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Who is going to step in to police the
Supreme Court?...
by Jean Hudon
Earth Rainbow Network Coordinator
http://www.cybernaute.com/earthconcert2000
Read also from
http://www.indymedia.org/email_display.php3?article_id=13804
AN ABSURD JUDGMENT
Summary: Racism and Classism Rule the Court
Editorial
THE US SUPREME COURT RULED THAT THE CASE BUSH
v. Gore
should go back to the Florida Supreme Court, so they can fashion a new
"uniform standard" to restart the manual recount. They also said, there
was no longer sufficient time to perform an accurate recount.
Contradiction?
CLIP - This editorial above is a MUST read - amazing!
---
Date: Wed, 13 Dec 2000
From: Mark Graffis <ab758@virgin.vip.vi>
Subject: Justice Scalia's Legal Vision Is Blinded by His Ambition
http://www.mostnewyork.com/2000-12-11/News_and_Views/
Beyond_the_City/a-91901.asp
Justice Scalia's Legal Vision Is Blinded by His Ambition
Earlier this year, Antonin Scalia, the Supreme Court justice who now is
all but serving as the attorney for George W. Bush, let it be known that
if Democrats won the presidency, he'd quit the court.
He would leave because under a Democratic administration, he would
have no shot at being named chief justice by Al Gore, according to the
March issue of the Washingtonian magazine.
Now, Scalia has taken charge of the election case for George W. Bush
and will try to herd the conservatives this morning for the result he
apparently wants: a Bush presidency, and, perhaps, the job of chief
justice when William Rehnquist retires in a few years as is expected.
Tents border street outside U.S. Supreme Court yesterday as people
lined up to attend session.
Normally, judges disqualify themselves from cases in which they have
a personal interest; if the naked ambition to be the court's chief was
accurately attributed to him, then he has no business deciding this fight.
Scalia, however, could not have been bolder in his advocacy for Bush's
cause, and, by extension, his own.
During oral arguments two weeks ago, he took shots at the Florida courts,
which had said the most fundamental right in a democracy is the vote.
No way, Scalia said.
"There is no right of suffrage under Article II," he declared.
In plain English, he said that the citizens have no constitutional right to
vote for President. His reason is that the Constitution places that power
in the hands of the state legislatures, although he did not mention that
all 50 state legislatures submit the question to a popular vote.
Over the weekend, he took matters even further.
Scalia wrote that Bush would suffer "irreparable harm" if votes were
counted "by casting a cloud upon what he claims to be the legitimacy of
his election."
You may have seen that moment in "A Few Good Men" when Tom Cruise
is defending a soldier at a military trial.
"I want the truth!" says Cruise, during cross-examination.
Jack Nicholson looks up at him with contempt.
"You can't handle the truth," snarls Nicholson.
The legality of the votes worries Scalia."Count first and rule upon
legality afterward is not a recipe for producing election results that
have the public acceptance democratic stability requires," Scalia
wrote.
We've gotten by for two centuries on precisely that recipe. That is
what is done on every Election Day in this country.
First we vote. Then come the challenges, if any, which end up in court,
and are decided there. This is not new. To have disputed ballots
decided by courts doesn't "change the rules of the game." Those are
the rules of the game. To do otherwise changes the law, the customs
and the practice in every single state.
No one can possibly argue that it is the best interests of Bush or
Gore that the votes not be counted.
There was talk yesterday - unfortunately, it proved to be untrue that the
Florida courts were going to ship uncounted ballots up to Washington.
Those ballots, for better and worse, are the only evidence about the
results of this election.
To exclude them from this decision is like saying that a murder weapon
seized from a suspect can't be shown to a jury because of a legal
technicality.
But Scalia says that we - the nation - can't handle the truth of
counting those ballots, that the results might damage a Bush presidency
if they show that he really didn't win.
So we hide the facts for the good of the country.
Or is it really for the good of Antonin Scalia, the chief justice wanna-be?
Original Publication Date: 12/11/00
* * * * * * * * * * *
Date: Wed, 13 Dec 2000
From: Michael Eisenscher <meisenscher@igc.org>
Subject: Our Supreme Court Recusal Policy and Scalia
The following message is circulating on the internet:
"Some Democrats raised alarms Monday because two sons of U.S. Supreme
Court Justice Antonin Scalia work for law firms connected to the case.
