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| 7/14 |
| 2004/9/30-10/1 [Politics/Domestic/California, Politics/Domestic/911] UID:33848 Activity:moderate |
9/30 Republicans trying to pull a "Florida" in Ohio:
http://act04.org/paperstock
\_ How? No one pulled a "Florida" in the first place except the
lawyers after the fact.
\_ Um, bogus felons lists being used to prevent blacks from voting.
\_ Um, didn't happen.
http://www.nationalreview.com/comment/kirsanow200310150822.asp
If you don't believe his analysis, follow the link the the
actual investigation.
\_ ...are you for real?
\_ Yes, I am. And I read the report. Did you?
\_ Yes, I did, and I see a system that failed to
accomplish its goals.
\_ That article is from the guy who wrote the
dissent of the US Election Commission Report.
In other words, he was in the minority in his
opinion. The majority disagreed with him.
\_ Did you read his dissent? Did you read the facts
he presented in it?
\_http://www.usccr.gov/pubs/vote2000/report/ch2.htm
Facts are such stubborn things. He claims no
one was disenfrachised. The commission found
at least 78. I read his "dissent." It was
nothing more than a partisan rant, just like
that article.
\_ "The majority of those witnesses who
experienced problems and who came before the
Commission testified that they were
ultimately able to cast their vote, despite
the problems they described; a few were not.
A chief flaw in the majority report,
however, is that it generally fails to
distinguish between problems of mere
inconvenience, difficulties caused by
bureaucratic inefficiencies, and incidents
of potential discrimination. In this way,
the complaint from the white male voter
whose shoes were muddied on the path to his
polling place is accorded the same degree of
seriousness as the case of the
seeing-impaired voter who required.but was
denied.assistance in reading the ballot, or
the African American voter who claimed she
was turned away from the polls at closing
time while a white man was not."
\_ The dissent was written by Thernstrom and
Redenbaugh. The article was written by Kirsanow.
\_ Sorry, got that wrong.
\_ truck in illegals, raise the dead to vote, democrats are
hypocrites.
\_ You can't possibly be comparing election fraud with wholesale
voter disenfranchisement based on race.
\_ So you think Democrats having the dead vote is ok? If it
was Repuiblicans who raised the dead every 4 years you'd
be the first raising hell about it.
\_ Since "wholesale voter disenfranchisement based on race"
didn't happen...
\_ http://www.usccr.gov/pubs/vote2000/report/ch5.htm
\_ This was based on felonies (not race), and whites
were twice as likely to be incorrectly put on the
list.
\_ Uhm, you do realize that whites outnumber blacks
by more than a factor of 2x, yes?
\_ Lies, damned lies, and statistics. Yes? |
| 7/14 |
|
| act04.org/paperstock -> actforvictory.org/ohiofraud.php ACT Home * * * Desperation and 80 Pound Paper Stock in Ohio With only a few days left before the registration deadline in Ohio, Secretary of State Ken Blackwell is trying re-instate selective voting. His controls on the voting process will prohibit thousands of Ohioans from voting in the upcoming election. not allow people to cast votes on provisional ballots if they go to the incorrect polling place, even if the voter is not at fault. Citing an arcane ruling that requires voter registration cards be printed on 80 pound stock paper, Blackwell is threatening to void registrations submitted on a lighter weight paper, demanding they re-apply. There is no time to reapply and thousands of voters could be left off the rolls. The 14th Amendment grants every citizen the right to vote--regardless of race, gender, creed--or polling location or paper stock. Secretary of State Kenneth Blackwell Members of the Ohio Controlling Board Columbus, Ohio We, the undersigned, in the name of democracy, demand that you immediately revoke your controls to limit voting in Ohio. We demand you allow Ohioans to make use of provisional ballots, and we demand you accept applications printed on all types of paper. Your rules are a flagrant violation of US Code, and disenfranchise thousands of newly registered voters. deny the right of any individual to vote in any election because of an error or omission on any record or paper relating to any application, registration, or other act requisite to voting, if such error or omission is not material in determining whether such individual is qualified under State law to vote in such election." Add your own comments: Sign the Petition America Coming Together will send you periodic email updates. You may remove yourself from the mailing list at any time. Forward this article to a friend In order to build the largest voter mobilization effort in history, we need your help in speading the word about ACT. Your Info Name: Email: Recipient Info Email: (Separate multiple email addresses with a comma). PRIVACY POLICY Contributions to ACT are not deductible for federal income tax purposes. Paid for by America Coming Together (888 16th Street, NW, Suite 450, Washington, DC 20006), and not authorized by any candidate or candidate's committee. |
