FROM BBC NEWS, LONDON

What really happened in Florida? 16/2/01

GREG PALAST: Washington, the marine band plays 'Hail to the Chief' for George W Bush, 43rd President of the United States. But in Florida, some are singing 'Hail to the Thief'.

COUNTRY SONG: After hundreds of lies Fake alibis

PALAST: We are coming into Tallahassee. We want to know whether George W Bush won the election or did brother Jeb steal it for him? Our investigation suggest the answer lies in this shuttered building and in a very expensive contract between Governor Jeb's division of elections and a private company named DBT, which accidentally wiped off the voter rolls thousands of Democratic voters. 18th floor division of elections, we have come to ask Mr Clayton Roberts, the director, a few questions. Roberts agreed to talk, but became a bit uncomfortable when he learned that we had obtained the secret DBT contract, and asked him if he knew what DBT were up to.

CLAYTON ROBERTS: Florida Director of Elections No, I didn't ask DBT. They do what we contract them to do. We have a statute that says we have to have a private company to do this. We put it out for bid, we put it out for bid, and I think I'm done with this interview.

PALAST: Let me just show you the contract if I could Mr Roberts. It says here in the contract that the verification is supposed to be done by DBT. That you paid them $4 million. It could look to others don't you think that you paid $4 million to purchase this election for the Republican party. 95% wrong on the felon list. Mr Roberts, could you answer the question regarding the contract... Instead, Mr Roberts called out State troopers. It's interesting here?

STATE TROOPER: Oh, man! Never a dull moment.

PALAST: I don't know why he had to call the police. We hadn't gotten to our difficult questions yet! The difficult questions are: Did Governor Jeb Bush, his Secretary of State Katherine Harris, and her Director of Elections, Clayton Roberts, know they had wrongly barred 22,000 black, Democrat voters before the elections? After the elections did they use their powers to prevent the count of 20,000 votes for the Democrats? The Democrats say the answers to both questions are yes.

COMMISSIONER: In any other country in the world, if this had occurred, there probably would have been riots or military troops throughout the streets.

PARTY CHAIRMAN: Al Gore won the election. He won the popular vote and he won the vote in Florida. I think that that's pretty clear.

VOTER: It wasn't done fairly. They shouldn't allow you to contest an election then give you no way to contest it.

LEGISLATOR: Jeb Bush promised his brother he was going to deliver Florida. I believe the Republicans strategy was at all costs we deliver Florida.

CAMPAIGNER: Were people taken out of polls and stopped from voting? Yes, I think that was not right. I smell a rat!

PALAST: This is Database Technologies. This is the company that the state of Florida hired to remove the names of people who committed serious crimes from the voter lists. I have obtained a document marked "confidential and trade secret". It says the company was paid millions of dollars to make telephone calls to verify they got the right names - but they didn't. There is nothing in the state of Florida files that says they made these telephone calls. So the question remains, why did the Republican leaders of this state pay millions for a list that stopped thousands of innocent Democrats from voting? The first list from DBT included 8,000 names from Texas supplied by George Bush's state officials. They said they were all felons, serious criminals barred from voting. As it turns out, almost none were. Local officials raised a ruckus and DBT issued a new list naming 58,000 felons. But the one county which went through the whole expensive process of checking the new list name by name found it was still 95% wrong. Reverend Willie Whiting was one of those removed from voter roles after DBT wrongly labelled him a serious criminal.

REVEREND WILLIE WHITING: I have never spent a night in jail.

PALAST: Were you ever busted?

WHITING: No. I had a speeding ticket probably 25-30 years ago, I guess, but that's about it.

PALAST: Do you think you should be allowed to vote if you had a speeding ticket?

WHITING: Absolutely.

PALAST: The Florida legislature likes to see young prisoners paraded in front of the capital in old cavalry uniforms.

PRISON GUARD: Me and superman had a fight

PRISONERS: Me and superman had a fight

PRISON GUARD: I hit him in the head with some Kryptonite

PRISONERS: I hit him in the head with some Kryptonite

PALAST: More often than not in America, the prisoner's colour is black. Because of the way DBT generated the list, every genuine black felon in the United States could knock out every black voter in Florida with the same surname and similar date of birth. That's why the NAACP is suing Florida for violating voters' civil rights.

LARRY OTTINGER: Lawyer for NAACP Governor Bush, the Secretary of State Katherine Harris, Clayton Roberts, the head of elections, all knew or should have known in advance that certain election policies and practices would disproportionately impact low-income areas, and in particular black citizens and other minority citizens, and that this would disproportionately impact Democratic voters, based on historical voting trends.

AL GORE: Thank you, Florida!

PALAST: Altogether, it looks like this cost the Democrats about 22,000 votes in Florida, which George Bush won by only 537 votes. The US civil rights commission is also on the trail. They called in Bush, Harris and Roberts. Bush did not convince his critics.

UNNAMED MAN: You screwed up this state. You sealed the ballot.

PALAST: Commissioner Edley and his colleagues will be in Miami tomorrow to hear from voters wrongly disqualified.

DR CHRISTOPHER EDLEY: US Civil Rights Commissioner If you are going to do it, by all means as a matter of due process and fairness, it's got to be done with excruciating care. It's a democracy, the vote counts. There is a lot of public concern that the contractor selected is a firm that seems to have ties to the Republican party.

PALAST: They will be putting our evidence to Database Technologies. Their vice-president told us that "manual verification by telephone calls" does not mean ringing people up to check they have got the right person. So were they paid to produce a list which they knew would name thousands of innocent black people? In fact DBT told Newsnight that Clayton Roberts and the State of Florida: "... wanted there to be more names than were actually verified as being a convicted felon." So did they use their powers to prevent the count of 20,000 votes for the Democrats? You don't have to be black. In Palm Beach, America's privileged nurse their tans and their anger.

UNNAMED WOMAN: I thought I voted for Al Gore but unfortunately I voted for Pat Buchanan, and I wasn't happy about that, because I am a Jewish voter and he would have been the last person in the world I would have voted for.

PALAST: Whacky butterfly ballots caused thousands in this Democrat town to accidentally mess up and they were refused replacement ballots promised them by state law.

JOANNE CARBONE: From the time the elections started until that awful decision that the Supreme Court made, I came across hundreds of people who made a mistake and I saw over 13,000 complaints filed by people who live in Palm Beach county.

PALAST: In all, Palm Beach voting machines misread 27,000 ballots. Jeb Bush's Secretary of State, Katharine Harris, stopped them counting these votes by hand. She did the same to Gadstone, one of Florida's blackest, poorest and most Democrat counties, where machines failed to count one in eight ballots. Again Harris stopped the hand count. This alone cost Gore another 700 votes, in an election in which Harris declared George Bush winner by only 537 votes.

KATHARINE HARRIS: In accordance with the laws of the State of Florida, I hereby declare Governor George W Bush the winner of Florida's 25 electoral votes for the President of the United States.

PALAST: Harris was a busy woman. In charge of Florida's vote count and co-chair of Bush's presidential campaign.

LOIS FRANKEL: Had she really been unbiased? Wouldn't the appropriate actions for her to be to say - let's really get to the bottom of this election and let's make sure every vote is counted.

PALAST: Lois Frankel represents Palm Beach, in the State legislature where she leads the Democratic opposition.

