Jimmy Carter: Florida lacks basic requirements for a fair election

The Carter Center has monitored more than 50 elections, all of them held under contentious, troubled or dangerous conditions. When I describe these activities, either in the United States or in foreign forums, the almost inevitable questions are: "Why don't you observe the election in Florida?" and "How do you explain the serious problems with elections there?"

The answer to the first question is that we can monitor only about five elections each year, and meeting crucial needs in other nations is our top priority. (Our most recent ones were in Venezuela and Indonesia, and the next will be in Mozambique.) A partial answer to the other question is that some basic international requirements for a fair election are missing in Florida.

The most significant of these requirements are:

* A nonpartisan electoral commission or a trusted and nonpartisan official who will be responsible for organizing and conducting the electoral process before, during and after the actual voting takes place. Although rarely perfect in their objectivity, such top administrators are at least subject to public scrutiny and responsible for the integrity of their decisions. Florida voting officials have proved to be highly partisan, brazenly violating a basic need for an unbiased and universally trusted authority to manage all elements of the electoral process.

* Uniformity in voting procedures, so that all citizens, regardless of their social or financial status, have equal assurance that their votes are cast in the same way and will be tabulated with equal accuracy. Modern technology is already in use that makes electronic voting possible, with accurate and almost immediate tabulation and with paper ballot printouts so all voters can have confidence in the integrity of the process. There is no reason these proven techniques, used overseas and in some U.S. states, could not be used in Florida.

It was obvious that in 2000 these basic standards were not met in Florida, and there are disturbing signs that once again, as we prepare for a presidential election, some of the state's leading officials hold strong political biases that prevent necessary reforms.

Four years ago, the top election official, Florida Secretary of State Katherine Harris, was also the co-chair of the Bush-Cheney state campaign committee. The same strong bias has become evident in her successor, Glenda Hood, who was a highly partisan elector for George W. Bush in 2000. Several thousand ballots of African Americans were thrown out on technicalities in 2000, and a fumbling attempt has been made recently to disqualify 22,000 African Americans (likely Democrats), but only 61 Hispanics (likely Republicans), as alleged felons.

The top election official has also played a leading role in qualifying Ralph Nader as a candidate, knowing that two-thirds of his votes in the previous election came at the expense of Al Gore. She ordered Nader's name be included on absentee ballots even before the state Supreme Court ruled on the controversial issue.

Florida's governor, Jeb Bush, naturally a strong supporter of his brother, has taken no steps to correct these departures from principles of fair and equal treatment or to prevent them in the future.

The Carter Center

Since I changed my residency to Florida, and since most of my family lives down here now, I take a keen interest in Florida's elections, perhaps a little more than a non-resident. Most people still don't know what the Supreme Court did by citing 'equal protection', yet want to jump up and down screaming how President Bush's brother keep the elections fair.

Some say, 'get over it', but when the democratic process fails, I get a little angry, and I think anyone who shares a love for this great country would be angry too. The wrost part is how Jeb Bush hasn't done anything to help Florida have a fair election. It's almost like he wants there to be chaos. When we tell other nations, like Iraq, it doesn't matter if the elections are fair, just as long as some people vote. And when we settle for something that is not even a close second to democracy and the values our country was founded on, I think a little bit of America has died.

Hmmm, interesting, but Bush didn't steal the election. He just had some dem votes removed.

Anyways, Florida's votes shouldn't count in the first place, they shouldn't have counted in 2000. We(the non "Bush was placed by god") know it was complete bull# that hey, 10,000 dem votes just disappeared, oh look, in this strongly Dem district they couldn't vote right, so throw them out. Oh look, in a rep district a bunch of illegal aliens voted for Bush, gotta keep them.

The most controversial elections in American history and the situation is looking worse 4 years later, why?

I'm telling you folks, the Republicans will hijack Florida again and now they're looking to steal away Ohio just in case!

Monica Lewinsky was ment to hurt the Democrats image of being liberal sex craved politicians, c'mon every president since the beginning has kept mistresses and plenty of them (quietly). Lewinsky was a image attack on Democrats created by the Republicans but the whole idea back fired when the American people accepted Bill Clintons "human needs". This backfire swong votes in favour of the Dem's because a huge portion of the population could level with this scenario. So once that tactic failed, the republicans used Floriday/Jeb Bush state to hijack the elections in 2000 followed by the supreme courts decision (not the people) to elect Dubya. 9/11 was attack on America not by terrorists (who are still alive & al-qaeda denies involvement in 9/11) but it was an attack on our freedoms by our own government not terrorists, since then we've seen the Patriot act bill passed without a whisper from the public, we've seen tons of enviromental bills/standards/rules thrown right out the window (middle finger kayoto), foreign policy that has pretty much failed in every direction, billions upon billions of dollars to support war, the military, navy and of course private companies who have military contracts involved in war.

Too much has happend too quickly over the past 4 years which was done purposely to confuse the people who pay attention to this kind of stuff. Another 4 years of the republicans in the white house i can only imagine what might happen next.

I'd like anyone who's voting republican to inform me on one good/positive thing that they've done in the past 4 years?

It cant involve the potential death of a human being