greg Palast is a fantastic journalist. If you read his book The Best Democracy Money Can Buy you'll see what I mean. He seems to have a knack for getting incriminating information and confidential documents. He's certainly not the only one that can do this, but most others are be dismissed as crackpots, while Palast appears in mainstream (all be it non-American) media (BBC and he writes for a UK paper as well).
And does anyone really doubt that Dubya would try to pull anything he can to stay president? He didn't have the popular vote last time, he may or may not have it this time. While he's leading in the polls, the modern republican party doesn't seem like the kind of group that likes to leave things to chance...
This is left as an exercise for the reader.
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:
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.
"It takes considerable knowledge just to realize the extent of your own ignorance." - Thomas Sowell
Well, considering that the republican party in FL has tried a number of shennanigans (remember the felons list recently?) in the hope of preventing dems from getting to the polls it's bloody hard to trust them on this. Especially in an election where bush has all but given up the black vote (he didn't even meet with the NAACP!)
Photos.
The article is somewhat brief, especially compared to the original story, you can watch the TV report on the Newsnight pages.
And pretty soon the Republican brand of freedom will no doubt be on the march all over the world.
GOP uber alles!
eat shiat and bark at the moon
What's interesting about this story is the way the it was uncovered. The "secret" email was only revealed because of the stupidity of the sender. Instead of sending it to an email address at the real bush campaign website, it was sent to georgewbush.org, an anti-bush website. georgewbush.org decided to post all email in their catch-all to in what they call the "dead letter office."
http://www.georgewbush.org/deadletteroffice/
Look for an e-mail with the subject "caging"
http://almostsmart.com
Let's see. There is some reported voter registration fraud. Here is a case in Ohio were a registrar was paid with cocaine and registered "Dick Tracy" and "George Foreman":s sf?/base/iscri/109818543096130.xml
/ a/2004/10/17/MNGAB99QEA1.DTL
l icans-Deploy-Lawyers-for-Possible-Election-Battles .cfm
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. php
http://www.cleveland.com/crime/plaindealer/index.
along with non-anecdotal evidence of potential fraud (higher incidence of registrations from incorrect address).
There is record voter registration in important states:
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/c
The democrats have supposedly hired many lawyers to monitor polls, etc.:
http://www.voanews.com/english/US-Democrats-Repub
Al Gore is telling blacks to "vote early" so their vote will count, presumably not like the last time:
"Early voting is a good idea," he said. "You want to give them plenty of time to count all the votes."
http://www.cnn.com/2004/ALLPOLITICS/10/24/gore.ap
In all, it seems like the making for a very big mess, and I think this election, with things so close, I for one would be suspicious and at least investigate.
One thing I find interesting about this story, is that there is no evidence of any actual wrongdoing, just innuendo, but perhaps this is just part of the democrat playbook, which is to allege claiming voter intimidation, whether it's true or not:
http://cleveland.indymedia.org/news/2004/10/12700
Ed Barbar, President and General Manager, Furnit USA
Perhaps - Blacks no longer their allegiance to an organization that refers to them as 'Colored People'
http://www.usatoday.com/news/politicselections/naFrom This article where they interview a guy at hte organizaiton that created that number.
"George Bush will get a higher share of the black vote than he did in 2000 because he was at the total bottom," Bositis says. "The only people who voted for him were the most totally and completely hard-core black Republican voters."
So no, the Democrats aren't losing their appeal, the repubs are just sucking less.
Furthermore, the fact that the document contains the names of not just black, but also traditionally democratic areas makes me think that this is more than just a get out the bush message effort. If it were black voters alone, you'd have a point.
Photos.
Although I have bashed on the Republicans, the Democrats can be just as corrupt. They will undoubtedly have their own people at the polls to intimidate voters.
Soon, everyone will need a lawyer to exercise one's right to vote. Amen for American Democracy!
I didn't recommend that he waste time on the black vote. I was pointing to the futility of this as reason to cast a suspicious eye on his florida strategy. In fact we're in agreement on this.
And what the hell do his black appointments have to do with this? I never claimed he was racist.
Lastly you can't point to one of his policies (vouchers) and a highly controversial one at that and say X is the friend of Y. You have to look at a president's total record which we are NOT doing here.
I'm simply saying that this development doesn't jive with good campaigning. While bush may possibly have an 18% black vote nationwide, in florida the story is different:
If the Democratic primaries are any indication, Kerry has little to worry about. In multiple states, he exceeded Mr. Clinton's turnout among blacks. In Florida alone, Kerry earned 81 percent of the black vote versus Mr. Clinton's 74 percent in 1992.
Photos.