FRANKEL: She wanted George Bush to win. She interpreted every rule, every law in a way to help George Bush.

PALAST: We are driving down to Miami to witness an American ritual. In Britain, you count the votes, then announce the winner. In Florida they declare the winner first and here we are, still counting the votes.

WOMAN'S VOICE: She is showing the ballot in front of the light. They can see the light through where the chads have been punched through. Then she holds it in front because sometimes you can see things in different light. They have a whole column.

PALAST: Normally these are machine-read, right?

UNNAMED WOMAN: Right.

PALAST: They are carefully going through the 179,855 uncounted ballots that Harris did not want tallied. They'll know the winner next month. Sources tell Newsnight that Gore's ahead by 20,000 votes. The Biltmore, grandest hotel in Miami. Democrats are upstairs eating with their richest friends charging $5,000 a plate. Let's see if we can get in. Not far away from the millionaires on the balcony a voter had taken hostages at gun point protesting against the election fraud. But here it is back to champagne politics as usual. One Democrat whispered they would have done the same as Katharine Harris if they had the chance. But another, party chairman, Bob Poe remains bitter about this.

BOB POE: Chairman, Florida Democrats Jeb Bush, Katharine Harris, Clay Roberts did everything they could to stop every legitimate count of the vote. And that's what did us in.

PALAST: All fingers point to the Jeb Bush crew in Tallahassee. Investigators want to breakthrough the iron shutters.

EDLEY: I have to say that thus far we have been disappointed by the explanations, or perhaps I should say the lack of explanation provided by the state officials. When we spoke with the Governor and the Secretary of State and even with the Director of the Bureau of Elections underneath the Secretary of State, they were pointing fingers at everybody else, saying "look it wasn't our responsibility", they were in charge, which is a disheartening disquieting thing for us to hear - who should be held accountable for what clearly was a system that broke down.

PALAST: State officials point the finger at the counties and say it is their responsibility to check if the names on the list are real felons before disqualifying them. Clayton Roberts says his job is just to pass on the list. Roberts now admits he didn't bother to check with DBT, if innocent people were on it.

ROBERTS: Please turn off that camera.

PALAST: Off camera he said: We did not call and say did you check the list again... the whole tenor of this is like OK you screwed up you didn't check with DBT and if you want to hang this on me that's fine. It is certainly fine for George W Bush. Even if investigators conclude that Jeb Bush and the Republicans conspired to steal this election, the man in that house for the next four years will be George W Bush.

-- Amazing BBC Transcript (BBC@News.London), March 14, 2001

Answers

Geez. No wonder they planted so many stories about Clinton stealing the White House silverware.

-- (@ .), March 14, 2001.

Too funny!

-- Maria (anon@ymous.com), March 14, 2001.

Maria, you are being morally dishonest about this whole thing. The attitude of so many repugs, being so what? Bush is prez and how he got to be is not important. In Florida the election was "rigged" in as many different little ways as possible. The majority of the poeple in this country did not vote for Bush, they did not want him or his policies. Yet due to corruption and outright illegal acts he is in office pushing a mandate that is so scewed from what this country has stood for and gone towards for the past 30 years that it is sickening.

Bush has been wrapped in his own little world, a world that does not exist in reality, where he doesn't even seem to realise he was coersed and manipulated into running in the first place. He is nothing but an empty shell, a front for corrupted people who's only moral standard is the goal of money. This country is based on princibles that are non existant in the government at this time. There will be a backlash, every single thing Bush and his keepers are doing is going to have an equal and opposite impact, probably sooner than later. They are reaching the point even now where people with principals and decent moral standards have reached their breaking point. Bush is discusting and his cabinet and keepers are discusting. This is the end of the old republican party. People have changed in the past 30 years, there are new generations of people who do not hold the attitudes that rule these old southern good ole boys. It's over, and Bush is helping it die by his actions. When people like you know and defend actions that are so blatently morraly wrong, you discredit your self and your words hold absolutly no power. Every time you post, you write exactly what other have come to expect from you. You have lost any credibility you once held. Bush may be in the office of president, but he was not voted in and has no moral right to be where he is. Every day there is more information that comes to light to show this. How long are you going to deny reality? Does getting what you want justify the corruption and imooral and illegal means that were used to give it to you?

-- Cherri (jessam5@home.com), March 14, 2001.

When two monkeys want the same banana, in the end one gets the banana and the other cries morality.

Cherri, most of your assertions are nonsense and those grounded in any reality are highly debatable. Quit crying.

-- Flint (flintc@mindspring.com), March 14, 2001.

"When people like you know and defend actions that are so blatently morraly wrong, you discredit your self and your words hold absolutly no power."

Right on, Cherri. Everything you wrote is so true. Especially for immoral cretins on this board who insist that we have to get "over it."

As for you Flint, quit drinking.

-- GOP Liars (immoral@thieves.com), March 14, 2001.

Flint: "When two monkeys want the same banana, in the end one gets the banana and the other cries morality."

What a cute saying, Flint! Essentially, either what you are saying is that might makes right - or you simply don't want to acknowledge any basis of morality that can withstand a monkey's gibbering.

If I'm wrong, Flint, please elaborate your position far enough to distinguish it from either of these two possibilities. Thanks. Much appreciated.

-- Little Nipper (canis@minor.net), March 14, 2001.

Americans put way too much stock in their politicians...

-- Will (righthere@home.now), March 14, 2001.

I love to shoot the clintons!

-- Frank Ollie (genious@defert.com), March 15, 2001.

Little Nipper,

Don't expect Flint to respond to your message. He has been arguing that "might makes right" ever since the election.

-- GOP Traitors (include@flint.com), March 15, 2001.

The majority of the poeple in this country did not vote for Bush So what? Who gives a shit about this fact? The majority did not vote for Billy either. The majority voted for someone other than Billy. But that's our democratic republic at work. Live with it Cherri. The rest of your ranting isn't worth my time commenting on.

-- Maria (anon@ymous.com), March 15, 2001.

Maria you are so pathetic. Look at you! Supporting a moron who stole an election! You know you can't defend that fact. What did you get out of this election Maria? Did you get "to be right"? You support a thief who wants to dictate to you what you do with your uterus. Ha ha ha. What a maroon!

-- Mikel (mej023@earthlink.net), March 15, 2001.

Maria: "But that's our democratic republic at work."

Perhaps you failed to notice, Maria, that "our democratic republic" is not designed to "work" through the instrument of fraud.

I could understand your position more easily if you were to suggest that not enough evidence has been produced to establish whether fraud was at work and barring such evidence you will presume fraud was absent. But you sound as if you don't really care whether fraud was at work or not. That's cold.

-- Little Nipper (canis@minor.net), March 15, 2001.

Fraud?! LN, I thought you had better sense than that! Who knows more 'bout fraud than our most honorable previous prez? How many words can you redefine under oath?

Until there's proof (honest to goodness proof) of fraud in the election, then maybe you'll have somethin' there bud. But stupid people who can't read a fuckin' ballot and vote for their intended candidate doesn't constitute fraud.

-- Maria (anon@ymous.com), March 15, 2001.

Maria: "But stupid people who can't read a fuckin' ballot and vote for their intended candidate doesn't constitute fraud."

