Florida 2000

[cushla_machree]

I was wondering if people had information on the whole bush/gore florida debacle.

My friend is convince that 'liberals are just sore losers' and that bush won fair and square. I have brought up harris and voter purges..but i am having trouble finder other information, especialy about over and undervotes. I heard that these were more often thrown out in democratic leaning counties. Does anyone have any information on this? Ive searched the web and i am not having any luck, and i have deleted all my saved websites on the issue.

I am convinced Gore should have one that, but i am having trouble convincing other people.

[smoothie]

1. Florida in 2000/Ohio in 2004

Go to michaelmoore.com for loads of information and RESEARCHED facts. From there, you will find links of interest that are also pretty amazing.

[newyawker99]

5. Hi smoothie!!

Welcome to DU!! :toast:

[imenja]

2. there is tons

your friend is wrong. There is a documentary called "Unprecedented" that rehashed the whole ugly saga. I ordered it from Netflix before this year's election but didn't have time to watch it until after Nov. 2. I couldn't finish watching it because I felt too traumatized from Bush's re-selection. You might rent that and watch it with your friend.
Do some searches on _The Nation_ website and some of the other progressive periodicals. All of the subsequent examinations of the ballots showed that Gore would have won if the whole state had been recounted, but not if only the Southern counties that Gore had requested had been recounted.
I voted in a precinct that had one of the highest rates of spoilage. It is a largely African-American precinct. Not only in Palm Beach county but in other areas, the oldest, least maintained machines went to African-American neighborhoods (some things don't change). The chads had not been cleaned out in years, so when you pushed through, it was harder to make the chad fall out. Then there was our butterfly ballot that garnered thousands of votes for Pat Buchanan from the Jewish retirement communities. Go figure.
There is lots of documentation for this stuff. Just do a web search. Bush lost the popular vote, not only nation wide but in Fla as well.

[imenja]

3. delete

delete

[DavidFL]

4. Also check out Greg Palast's website...

www.gregpalast.com and his book The Best Democracy Money Can Buy. There's a whole chapter or two -- I can't remember the number exactly now because my mom still has my copy -- talking about what Bush (Jeb), Harris and Choicepoint did with the purge lists and Florida's voter rolls.

[journalist3072]

6. Florida

Here are some talking points for your friend.

The weekend before the election, illegal and erroneous phone calls were made to predominantly African-American households in swing states like Florida and Michigan. The caller would basically pretend to be a member of the NAACP, claim that the NAACP was supporting Bush for President, and tell the recipient of the caller to do the same.

Hilary O. Shelton, Washington Bureau Director of the NAACP, testified about these calls (and the NAACP's response to them) to the Senate Governmental Affairs Committee in May 2001. Following is a portion of his testimony.

"The weekend prior to the election, the NAACP began receiving calls
alerting us to the fact that a person or persons were making electronic phone calls into predominately black households, claiming to represent the NAACP, in support of Republican
candidate George W. Bush. These calls were apparently taking place in the key battleground states of Michigan and Florida. Specifically, the caller was identifying him- or herself as a representative of the NAACP, saying that the organization
endorsed and supported the Republican candidate for President, and
urged the recipient of the call to go to the polls on Tuesday and to vote accordingly.
In response to the blatantly false and extremely illegal calls, the
NAACP moved quickly to make sure that the U.S. Department of Justice, as well as the Attorneys General of each state was notified. Unable to secure a cease and desist order we used public
service time on local radio stations over the next 48 hours to alert
people of the false nature of the calls."

I think you should also point out to your friend that voter fraud did not just happen in Florida in 2000, but other states as well. But Florida received the most attention b/c it was the deciding state.

On March 13, 2001 there was an article published on Alternet by Catherine Danielson entitled Vote Fraud in Tennessee: Worse than Florida? Here's an excerpt from that article:

Vote Fraud in Tennessee: Worse than Florida?
By Catherine Danielson, AlterNet
March 13, 2001


Black voters were told to get behind the white voters. They were told
to remove NAACP stickers from their cars, or leave the polling place
without voting. "You know what it is to stand at the back of the bus,"
said one election volunteer.

Some Blacks were intimidated by police standing around polling places.
Others stood in lines over a mile long to use ancient punch-card
machines on the verge of falling apart. Sometimes, they'd stand for five or
six hours. Once, they complained. Minutes later, two police cars came
screeching
up.

It all sounds like a promo for "Mississippi Burning," or maybe a
documentary about egregious civil rights violations in some Deep South
backwater fifty years ago.

But it happened in November 2000.

Well, then, it's got to be about Florida. The massive voter
disenfranchisement in Florida has gotten some coverage, especially
overseas – the people who weren't felons illegally scrubbed from voting
rolls, the police roadblocks in Black neighborhoods, the Republican
operatives illegally filling out absentee ballots.

[journalist3072]

7. Other Info

After the Florida debacle, Rep. Tom Feeney of Florida suggested we go back to the old Jim Crow days of poll taxes and literacy tests on Black voters.

He was quoted in the November 16, 2000 Palm Beach Post as saying: "Voter confusion is not a reason for whining or crying or having a revote. It may be a reason to require literacy tests."

Have you also pointed out to your friend that John Ellis (cousin of George W. and Jeb) ran the Fox News Decision Desk on Election Night 2000? And that as he was working the Fox News Decision Desk, he was constantly on the phone with George W. and Jeb? Incidentally, Fox News was the very first network to call Florida for Bush in 2000, and the rest of the networks then followed suit. This gave many people the impression that Bush was elected, and Gore had lost (thus painting Gore as a sore loser).

[journalist3072]

8. And still more amo

And more amunition for you to give your friend.


Remember back in 2000, when Miami-Day had started recounting, and they had to stop because of that riot? Remember all those Rethugs had stormed the building, and the room where the recounting was taking place?

The Republicans wanted us to believe those were just your average Floridians who had voted for Bush, and were concerned that their votes were being stolen by Al Gore. Well it turned out that those were Florida voters. Those rethugs who stormed the building were actually many Republican staffers from Capitol Hill, including Tom Delay's office.

I have always been curious about who payed their airfaire to get down to Florida. And I bet it was us taxpaying citizens.

[cushla_machree]

11. you would think

they could find people in florida to do that, but instead had to fly down to florida. What a bunch of losers.

How about whats her name who closed down the office before thanksgiving and fail to get her recount in. I believe she is also the genious behind the butterfly ballot.

[Tactical Progressive]

9. Forget all the bullshit about chads and butterfly ballots.

Katherine Harris violated two strongly worded court orders to take 60 thousand mostly-Democrats off the voting rolls in Florida. She spent over four million dollars to contract a Bush-supporting company out of Texas to do it.

Republicans are cheaters. They cheated six ways to Sunday in Florida because they are at core, unethical, anti-democratic and un-American.
_____________________________________

Do you really think Republicans have either the attention span or the intellectual integrity for anything more than that?

If they come back with anything, just keep repeating the chorus like they do:
Republicans are a bunch of un-American liars, cheats and thieves.
And leave it at that.

[cushla_machree]

10. according to my friend

it is the democrats who are engaged in voter fraud.

They 'can't win at the ballot so they use the courts'

they try to get ballots counted that are clearly not usuable.


though, is it true that gore only wanted to recount in counties that would help him?

[rfkrfk]

12. Gore had too many lawyers

He should have asked for a statewide
count of undervotes, from the beginning.
The stuff about, voter intimidation, goofy ballots,
military absentee stuff, statistics,,, imo, watered down
his main message.
Gore et-al, seemed unaware that there was a clock running.
Gore needed a plan for undervotes, not just slogans.