| www.nationalreview.com/comment/kirsanow200310150822.asp October 15, 2003, 8:22 am The Florida Myth An urban legend to fire up the base. By Peter Kirsanow Political myths can overcome facts through sheer repetition: The New Deal ended the Depression, tax cuts caused budget deficits in the Eighties, etc. These myths serve vital partisan imperatives -- especially when the policy cupboards of the partisans are bare or vermin-infested. One of the myths already resurrected for the 2004 presidential election cycle is that blacks in Florida were systematically harassed, intimidated, and prevented from voting in the 2000 presidential election -- the "stolen" election. Even before the last vote had been cast, activists had descended upon Florida, claiming a widespread conspiracy to disenfranchise black voters. Allegations that state troopers put up roadblocks and checkpoints to prevent blacks from voting were rampant. Dogs and hoses were allegedly used to drive black voters from the polls. Bull Connor's heirs had been unleashed -- all at the direction of Governor Bush and his sidekick, Secretary of State Katherine Harris. The US Commission on Civil Rights investigated these allegations over a six-month period beginning in January 2001. Voting Irregularities in Florida During the 2000 Presidential Election, excoriates Florida's election officials for various acts of misfeasance. But the conclusions drawn by the report often bore little relationship to the facts contained therein. And media descriptions of the report did little to dispel the widespread belief among the black electorate that blacks had been systematically targeted for harassment, intimidation, and disenfranchisement. But the handful that did (especially the incisive dissent authored by Commissioners Abigail Thernstrom and Russell Redenbaugh) discovered the astonishing mendacity underlying the myth. There's absolutely no evidence that a single person was intimidated, harassed, or prevented from voting by Florida law-enforcement officials. Despite claims of rampant police intimidation and harassment, the only evidence of law-enforcement "misconduct" consisted of just two witnesses who described their perceptions of the actions of the Florida highway patrol. One of these witnesses testified that he thought it was "unusual" to see an empty patrol car parked outside a polling place. There was no evidence that sight of the vehicle somehow intimidated the witness or any other voters from casting ballots. There was no evidence that the erstwhile occupant of the vehicle harassed voters. There was no evidence that the empty vehicle was there for the purpose of somehow disenfranchising anyone assigned to vote at that location. The second witness had filed a highly publicized complaint with the NAACP regarding a police motor-vehicle checkpoint. In the hysterical recount period following the election, the complaint took on a life of its own and apparently became part of the basis for the legend that legions of cops were harassing thousands of black voters throughout Florida. The evidence, however, shows that the checkpoint in question was two miles from the polling place. Moreover, it was not even on the same road as the polling facility. During the checkpoint's approximately 90 minutes of operation, citations for faulty equipment were issued to 16 individuals, twelve of whom were white. The incontrovertible evidence shows that no one was delayed or prohibited from voting due to the lone checkpoint. There's no evidence of systematic disenfranchisement of black voters. The myth of a nefarious plot to thwart black voters from casting ballots is wholly unsupported by the evidence. Inconvenience, bureaucratic errors, and inefficiencies were indeed pervasive. But these problems don't rise to the level of invidious discrimination. The list had been prepared to prevent the kind of fraud that had occurred in the infamous Miami mayoral election, in which a number of ineligible felons voted. Thus, the myth holds that the purge list was somehow a tool to deny blacks the right to vote. Whites were actually twice as likely as blacks to be erroneously placed on the list. "* According to the Palm Beach Post, more than 6,500 ineligible felons voted. State officials were not at fault for widespread voter "disenfranchisement." The myth holds that Governor Bush, in league with Secretary of State Katherine Harris, either by design or incompetence, failed to fulfill their electoral responsibilities, resulting in the discriminatory disenfranchisement of thousands of black voters. This was purportedly a key to the overarching Republican plot to steal the election from Al Gore. The incontrovertible evidence shows that by statute the responsibility for the conduct of elections is in the hands of county supervisors, not the governor or secretary of state. County supervisors are independent officers answerable to county commissioners, not the governor or secretary of state. And in 24 of the 25 counties that had the highest ballot-spoilage rates, the county supervisor was a Democrat. Even if more black voters than white voters spoiled their ballots by mistake, that's not evidence of a scheme to discriminate on the basis of race, and it certainly doesn't evoke images of dogs and fire hoses. After issuance of the commission's report, some diehards, perhaps realizing that history frowns on demagoguery, desperately sought any facts that might support the myth. The Justice Department was pressed for action, and conducted a thorough investigation. The result: The Civil Rights Division found no credible evidence in our investigation that Floridians were intentionally denied their right to vote during the November 2000 election. The Justice Department did find violations of the Voting Rights Act in three counties. The infractions were that some poll workers had been hostile to Hispanic voters, bilingual assistance hadn't been provided to two Haitian voters, and some Hispanic voters had been denied