Maria, even you, as smart as you are, might find it rather difficult to read a ballot and vote for your intended candidate when you are not given a ballot - on the false pretext that you are a felon and ineligible to vote.

-- Little Nipper (canis@minor.net), March 15, 2001.

LN

1) The ballot was published two weeks before the election, no excuse there.

2) Prove it. It's a citizen's duty to ensure that he or she is properly registered. It's a simple act to go to the office and ask. Prove these people were purposely kept off the list.

-- Maria (anon@ymous.com), March 15, 2001.

"It's a citizen's duty to ensure that he or she is properly registered."

And it is the registrar's duty to maintain accurate voting rolls.

Are you seriuosly arguing that once a voter has properly registered to vote and has a recent history of voting, that it is reasonable to expect that voter to double-check with the registrar before each election to see if they have been improperly removed from the rolls between elections?

Essentially, your reasoning gives the registrar carte blanche to screw up the voter rolls when, where and as she pleases and not be held responsible. You must live in a strange universe... and spend a lot of time traipsing down to the registrar's office.

-- Little Nipper (canis@minor.net), March 15, 2001.

Nipper:

We had procedures we followed. As a result of those procedures, Bush became president. Now, in my opinion the procedures that were followed could have been better, because my reading of the constitution is that the intent was for the legislative bodies to arbitrate disputed elections, rather than the courts. Indeed, I see major problems with the courts handling this chore, since it drags the courts into a strictly political matter. Such a matter should (IMO) be handled politically, and not judicially.

Be that as it may, we followed a procedure and got a result. In no way was this procedure "immoral" not was the final result "theft" of the election in any way. I'll gladly admit that because of the tied election, the procedure for resolving it was nonstandard. We set precedents with which I am not comfortable, but these precedents are entirely independent of which candidate ended up with the office.

Very few responsible commentators found "fraud" involved in our procedures, although of course it's extremely unlikely we've ever had ANY major election that didn't have some thin layer of fraud around the edges. This layer only becomes visible only when an important election is so very close that the layers of fraud become decisive. But HOW they are decisive is a matter of politics. The losing side of a major election that's close enough can *always* find some fraud somewhere, *whether it exists or not, and no matter who loses*! The winner has no motive to look, but would otherwise have no difficulty finding some if the motivation were sufficient.

From my perspective, then, there are simply no moral issues involved here at all. A procedure was followed, a selection was made, lousy precedents were set, and hopefully some of those logistical matters that led to that situation are being addressed and rectified. And attempts to bias the results, legal or otherwise, will always be with us.

So I'm not saying might makes right. There was no bloody coup, no guns used to take over communications facilities, the military was not involved at all. We merely had an occasion whereby the very closeness of the election greatly enhanced the disappointment of those who supported the losing side. One of the monkeys got the banana. Had a single justice been of the opposite party, the SCOTUS would probably have effectively appointed the other candidate. Would this then still be immoral, or fraudulent, or theft? Nonsense. The same procedures would simply have resulted in the *other* monkey getting the banana, under absolutely identical circumstances.

Cherri's horse lost in a photo finish, and she won't accept this. She is now claiming that the race was rigged, that the cameraman cheated, that the worker who raked the track was corrupt, that the winning horse must have been illegal, that the starting gate was deliberately mis-positioned, and that anyone who doesn't agree must be morally dishonest!

I'm sorry, but we played by the rules to the best of our ability. At least in comparison to any known election anywhere, nobody cheated, nobody was immoral, nobody was corrupt, and the operation of the rules we followed worked to select a winner (which COULD have been either one, essentially at random). I'd have been disappointed in that case (just as I was after the previous 2 elections), but better luck next time.

Cherri's high moral dudgeon is completely inappropriate, and the last refuge of the terminal sore loser. Like asking Cherri to call it in the air. When she calls heads and it comes up tails, she starts screaming that the ref cheated, that the coin flip is rigged, etc. and just keeps screaming and ranting anything that crosses her mind. Sorry, Cherri, you lost. It was close, it could have gone either way, tough luck no matter who lost. No immorality, sorry.

-- Flint (flintc@mindspring.com), March 15, 2001.

-- (foo@bar.s), March 15, 2001.

Flint, may I suggest that it is much easier to acquire such an equanimous demeanor when the outcome of this highly flawed process is the outcome you desired?

Hypothetically speaking, if it were shown conclusively that:

- prior to the election Governor Jeb Bush and Secretary of State Katherine Harris were made aware that tens of thousands of voters were purged without legal cause from the voting rolls, and

- they were aware (or had sufficent cause to believe) that the vast majority of these voters were registered as Democrats, and

- they mutually agreed not to use the power of their office to seek to restore those voters to the voting rolls, on the expressed understanding that this situation benefitted their own party's candidates,

...then how would you consider their actions? As fraudulent? Or just "a procedure that was followed"?

-- Little Nipper (canis@minor.net), March 15, 2001.

Foo, that was just so funny!

LN, sorry, I was speaking from experience there. Seems there was a screw up with mine during a past election; I was turned away. For this very important election, I went down in August to make sure I was on the books. See I understand that mistakes happen, no one is perfect. I seem to remember "imperfection" in our worker force coming up during the Y2K debates.

-- Maria (anon@ymous.com), March 15, 2001.

I’ve not been known to be in the prediction business but I will offer this bit of yet-to-be seen history. When the atrocities perpetrated on the United States by the Clinton administration are brought to light, you will thank the stars that GWB was elected….regardless of the circumstances. My good friend Plato would tell you all to heed the learned words of Thrasymachus.

-- So (cr@t.es), March 15, 2001.

Nipper:

Good question. But surely you recognize that your hypothetical case derives from a desperate attempt by the losing side to find a moral high ground from which to trumpet their disappointment.

Yes, elections have been stolen. But what I've been trying to say is that this particular election simply had the distinction of being extremely close, such that any number of *morally neutral* small changes would have reversed the outcome.

I consider it an equally likely hypothesis that if Gore had come up a couple of hundred votes ahead, we'd be seeing exactly the same thing play out in reverse. Optimal game theory says Gore then should fight to prevent any alteration, while Bush should fight to find fraud, to get recounts, to hope for friendly courts, etc. And if these methods had been insufficient to change the result, the Bush forces would have sought, AND FOUND, just as many questionable shenanigans as the Gore forces found when *they* were motivated to do so.

What I consider remarkable, considering the bitterness and acrimony with which that battle was waged, is that no fraud could really be found at all. Nobody even *tried* to make the legal case that anyone had deliberately induced any of the various irregularities that a thorough search didn't unearth very many of at all. As such things go, this was an amazingly clean election. It has left the losing side grasping for conspiracies among those who didn't act on information they didn't have (as far as we know), or bellowing morality where it does not apply.

The ballots themselves leave a lot of room for improvement, and I consider the error rates unacceptably high. For something so important as voting, our logistical procedures stink to the point where any elections decided by 3% of the vote or less are basically coin flips. We can surely do much better than this.

But there is a difference between sloppy and fraudulent. This election could have gone either way. It was as clean as can be expected, nor were any irregularities deliberate as far as we know. Would either you or Cherri be hollering morality if a single USSC Justice had been of the other party? If not, why not? After all, all those other suspicious things still happened, right? Face it, this was not a morality play. Procedures were indeed followed as well as we could. You are finding boogeymen under the bed, not because they're there but out of unwillingness to play by the rules when you are losing the game.