John Scalia accepted a position with the Miami-based firm Greenberg
Traurig on November 7. The next day, Barry Richard, a partner in the firm,
said he was called about representing Bush in Florida. A second son,
Eugene Scalia, is a partner in the Washington office of Gibson, Dunn &
Crutcher -- the firm representing Bush in the Supreme Court arguments. He
is not involved in the case."
I have been unable to confirm the source of this quote. Being duly
skeptical, as well as snowed in and having perhaps too much time on my
hands, I phoned Gibson, Dunn and Crutcher, and confirmed that the
above facts are both true with respect to their firm. Scalia is a partner.
The firm is representing Bush in the Supreme Court arguments. I further
spoke to their press spokesperson, Janet S. Zagorin, who again confirmed
these facts, but argued that since the son is not involved in the case,
Justice Scalia is not in violation of the recusal policy of the Supreme
Court. The firm of Greenberg Traurig was unable or unwilling to confirm
whether Mr. Scalia worked for their firm; only their marketing director
knows for sure. (:}
According to federal law, recusal is required if a relative of a justice
is "acting as a a lawyer in the proceeding." (455(b)(5)(ii). The
Statement of Recusal Policy of the Supreme Court of the United States
clarifies that merely being a partner or associate does not require
recusal. However, the statement goes on to point out that partnership is
relevant when under sub-section (iii) there is also reason to believe that
a judge's "impartiality might reasonably be questioned." The Statement
goes on to state that there may be a "special factor" which should be
taken into consideration: "Absent some special factor, therefore, we will
not recuse ourselves by reason of a relative's participation as a lawyer
in earlier stages of the case." Another special factor listed was when
immediate financial gain for the relative is involved in the outcome of
the case. Presumably other "special factors" ought to be considered.
How about the following combination of circumstances: (1) That, according
to the NY Daily News of December 11, Justice Scalia "let it be known that
if Democrats won the presidency, he'd quit the court" because the "would
have no shot at being named chief justice", (2) Both his sons work for
firms involved in the case. It would seem to me this combination of
factors leads to serious concern that his "impartiality might reasonably
be questioned" under 445(a), which is a provision of law independent of
the issue of relatives being employed.
Clearly, there are serious problems with the credibility of the
impartiality of Justice Scalia. However, even less credible is the
seriousness of the Democrats, such as Gore, who voted to confirm Scalia in
the first place. Given Scalia's partisanship and the role of Chief
Justice Rehnquist, who was reportedly once involved in Republican "flying
squads" that "perfectly legally" challenged Spanish-speaking voters in
Phoenix (Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, 12/2/00), the court is clearly in
conservative hands already.
Yet for the past 35 years, rather than working to pass truly progressive
legislation, Democrats have relied upon the Supreme Court to win one
valuable right after another. This just set us up for the dilemma we are
in now. It is time to fight for and win actual legislation that is clearly
constitutional and can withstand even the strictest constructionalist justice.
The struggle for legislation must now be the priority, starting with electoral
reform legislation.
We must devise omnibus packages of dozens of minor reforms which together
represent fundamental change. And we must pressure liberal Democrats to
introduce and work for such measures, even if under the current
circumstances they will not pass or would be vetoed.