It's simply list of 1,886 of the 46,000 voters registered in both New York and Florida. 68% of which are dems (and 1,700 of which requested absentee ballots.)2 807c.html
http://www.nydailynews.com/front/story/224449p-19
go here. .com. .org is an anti-Bush site!
.com website basically comparing attractiveness of the Bush daughters.
Seems like they accidentally sent a copy to someone at a georgewbush.org email address, instead of
This site's been printing a lot of other interesting misdirected letters, also.
Bonus: way at the bottom of this page is a discussion between staffers at the
Not bring up this tidbit:
http://www.drudgereport.com/dnc66.htm
During the last election, a group didn't like the results of the Florida election so they proceeded to litigate it and question it in the media.
After this, two government groups made up of both Democrats and Republicans found no evidence of wrongdoing. Separately, a group of major newspapers looking to expose the story did an investigation and found no evidence of wrongdoing.
In the end, the media hype caused the nation to get into an uproar that caused a shift from punch cards to electronic voting. This shift was from one of the most idiot-proof and fix-proof methods of voting, to to one of the most fix-able forms of voting.
Let us hope this does not happen again.
In other words, it concluded the exact opposite of what you pretend it concluded.
Truman was the first president to address the NAACP. Truman took office in 1945.
Roosevelt was president until 1945 and never addressed the NAACP.
Therefore, Roosevelt was the first president since the 30's to skip the annual NAACP gathering.
Since Roosevelt was the first president since the 30's to skip the gathering, it is impossible for Bush to also be the first president since the 30's to skip the gathering
So, it is technically correct to say "the NAACP officials said blah" when the the NAACP officials did in fact say "blah." But, it is poor journalism to include a quote with an easily verifiable falsehood.
Answer: NO it would not make sense. You dont know if they already accounted for this in the statement.
A good leader should be able once elected to then be a leader to the whole country. Not just those that voted for him. Simply put considering the recent american election results a democrat should be half repiblican and a republican half democrat BECAUSE THAT IS HOW THE AMERICAN PUBLIC VOTED.
If you are reading about the current election you get the idea that 50% of america totally distrusts the other 50% of america. The democrats think the republicans will create a police state ruled by big business, the republicans think the democrats want to invite the UN as a police force to control their right to carry machine guns.
This article is about a list found. While there is some smoke here you can see the democrats leaping off to conclusions that just ain't supported by the findings but you also see the republicans leaping to defences that just ain't supported by history. It ain't that both are wrong, it is that both seem not to care about the truth instead twisting the few facts known to suit their mindset.
The "war on terror" has this as well. Republicans think that if only america hits hard enough the world will come to heel. Never realizing that perhaps the world is barking and biting precisly because america is hitting it.
The democrats seem to believe that its current enemies could have been apeaced if only it had done X or hadn't done Y. They never seem to capable of realizing that perhaps its current enemies hate america because it is there. That just being a democracy with freedom of religion is enough to be a bitter enemy.
The most amusing is the example of foreign support for the iraq war. Democrats seem to claim that it should have had support and that countries like france, germany and russia took the moral highroad by not giving support. Like hell. These countries had major money intrests in Iraq and didn't want to lose them. More recent evidence suggests that Iraq was even buying politicians in europe. Before people cry "Republican propaganda" think this. These are the same politicians who said they would vote against software patents and didn't. The same politicians who voted for DMCA style regulation desptite the publics opinion. If they are morally and ethically corrupt on one subject why should we trust them on others?
However republicans seem somehow to believe that foreign support is not needed and that america can stand alone to defend the entire world from evil. Worse that any who speak against them are part of the evil. That americans need not be held accountable for such silly little things as war crimes. There was even an attempt by republicans to pass allow allowing a friendly country (holland) to be invaded and its soldiers killed to "rescue" any american brought before the international court. A greater insult to the world could not have been delivered as america was at the same time busy to get other countries war criminals before those same courts. One law for the world, another for america. Talk about giving fuel to america haters.
But the most worrying thing is that these ideas seem to split america right down the middle. It doesn't matter who wins the election, the other side will spent the next four years bitterly opposing everything just because they didn't win.
Bush or Kerry has a far more important job to do then "the war on terror" or "domestic economy" or any of that crap. Their most important challenge is to turn their 50.0000000000001 election lead into something like 75% "well I don't agree with everything but overall he ain't a bad leader for america right now, next election he may be a goner but for now he is doing okay enough to not constantly be trying to get him out". Can either Bush or Kerry do that? I don't think so.
Note that this is not a typical american issue, other countries are having real problems with the nature of democracy right now. It is just that dutch internal politics have little effect on the rest of the world. But when america shivers the world trembles.
MMO Quests are like orgasms:
You may solo them, I prefer them in a group.
