-Caveat Lector-
RadTimes # 105 November, 2000
An informally produced compendium of vital irregularities.
"We're living in rad times!"
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Contents:
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--Political Treachery And Mob Rule
--Bush Cousin Made Florida Vote Call For Fox News
--Nearly half of tossed ballots from black precincts
--Tragicomedy of Errors Fuels Volusia Recount
--Who Counted the Votes?
Linked stories:
*The vote, county by county
*Survey: U.S. jurors biased against corporations
*Recounts might spread to New Mexico, Oregon
*Law at first bite
*Recount fight reverses partisan roles
*Powerless at the polls
*The Volusia triangle
*Making the world safe for democracy?
*What could go wrong at a polling place?
*Harsh lessons
*Report: Gore, Bush Teams Discuss Ending Stalemate
*Florida's recount rules from their Division of Elections
*Electoral College web site
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Begin stories:
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Political Treachery And Mob Rule
by Lorenzo Komboa Ervin <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
This might be easily be called part 2 the other article I wrote on the 2000
elections "It's the Silly Season." Well. we have now had this scam of an
election, and yet we still don't know the name of the white ruling class
representative for President. The story goes on after the closest election
in U.S. history, and as always, the Black bloc vote seems to have put a
Democratic Party representative over the top, or at least kept him in the
game. But what are we getting from Gore from all this? Nothing but promises,
and many times not even that, just a smile and a wink. He smiles because he
knows he's got us, and he winks to show he's in with the "in crowd." The fix
is *always* in!
And that "compassionate conservative", George W. Bush, who sought to fool
Black people into voting for him did not get nary a significant vote from
the Black community The community was not fooled at all by the GOP,
recognizing that it has been taken over by the Religious Right and the worst
kind of racist forces. But this also means Bush is not beholden to Black
people either, and if elected, will not give any concern for our condition
as *alleged* citizens of this Republic. (Not that he ever would anyway!)
We can starve or be shot down in the streets by paramilitary cops for all
Bush cares, but isn't that what the Clinton-Gore neo-liberals been doing as
well, while in the seat of government? Hey look: 100,000 new cops, 2 million
prisoners, upwards of 1,000 killed by cops each year, massive poverty and
homelessness, low wages and high unemployment in our communities! I could go
on and on to prove Gore-Clinton guilty of systematic dismantling of the
welfare state by the Democrats, right along with the most extreme wing of
the Republicans.
But this election is important because we may be seeing a new more extreme
political concentration of right-wing forces in the government. Not just if
Bush is elected, but because of the sense of crisis that the government
generally feels. History can be a guide here:
In the 1876 Presidential election, Samuel J. Tilden and Rutherford B. Hayes
were pitted against each other, after the scandal ridden presidency of
Ulysses S. Grant. Tilden won the popular vote by a small margin, but fell
one vote shy of the Electoral college majority needed. But Hayes was
declared the President after maneuvering by the Democratic party leaders,
(don't forget the Democratic Party was known as the "white man's party" and
was controlled by Southerners until the 1960's), and bargained Tilden's
tactical advantage away for the practical gain of getting federal occupation
troops out of the South, where they had been since the Civil War. When this
was agreed to by the Republicans, and Hayes was declared the winner in the
electoral congress, almost immediately a wave of racial violence by the Ku
Klux Klan broke out where white vigilantes began murdering Black people with
wild abandon, the old segregationist governments came back and began
erecting "Black codes" restricting any democratic rights we'd obtained in the
South, and created the most backward social systems in that region.
What can we can we expect now? Massive police brutality of the sort we've
never seen? Complete stripping of any civil rights or democratic rights for
Black people by the Supreme Court and Congress? Even more state executions?
Outright slave conditions for workers? An open police state? We can at least
expect an acceleration of the worst excesses of the current regime. Which is
why we cannot depend on politicians, the courts, or passive tactics if we
just want to preserve the few rights we have, and to erect an even more just
society. We must struggle in the streets, and make it impossible for the
capitalist state to rule over us at all. We must make ourselves
ungovernable. Anything else is a surrender.
