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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.
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?
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.
Palast is an *investigative reporter*. He finds out about bad stuff, then comes up with the evidence, carefully researched and coherently presented. He used to be a prosecutor before he became a full time journalist, bucking the reverse trend of bad PR writers becoming journalists. Ask yourself whether his facts tell the story, not whether he should be digging up "the other side of the story", which is produced by a Republican spin machine.
"The facts are clearly biased against George Bush." - a la _The Daily Show_
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make install -not war
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.
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.
Palast's "Best Democracy" has a preface where he makes his bias clear. He grew up poor in LA, and resents the privilege of rich people to rig the game so they always win. He's made careers out of finding these rigged games, and exposing them. He's not a scientist, creating a detailed model of the laws of the universe. He's an investigative journalist, who finds out about serious wrongdoings, learns the facts of the story, and tells it.
Read "Best Democracy". The stories he uncovered are shocking enough that you won't be bored, or find yourself reading any long, convoluted justification for conclusions hung on meager facts. Instead you'll find details about serious wrongdoings by the Bush Republican Party, as it sacrifices democracy without blinking, to grab power and abuse it. If you want balance, try another book by someone uncovering Democratic wrongdoing. When you weigh them against another, factoring in the actual evidence presented, you'll find Palast's work a heavier truth.
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make install -not war
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
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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
Did you pull this completely out of your ass?
First of all, Florida Hispanics tend to register white. The list was 95% false positives, heavily leaning black and Democrat.
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.
The requirements for matching was last name and first four letters of the first name and a date range on the birthdate of a year. They ignored suffixes, middle names, middle initials, gender, etc. They told felons who had their rights restored in other states that they had to plead for clemency from the Govenor's office, in violation of Florida state law. A 2002 law required election supervisors to use this list. This year they wouldn't let anyone see the list and when the media sued for access and won, they dropped it. This year's list had another high percentage of false positives, was largely black and had no hispanics.
The 2000 election was stolen. Greg Palast's evidence has been corraborated by two investigations. People should have gone to jail over the 2000 election, but with the GOP in control of the state executives office and the state legislature, as well as the Federal legislative and executive branches, I don't expect anything to happen.
Arrogance is Confidence which lacks integrity. -- me
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 defense of freedom requires the advance of freedom" - George W Bush
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.
Well then, since there are mountains of evidence the he's ignored that challenge his claims, where are they?
Its one thing to say something. Its another to produce evidence and logical reasonings, to back up said comments. Palast, apparently, does both.
Also, because someone is a "hater", does this mean that he's immediately barred from saying anything? Are the only people that are legitimate to expose scandals and cover-ups the ones that love the people their exposing?
If someone finds out all the bad stuff about the republicans, and someone finds out all the bad stuff about the democrats, isn't that GOOD?
Think nothing is impossible? Try slamming a revolving door.
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
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.
On the subject on disingenuous, you will no doubt be aware that the overwhelming verdict in the rest of the media was that the Hutton report was an establishment whitewash. Even many of the tabloids who usually hate the BBC and take any chance to bash it came down on the BBC side. For an American view on the UK response to Hutton see CNN.
The reality is that the BBC deservedly has one of the best (if not the best) reputations for high quality and balanced journalism on the planet.