Michael A. Dover
2425 Foxway
Ann Arbor MI 48105
(734)663-6972
mdover@umich.edu
* * * * * * * * * * *
Date: Tue, 12 Dec 2000
From: Michael Eisenscher <meisenscher@igc.org>
Subject: [RRE] Voting rights in Florida
So let's get this straight. A Republican became mayor of Miami through
massive absentee ballot fraud. The election was thrown out by means
of a statistical adjustment of the vote and his opponent was given the
post. Florida's Republican government reacted by hiring a Republican
firm with a history of questionable business dealings to prepare lists
of citizens who should be cleansed from the voting rolls. But, oops!,
the lists included many thousands of extra people. The Republican
legislature also enacted tough laws making it highly illegal to mess
with absentee ballot applications. So what happens? Republicans walk
into at least two county election offices and mess with thousands of
absentee ballot applications. And who is helping the Florida Republican
Party prepare absentee ballot applications? Yes, that's right, the guy
who became mayor of Miami through massive absentee ballot fraud. At the
same time, George W. Bush says that his favorite Supreme Court justice
is Antonin Scalia, who the other day said that Americans have no right
to vote for President. Meanwhile, the chief justice of the Supreme
Court, our buddy Bill Rehnquist, got his start by agitating against
minority voting rights in Arizona. These same Supreme Court justices,
just a few months ago, repealed big hunks of Article VI and the 14th
Amendment to the Constitution by adding to the 11th Amendment a new
states'-rights provision that, as the majority openly admitted, can
be found nowhere in either the text or the framers' discussions of
it. This new provision prevents the federal government from allowing
citizens to sue individual states. The case at hand was something
perfectly obscure, but it's plain that the real target of this brazen
activism was voting rights. Florida violated the voting rights of its
citizens in at least a dozen different ways in the election just past,
including ways that are quite amazingly reminiscent of the mysterious
Florida elections of recent times, and citizens are in court right
now attempting to seek redress under federal voting rights statutes.
Can you spot the pattern?
Although I said that I'm not systematically collecting election-related
URL's any more, people keep sending me useful items that I can't just
toss on the floor. So here they are:
Neither Won, So Split Electors Between Them
http://www.latimes.com/print/editorials/20001207/t000117165.html
Choking the Florida Black Vote
http://www.boston.com/dailyglobe2/341/oped/Choking_
the_Florida_black_vote+.shtml
Just Our Bill
http://www.commondreams.org/views/120200-101.htm
The Loose Ends of Election 2000
http://www.theconnection.org/archive/2000/12/1206a.shtml
Keep Them Out!
http://www.nytimes.com/2000/12/07/opinion/07HERB.html
America in the Grip of Bush's "Iron Triangle"
http://www.guardianunlimited.co.uk/Print/0,3858,4099753,00.html
Republican rioters identified
http://washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/politics/fedpage/
columns/intheloop/A30170-2000Dec5.html
Butterfly Voters Confused
http://helix.nature.com/nsu/001207/001207-1.html
Credibility of Voter Purging Questioned
http://www.gopbi.com/partners/pbpost/epaper/
editions/wednesday/news_18.html
Problems In Florida 2000 Vote Echo 1988 Senate Race
http://www.voter.com/home/news/article
/0,1175,2-16556-,00.html
For those who want to forward this message to their friends, here are the
election-related URL's that I included in my list of pointers the other day.
Who Lost Florida?
http://slate.msn.com/code/BallotBox/BallotBox.asp
?Show=12/4/2000&idMessage=6613
The Madness in the GOP's Method
http://www.tnr.com/121100/chait121100.html
http://www.tnr.com/121100/lizza121100.html
Florida's Flawed "Voter-Cleansing" Program
http://www.salon.com/politics/feature/2000/12/04/voter_file/
* * * * * * * * * * *
From: http://www.angelfire.com/fl4/redflagsinflorida/
57 Red Flags - Proof Bush Did Not Win the Popular Vote in Florida
Irregularities, strategic voting hindrances, illegal ballots,
intimidation, collusion, obstruction... Nice way to be a
"uniter, not a divider"!
What's going on? There are so many anomalies now that
the probability of simple coincidence or bad luck is
dwindling down to nothing.
On Election Day, November 7, some strange things
happened in Florida.
Let's put the puzzle pieces together.
Early Calls
1) Major pre-election polls had Gore leading in Florida the night of
Nov. 6.
(http://www.zogby.com/features/featuredtables.dbm?ID=30#Anchor
-Florid-922)
(http://dailynews.yahoo.com/h/nm/20001106/ts/election_leadall_dc
_11.html)
2) On Election Day, November 7, Voter News Service correctly predicted
through exit polls that matched with early results that Gore won the
state of Florida by a safe margin of 5%. At 7:53PM VNS issued the
bulletin: FLORIDA PRESIDENT RACE - GORE WINS. The networks
immediately called the state for Gore.
http://www.herald.com/content/tue/business/florida/digdocs/045599.htm
3) A mortified Jeb Bush, Governor of Florida, shortly thereafter left
his family in Austin to make some calls. Then George W., after
consulting with his advisors including his brother Jeb, called
reporters to his hotel suite and told them the networks had made a
mistake in calling Florida. "I'm upbeat," he said. At 10:13PM the
networks recalled the state and put it back into the "too close to
call" column.
http://www.herald.com/content/tue/business/florida/digdocs/045599.htm
4) At 2:18 AM the networks began declaring George W. Bush the
president. They had done so after Fox News called Florida. Who made
the decision to incorrectly call Florida for Bush over at Fox, thereby
creating the lasting myth that Bush won? John Ellis, who also happens
to be George W. Bush's first cousin.