bilingual assistance. None of the offending counties was controlled by Republicans. Of course, there's a reason why charges of disenfranchisement have great traction among the black electorate. After all, the Voting Rights Act wasn't simply a piece of feel-good legislation. Poll taxes, literacy tests, and worse remain vivid memories for far too many. That's precisely why baseless claims of voter harassment on the basis of race are particularly odious. They inflame racial tensions by perpetuating a belief that the shameful practices of two generations past continue unabated -- that a virulently racist hegemony is forever poised to subjugate minorities. The consequences of generating suspicion of the electoral process for the sake of partisan advantage are at once insidious and profound. They dangerously undermine the legitimacy of government and encourage rejection of its authority. Its antidote is a relentless, adamant repetition of the truth. Quality 09/30 3:28 pm Krugman Truth Squad: Lie During, Blame After 09/30 10:10 am BuzzCharts: Explanations, Not Excuses 09/30 8:32 am Beck: Keeping the Faith 09/30 8:24 am Lee & George: Delusions of Dualism 09/30 8:21 am Greene: A Long-Term Choice 09/30 8:19 am Boulet: Lost in Translation 09/30 8:18 am Seipp: The Art of the John Hancock 09/30 8:15 am Robbins: Electoral Carnage 09/30 8:13 am Derbyshire: September Diary 09/30 8:13 am Steyn: No, You Get Real 09/30 8:11 am Gregg: Bubba Don't Windsurf 09/30 8:10 am Goldberg: The Kerry Syndrome 09/29 11:14 am Weber: Lethal Error 09/29 8:47 am Looking for a story? |
| www.usccr.gov/pubs/vote2000/report/ch2.htm Voting Irregularities in Florida During the 2000 Presidential Election Chapter 2 First-Hand Accounts of Voter Disenfranchisement Who are to be the electors of the Federal Representatives? not the haughty heirs of distinguished names, more than the humble sons of obscure and unpropitious fortune. The electors are to be the great body of the people of the United States. Although statistics on spoiled ballots and voter purge lists point to problems in Florida's election, perhaps the most compelling evidence of election irregularities the Commission heard was the first-hand accounts by citizens who encountered obstacles to voting. The following chapter presents individual accounts of voting system failures. VOTERS NOT ON THE ROLLS AND UNABLE TO APPEAL On November 7, 2000, millions of Florida voters arrived at their designated polling places to cast their votes. Unfortunately, countless voters were denied the opportunity to vote because their names did not appear on the lists of registered voters. When poll workers attempted to call the supervisors of elections offices to verify voter registration status, they were often met with continuous busy signals or no answer. In accordance with their training, most poll workers refused to permit persons to vote whose names did not appear on the rolls at their precinct. Thus, numerous Floridians were turned away from the polls on Election Day without being allowed to vote and with no opportunity to appeal the poll workers' refusal. The following are a few examples of experiences that Floridians had who were turned away from their polling places. Citizens Who Were Not Permitted to Vote Cathy Jackson, an African American woman, has been a registered voter in Broward County since 1996. Upon registering in Broward County, Ms Jackson was told that if she ever experienced a problem with her voter registration card, she would be allowed to vote if she could produce a valid driver's license. Ms Jackson voted in Broward without any incident using her driver's license since 1996. However, when she went to her polling place, Precinct 52Z, on November 7, 2000, she was told that her name was not on the list. The poll workers suggested that she travel back to her old precinct in Miami-Dade County to vote. Ms Jackson did as she was advised even though she had voted in Broward County since she moved from Miami-Dade County in 1996. After waiting 45 minutes at her old precinct, the poll workers in Miami-Dade told Ms Jackson that her name was not on the rolls and referred her back to Broward to vote. When Ms Jackson returned to the Broward precinct, the poll workers advised her to wait while they checked her registration status. While she waited, Ms Jackson observed a poll worker from another precinct within the same polling place allow an elderly white voter, whose name did not appear on the rolls, to fill out an affidavit and vote. When Ms Jackson asked if she could do the same, the poll workers explained that she could fill out an affidavit, but that she could not vote until they had verified her registration. The phone lines to the supervisor of elections office, however, remained busy for several hours. Ms Jackson became upset and eventually left to go to work. 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. Donnise DeSouza, an African American, has been registered to vote since 1982 in Miami-Dade County. When she entered the Richmond Fire Station in Miami-Dade County at 6:50 pm and showed her identification to the poll worker, Ms DeSouza was told that her name was not on the rolls. The poll worker directed her to the "problem line," so that her registration status could be verified with the supervisor of elections office. Ms DeSouza recalled that the line of about 15 people did not move, but at 7 pm when the poll began to close, a poll worker announced to the group "if our name was not on the roll that she could not let us vote and that there was nothing she could do." The poll workers stopped their attempts to verify the registration status of the voters who had been standing in line. 