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Bush Cousin Made Florida Vote Call For Fox News
Making the story a little weirder, the head of Fox News's Election Night
decision desk -- who recommended calling Florida, and the election, for
George W. Bush -- turns out to be Bush's first cousin, John Ellis. As he was
leading the decision desk, Ellis was on the phone giving updates to cousins
Jeb and George W. Fox was the first to call the state for Bush at 2:16 a.m.,
followed by NBC, CBS, CNN and ABC shortly after. The embarrassed networks
retracted the decision less than two hours later. (Or have you heard this
part already?) "Appearance of impropriety?" asks Fox Vice President John
Moody, who approved Ellis's recommendation to call Florida for Bush. "I
don't think there's anything improper about it as long as he doesn't behave
improperly, and I have no evidence he did. . . . John has always conducted
himself in an extremely professional manner." But Moody admits that Ellis's
Election Night conversations with the cousins "would cause concern."
[SOURCE: Washington Post (C1), AUTHOR: Howard Kurtz]
<ttp://washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A14385-2000Nov13.html>
See Also:
CALLING THE PRESIDENTIAL RACE, AND COUSIN GEORGE W.
[SOURCE: New York Times (A15), AUTHOR: Bill Carter]
<http://www.nytimes.com/2000/11/14/politics/14FOX.html>
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Nearly half of tossed ballots from black precincts
By Stephen Kiehl <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> and Elliot Jaspin,
Palm Beach Post Staff Writers
Sunday, November 12, 2000
Nearly half of the 28,036 ballots that Palm Beach County tossed out in the
presidential election came from areas of the county that are mostly black or
elderly, a Palm Beach Post computer analysis shows.
Those ballots were thrown out because the voter either didn't vote for
president or voted for two presidential candidates.
Almost 10 percent of the ballots cast in precincts where most of the voters
are over age 65 were thrown out, the Post found. And 16 percent of the
ballots cast in majority-black precincts were thrown out -- more than double
the percentage of ballots thrown out from overwhelmingly white precincts.
Overall, about 7 percent of the 387,094 ballots cast in the county were
tossed. (Another 75,000 absentee ballots were cast, though their precinct
wasn't reported.)
The disproportionate number of invalidated ballots in black and elderly
precincts -- traditional Democratic strongholds in West Palm Beach, Riviera
Beach and southern Palm Beach County -- gives a clue as to why Republicans
oppose a manual recount of all ballots in the county.
On Saturday, elections officials began counting by hand 4,695 ballots from
three precincts chosen by the Gore campaign and another precinct the county
canvassing board chose. If a lot of problems turn up, officials will consider
recounting the whole county.
The punch-card ballot used in Palm Beach County presented a number of
problems for seniors that could have led them to punch two holes or none at
all, according to ballot experts and geriatricians.
They said the now-infamous "butterfly" listing of presidential candidates,
along with the tiny stylus used to punch holes and the closeness of the
holes, all contributed to a senior-unfriendly ballot -- especially for
seniors with poor vision and arthritis.
"From a vision standpoint, you could even go so far as to say it
discriminated against the elderly," said Dr. Barry Schultz, a Boynton Beach
geriatrician. "It was designed for a young person with good hand-eye
coordination."
The Rev. Thomas Masters said some black elderly voters were confused by the
ballot. The disproportionate share of those votes being thrown out coming
from the black community is evidence enough for a revote, Masters said.
"We need to correct the first vote," said Masters, who along with local
leaders have been organizing local rallies to protect Tuesday's election.
"The people's vote must count."
The Post found:
In Precinct 66 in Riviera Beach, 256 ballots were thrown out. The
precinct is 94 percent black and gave Gore 1,203 votes and George W. Bush 25.
Also in Riviera Beach, 250 of the votes in Precinct 59 were tossed.
The precinct is 96 percent black and gave Gore 1,206 votes and Bush 21.
In the Lakes of Delray, where 85 percent of the voters are seniors,
258 ballots were thrown out. The precinct gave 1,500 votes to Gore, 151 to
Bush and 47 to Pat Buchanan.