I'm quite sure that next time, or the time after that, the election will favor the other party, and the members of that party will suddenly be blind to all accusations of mendacity for some strange reason.

-- Flint (flintc@mindspring.com), March 15, 2001.

Flint: "But surely you recognize that your hypothetical case derives from a desperate attempt by the losing side to find a moral high ground from which to trumpet their disappointment."

Actually, my hypothetical case was an attempt to get you to declare where you might draw the line between competition for office and fraud.

I find the entire issue of "felons" removed from the voting rolls to be rather suspect, in that the degree of incompetance displayed by the company that was contracted to do the work is spectacularly high, even by the normal standards of incompetance in the private sector.

BTW, since you are quite a believer in the relative incopmpetance of the public sector when compared to the private sector, can you explain how this company did such an egregious job of it that they managed to affect the outcome of a presidential election?

I agree that the present public evidence regarding this voter roll purging activity does not yet support claims of fraud. But I would also point out that it has not yet been investigated to such an extent as to rule out fraud, either. The jury is out as far as I am concerned.

-- Little Nipper (canis@minor.net), March 15, 2001.

Little Nipper,

Man, I sure am enjoying your stuff on this board. It's great to have disemblers, evaders, and shufflers taken to task so briskly and cogently. Keep up the good work friend.

-- Nipper Rawks (bout@time.com), March 15, 2001.

It's my understanding that the Bush Administration is suing the paper that printed the above. They didn't care about it until some of the American press started using it.

Flint: We're all just pawns in the chess game of life, but it grows clearer that Jeb Bush can't escape the results of even his own hand- picked committee on the results of the election in Florida. There probably wouldn't have been any investigation AT ALL had he not been the brother of the president-elect, but he was, and there was.

Results of Florida Commission. One would be interested in the "final report" section. It's a 60-page word file.

I believe the federal report is to be completed in June.

Rumor has it that Jeb won't be seeking re-election in 2002. I forgot the excuse he used.

-- Anita (Anita_S3@hotmail.com), March 15, 2001.

When the atrocities perpetrated on the United States by the Clinton administration are brought to light,
I cannot believ anyone said that, everything Clinton has done since he bacame an adult has been investigated. What has be possibly done that no one knows about now? It's gotten so bad that they have had to make up things and exagerate little things to keep the spotlight on him and away from Bush's antics.

-- Cherri (jessam5@home.com), March 16, 2001.

"It's gotten so bad that they have had to make up things and exagerate little things..."

Both sides are pretty good at this aren't they Cherri. You and Ain't might fight for opposite teams, but you use the same techniques.

-- Nader in '04 (go@Ralph.go), March 16, 2001.

Nipper:

[Actually, my hypothetical case was an attempt to get you to declare where you might draw the line between competition for office and fraud.]

Only partially. I'd say mostly your case was an attempt to find the most likely hypothesis you could that would cast doubt on the results. But I already said that all such elections have irregularities, some of them deliberate. Ordinarily, elections are not so close that such irregularities decide the issue, for two reasons. First, they usually affect a relatively small number of votes. Second, because *both sides* engage in efforts to influence the results beyond simple campaigning, and inadvertent irregularities happen in both directions, and these tend to cancel out.

Now, not so hypothetically, we have an extremely close election. Close enough so that possible irregularities may have been decisive. *Were* they decisive? Almost invariably, the answer is yes, NOT because *in reality* irregularities tended to lean heavily in one direction, but because only the losing side is motivated to look for any, and they only look for irregularities that worked against them. The winning side has no reason to find the countervailing tricks and mistakes (which always exist), so we get a very one-sided picture.

I notice you have not cited a single irregularity, however minor, that worked against Bush. This is not surprising for the reasons I've explained. You are not interested in anything questionable the *democrats* might have done, so neither you nor any other democrat is even looking for them (or admitting them if you know about them). But neither are you claiming there were none. You simply ignore these, in the hopes that your readers will fail to recognize a deliberately one- sided presentation. But we can be quite sure they exist, because the losing side of every close election has found *something* that worked against them that wasn't quite right.

[I find the entire issue of "felons" removed from the voting rolls to be rather suspect, in that the degree of incompetance displayed by the company that was contracted to do the work is spectacularly high, even by the normal standards of incompetance in the private sector.]

This is a colorful statement, I'll say that. What's interesting is, had the election gone the other way, the republicans could use exactly this same irregularity to build their own case, just using different figures. Liars figure, for both parties.

As for the rest of this, I can only laugh. Just what is this "degree of incompetence" and how is it measured? What is the "degree of incompetence" of the private sector generally? If you can even define it usefully, enough experts want your methods badly enough so you already have a good market for your techniques! And you go on to compare it between public and private sectors, implying large quantities of valid data I've never even heard of.

[BTW, since you are quite a believer in the relative incopmpetance of the public sector when compared to the private sector, can you explain how this company did such an egregious job of it that they managed to affect the outcome of a presidential election?]

First, their affecting the outcome is a presumption. Second, their incompetence is a comparison with nothing to compare with. Third, you are presuming that this one company IS the "private sector". Now, try turning your question around. Let's say I found a single government department somewhere that did something I didn't agree with. How would you feel if, based on *my opinion* of this *single instance*, I first assigned you an opinion, then generalized across the board from my single instance, then demanded that you explain how your opinion (which I gave you) could possibly be so stupid in light of my unjustified generalization? Would you answer as though this were a real question and not a trick? Right -- come on in, little girl, heheheh.

[I agree that the present public evidence regarding this voter roll purging activity does not yet support claims of fraud. But I would also point out that it has not yet been investigated to such an extent as to rule out fraud, either. The jury is out as far as I am concerned.]

Nonetheless, you parade this possibility around like the head of your enemy. If you were a republican and the election had finally swung the other way (one USSC justice), I'm quite sure you'd be combing through the mountain of irregularities favoring the democrats that the republicans would have unearthed, selecting what looked juiciest, and parading *that* around as a possible fraud that "affected the outcome of the election", and WHY isn't this being investigated by those dishonest liars anyway?

Nipper, real wholescale fraud just isn't that subtle, indirect, or questionable. This was as clean an election as you are likely to find (at least in terms of irregularities favoring Bush. Nobody has looked for those favoring Gore which might have been egregious for all we know). You are grasping at straws, because (IMO) you sense as I do that the tiny margin of victory could so easily have gone either way that just anything you can represent as hurtful to your side lets you blame the loss on some evil opponents and makes you feel better. And closed-minded extremists like Cherri and Ain't are beyond all hope anymore.

Again, this is not a moral issue, despite the poor losers screaming morality. Being a good sport means accepting defeat as well as victory. Accusing the opponent of cheating when you lose is bad sportsmanship. Doing so only when the game is close is self-serving.

And I don't think either candidate would make either a poor president or a great one. Both seem reasonably competent, their programs were similar, campaign promises are never all kept, the legislature has a major influence over policy, and circumstances generally dictate responses. I can't help feeling that anyone who would get really upset either way must not understand how our system works.

-- Flint (flintc@mindspring.com), March 16, 2001.

Anita,

could you explain where you heard the GOP is suing the BBC over this documentary?

