More on the vote (un-)count in Ohio.

www.gregpalast.com...

Yep, its Greg Palast time again children. Lean how your government couldnt give a #@$%$#% about you or your kin, especially if you have funny colored (non-white) skin.

The Irish have a word for this: Shinannigans!

Democracy, eh? The sad fact of the matter is this: Democracy could jump up, invade America, take all grown males there, line 'em up and kick them individually between the legs and you know what... no one would know what that was. Democissy? Denocassy? Oh never mind lets go to war! YAAAY!

A quote from the article by G.Palast:

"And they know it, the powers that be. You're thinking, it should be against the law. And, in fact, it is. The ACLU sued the State of Ohio for having a racist ballot counting system. They sued five states -- BEFORE the election. And before the election, four states said, �Well, gee, we�re kind of embarrassed. Yeah, we�re losing thousands of Black votes.� And they all agreed to fix the machines before the election, all but one state: Ohio. The Secretary of State of Ohio said, "Yes, I know that the machines we use in Ohio eliminate tens of thousands of Black votes on bad machines." We'll fix them, he said, after the inauguration. "

Inform Mr. Palast that despite a recount, it won't change a thing.
You and others can use 'race' as an issue till your blue in the face, but were is the 'black' outrage in all that has been claimed? Nowhere. Personally, I look forward to the recount, it will only confirm what is, but hey, that won't matter....many will continue to "recount" till 2008.
The Ohio Recount Outrage

It doesn't hinder Jackson and his compatriots that the Secretary of State of Ohio is a black man, Ken Blackwell. Do they actually think that Blackwell wants to suppress the Black vote? Then again Blackwell is a Republican, and from the far-left vantage point all Republicans want to prevent Blacks from voting.

seekerof

Demoracy, eh, who cares?

I don't care if you can't vote properly in that hole you call a country, it doesn't seem to bother the pople living there either.

So don't think i do this 'coz i want Kerry as prez or whatever, him and Bush are both bonesmen and American polititians, making them about as trustworty as Saddam on a particularly decietful day.

I just find it funny to listen to the well-worded and witty responces Americans come up with when confronted with uncomfortable facts about exactly how "great" their nation really is.

[edit on 13/12/2004 by Corinthas]

Really, just get over it.

You want the Republicans to demand recounts in Pennsylvania, where they found voting machines with thousands of votes already on them when they took the covers off? Even if you could 'flip' Ohio over to your side, a Pennsylvania recount would still give the election to Bush. Same might be true of Wisconsin.

Truth is that the Democrats have made a science out of stealing elections over the years. Look at Kennedy-Nixon in 1960 as a great example. Even when presented with the evidence of voter fraud in Illinois and Texas, Nixon took it like a man for the good of the country. Same is true about Thune's last try for the Senate in South Dakota. He also took it like a man when it would have been easy to prove voter fraud on the Indian reservations.

Why do Democrats seem to know so much about voter fraud anyway?

And why isn't Jesse Jackson upset about his fellow black Democrats use of crack coc aine to pay for voter registrations? I haven't heard about any prosecutions for this either.



[edit on 12/13/2004 by centurion1211]

.
centurion1211,

Ill get over it when im dead.

If YOU can't handle the heat of the oven, suggest you leave the kitchen.


Speaking of RECENT thefts of elections lets take a good close look at what happened in Florida in 2000. Fraudulent felon rolls were used to disenfranchise most likely Democratic voters in an election that certainly would have gone the other way.

And BTW the popular vote in 2000 was for Gore, Not GWB.

The real question is why aren't people out in the streets protesting?
Must be all those perscription medications from the big Drug companies.
I really can't figure that one out.
.

Actually speaking of Bonesmen, they take a pledge/oath to the brotherhood and devote themselves completely to the greater cause of their evil society.

Kerry and Bush are on record and have admitted to being Skull & Bones members. Their are plenty of conspiracy theorists who believe the 2004 elections was an organized scam to throw the elections Bush's way.

