Election 2000, a nauseating stroll down memory Lane

[Chi]

I was having a conversation in another thread about the 2000 Florida fiasco, and decided to do some brushing up on the details.
I found this excellent link by U.S.News that details every little event that happened, step by step on a time-line.

So , for those with strong stomachs, and are interested, here you go...
http://www.usnews.com/usnews/news/election/magtimeline.htm

==========================C&P==============================
Wed Nov 15
6:36 p.m. Gore proposes completion of hand counts in Dade, Broward, and Palm Beach counties and asks that those results and the overseas absentees be added to the election tally. If that is done, he vows, he will not challenge the results in court. He also suggests a manual recount of all 67 Florida counties and proposes that he and Bush meet.

9:14 p.m. Harris says she has reviewed letters from the hand-counting counties and found their reasons for delay insufficient. She will not include their manual tallies in her final election results.

10:25 p.m. Bush rejects Gore’s offer. “The outcome of this election,” he says, “will not be the result of deals or efforts to mold public opinion.”

[NationalEnquirer]

1. I wish I had found DU back then..

Boy was I pretty unconsolable.
Could have used a friendly word.

[Chi]

2. I hear ya...

Heya NE
I was there myself.
So gullible as to believe that the SCOTUS was impartial, and would do the right thing.
I truly believed justice would prevail, I believed in our country.
But that just wasn't the world of reality, thats all a thing of the past.
This is no longer a country of fairness, justice, and integrity.
It is all just red or blue.

Uniter my freaking ass 8/

[NationalEnquirer]

5. My brother gloated, the rest of the family sobbed, but..

had I come here, I could have learned what REALLY happened.
My family of (mostly) democrats just acted like it was a loss as usual.
Depressed, and not even interested in what was going on.
At least here I can bounce around ideas with others, and see that there really is something going on underneath the media coverage.

[BushSpeak]

3. Check out Greg Palast's articles for the inside story of Florida 2000

Greg was the first one to speak of the suppression of the minority vote.

His articles are a "must read" to understand the magnitude of the manipulation.

If the situation wasn't so serious, it would be comical to see the lengths the Republican's go to to steal an election.

In a nut shell:

Jeb hired a private company (Data Based Technologies) in '98 to purge the Florida voter lists for the handsome sum of $4.2 million.

DBT didn't use the Florida felon list, but pulled lists of the Net from 12 states.

Thus a William Blake from Texas would cause all the Blake's in Florida with a similar sounding first name to be purged. No verification of SS n°, birth date address etc. No telephone calls to verify the information. Skin color was the only criteria.

As a result, over 325 victims had a conviction date in the future and 4900 - no conviction date at all. 8000 had only committed misdemeanors.

The election supervisor of Madison county refused to apply the list when she found her own name on the list.

Wallace McDonald was also purged. His crime - having fallen asleep on a bus stop bench.

When DBT told Jeb that there were many errors on the the original list of 54,000, Jeb replied by adding an additional 40,000 names.

Research by Palast's staff at the BBC, showed that of the 94,000 names, 91,000 were illegally purged. Most are still waiting to be reinstated.

Add in the 175,000 votes in Black neighborhoods that were never counted and you get an idea of what a Bush mandate is made of.

This is a story that needs to get out, so that we can laugh him out of office.

Links: many great articles on his site

THE GREAT FLORIDA EX-CON GAME How the 'felon' voter-purge was itself felonious
http://www.gregpalast.com/printerfriendly.cfm?artid=122

Winning the Election – The Republican Way: Racism, Theft and Fraud in Florida
http://gregpalast.com/printerfriendly.cfm?artid=217

Vanishing Votes by Gregory Palast
http://www.ejfi.org/Voting/Voting-55.htm#pgfId-1446510

Florida 2000 72 page pdf with the complete story of a stolen election
http://www.gregpalast.com/bestdemocracymoneycanbuychapter1.pdf

[Chi]

4. Thanks for the write up and the great links...

Heya BushSpeak
Thanks for the write up and the great links.

If there is anything worse than using the law to impede justice, it's repressing peeps right to vote.

What they did was a crime, and I don't think a single one of them ever paid for it, legally.

[BushSpeak]

8. I agree Chi

When you can't count the justice system to detect/correct fraud the country's going down the drain. But then this is part of the Republican's big game plan. Start on the local level and with the justice system, then go for the big winnings. In this area, they've got 10-15 years on us.

The NAACP won a court case against Jeb in 2001 to reinstate the illegally purged voters. We're still waiting. Jeb set up a complicated labyrinth of legal forms and procedures, then finally withdrew the forms and told the people, "don't call us - we'll call you".

There is also an investigation in the Department of Justice that Ashcroft has been sitting on for three years. I was hoping for a Kerry win just to get these cases into the public eye.

[bobbieinok]

6. a video about selection 2000

http://www.floridafightsback.com/

[bobbieinok]

7. lots of info here....this site was started by a poster at salon's

tabletalk who was fed up with the selection mess

http://www.failureisimpossible.com/floridafollies/index.htm

[Lisabtrucking]

9. How about this picture.

<>

During the hand recount of votes a angry mob entered the building and began beating on the doors and walls screaming and yelling. This mob behavior frightened the election officials, who were busy recounting the votes by hand, and they fled the building fearing for their lives.

Who were these angry people? Were they just a hobbled together group of Florida citizens who were concerned about an injustice against their democracies most fundamental right? No. Were they an unpaid group of people who wanted to make sure Bush won the election? No. They were was a group of political hacks who were working for, or had recently worked for, the GOP. At the top of this page is a picture of these people as they beat on the doors and yelled obscenities at the top of their lungs; labels have been included for easy identification.

This mob intimidation stunt actually worked. It delayed the recount long enough for the Supreme Court to declare Bush the winner, by a vote of 5 to 4. The majority of the court said there was not enough time for a the hand recount to continue and since Bush was still ahead in the Florida count he was the winner. This partisan decision by the Supreme Court was a slap in the face to our democracy and our most important right as American citizens.

[New Earth]

10. awww

other than the election itself, those were good days. Jada was only a few months old, and i would spend every hour of the day holding her and nursing while watching MSNBC all day about the election/recounts, etc.

I'll tell you one thing, i knew that if Bush got in we would be in a war.