-- Very interesting (indeed@com.com), March 16, 2001.

Flint, I asked you a question earlier about a hypothetical situation.

The only answer I can draw from what you wrote is that, if Jeb Bush and Katherine Harris knowingly used the power of their office to illegally exclude voters from the rolls on false pretenses in order to influence the outcome of the election in favor of their party that you would consider this an "irregularity" rather than election fraud.

Personally, I would consider that such a hypothetical situation would constitute election fraud.

-- Little Nipper (canis@minor.net), March 16, 2001.

Flint,

You can argue until you're blue in the face that the Democrats would be scurrying about trying to protect their complicity and crimes had it gone the other way, but that is a poor argument indeed. Wrong is wrong, no matter which party commits the wrong. And in this case, the GOP engaged in fraud and the deliberate disenfranchisement of thousands of voters, hardly a tiny margin. The GOP engaged in illegal and fradulent actions, not the Democrats, and they should stand accountable for their wrongs.

There are several Republicans who found the irregularities in Florida disturbing, and the USSC ruling shocking. You see, unlike you, they have a developed sense of right and wrong, and their party affiliation or personal beliefs do not wipe out any apprehension of criminal conduct when it occurs. They did not try to justify their party's wrongs, nor did they betray their own nation for the sake of personal political gain.

Try it someday, Flint. It's called "having a conscience." You and Maria and your other GOP friends on this board appear to have abandoned any sense of conscience about Florida and any sense of overarching principles about what it means to live in a democracy.

-- And have betrayed your nation (in@process.com), March 16, 2001.

Nipper:

Yes, twice I have said that fraud occurs. I agree with you. If your hypothetical situation in fact happened, it should not have happened. It would constitute fraud.

Each time, I have tried to place your hypothetical case into the perspective of the larger election. You continue to very carefully pretend that I never did this, despite the great and careful lengths I went to. Can we conclude that you don't really want perspective or understanding, you prefer self-pity?

I wouldn't have guessed that you'd place yourself into the same camp as those who support their fantasies with undocumentable conspiracy theories. Once again, the election was close and clean. IF there was more fraud on one side than the other, and IF this decided the election, then it's too late to reverse it this time, but I agree we should still track it down, punish it, and take steps to prevent it in the future. But your speculation sounds more like a witch hunt.

betrayed:

[Wrong is wrong, no matter which party commits the wrong.]

I agree. But even Nipper can't find anything but speculation, as yet without a shred of support. He isn't discussing a very real fraud, he's only saying "Waaaah, *they* musta cheeeted!"

[in this case, the GOP engaged in fraud and the deliberate disenfranchisement of thousands of voters, hardly a tiny margin.]

This statement has no backing behind it. If the GOP engaged in fraud, nobody has found it yet, although sore losers have made any number of accusations. And the "thousands of voters" is a statistical projection based on accusations which are in turn based on speculation. It's entirely possible, perhaps even likely, that the democrats stole more votes than the GOP.

[The GOP engaged in illegal and fradulent actions]

Name one.

[not the Democrats]

prove it. You haven't a leg to stand on, you are simply a crybaby.

[...principles about what it means to live in a democracy.]

Here you are dead wrong. You might try reading any of the several essays I've already posted, so I don't need to repeat myself. One of the key democratic principles is that the losers of elections accept defeat. If fraud actually happened (and it has from time to time), take steps to prevent it next time. We have no clear evidence that any fraud took place here, but we certainly identified problems with our ballots, which we are taking steps to correct.

If you have good evidence of actual fraud, by all means produce it. If you're merely venting your frustration at losing, try to admit it. The claim that anyone who disagrees with your blind and selfish ranting must be anti-American only makes you look stupid.

-- Flint (flintc@mindspring.com), March 16, 2001.

Very interested [or something like that]: I visit so many places in a day that I'm hard-pressed to answer this question. It wasn't this interview that the Bush team objected to. It was the article Palast wrote for the Guardian, I believe. I think the article has already been posted, but if I run across the story on the Bush team suing them over it, I'll be sure and preserve it for you.

-- Anita (Anita_S3@hotmail.com), March 16, 2001.

You people like to argue and about the stupidest things

-- (blah@blah.blah), March 16, 2001.

Flint: "Yes, twice I have said that fraud occurs."

Hmmmm. After I posted my question you posted twice, each time at great length. I just went back and reread each of these replies carefully. I cannot find even one place where you answered my question (as you did just now) that such a case as I hypothesized would constitute fraud.

If you did say this twice, as you assert, I am willing to have you rub my nose in my oversight by quoting yourself plainly saying this. And will apolgize for my obtuseness. But, as yet, I see no such admissions despite looking very closely.

Flint: "...Nipper can't find anything but speculation, as yet without a shred of support. He isn't discussing a very real fraud..."

And yet what has been documented is a very real wrong of a very large magnitude and deserving of very careful scrutiny. One scrap of evidence that this wrong was the result of deliberation as opposed to incompetance and nothing more would be needed to establish fraud. Such evidence has not emerged. It could not emerge unless someone looks for it.

I would very much prefer that Jeb Bush and Katherine Harris be exonerated than not, for the simple reason that I would prefer to believe that such fraud is not a part of elections.

But I also believe that this outrage (and yes, that is the right word for this, even without fraud) needs to be investigated with a fine tooth comb, for the simple reason that I would prefer to believe anyone who would dare to commit such fraud would not be permitted to get away with it.

-- Little Nipper (canis@minor.net), March 16, 2001.

Nipper:

In my first long post, I wrote "it's extremely unlikely we've ever had ANY major election that didn't have some thin layer of fraud around the edges. This layer only becomes visible only when an important election is so very close that the layers of fraud become decisive."

This is an admission that fraud occurs.

In my second long post, I wrote "Yes, elections have been stolen."

This is an admission that fraud occurs.

I went on to say "*both sides* engage in efforts to influence the results beyond simple campaigning", and "Bush forces would have sought, AND FOUND, just as many questionable shenanigans as the Gore forces found when *they* were motivated to do so."

These statements also at least strongly imply a recognition of illegal attempts to influence elections. I've been trying to emphasize that in our system, for better or worse (and I believe for worse), the odor of fraud is always present to some degree, usually small. This tends to happen when winning is all that counts, and feelings tend to run passionate on both sides. Passionate people do very questionable things.

So the next question for me is, IF fraud cannot be entirely eliminated, how much is too much? Sure, we can proclaim from our ivory towers that we have ZERO tolerance for ANY fraud. Great. Now, in real life, how much is too much?

My normal answer is, "enough to change the winner." So IF the blunder with the felony rolls was in fact a deliberate attempt to eliminate votes for the opposition, AND IF countervailing attempts were not sufficient to cancel this out (and we both apparently agree that we do not find what we do not look for), THEN this is too much fraud. The condition of the election being decided by about .005% of the vote gives nearly *any* irregularity the power to reverse the election. And I agree this is unacceptable.

But all this leads to two more questions: (1) Is there any limit to the number and extent of investigations into proposed irregularities when elections are extremely close; and (2) Should this fine toothed comb be ALSO used to find and investigate questionable acts by the losing party?