Here's some questionable proof,

Carlo LoParo, spokesman for Secretary of State Kenneth Blackwell, said that for the challengers' accusations to be true, officials of both parties would have had to conspire to throw the election.

That's simply a ridiculous assertion," he said.

Hmmm ridiculous huh, is it now?

cnews.canoe.ca...

Heat in the kitchen is just fine for me. Helps when a person decides to face forward instead of backwards.

Besides, a Kerry win would have totally messed up Hillary's chances. She's your real "great blue hope", right?

Who here thinks they got the the red-blue colors reversed and that red fits the democrats so much better? Unless perhaps the colors were based on a prediction of post-election mood

Point is your man lost the election. Democrats may continue to lose presidential elections as long as they continue to run candidates too far out of the mainsteam. Howard Dean as DNC chairman fixes your perception problem? Trying to disguise your candidates as 'middle of the road' when they are clearly not only insults people and helps drive them from your camp.


[edit on 12/14/2004 by centurion1211]

.
Well at least i don't support mass murderers for president.

Sleep with 911 on your conscious.
.

Slank desperatly grasps for straws here,

Fraudulent felon rolls were used ..........

I had to cut off that sentance because it really is irrelavent
The fraudulent felon roles you speak of were assembled by a private 3rd party contractor to the state....and the state ACKNOWLEGED upon discovery that there were errors on it. Neither the (democrat) state super of elections, nor the government in any way were involved in doing more than hiring the firm to go thru reccords and update them for use.

Also the disenfranchisment ocured because if you have the same name as a felon on the list there was confusion trying to validate those specific and individule cases spread out statewide, on a day thats soo busy, regional election offices could barely communicate with the state level office as phones were jammed.

Again slank uses only the choisest morsals of truth to spin something into it that really didnt exist.
Try this slank, which i believe came from a thread you were involved in, yet you STILL believe in the fantasy of a stolen election.

exerpt fromwww.abovetopsecret.com...

Here is a link to the US Commission on Human Rights report on the florida election.

www.usccr.gov...

It says among other things,
quote:
The report does not find that the highest officials of the state conspired to disenfranchise voters. Moreover, even if it was foreseeable that certain actions by officials led to voter disenfranchisement, this alone does not mean that intentional discrimination occurred.


It also says,


quote:
The causes include the following: (1) a general failure of leadership from those with responsibility for ensuring elections are properly planned and executed; (2) inadequate resources for voter education, training of poll workers, and for Election Day trouble-shooting and problem solving; (3) inferior voting equipment and/or ballot design; (4) failure to anticipate and account for the expected high volumes of voters, including inexperienced voters; (5) a poorly designed and even more poorly executed purge system; and (6) a resource allocation system that often left poorer counties, which often were counties with the highest percentage of black voters, adversely affected.

PS GORE CONCEEDED THE ELECTION!!!!!! or did you forget this conveniantly? You cant steal what was given up,
So slank, trying to steal the TRUTH about the 2000 election eh?
fortunatly
the truth has far more credibillity on this issue than any of your wild and unprovable allegations.

.
The blood of thousands of innocent Americans are on your hands and others CazMedia.

From McNeil News Hour Dec 15 2000:

Alison Bethel is director of civil rights for the Florida attorney general's office. . . . ALISON BETHEL: Well, we have received reports from people claiming that they were incorrectly advised, that they were a convicted felon. Some received letters prior to the election, others did not learn that they were so incorrectly listed until they showed up at the polls to vote. And apparently the company that provided the information to the state officials of who was and who was not a convicted felon, that information was flawed and that's what led to the problem. It's wrong and yes, it impacted the minority community in a disproportionate way.

McNeil News Hour
From the Nation Feb 5 2001

After reviewing The Nation's findings, voter demographics authority David Bositis concluded that the purge-and-block program was "a patently obvious technique to discriminate against black voters. . . . Bositis suggests that the block-and-purge program "must have had a partisan motivation. Why else spend $4 million if they expected no difference in the ultimate vote count?" . . . . Passed by the Republican legislature's majority, the new code included an extraordinary provision to turn over the initial creation of "scrub" lists to a private firm. No other state, either before or since, has privatized this key step in the elimination of citizens' civil rights.