(http://www.salon.com/politics/feature/2000/11/15/ellis/index.html)
Irregularities - Palm Beach County
5) An illegal ballot design (the infamous "butterfly ballot") confused
many residents of Palm Beach County into undervoting, overvoting, or
accidentally voting for Pat Buchanan. Regarding the spin about how
it's because they are stupid old people: voters started complaining
about this at 7:05 AM on Election Day. DNC HQ calls were jammed due
to the high volume of calls. Rep. Robert Wexler, the local
Congressional Representative, received a deluge of calls, and on
Election Day, even VP Candidate Josep Lieberman called the local
office to see what was going on down there. The elections supervisor
issued a warning midway through the day warning people of the
confusion.
(http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/politics/AP-Florida-Ballot
-Confusion.html)
(http://www.salon.com/politics/feature/2000/11/09/lapore/index.html)
(http://www.sun-sentinel.com/news/daily/detail/0,1136,3600000000
0123102,00.html)
6) The odds that all those Palm Beach County residents voted for
Buchanan intentionally rather than Gore is approximately a trillion to
one. Statistical models bear this out when you compare them to the
Buchanan vote in other counties. Looking at any graph you see a huge,
disproportionate spike in Buchanan votes. Pat Buchanan himself agrees
that the majority of these votes were not cast for him.
(http://www.bestbookmarks.com/election) (http://madison.hss.cmu.edu/)
7) Many Palm Beach county voters who mis-voted but caught it
immediately and asked for another ballot were told they could not have
another ballot by poll workers, in violation of county rules. (NPR,
11/10/00)
8) Socialist Party candidate David McReynolds received abnormally high
vote totals in Palm Beach County. His name appears directly below
Buchanan's name on the butterfly ballot, in a position that could
potentially draw erroneous votes from Democratic votes. McReynolds
received 302 votes in PBC. Statewide, in the other 66 counties, he
received 316 votes combined. McReynolds got virtually as many votes
in Palm Beach County as he did in the entire rest of the state of
Florida...nearly 50% of the statew de total!
(http://www.bestbookmarks.com/election)
9) After the handcounts were completed, after using a stricter
standard than neighboring Broward County, the deadline was missed by
an hour or two. Could the count have been delayed because of stall
tactics used by overzealous GOP observers?
(http://www.globe.com/dailyglobe2/324/nation/Democrats_accuse_
GOP_of_stalling_for_time+.shtml)
Irregularities - Miami-Dade County
10) Miami-Dade has a recent history of election fraud. In 1998, Mayor
elect Xavier Suarez was stripped of his election victory by a Florida
appeals court, reinstating Joe Carollo as mayor of Miami, finding that
massive fraud had robbed him of victory at the polls four months
prior. A trial court judge had previously ruled that the election was
tainted by ``massive, well-conceived and well-orchestrated'' absentee
ballot fraud in which even a dead man voted.
(http://www.income-online.com/content/news/N WS/MIAMI.html)
11) The very same scandal-tainted Xavier Suarez currently sits on the
executive committee of the Miami-Dade Republican Party and was
specifically involved this year in helping to get out the Republican
vote. He admitted on November 8th that "he helped fill out absentee
ballot forms and enlist Republican absentee voters in Miami-Dade
County"
(http://www.feedmag.com/templates/daily_master.php3?a_id=1389)
12) Despite tough rules put in place after the fraud-plagued Miami
mayoral election, rules designed to keep absentee ballots out of the
hands of campaign operatives, GOP workers obtained hundreds of them
from voters during their aggressive drive to increase turnout for
George W. Bush. An estimated 500 to 600 completed ballots were
collected by Bush volunteers or dropped off at campaign offices in
Little Havana, Westchester and Hialeah, according to GOP campaign
officials in charge of the absentee vote.