The Palm Beach Post reached these findings after creating a database of the
number and type of ballots rejected in each precinct and then matching that
with each precinct's demographic profile. The data were provided by the Palm
Beach County Elections Office.
Many seniors have said they voted for Buchanan mistakenly or punched two
holes, thinking one was for Gore and one was for his running mate, Joe
Lieberman, listed below Gore.
"People just couldn't see clearly," said Leon Weekes, 74, a former chairman
of the Mae Volen Senior Center in Boca Raton. "If it had been larger or more
clearly delineated, we wouldn't have this problem."
Marilyn Newman, 65, of Boca Raton said she punched what she thought was the
hole for Gore and continued on with the ballot. Then, worried she punched the
wrong hole, she turned back to the presidential listing and punched again.
"The ballot was not great to read," she said, adding that she didn't see the
arrows pointing from the candidates' names to the holes.
"The ballot poses problems to seniors with poor eyesight and physical
strength," said Susan MacManus, a political science professor at the
University of South Florida in Tampa who has studied seniors and voting.
"Punch cards make it difficult for seniors not as strong as they used to be."
Counties that use punch card ballots often have larger styluses available to
seniors upon request, MacManus said. The larger styluses were not available
in Palm Beach County.
Another problem for seniors, some said, was the 5-minute time limit while in
the voting booth.
"There was a lot of pressure for them to move along," said State Rep. Susan
Bucher, D-West Palm Beach.
But GOP leaders and some seniors said the ballot was understandable, even for
elderly.
"It may be there are people with eyesight that's a little bad and things like
that, but I don't think that's a reason for the problem in this election,"
said Murray Kalish, 82, a Democratic party activist who lives west of Delray
Beach.
----
Database coordinator Christine Stapleton and staff writers Noah Bierman and
William Cooper Jr. contributed to this story.
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Tragicomedy of Errors Fuels Volusia Recount
<http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A2748-2000Nov11.html>
DELAND, Fla., Nov. 11 Something very strange happened on election
night to Deborah Tannenbaum, a Democratic Party official in Volusia County.
At 10 p.m., she called the county elections department and learned that Al
Gore was leading George W. Bush 83,000 votes to 62,000.
But when she checked the county's Web site for an update half an hour
later, she found a startling development: Gore's count had dropped by
16,000 votes, while an obscure Socialist candidate had picked up
10,000--all because of a single precinct with only 600 voters.
The aberration was relayed to County Judge Michael McDermott, the election
overseer. "We have a problem here," he said.
It was the beginning of a week-long tragicomedy of errors in this central
Florida county, where an initial count showed Gore beating Bush by 97,063
votes to 82,214. Volusia's mess is in some ways more damning than the
mix-up in Palm Beach County, where controversy has centered on a confusing
ballot design. Although there is no evidence that the first round of
results was wildly inaccurate, the problems in counting votes here are
systemic. The underlying causes are not fraud or corruption, but lax state
oversight, inadequate funding, technological glitches, poor training, and
general ineptitude.
Consider these events:
On election night, six precincts couldn't transmit their results because of
computer problems, and the county's returns were delayed until 3 a.m. About
that time, sheriff's deputies were dispatched to find an election worker
who had left the ballot collection area with two uninspected bags.
Wednesday, when county officials were attempting a recount in front of TV
cameras, an elderly poll worker walked in with a bag full of ballots that
had been left in his car the previous night.
By Thursday, the elections office was surrounded by police tape, and a
local Bush official was thrown out of a meeting for getting too rowdy.
Friday, county workers found a ballot bag in their vault without a seal,
another with a broken seal and a third on a shelf with ballots spilling
out. Meanwhile, dozens of black students from a local college complained
they were turned away from polling stations even though they were
registered to vote.
This morning, 300 county workers and hundreds more party observers
converged on county offices for a manual recount of nearly 200,000 ballots
that was later postponed until Sunday. The confusion in Volusia, one of
four counties where Democrats have requested manual recounts, suggests why
such an arduous process may be necessary. But it also suggests that a
central argument of the Republicans who tried today to stop the recounts,
that they won't resolve anything, may have some validity.