The Nation

You can slither around the truth all you want but the facts don't lie.
.

.
From the Palm Beach Post May 27, 2001:
Felon Purge Sacrificed Innocent Voters
by Scott Hiaasen, Gary Kane and Elliot Jaspin

But a Palm Beach Post computer analysis has found at least 1,100 eligible voters wrongly purged from the rolls before last year's election -- the collateral damage from an aggressive and ill-conceived state plan to prevent felons from voting.

One Naples man was told he couldn't vote because he was linked with a felon still serving time in a Moore Haven prison.

Florida officials cut from the rolls 996 people convicted of crimes in other states, though they should have been allowed to vote.

"There were names on the list that I knew were not felons," said Babs Montpetit, the elections supervisor in Union County. "One was a youth director in our church."

For example, more than 1,300 registered voters were matched with felons although their races or sexes were different, The Post found.

"We were told even if things didn't match to go ahead and consider them a convicted felon," [Miami-Dade elections supervisor David] Leahy said.

Palm Beach Post article

In 2004 from the Christian Science Monitor Nov 1, 2004

Rather than correct the deficiencies, [Florida State] officials again relied on an inaccurate list that would have disqualified many valid voters in an attempt to prevent former felons from going to the polls.

Honesty, Accuracy, Integrity and Ethics are not what these people are about. It is about manipulating people and rigging elections.Christian Science Monitor

FIRST, as a member of the West Palm televison media working WITH the palm beach post During the election who worked 26 hrs on election day and 6 days after that for 12 hr shifts...I am PERSONALLY aware of the situation, as well as the resulting investigations.
Did you get to personally talk to Jesse Jackson the day after the election, how about county and state elections officials? Did you orchestrate a 3 hr live town hall forum for the public and civic leaders to discuss the problem....NO you didnt, but I DID!!!

The only thing "slithering around the truth" here is your use of selective editing of the article you cite as well as YOUR denial of the facts in order to keep your blinders on and prop up a hollow argument.

second paragraph

Mayville went to his precinct in Polk County's Auburndale that Tuesday morning to cast his vote for George W. Bush. Poll workers told him he was on a state list of suspected felons, making him ineligible to vote.

Immagine that...a white Bush supporter disenfranchised...as if this situation was exclusive to minorities or affecting ONLY a "targeted" segment.

9th paragraph,

And while the state's attempt to police the voter rolls victimized scores of legitimate voters, it still failed to prevent thousands of felons from casting their ballots. In Florida, felons are banned for life from voting unless granted clemency.

Stop trying to manipulate the timeline of events to support your contentions.....The law that required the state to purge fellons from the voter lists was passed long before the election, but nobody realized the errors untill election day as the list was made but never USED before. Once it was used, it became apparent it had errors in in for several reasons, as cited in paragraph 17 of YOUR source,

Records used to create the felon list were sometimes wrong. A state database of felons wrongly included dozens of people whose crimes were reduced to misdemeanors. Furthermore, clemency records were incomplete.

Why would florida create this list is also important to note when you speak of election fraud..NOTE from article...

Felons have been banned from voting in Florida since 1868

paragraph 10,

State lawmakers decided to weed out felons and other ineligible voters in 1998 after a Miami mayoral election was overturned because votes had been cast by the convicted and the dead. Election officials subsequently hired Database Technologies Inc. of Boca Raton to help with the daunting task of scanning the state's massive database of registered voters for felons and dead people.

It was determined that DEMOCRATS were the ones cheating that miami election thru use of felons (who legally cant vote in FL) and dead people. Lets also note that the State Supr of elections was a DEMOCRAT, as well as the counties of west palm, broward (ft lauderdale area) and Miami-Dade co's, ALL run by DEMOCRATS! Hmm where should we keep looking for this fraud based on the history of this abuse?
Oh yeah, blame the Bushies!

exerpt Paragraph 20,

Civil rights groups saw it as a deliberate attempt to disenfranchise black voters

Of course these allegations were made but were NEVER proven, not even came close to the truth, yet you still cling to these false accusations to suit you need.
Paragraphs 22-24 support this, yet you conveinantly overlook them in your selective editing...,

But a review of state records, internal e-mails of DBT employees and testimony before the civil rights commission and an elections task force showed no evidence that minorities were specifically targeted.