(http://www.herald.com/content/archive/news/elect2000/decision/018937.
htm)
13) The Miami-Dade Canvassing Board decided to abruptly stop the hand
count after mobs of Republicans paid for by Bush and other GOP
operatives including that of House Majority Whip Tom DeLay stormed
their building. Rep. John Sweeney, R-N.Y., was one of the
ringleaders of the Miami fight against the recount, and after hearing
the decision to change a vote tally, Sweeney uttered a three-word
order to his troops: "Shut it down."
(http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A63455-2000Nov27.html)
(http://www.salon.com/politics/feature/2000/11/28/miami/)
(http://www.msnbc.com/news/494375.asp)
14) Gore gained 157 more votes than Bush in the partial hand recount,
which were not added to the tally by Florida Secretary of State
Katherine Harris.
Irregularities - Volusia County
15) On Election Night, a computer glitch showed a Socialist Party
candidate had more than 9,000 votes, while Vice President Al Gore had
minus 16,000. Those numbers were sent out over the Internet, picked up
by local newspapers and subsequently reported by major networks on
Election Night. The socialist eventually ended up with 9 votes in the
county.
(http://www.salon.com/politics/feature/2000/11/11/volusia/index.html)
16) Then, during Wednesday's recount, a forgotten ballot bag emerged
from a county poll worker's trunk. Two days later, three other ballot
bags emerged later from the county vaults without their tamper-proof
seals intact.
(http://www.salon.com/politics/feature/2000/11/11/volusia/index.html)
Irregularites - Seminole County
17) 2,100 incomplete GOP absentee ballot requests were selectively
fixed/altered by GOP workers invited into election offices by the GOP
elections supervisor while similar Democratic absentee ballot requests
were rejected.
(http://www.salon.com/politics/feature/2000/11/28/seminole/index.html)
(http://www.campaignwatch.org/update.htm)
Irregularities - Broward County
18) Broward County elections officials are investigating the
possibility that a handful of voting machines malfunctioned Nov. 7,
now that the hand recount has been completed.
(http://www.herald.com/content/archive/news/elect2000/decision/
042862.htm)
Irregularities - Duval County
19) A 40,000-vote error in the Duval count was one of two significant
miscalculations the Voter News Service made in Florida on November 7.
http://www.jacksonville.com/tu-online/stories/111300/met_4597444.html
20) Many of the 27,000 presidential ballots in Duval County that were
disqualified were in predominantly black areas. Nearly 42 percent
came from four districts alone, ones that are overwhelmingly
Democratic, where voters there favored Gore by about 80%.
http://www.jacksonville.com/tu-online/stories/111300/met_4597444.html
Irregularities - Hillsborough County
21) VNS Reported higher than usual numbers for Bush in six precincts
in the Tampa area which was one of the reasons they pulled the state
from Gore to the undecided column on Election Day. An exit poller
said that a sampling of six precincts in Tampa included "too many
Democrats". (St. Petersburg Times; St. Petersburg, Fla.; Nov 9, 2000)
Irregularities - Martin County
22) Martin County Supervisor of Elections Peggy S. Robbins allowed GOP
operatives to take flawed absentee ballot forms home and correct them.
Altering an absentee ballot application is a third-degree felony in
Florida.
http://www.latimes.com/news/politics/decision2000/lat_absent001202.htm
Irregularities - Nassau County
23) Predominately Republican Nassau County inexplicably decided to
report its original election returns rather than its recount tally to
the secretary of state for certification, thus stripping Vice
President Al Gore of 51 votes.
http://www.salon.com/politics/feature/2000/11/24/deutsch/index.html
Irregularities - Bay County
24) A Bay County resident alleged the Republican Party of Florida used
"unlawful and heavy-handed actions" to encourage people to vote by
absentee ballot. The GOP apparently used the state seal, in
violation of state law, on letters urging voters to seek absentee
ballots.
http://www.newsherald.com/articles/2000/11/14/lo111400g.htm (St.