Your answers, based on the focus you've shown and the unwillingness to broaden your field of vision, would seem to be NO, and NO. You are interested ONLY in pursuing an accusation that happens to work in your favor, and you strongly imply that if such investigation doesn't find what you wish to find, it's either a whitewash or not yet fine and deep enough.

Now, the major problem I had with the Florida affair was that the Florida Supreme Court abandoned any pretense of interpreting law, or being objective. They simply overruled every other court they could find, "fashioned" law out of whole cloth, decided that when the legislature said 7 days this really *meant* 19 days, then later they decided to overrule even themselves and postpone this deadline even further, because Gore hadn't engineered a win yet! Remember, the FSC is composed of elected politicians. I found their efforts to force a win for their own party member appalling. Had they succeeded, I'd consider the election clearly stolen.

But these things happen. I expect the issue of using the courts to select election winners will get some serious scrutiny, as I believe it should. If the FSC had stolen the election, I suppose I'd be unhappy as well. But not so unhappy I'd try to reverse the results after the fact, because both candidates seemed quite adequate to me.

-- Flint (flintc@mindspring.com), March 16, 2001.

OK. So what you were saying is that twice you admitted that election fraud is not limited to an alternative universe, but is known to occur at times. I do not consider this as answering my direct question about that particular case.

At least now I see what the heck you were talking about when you said: "Yes, twice I have said that fraud occurs." You were just speaking in airy generalities and expected me to take this as an answer about my particular case.

-- Little Nipper (canis@minor.net), March 16, 2001.

Nipper:

I was trying to place your concerns into a different perspective. I do not want elections decided improperly any more than you do, in either direction. If there is fraud (and there always will be) I want it kept to a minimum, and perpetrators punished. I believe the circumvention of constitutional intent in this election was more important than whether Jub Bush or Katherine Harris had foreknowledge of the mistake/fraud you seem so worried about.

The reason I'm more concerned with constitutional process is that close elections happen. There will *always* be suspicions like yours, even if *none* of them are actually justified. Tracking down and investigating every suspicion can take more time than we can afford -- and if the election is reversed as a result, then the OTHER side goes out and generates even more suspicions to be investigated. Elections can be contested indefinitely.

We definitely need better procedures for resolving statistical ties (buried in clouds of accusations) than we have. And I sincerely feel the courts are not the correct branch of government to handle this. As we have seen. This election revealed that we simply cannot deal with ties procedurally, and the losing side is simply unwilling to accept an extremely close count unless very clear procedures are in place. Without those procedures in place, close elections cannot avoid the taint of illegitimacy, because the losing side will not permit it.

And thus, we get people like you, who simply refuse to be satisfied with undesirable results, and sink their teeth into some irregularity or another, abandoning all perspective in their desire to make it LOOK like someone else cheated.

Perhaps I'm being naive, and there are too many poor sports and sore losers out there for ANY procedure to satisfy. In that case, no close election will be regarded as legitimate by the losing side. But we've survived this way for a long time, so maybe I worry unnecessarily.

-- Flint (flintc@mindspring.com), March 16, 2001.

Thank GOD BUSH won I dont think the country could've survived another 4 years of COMMIE liberal TRASH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

-- T.H. (progun@NRA.com), March 17, 2001.

Asinine Flint, I'm starting to believe you're just a piece of racist trash. Your taunting crudities which can be summed up as "prove it, cry baby" are answered here by a PRELIMINARY investigation into what happened in Florida by the US Civil Rights Commission. Hearings will continue.

In total, over 100 witnesses testified under oath before the Commission, including approximately 65 scheduled witnesses who were selected for the two hearings due to their knowledge of and/or experience with the issues under investigation. The Commission heard testimony from top elected and appointed state officials, including the Governor, the Secretary of State, the Attorney General, the Director of the Florida Division of Elections and other Florida state and county officials. A representative of Database Technologies, Inc. [Choicepoint], a firm involved in the controversial, state- sponsored removal of felons from the voter registration rolls also testified. We also heard the sworn testimony of registered voters and experts on election reform issues, election laws and procedures and voting rights. Also, the Chair and Executive Director of the Select Task Force on Election Reforms established by Governor Jeb Bush testified before the Commission. Testimony was also received from the supervisors of elections for several counties, county commission officials, law enforcement personnel, and a states attorney. In addition to the scheduled witnesses, the Commission extended an opportunity for concerned persons, including Members of Congress and members of the Florida State Legislature, to submit testimony under oath that was germane to the issues under investigation. Significantly, the Commission subpoenaed scores of relevant documents to assist with this investigation.

The evidence points to an array of problems, including those in the following categories:

· Key officials anticipated before Election Day, that there would be an increase in levels of voter turnout based upon new voter registration figures, but did not ensure that the precincts in all communities received adequate resources to meet their needs;

· At least one unauthorized law enforcement checkpoint was set up on Election Day resulting in complaints that were investigated by the Florida Highway Patrol and the Florida Attorney General;

· Non-felons were removed from voter registration rolls based upon unreliable information collected in connection with sweeping, state sponsored felony purge policies; (Is that clear enough for you yet Flint? Or do we need to put this evidence in 46 pt. bold type, perhaps?

· Many African Americans did not cast ballots because they were assigned to polling sites that did not have adequate resources to confirm voting eligibility status;

· College students and others submitted voter registration applications on a timely basis to persons and agencies responsible for transmitting the applications to the proper officials, but in many instances these applications were not processed in a timely or proper manner under the National Voter Registration Act (“motor-voter law”);

· Many Jewish and elderly voters received defective and complicated ballots that may have produced “overvotes” and “undervotes;”

· Some polling places were closed early and some polling places were moved without notice;

· Old and defective election equipment was found in poor precincts;

· Many Haitian Americans and Puerto Rican voters were not provided language assistance when required and requested;

· Persons with disabilities faced accessibility difficulties at certain polling sites;

· Too few poll workers were adequately trained and too few funds were committed to voter education activities;

The Commission’s probe proceeds under the statutory duty and authority of the Commission to investigate allegations in writing under oath or affirmation relating to deprivations … of the right of citizens of the United States to vote or have votes counted” (PL 103-419). This investigation is also conducted pursuant to our statute which requires the Commission to investigate allegations that “citizens of the United States are being deprived of their right to vote and have that vote counted by reason of their color, race, religion, sex, age, handicap, or national origin….”

Here's more for you Flint. From Palast:

The US civil rights commission was yesterday investigating allegations by the BBC's Newsnight that thousands of mainly black voters in Florida were disenfranchised in the November election because of wholesale errors by a private data services company.

Information supplied by the company, Database Technologies (DBT), led to tens of thousands of Floridians being removed from the electoral roll on the grounds that they had felonies on their records.

However, a Guardian investigation in December confirmed by Newsnight found that the list was riddled with mistakes that led to thousands of voters - a disproportionate number of them black - being wrongly disenfranchised.

The scale of the errors, and their skewed effect on black, overwhelmingly Democratic voters, cost Al Gore thousands of votes in Florida in an election that George Bush won by just 537 votes. Moreover the Florida state government, where Mr Bush's brother Jeb is governor, did nothing to correct the errors, and may have encouraged them.