Blacks make up nearly 49 percent of the felons convicted in the state, according to the FDLE, so any purge of felons would include a disproportionate number of blacks.

Records show that DBT told the state it would not use race as a criterion to identify felons. The list itself bears that out: More than 1,000 voters were matched with felons though they were of different races.

paragraph 33 puts a big hole into your figures when you say,

The blood of thousands of innocent Americans are on your hands and others CazMedia.

Yeah blame me if you cant blame Bush...whats new?
Who was bleeding for the election?
paragraph 33,

Even so, the number of voters wrongly disenfranchised by the felon purge appears to be far less than the "thousands" its critics have claimed.

I could go ON and ON with this ONE source you cited to show not only your selective editing to skew your point, but also what the article REALLY says, but why bother. Ive certantly seen this lame tactic used by you (and others with weak arguments and NO facts) to try and give legitimacy to CRAP!
And this LONG debunking of your selective editing is just from ONE of your cited sources....LMAO!!! IF i bothered to go thru each one and counter point you, this post would be as big as an encylopedia!
When one looks objectivly at this situation...a well meaning situation (uphold no felon voting laws) had unforseen consequences. (some were disenfranchised inadvertantly)

For your allegations of a conspiracy to be true, then HUNDREDS of people in the elections offices state wide, of various party alliegences, races, and backrounds would ALL have to be in on it AND keep it secret.
Where is the wistle blowers that usually trickle out with info after a secret this size gets out?

Here we are today, and again BASELESS allegations which when examined, will likely be found to be a collection of circumstance and unwise planning/execution by election officials and NOT some conspiracy.


[edit on 16-12-2004 by CazMedia]

What Happened:

Florida Election officials hire 'Choice Point database technologies' of Nebraska to compile a purge list.

Local Florida Election Supervisors complained about all the false positives on the lists.

But prior to the 2000 presidential election, after the parameters were loosened to create MORE false positives.

What that means is that a local official is given a list with hundreds to thousands of names on it, and they are expected to hand check mismatched SS numbers, names that don't quite match, different sex or genders of the list.

In an interview with The Nation, [Emmett "Bucky" Mitchell IV, an assistant general counsel to the Florida Division of Elections] claimed he had exercised restraint in producing the purge lists. "The division always had the policy to err on the side of caution," he insisted. But reports from county supervisors, correspondence between state officials and DBT employees, and testimony before the Civil Rights Commission tell a completely different story.

According to testimony by ChoicePoint/DBT vice president George Bruder, a person could be included on the list if his or her name, date of birth and/or Social Security number closely approximated that of a known felon. In other words, in a state with 16 million people, where many individuals share approximate names and also dates of birth, exact matches were not necessary.

Personally I have a rather unique name, across this nation there are [suprise to me] 22 guys with my first and last name.

When supervisors began to complain about errors, Bruder said his company told the Divison of Elections that they were caused by the loose parameters set by the search, but Mitchell ordered no substantial change in the parameters despite recommendations by DBT.

The Nation

These people wanted to fix the election and they DID

Murders in prison have been convicted on less circumstantial evidence than this.

Other Suspicious Problems:

From the US Commision on Civil Rights:

Approximately 11 percent of Florida voters were African American; however, African Americans cast about 54 percent of the 180,000 spoiled ballots in Florida during the November 2000 election based on estimates derived from county-level data.

Nine of the 10 counties with the highest percentage of African American voters had spoilage rates above the Florida average.

Of the 10 counties with the highest percentage of white voters, only two counties had spoilage rates above the state average.