Petersburg Times, Nov 30, 2000)
Irregularities - Escambia County
25) A forged absentee ballot may have been part of an broader
voter-fraud scheme.
http://www.sptimes.com/News/111000/Election2000/
Forged_ballot_in_Esca.shtml
Irregularities - Overseas Ballots
26) Some Florida residents serving at a U.S. Air Force base in England
received two absentee ballots for this year's presidential race.
http://www.salon.com/politics/feature/2000/11/09/duplicate/index.html
27) The distribution of archaic voting machines were in predominately
Democratic Counties. At least another 4,942 votes would have been
registered for Gore if the punch-card and mark-sense voting machines
had been randomly distributed throughout Florida.
http://www.dshields.net/randomvotingmachine.htm
28) When the first machine recount was completed on Nov. 9, there were
highly non-random corrections to the vote count for Gore, but just in
the counties which were already voting heavily for Gore. Graphs
showing this discrepancy indicate that there may have been an
undercount of the votes for Gore in those counties in the initial
machine count. The re-count corrections in the Republican show a nice
bell-shaped curve, which is what you would expect if the distribution
of corrections was random, which i expected if the original count was
strictly fair. The distribution of the corrections in the Democratic
is lop-sided on the right, indicating the magnitude of corrections
went heavily towards Gore. This is NOT what you would expect if the
corrections were due to random errors, and indicates some other factor
is involved which is not random (i.e. fraud).
http://www.dshields.net/floridaelectionrecountstats.htm
29) Hand recounts, while denounced exaustively by the Bush campaign
and the GOP, were used in certain Republican counties that favored
Bush.
http://www.salon.com/politics/feature/2000/11/28/hand/index.html
30) A Miami Herald analysis suggests Gore would have won Florida by
23,000 were it not for statewide irregularities.
http://www.herald.com/content/archive/news/elect2000/decision
/104268.htm
Voter Intimidation and Jim (Jeb) Crow
31) Black votes statewide have been disproportionally tossed, in some
county precincts in Duval County the ratio is as high as one in three.
http://www.msnbc.com/news/497956.asp#BODY
http://www.nytimes.com/2000/11/29/politics/29MACH.html
32) A disproportionate number of rejected presidential votes in South
Florida came from African-American and Caribbean neighborhoods,
according to an analysis of election data from Broward, Miami-Dade and
Palm Beach Counties.
http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/metro/chicago/ws/item/
0,1308,46649-46819-48438,00.html
33) A disproportionate number of black votes were tossed in Glades
County. http://home.netcom.com/~mecowan/glades.htm
34) Registered black college students at Bethune-Cookman College in
Daytona Beach and Tallahassee's Florida A&M University said they were
turned away from the polls even though they had signed up in fall
registration drives.
http://www.sun-sentinel.com/news/daily/detail/
0,1136,36000000000133020,00.html
35) In Leon County, highway patrol troopers set up an unauthorized
checkpoint near a polling place in the town of Woodville.
http://www.sun-sentinel.com/news/daily/detail/
0,1136,36000000000133020,00.html
36) Many black voters were inexplicably not on the voter lists at the
polling locations.
http://www.nytimes.com/2000/11/30/politics/30BLAC.html
37) Many reports of voter intimidation surfaced in Hillsboro County.
http://news.ft.com/ft/gx.cgi/ftc?pagename=View&c=Article&cid=
FT3WRE3NLFC&live=true&tagid=ZZZOMSJK30C&subheading=
US(http://www.salon.com/politics/feature/2000/11/11/naacp/index.html
38) The FBI has been investigating allegations that some voters,
primarily Haitians with limited or no English speaking or reading
ability, were duped into voting for Bush by misleading "palm cards"
that made them think they were voting for Gore.
http://www.sun-sentinel.com/news/daily/detail/0,1136,3600000000012688
6,00.html
39) In Miami, Haitian-Americans said they weren't given mandated
ballots in Creole, or were denied help from poll workers.
(http://www.sun-sentinel.com/news/daily/detail/
0,1136,36000000000133020,00.html)
40) In Healdsburg County, police were stopping African American
voters, asking for ID's and asking, "What are you doing here?"
(http://www.allegedirregularities.com/profiling/)
41) Many were asked a litany of questions even though they were on the
voting rolls and had ID's. The questions had to do with whether they
had been convicted of a felony, when was the last time they voted,
etc. Only African Americans appeared to be asked these questions.