Under DBT's contract, seen by Newsnight, the company was obliged to check its data by "manual verification using telephone calls and statistical sampling". DBT was paid $4.3m for its purge of the voters' roll, but company officials confirmed that they did not call voters they had included on their list to check if they had identified the right person.

and, from Salon's Story of the Year:

Dec. 4, 2000 | If Vice President Al Gore is wondering where his Florida votes went, rather than sift through a pile of chad, he might want to look at a "scrub list" of 173,000 names targeted to be knocked off the Florida voter registry by a division of the office of Florida Secretary of State Katherine Harris. A close examination suggests thousands of voters may have lost their right to vote based on a flaw-ridden list that included purported "felons" provided by a private firm with tight Republican ties.

Early in the year, the company, ChoicePoint, gave Florida officials a list with the names of 8,000 ex-felons to "scrub" from their list of voters. But it turns out none on the list were guilty of felonies, only misdemeanors. The company acknowledged the error, and blamed it on the original source of the list -- the state of Texas. ...

Clear enough for you Flint? Are the facts sinking in? Or will you continue to insist that no wrongdoing can be proven when Palast is holding a copy of the contract in his hands?

Further, to somehow imply that this is "run of the mill" fraud is mind-boggling. A private firm with GOP-fat cats on its board was hired to illegally purge thousands of innocents voters from the rolls, and deny them the right to vote. This is an unprecedented act in U.S. history and chilling in its scope and future implicsations for this democracy.

-- Now Go Off and Play with Your Guns, Little One (traitors@are.flint), March 17, 2001.

More evidence for people who are in denial:

ACLU, National Civil Rights Groups File Florida Voting Rights Lawsuit to Eliminate Unfair Voting Practices

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Wednesday, January 10, 2001

WASHINGTON -- The American Civil Liberties Union, along with the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, The Advancement Project, Lawyers' Committee for Civil Rights Under Law, NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund and People for the American Way Foundation today filed a historic lawsuit in Florida to eliminate discriminatory and unequal voting policies and practices from Florida's electoral system.

The lawsuit was announced at simultaneous news conferences in Washington and Miami.

"Unfortunately, the Supreme Court's decision halting the manual recount focused more on dimpled chads than disenfranchised voters," Steven R. Shapiro, Legal Director of the National ACLU, said in a statement. "But despite its limited focus, the Court nonetheless made clear that every vote must be given equal weight under the Constitution. By bringing this lawsuit, we are doing nothing more than taking the Supreme Court at its word."

Kweisi Mfume, NAACP President & CEO, said the lawsuit is part of an effort to "restore justice to the thousands of black and other voters who were denied the right to have their vote counted on November 7, 2000." Mfume said: "There was evidence of massive voter disenfranchisement of people of color during the presidential election. The election in Florida was conducted in a manner which was unfair, illegal, immoral and undemocratic."

Starting on Election Day, the NAACP national and Florida offices, as well as many other civil rights organizations, received calls from black voters and others who had been turned away from the polls or had trouble casting their ballots. Civil rights lawyers were immediately sent to Florida to interview witnesses and on November 11, 2000, the NAACP held a hearing in Miami to highlight the extent of the violations of state and federal law.

Today's lawsuit stems from that investigation and alleges that the disparate and unfair voting practices across the state resulted in the invalidation of a disproportionate number of ballots cast by black voters for President, the wrongful purge of black voters from official voter lists, a failure to properly process registrations of black voters, and the establishment of unjustifiable barriers to black voters.

This lawsuit seeks fundamental change to the voting practices in Florida to make them fair and equal for all Floridians. Specifically, it asks that election practices in Florida, which result in the denial of the right of Florida citizens to vote on account of race, color or any other discriminatory manner be stopped immediately and that fair and non-discriminatory procedures be put into place by the state of Florida.

"The people's vote is the people's voice, but in Florida thousands of African American and Haitian American voices were silenced on November 7," said Ralph G. Neas, President of People For the American Way Foundation. "We're involved in this court action to make sure that Florida officials who failed the voters on Election Day know that they must correct the problems that caused these injustices and make it their top priority to assure that they are never repeated."

"Black voters in Florida came out in record numbers on November 7th to exercise their constitutional rights to vote," said Barbara Arnwine, Executive Director of the Lawyers' Committee for Civil Rights Under Law. "It is shameful that qualified voters were prevented from voting or from having their vote count because they were purged from registration rolls or because they used voting machines that did not accurately record a vote. These measures have become the literacy tests of the new millennium. These and other practices unlawfully suppressed the black vote. We need to ensure that in our democracy this unfair disenfranchisement never happens again."

Theodore M. Shaw, Associate Director-Counsel, the NAACP Legal Defense Fund, said: "It is ironic that the Supreme Court, in rendering its decision regarding the election, cited the Equal Protection clause of the U.S. Constitution. That amendment was adopted to protect recently freed slaves, yet thousands of African Americans were denied the vote in Florida. That is why we are going to court - to ensure that the Equal Protection clause serves its original purpose. Whatever other purposes it might serve, it certainly should serve its original purpose - to protect African American voters from disenfranchisement."

"Many of the plaintiffs and thousands of African American class members made extraordinary efforts to vote but were disenfranchised by illegal purges, poorly trained poll workers and other discriminatory practices," said Penda Hair, Co-Director of the Advancement Project, a Washington, D.C. based social and legal action group. "This lawsuit challenges Florida State and local officials to fix their discriminatory voting system and to ensure that such abuses never again deny the precious right to vote."

-- More for those in denial (gop@crimes.com), March 17, 2001.

Many of the plaintiffs and thousands of African American class members made extraordinary efforts to vote but were disenfranchised by illegal purges,

Yeah, in case Flint didn't notice, this unprecendented GOP-sponsored purge was in fact illegal. He just keeps whining that we don't have any evidence, and the mounds of evidence just keep growing.

-- GOP Will Pay (for@crimes.com), March 17, 2001.

"Is there any limit to the number and extent of investigations into proposed irregularities when elections are extremely close?"

The same limit as normally applies to such things. Each allegation must be evaluated by a relatively neutral party to determine the quailty of the evidence that a crime may have been committed. The seriousness of the alleged crime must also be taken into account. If the preliminaries merit further investigation, the investigation should proceed.

In this case we are talking about overwhelming evidence that more than ten thousand people were prevented from voting. There were no legal grounds for preventing these people from voting. So, it is equally clear that the law has been broken on a massive scale.

Doesn't that preliminary evidence strike you as meriting closer investigation???

Let me also remind you, we are also talking about a crime far in excess of the scope necessary to change the outcome of a presidential election. Even had the final margin of victory been a more "normal" 20,000 votes, rather than the astounding 500 odd votes it came down to in the official count, this magnitude of "irregularity" may have led to a change in outcome.

Doesn't this strike you as a crime of great seriousness??? And it is plain as day that somebody committed a crime here. All that is missing is knowing who committed it and why.

"Should this fine toothed comb be ALSO used to find and investigate questionable acts by the losing party?"

In principle, I have no problem with that. But, again, each act must be evaluated on its seriousness. That is only normal operating procedure. Show me the questionable acts and I will tell you if they seem in my estimate to rise to such a level. For me, this one unmistakably does.

BTW, I notice you do a lot of talking about how both sides must have committed roughly equal amounts of fraud or irreguarities, leading them to cancel one another out.

Would you mind citing what you consider to be the most serious example of the Democrats attempting to steal the election through illegal or questionable means?