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. Ms DeSouza testified to the Commission that she was "very agitated" and the next day began to register complaints with various sources about her experience. Upon further investigation with the office of the supervisor of elections, she discovered that the poll workers should have continued their efforts to resolve the problems of those voters who were in the precinct prior to the 7 pm closing time. Furthermore, Ms DeSouza learned that her name was actually on the rolls of registered voters, because subsequently a worker at the elections office showed her the sheet that contained her name where she should have been allowed to sign. 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. According to Ms Ramsey, the phone lines remained busy for three and a half hours--a delay she had never experienced during her time as a poll worker. Ultimately, the poll workers refused to allow her to vote because they could not verify her voter status. 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. Although Mrs Green insisted that she had not called and showed the poll worker her registration card, the poll worker refused to allow her to vote. R Jai Howard, vice president of the Florida Agricultural and Mechanical University Student Government Association, testified on behalf of more than 12,000 predominantly African American students. She described the massive voter registration efforts that took place at the school in the months preceding the November 2000 election. The association's efforts continued until October 10, 2000 (the last day to register before the election) and included a rally in which Reverend Jesse Jackson and Ion Sancho, the Leon County supervisor of elections, participated. Poll Workers Confirm Widespread Voter Disenfranchisement The experiences of these Floridians who were denied their opportunity to vote were corroborated by poll workers who testified at the Commission hearing in Miami. Many poll workers attempted to follow the procedures they had been taught in their training, such as verifying voter registration with the supervisor of elections, but their efforts were largely futile because of the inadequacies and obstacles they faced throughout the voting system. Marilyn Nelson, a poll worker with 15 years of experience in Miami-Dade County, testified, "By far this was the worst election I have ever experienced. After that election I decided I didn't want to work as a clerk anymore." At North Dade Elementary School, Precinct 232, she observed several voters who had presented their voter registration cards showing they were properly registered, but the poll workers did not allow them to vote because their names did not appear on the rolls. Ms Nelson also saw voters with their "orange cards," which meant that the voter had registered on time and sh... |
| www.usccr.gov/pubs/vote2000/report/ch5.htm Thus, the disenfranchisement 3 of this class of citizens is sometimes overlooked in debates about the electoral process. Since the Reconstruction Era following the Civil War, conviction of certain types of crimes supposedly committed more often by African Americans than other ethnic groups resulted in their disenfranchisement. In the November 2000 election, voters lost their rights because of these provisions and how they were implemented. This chapter will provide further details on how the list maintenance law was implemented and its practical effect on Florida voters. HOW FLORIDA CONTRACTED FOR LIST MAINTENANCE The statutory requirement to hire a private agency to assist in purging the voter files was enacted after the incidents of voter fraud in the 1997 Miami mayoral election that included votes cast in the names of deceased persons. The gentleman who originally won that mayors race was turned out of office. There was a Senate select committee appointed to investigate that election. There was an allegation and it was eventually proven that a large number of people who were deceased cast ballotswell, someone cast ballots in the name of some people who were deceased in that election. People who were convicted felons who had lost their right to vote under the Florida Constitution cast ballots in that election, and people who were also registered in another municipality or another county within that area cast ballots in the city of Miami mayors race. Bruder represented the private firm that was awarded a contract to perform state-sponsored list maintenance tasks before the election. His testimony offered a snapshot of the reality of list maintenance activities in Florida, including a description of the process that led to the Division of Elections awarding the contract to his company. Bruder, the Division of Elections initially solicited private entities to bid for its list maintenance contract through requests for proposals. The first request resulted in an award to a private firm named Professional Analytical Systems & Services. Following its award of a contract to Professional Analytical Systems & Services, the Division of Elections, for reasons not evident in the record, submitted a second request for proposal. Bruder was referring to Emmett Bucky Mitchell, former assistant general counsel for the Division of Elections. Bruder did not address the supervisors of elections regarding the content of his June 9, 2000, letter, he offered his views on the letters content to the Commission. Bruder admits that the sentence regarding the use of