Sounds alot like a conspiracy nut who got lucky in 2000, and is desperately trying to sell his next wacky theory.
granted he was right the first time, and it'll be easy to determine if he is right this time (you just have to ask the people on the list afterwards). If he is, I'll be glad to retract my statement about him being a conspiracy theorist.
This (from TFA) is pretty scary though:
In Jacksonville, to determine if Republicans were using the lists or other means of intimidating voters, we filmed a private detective filming every "early voter" - the majority of whom are black - from behind a vehicle with blacked-out windows.
The private detective claimed not to know who was paying for his all-day services.
On the scene, Democratic Congresswoman Corinne Brown said the surveillance operation was part of a campaign of intimidation tactics used by the Republican Party to intimate and scare off African American voters, almost all of whom are registered Democrats.
Hasn't florida got laws against stuff like this?
Isn't there federal laws against this?
I can't see how non-state or non-government entities can be allowed to register voters without their consent? The potential for abuse definitely outweighs the chances that it can be used for anything good.
It sounds like something that you would expect to see in a third world or ex-communist country.
Oh yeah, and before you start spewing liberal media conspiracy theories, this is a BBC article. It is not an american news source!
"I don't know that Atheists should be considered as citizens, nor should they be considered patriots." -George H.W. Bush
Unitarian Church: Freethinkers Congregate!
Mod parent up
Disingenuous. Mass challenges have never occurred because there's never been a mechanism, or even motivation, to do so. But the Help America Vote Act of 2002 supplied the motivation; it is the law that provides for the provisional ballots BBC's Palast mentions above.
In any case, as John Lott pointed out in 2003:
* Black GOP voters in FL had their votes "not counted" (in the Democratic activists' definition of the term) much, much, much more frequently than their Democratic counterparts.
* Hispanics and whites showed up in error on the ineligible-to-vote felon list more frequently than blacks.
He also points out what is unquestionably the single most unambiguous (and, naturally, the least-reported) case of "voter suppression" in FL in the 2000 election:
Naturally, in Palast's 70 pages of the usual innuendo and bogus charges (coupled with the typical overseas cant of "U5 V0T3R5 AR3NT 5331NG TH3 TRUTH!!!1!11!!!"), the word "Panhandle" never appears.
Personally, I think it comes down to Voter Responsibility. If you are going to vote, make sure that you do everything possible before going to the polls to make sure that you won't have problems at the polls. Make sure you contact your Board of Elections to make sure you are on the rolls, and work to correct it before you get to the polls.
The pen is mightier than the sword...
Pudge cleared this up back on October 7th: "The Republican party is relying on state parties to hire the lawyers, if necessary." See? The GOP isn't planning anything above the local level. If pudgy says it, it must be true!
So clearly there's no story here. Move along, folks.
"Hey, it's a free country. Just because we're paying hate groups to take a free ride into Florida and giving them police immunity, clubs, megaphones, guns, and liquor doesn't mean we are encouraging them to do anything in particular. That's your democrats, always reading into everything."
"A witty saying proves nothing." ~Voltaire
"d'Oh!" ~Homer
I'm just about as biased in this election as anyone here. I've already voted for a straight Democratic ticket (and the Libertarian candidates in races where there was no Democrat running).
This still looks like fishing to me. Accusing a political party of nefarious intent because they have a list of voters, any type of voters, strikes me as ridiculous.
"They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety."
What's interesting is that the non-Republican site georgewbush.org is the one that provided the documentation to the BBC on this story. They apparently had a catch-all mailbox that they discovered accumulating a ton of GOP-internal mails that were misdirected to the wrong domain!
The site goes on to document all sorts of interesting internal correspondence, including dubious intimidation tactics and sleazy fliers the GOP is encouraging religious groups hand out at services. It's very illuminating.
Below is one email messages regarding the caging list, mistakenly sent to georgewbush.org and reprinted here http://www.georgewbush.org/deadletteroffice/, where can can find the actual "Caging" list (search for "caging.xls"):
n et
-----Original Message-----
From: Ohio 23rd [mailto:ohio23rd@yahoo.com]
Sent: Thursday, October 28, 2004 4:56 AM
To: shollings@ohio.gov; cday@georgewbush.org; wanda.price@sbcglobal.net
Subject: NEED DISTRICT UPDATES ASAP!!!!!!!
Carl, Sandra, and staff:
We have redlined the district (that gets us about 70% of their voters) for challenges but we need the updated voter maps ASAP! We're still working off of 2000 maps. This is the THIRD email I've sent out on this people. Let's get it together the electoin is TUESDAY!!!!
The more we challenge the more we get!
William Ohio 23rd District Supervisor
ohio23rd@yahoo.com
w.fold@sbcglobal.
How Politicians Lie: http://www.factcheck.org/