Gadsden County, with the highest rate of spoiled ballots, also had the highest percentage of African American voters.

www.usccr.gov...
You know CazMedia if people are depending on so-called journalists like you to reveal the truth, God help them.

Don't let the proof offered by someone who was actually there and familiar with what happened get in your way.

With all that energy, instead of focusing on what you cannot prove or change, you should be helping your party with the 2008 election.

Sounds like they'll need all the help they can get.

.
Is it just me or does the level of posts by Bush supporters seem rather juvenile?

centurion, don't let the actual legal testimony of Choice Point employees get in the way of hiding from the truth.

On April 17, 2001 ChoicePoint VP James Lee testified, before the McKinney panel, that the state had given DBT the directive to add to the purge list people who matched 90 percent of a last name. DBT objected, knowing this would sweep in a huge number of innocents. The state then ordered DBT to shift to an 80 percent match. Names were also reversed � felon Thomas Clarence could knock out the vote of Clarence Thomas.

�DBT told state officials,� testified Lee, �that the rules for creating the [purge] list would mean a significant number of people who were not deceased, not registered in more than one county, or not a felon, would be included on the list. DBT made suggestions to reduce the numbers of eligible voters included on the list.� To this suggestion, the State, says DBT, told the company, "Forget about it."

In February 2000, in a phone conversation to the BBC's London studios, ChoicePoint vice president James Lee said that the State "wanted there to be more names than were actually verified as being a convicted felon."

Wikipedia

Its not my party BTW, Its my vote and other eligible voters that have had their voices stolen.

Slank,
Im not denying that the effort of the florida election officials to purge voter roles of felons, both to uphold state law, as well as aid in the prevention of actual documented fraud using felons and dead voters, was indeed too broad, over zealous, and not overseen with enough vigor to ensure its accuracy before its use.
BUT,
Your allegations of motive, that this was to rig the election, are fantasy, both on the face of it, as well as found by the US human rights commision that investigated. (as well as all otther investigating agencies, as none of them have a smoking gun)

Rigging the election:
If they did do this to rig the election, there would certantly be NO garuntees that it would work...its based off the assumption of the citizenry voting a certain way, yey in truth, they have no way of knowing how the citizens WOULD vote. Thats a BIG risk, especially if you get caught win or lose. As already noted it affected citizens from all walks of life and party affiliations.

Going from selective editing to statistical manipulation now eh?
Votes were spoiled for many reasons, hanging chad, dimpled chad, double punched etc etc. most of the counties in question also have the LOWEST educational levels in the state as well...couldnt voter error play a factor in this. Im not saying blacks are stupid, but that many of the troublesome counties you speak of are rural, aggro communities where there is much poverty and low educations.

Heck the ititial complaint about the election was the infamous "butterfly ballot", which by the way it was laid out to vote from, and it gave seniors a hell of a time...have you ever used one of those punch card vote machines? they suck, its hard for a resonable person to ensure theyre punching the right little hole, but these geezers that already have poor vision ended up in some cases punching for the third party candidate. Voter error is included as a reason some ballots were not validated as the electorate could not assume the voters intent by looking at some of the cards. This is why thousands of cards were hand counted over and over, by a three person panel, one dem, one rep, one nutral, watched by armed guards. People that had poor vision or dont read above the third grade level had problems with their votes.

Also note that because of the vastly higher # of blacks in the correction system, a larger PORTION of disenfranchised votes would be black, meaning more chances for a black voter to have been mis id'd and denyed a vote.
BUT, to say this was targeting blacks or trying to skew the election is a complete leap of faith, not logic. BECAUSE noone can predict or be certain who the average black was going to vote for. Or are you just willing to stereotype the black vote and hope this scheme works out your way?

Here is another thing, on this vast conspiracy idea you have...aside from being able to keep this a secret on the scale you imply, like there arent any blacks working in election offices? Do you really think they would just sign up to do this?

Ultimately, in the end, Gore conceeded....IF he thought that there was enough tangible info alledging fraud, dont you think he WOULD have fought harder and drug things out? There wasnt, he knew it,
and so does kerry now.....take a tip from your idols, and give up.

