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Absentee Ballots Go Missing in Florida
RonnyJ writes "The BBC is reporting that 58,000 ballot papers have gone missing in Broward County, Florida. A police investigation has 'not uncovered any sign of criminal wrongdoing', however, the US postal service has said it is highly unlikely for 58,000 pieces of mail to just disappear. In 2000, Broward County gave Al Gore his biggest margin among Florida counties, winning 67% of the votes there."
Here we learn that in democratic dictatorships you need to dis-enfranchise only a few people and not an entire nation.
Something the east could have done well to learn - and with Putin wanting to make direct appointments - maybe they have now?
Sam
blog.sam.liddicott.com
No, what the article says is that 60,000 ballots were sent out to the voters, "However, only 2,000 of them have been delivered." (article quote) -- as in only 2,000 of the 60,000 recipients actually got them.
Noplace in the article does it even suggest what you claim.
Remember that the ballots need to be postmarked by election day. Delays in their delivery is basically the same as denying them of their vote.
And you're right, there is no way the post office would lose that many letters. Which leads me to this next article quote: "Meanwhile, the US postal service inspectorate said it was highly unlikely that 58,000 pieces of mail had just disappeared. A spokesman said inspectors were trying to establish whether the ballots were ever delivered to the postal service."
So there is a possibility that the 58,000 "missing" ballots never even made it to the post office in the first place, so they are investigating that. If this proves to be the case, someone's in a lot of trouble. If there is proof that all 60k ballots were delivered to the post office, then there will have to be more investigation as to how they didn't get to their destination. (And someone will STILL be in a lot of trouble, because the post office isn't prone to simply "misplacing" letters by the tens of thousands...)
=Smidge=
dedicated to impartiality like we have the Guardian and the BBC
The BBC is certainly supposed to be impartial (though its right-wing detractors claim that BBC stands for Bolshevik Broadcasting Corporation...!), but the Guardian - and I say this as a former long-time reader - is an unashamedly left-of-centre paper. Until recently it openly supported the Labour Party, only switching allegiance to the Liberal Democrats a few days ago because it regards the Labour Government as too right-wing.
Not intending to dis the Guardian, which is a pretty good paper, just offering a little perspective on impartiality.
This is where the serious fun begins.
Didn't the Guardian call for the assassination of the United States' President? I agree with most of what you said, but the Guardian is not a good example. I don't think a US news outlet has ever called for the assassination of a British or European leader.
Always a pretty sight, blaming the victim. Perhaps in fairness you should mention the RNC funded organizations in four of the swing states who are under FBI investigation pretending to be DNC funded organizations to obtain and shred Democratic voter registrations. Don't hear much about that in the news. Or perhaps the voter list that Republican operatives are using in Ohio to challenge valid voters which just happens to contain 87% democrats and 72% african americans, even though the population is pretty evenly split. Don't hear that much about that in the news either. People who say that "the media" is liberal make me want to hurl.
http://james.nontrivial.org
Didn't the Guardian call for the assassination of the United States' President?
Nope! A writer in the Guardian jokingly asked where John Wilkes Booth was when we needed him. I seriously doubt the Guardian editorial team want Bush assassinated. I mean, I'd be happy if he wasn't President but I appreciate the instability an assassination would cause.
The Guardian, by the way, isn't a tabloid, but it does have a tabloid section ("G2") which has lighter, often humerous stories and articles (I'm presuming that this is where the comment you refer to was made). Neither the main section nor G2 tend to be read by people who'd take the John Wilkes Booth comment seriously; Guardian readers write letters to the editor, they don't take up arms against foreign heads-of-state - they're much to lower-upper-middle-class for that ;)
This is where the serious fun begins.
The information is clear cut. ABC was at the site in April of 2004, after the US led invasion and military personnel showed them some of the explosives. Furthermore, the Iraqi's at the site asked the US forces to guard the site to which our troops responded that it wasn't their job. Not that I blame the troops, they just didn't get orders to guard it from those that know better. http://daily.misleader.org/ctt.asp?u=1161072&l=655 09/
Here is a link to the video of the ABC news team.