(http://www.allegedirregularities.com/profiling/)
42) Four ballot boxes in heavily black precincts were alleged to not
have been picked up.
(http://www.globe.com/dailyglobe2/335/nation/NAACP_says_it_
will_sue_over_alleged_flaws_in_Fla_voting+.shtml)
43) A polling place was demolished without notice.
(http://www.salon.com/politics/feature/2000/11/11/naacp/index.html)
Racist and Hate Group Intimidation
44) Protesters have been infiltrated by Neo-Nazis, the KKK and other
hate groups. A major Neo-Nazi website encourages people to attend its
"No More Gore" rallies.
(http://www.villagevoice.com/issues/0047/ladd.shtml)
(http://www.stormfront.org)
Other Intimidation
45) Several Democrats were punched, kicked and trampled by Republican
goons during the court-ordered Miami-Dade recount. Death threats and
other assaults have also occurred, specifically towards Rep. Robert
Wexler, and Palm Beach commissioner Carol Roberts. A certain website
also published the home phone numbers of the Florida Supreme Court
Justices, and one can assume the possibility of death threats may have
reached even to that level. (http://www.msnbc.com/news/494375.asp)
Cyber Jim Crow
46) Due to a "computer glitch", approximately 12,000 voters across the
state were mistakenly identified as having out-of-state felony
convictions, thereby making them ineligible to vote. Although 8,000 of
these so marked were able to fix the problem through an arduous
process of restoring their rights through the Florida Office of
Executive Clemency, 4,000 remained ineligible to vote by Election Day.
Those falsely marked as felons included a disproportionate number of
African Americans, more disproport onate than the standard ratio of
conviction rates between blacks and whites would allow.
(http://www.observer.co.uk/business/story/0,6903,402957,00.html),
(http://home.netcom.com/~mecowan/voter_rolls.htm)
47) The source of this so-called "glitch": Database Technologies, a
division of ChoicePoint; hired by Florida Secretary of State Katherine
Harris. Harris hired Database Technologies to identify people
registered in other counties, those who have died, or those who are
felons. In 1999 the FBI suspended their contract with DBT because of
suspected ties of the company founder to drug smugglers, despite the
fact that one year prior, a respected former DEA agent and
narcotrafficking specialist was hired as ice President.
(http://geocities.com/glitchgate)
48) ChoicePoint's founder, Rick Rozar, died from an accident in 1998.
According to Guardian Observer reporter Gregory Palast, he was "under
fire for misuse of personal data in state computers." ChoicePoint is
a very private firm with tight Republican ties.
(http://www.observer.co.uk/business/story/0,6903,402957,00.html),
(http://www.salon.com/politics/feature/2000/12/04/voter_file/index.html)
49) The computer glitch that disenfranchised the 4,000 Floridians
stemmed largely from Texas state records that erroneously included
people with misdemeanors as having felonies.
(http://home.netcom.com/~mecowan/voter_rolls.htm)
Collusion
50) The Governor of Florida, Jeb Bush, is George W. Bush's brother.
51) Katherine Harris, Florida's Secretary of State and the person in
charge of certifying Florida's electors, was George W. Bush's Florida
co-chairwoman as far back as October 1999.
(http://www.salon.com/politics/feature/2000/11/13/harris/index.html)
52) George W. Bush is son of the former President who was head of the
CIA. The CIA has experience in overturning elections and pulling off
coup d'etats in third-world countries.
(http://www.fas.org/irp/ops/policy/church-chile.htm)
(http://www.cia.gov/cia/publications/chile/index.html)
CLIP
Vendetta, Inc.
57) In many respects this whole election is about payback for a hatred
for Clinton (and by proxy, Gore) and what they have done to the "Bush
stocks". The corporate power players abide and abet, because they are
delighted at the prospect of grand-scale deregulation of business,
services and industry, 'bringing the business special interests into
politics so they can take over the regulatory bodies of government and
regulate themselves'.
(http://www.observer.co.uk/international/story/0,6903,406082,00.html)
Something is Rotten in the State of Florida.
Thanks for reading! More updates forthcoming at:
http://www.bushneverwonflorida.com
Last Updated: 12/07/00 |
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