race and gender was inartfully drafted and may have confused the supervisors of elections. Bruder wrote: What I was trying to convey was that, while race and gender were a part of the database that we received and returned to the Division of Elections, neither were used as matching criteria. As I reiterated at the hearing, DBTs function was simply to provide the data. We had neither the statutory nor the contractual right to remove a single voter from the registration lists. Esser, information systems director for the DHSMV, defined interactive access as rapid two-way communications between an end user and a computer program. In this context, the end user will submit a drivers license numbers to the Departments computer system and receive the information corresponding to that drivers license number within a few seconds. Bruder stated the list created was not inaccurate, but rather it contained false positives. He explained: A false positive is an industry term that means some but not all the data elements match the data provided. The fact that there were names on the list that were not ultimately verified as deceased, registered in more than one place, or convicted felons does not mean the list was inaccurate, but reflects the nature of the search parameters established by the Division of Elections. Roberts also testified that the Division of Elections contacted the Florida State Association of Supervisors of Elections regarding the contract. He stated: The Association of Supervisors of Elections established a committee on this issue. We got the committee together with people from the Florida Department of Law Enforcement, with people from the Board of Executive Clemency, with DBT. We got together to come up with a framework and a methodology that the supervisors could go through in verifying this information, to go through in a methodical way to verify before anyones name was removed from the voter rolls. Bruder recalled that the supervisors of elections present at that meeting wanted to be as exacting as possible on the matches. If I condense it down to a major concern, that was what they were looking for. And being that the Division of Elections was the entity that I was contracting with, they would be the ones that would be giving us the specifications. So they Division of Elections were there, they heard what the supervisors of elections wanted. They had technical representation there also to then give us advice as far as how they wanted us to construct the matching logic. Bruder asserts that DBT Online did, however, make a recommendation as to which states should be added to the felon and clemency exclusion lists. He explained: Clemency from those states that had a similar clemency process as the state of Florida, we identified that and we provided that information to the Division of Elections. And those states that did not have a similar clemency process, we identified that and provided that information to the state. If no Executive Board of Clemency existed in the other state, then DBT Online ran conviction information solely against the Florida Executive Board of Clemency file. If the state where the felon was convicted had an executive board of clemency and a repository type of agreement existed between that state and Florida to reinstate those civil rights, we checked with those boards of clemency to verify that the individual had been granted that right. In a letter to Ed Kast, assistant director of the Division of Elections, Janet H. If a former felon attempting to register to vote in Florida claims that his or her civil rights were restored in another state or that his or her civil rights were not lost in another state, but the individual cannot produce supporting documentation, please refer that individual to my office. My office will attempt to confirm the individuals claim by contacting the state that assertedly restored the individuals civil rights. If possession of civil rights is confirmed, the individual does not need to apply for restoration of civil rights in Florida. Keels insists that her letter merely reiterated the Office of Executive Clemency policy, other mandates suggest that the letter actually changed it. Rule 9 states that felons convicted in a court other than a Florida court must be a legal Florida resident before requesting civil rights restoration. Then director of the Division of Elections, Ethel Baxter, issued the first of a series of memos on August 11, 1998, regarding the list maintenance activities performed by the supervisors of elections. Baxter described the central voter file as the divisions first experience with a statewide database and said that it cannot be a 100 percent accurate list. Baxter made particular note of the concerns with the felony information in the central voter file because of the potential use of aliases. Baxter recommended that the supervisors of elections exercise caution when deciding to remove someone who shows up as a convicted felon on the central voter file. Baxter specifically advised: It is your responsibility to attempt to verify the accuracy of the information on the list, and remove, prior to the next election, any person who is deceased, convicted of a felony, or mentally incapacitated with respect to voting. Baxter advised the supervisors of elections as follows: When notifying voters of potential problems with their registration you should refrain from being accusatory keeping in mind that the information in the list may contain some inaccuracies and is not completely foolproof. Baxter issued another memorandum to the... |