.

The VRA [Voting Rights Act] does not require intent to discriminate. Neither does it require proof of a conspiracy. Violations of the VRA can be established by evidence that the action or inaction of responsible officials and other evidence constitute a �totality of the circumstances� that denied citizens their right to vote.

The actions of Florida officials clearly denied many innocent citizens of their right to vote.

[U.S. Commission on Civil Rights since the Commission] does not adjudicate violations of the law, hold trials, or determine civil or criminal liability. It is within the jurisdiction of the U.S. Department of Justice and Florida law enforcement officials to seek appropriate sanctions and remedies.

The VRA was violated. period.

The law was not enforced by Florida or Federal law enforcement.

Is this a slur, Caz Media?

most of the counties in question also have the LOWEST educational levels in the state as well...couldnt voter error play a factor in this. Im not saying blacks are stupid, but that many of the troublesome counties you speak of are rural, aggro communities where there is much poverty and low educations.

Many of these voters were never informed they had been purged from voter registration. They only found out when they got to the polls.

Do you print stuff like this CazMedia? Maybe now i understand why you make so many toilet references.

BUT, to say this was targeting blacks or trying to skew the election is a complete leap of faith, not logic.

Repeatedly Choice point, a reputable company, objected, and worked to convince the Florida officials that what they were doing was not standard or fair and every time they were told "we don't care".

In any event intent is irrelevant to the VRA, effect is the measure of the law. The law was violated and NOT prosecuted.
.

Slank says,

The VRA was violated. period.

According to whom? Where and when was this determination made? I ask because obviously if this WAS determined by a legitimate arm of the gov, then actions would have been taken, as i see there were no actions taken, id like to know who determined this violation you allege officially?
As no official violation was declared, law enforcement had no action to take

As to an alleged slur,
That is why i specifically said "Im not saying blacks are stupid," because without this qualifier in the overall statement, i felt it could be interpreted as one (a blanket statement)...IN CONTEXT i was speaking of predominatly black, poor districts, where educational levels hover in the grade school range...this is NOT exclusive to blacks, nor is the disenfranchisment exclusive to them.

Another note, many of these type of poor (not just blacks) have very transient lives, hoping from one cheap flophouse to another cheap room rental. (often thru eviction) They are often not dilligent in updating their address to the many people, agencies etc that most people would. (in fact some want to vanish from creditors, law enforcement etc) so im not suprised people in this demographic did not get something in the mail notifying of voting status changes.

From the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights since the Commission

This overall lack of leadership in protecting voting rights was largely responsible for the broad array of problems in Florida during the 2000 election. Furthermore, state officials ignored the pleas of some supervisors of elections for guidance and help. Especially at the highest levels, officials must take responsibility for leading on matters for which they have authority

The disenfranchisement of Florida�s voters fell most harshly on the shoulders of black voters.

Potential voters confronted inexperienced poll workers, antiquated machinery, inaccessible polling locations, and other barriers to being able to exercise their right to vote. The Commission�s findings make one thing clear: widespread voter disenfranchisement�not the dead-heat contest�was the extraordinary feature in the Florida election.

[The VRA] is aimed at both subtle and overt state action that has the effect of denying a citizen the right to vote because of his or her race

CazMedia Perhaps before you do your slurring and smearing of the voters you should read your own link:

Statistical analysis shows that the disparity in ballot spoilage rates�i.e., ballots cast but not counted�between black and nonblack voters is not the result of education or literacy differences. This conclusion is supported by Governor Jeb Bush�s Select Task Force on Election Procedures, Standards and Technology, which found that error rates stemming from uneducated, uninformed, or disinterested voters account for less than 1 percent of the problems.

And when a woman is r*ped is that because she provoked it?

Did you study journalism at the Institute for Yellow Journalism?

from one cheap flophouse to another cheap room rental. (often thru eviction) They are often not dilligent in updating their address to the many people, agencies etc that most people would

Honestly where do you get this stuff from. You have a warped view of the world.
.