-- Little Nipper (canis@minor.net), March 17, 2001.

Nipper:

First, let me make this explicit. I DO NOT believe this election was stolen, although clearly the Florida Supreme Court tried as hard as they could to do so.

Second, you are asking me to cite instances of irregularities favoring the democrats that nobody has had any reason to look for. You said yourself that we do not find what we do not look for, remember? You were defending a "fine tooth comb" investigation of the felony lists, and claiming that if such investigation was not done, any genuine crime could not be found. Can't you see that this works both ways? So OK, you provide PROOF that Jeb Bush and Katherine Harris were involved in a crime FIRST. THEN you can demand that I provide evidence nobody has made any attempt to discover. Sheesh.

Third, close elections are like moving to JIT systems. Companies that do so, and start consuming all their just-in-case stock, find all manner of obsolete, broken, or out of spec parts that had been getting tossed back like undersized fish for years on end. Nearly every company to make this transition was amazed at the amount of sheer junk they'd been carrying.

Similarly, extremely close elections cause us to examine a wealth of details, behaviors, procedures, suspicions, and general imperfections that are a normal part of normal elections. These things ALWAYS exist, because our system is fairly loose and sloppy, and because dedicated people on both sides are always tempted to influence the results if they can. So you will always find things under rocks if you start turning them over.

There were approximately 6 million votes cast for president in Florida. You describe the "normal" delta as about 20,000. This strikes me as a bit extreme even so. A difference of 52% to 48% is considered fairly close, and that comes to 240,000 votes, NOT 20,000. You are talking about a margin of less than 4/10 of one percent being normal, and I doubt this -- that's tight enough to trigger an automatic recount, which I've never heard to happen before. Yet even that close margin isn't close enough for your hypothetical crime to be decisive. Every one of those people could have voted identically, and it wouldn't have overcome a 20,000 vote difference.

Most importantly, the losing side would recognize this and not perform the investigation that has been done. So nobody would even be *aware* that there had been a screwup in the felony purge. Just like nobody is aware of any screwups that favored the losing side. Why bother to look when you have nothing to gain by doing so?

So what I'm not sure of is what motivates these efforts. If they are intended to identify things to watch for in the future, and used to institute reforms in our procedures to make fraud more difficult, I'm all in favor. But from where I sit, these are isolated sour grapes lawsuits, motivated solely by vengeance and without any general applicability toward better election procedures. The only "lesson" we learn is that losers of close elections are out to hurt someone from sheer spite. This doesn't strike me as very noble.

-- Flint (flintc@mindspring.com), March 17, 2001.

Quotes from Flint are italicized.

You are asking me to cite instances of irregularities favoring the democrats that nobody has had any reason to look for. You said yourself that we do not find what we do not look for, remember?

In other words, you are not aware of any actual instances of what you assume for the sake of argument. Nor have you looked for any.

You were claiming that if such investigation was not done, any genuine crime could not be found.

Actually, in the case of the "felon purge" a crime has undoubtedly been committed. The unresolved questions are who committed it and whether it was committed through negligence or intent. Without an investigation these questions cannot be answered.

You provide PROOF that Jeb Bush and Katherine Harris were involved in a crime FIRST.

Nothing easier. They were both without a doubt "involved" in the crime of illegally denying the franchise to some 22,000 voters. The crime occurred under their direct oversight. They were responsible for the actions of the contractor in a supervisory capacity. So there was a crime and there was "involvement" in this crime on the part of Jeb Bush and Katherine Harris. That is plenty to merit their inclusion in any investigation of this crime.

It doesn't take much to see that Jeb and Katherine have a limited set of alternatives for describing the nature of their "involvement" in this crime. The very best face you can put on it involves a certain degree of negligence.

THEN you can demand that I provide evidence...

OK. Good idea. I demand you provide evidence to support your constant assertions that the Democrats were equally guilty of questionable or fraudulent practises in the 2000 election.

You describe the "normal" delta as about 20,000.

No. I actually said that a delta of 20,000 would be more normal" than a delta of 530 or so. It is.

Why bother to look when you have nothing to gain by doing so?

How about identifying members of the opposition who are guilty of crimes, exposing them and ensuring that they cannot continue in to do harm to your party in future elections?

Again, I asked you a couple of questions in an earlier reply and it is not clear whether you answered. However, your entire latest reply and the trend of most of your replies in this thread appear to me to be in the nature of this paraphrase:

'There is no point in believing that fraud can be eliminated from elections and it rarely matters to the outcome anyway, so investigations into elections fraud are basically pointless, since fraud is a negligable factor. Moreover, both sides do it equally, so if only one side is being investigated it could only be for the purpose of revenge, rather than to serve justice,or punish wrongdoing, or establish the truth. The Democrats are not being investigated for fraud in this election, but the Republicans are. Therefore the Democrats are guilty of indulging in sour grapes and the pursuit of ignoble revenge.'

Based on the whole tenor of your argument to date, would I be wrong in assuming that you don't see any reason to pursue this investigation into the illegal purging of more than 20,000 voters from the voting rolls?

I'd prefer a clear answer from you instead of making this assumption.

-- Little Nipper (canis@minor.net), March 17, 2001.

Nipper:

I think this investigation should be pursued. If someone deliberately attempted to sway the election, they should be punished. If we are attributing to malice what can be better explained as stupidity, I'd like to know that too.

I disagree with you, however, about the locus of responsibility here. You seem to be saying "At the very least, a mistake was made here by a legally hired private agency. This agency was hired by the Florida Department of Elections. This is a state agency, so any errors the private agency made are the responsibility of the state. The state has umpteen elected officials, all of whom are guilty of such mistake by virtue of their being state officials. Jeb Bush is the highest ranking such official, so he committed a crime!"

By your reasoning, every mistake anyone makes related to an election in any way is a crime, however inadvertent. For every crime, someone is guilty. Since the governor is highest ranking, he bears ultimate guilt for all of these crimes. So then, if you sneak out with some company office supplies, is your boss guilty on the grounds that he hasn't fired you, thus giving you the opportunity for theft? And your boss's boss's boss is most guilty of all, even though he's never even heard of you? Kind of a stretch...

IF Bush and Harris knew this had happened (or even asked that it be done!), and maybe hoped that it would slide by unnoticed, then I agree this should be brought to light. After all, this kind of thing would, in practice, prove decisive only in an election so close that such tricks would be discovered. State officials that important ought to be aware that if you're going to steal an election, you must do it flagrantly. Like the FSC, for example.

-- Flint (flintc@mindspring.com), March 17, 2001.

Flint, you're pathetic. Harris and Bush did in fact oversee and condone the felony purging. All you can do is harp on the Florida Supreme Court, which tried to ensure that all votes were properly accounted for and counted. The US Supreme Court did the precise opposite: it shut down the vote. Your desperate "reasoning," flimsy attempts to justify the indefensible, and continued harping on the FSC are despicable.

-- Give it up (you@lost.com), March 18, 2001.

Prove it. It's a citizen's duty to ensure that he or she is properly registered. It's a simple act to go to the office and ask. Prove these people were purposely kept off the list.

Immortal words from our house fool. Maria, read the evidence above, then wipe the egg off your face.

-- GOP Defenders Eat Crow (laughing@out.loud), March 18, 2001.