"No wonder people in the North think we're a bunch of bumbling idiots,
because we are," says James Clayton, a DeLand lawyer, and he represents
Bush. "From a practical standpoint, nobody has any faith in the system."
Douglas Daniels, a lawyer for Gore here, predicts there will be "television
movies about how the election was stolen in Volusia County." He frets that
Volusia will become conspiracy theorists' new "Grassy Knoll gunman."
Doug Lewis, an election expert who runs the non-profit Election Center in
Washington, says many of the troubles in Florida would be found anywhere if
a close election were scrutinized. "If anything, the elections officials in
Florida live to a higher standard," he said. But told of the happenings in
Volusia, Lewis revised his opinion. "If these things are true, this is an
exception," he says. "This is one that would embarrass all of us."
In some ways that is not surprising. The county, which encompasses Orlando
bedroom communities on bustling Interstate 4, Daytona Beach and a growing
population of Hispanics and northern retirees, was known decades ago for
shootouts, ambushes and stolen ballot boxes at election time. "We have a
sordid history of election fraud in this county," Circuit Judge John Doyle
wrote in a 1997 ruling.
In that case, a challenge to Volusia's 1996 sheriff election, Doyle focused
on incompetence, attributing "gross negligence" to election supervisor
Deanie Lowe and her canvassing board but allowing the election to stand.
They missed about 1,000 votes and illegally re-marked absentee ballots with
black markers, among other things. In 1998, Lowe had to re-issue about
1,200 misprinted absentee ballots. And another ballot was found to have
violated state law requiring that candidates for nonpartisan office be
listed alphabetically.
Lowe, in a hurried interview last week, defended the office's
performance. "There's no trouble," she said. "Everything humanly possible
was done to make sure it was a fair election."
Nobody alleges fraud in Volusia, and it's possible the mishaps haven't
substantially altered the election's results. As Lowe points out, each of
the problems can be explained. For example, it turned out that the election
worker who left with two bags was merely taking home dirty laundry. Had the
presidential election not come down to a couple of hundred votes in
Florida, the troubles here might have gone unnoticed.
County spokesman David Byron boasts that a recount found "exactly the same"
tally and suggests that this vindicates the county. But the recount he
refers to was a comparison between the data in the computer and the
computer printout. The actual ballots were not scrutinized. That's a little
like saying a word-processing document contains no spelling errors because
a printout matches the version on the screen.
Although Volusia County is a microcosm of the tremendous changes from
growth and suburbanization that Florida has undergone in the past decades,
the way it runs its elections seems something of a throwback to its rural
past. In the past five years, the number of registered voters in the
county has increased 28 percent, from 203,000 to 260,000, but the money to
hold elections hasn't grown proportionately. Lowe said she hasn't asked for
big budget increases, using a $1 million computer system introduced in 1994
to do more with less. Still, there are problems. "I'd like a new building,"
Lowe said.
As the recounting progressed last week, the elections department was mobbed
by sheriff's deputies checking everything, even office supplies, that
entered a secured area for signs of stray ballots. When 20 boxes of Hungry
Howie's pizza arrived for lunch Friday, Phil Giorno, the Democratic county
chairman, teased the cops: "Did somebody check those?"
Finally on Friday, election officials had to relocate the recounting
operation to other county offices across the street. While the nation
waited for Volusia's results, men piled the 300 ballot bags on a truck
under the supervision of guards, witnesses and McDermott, who joked that
after all the years he spent on the bench, "now I'm telling people how to
load a truck."
Though Lowe insists funding isn't an issue in Volusia, the Election
Center's Lewis says money is a particular problem in poorer areas and those
experiencing large growth, where infrastructure and police get priority
over elections. Training also seems to be an issue for Volusia's 2,000 poll
workers.
That was underscored when poll worker Gene Tracy, 79, walked into the
election office Wednesday explaining how a bag of ballots was left in his car.
"I about had a cotton-pickin' stroke," he told a local reporter. "I
hollered for
my wife and I said, 'The dadburn ballots are still in the car.' "
Technology is also a problem. Though Volusia's new system (in which ballots
are marked with a felt pen and put in a scanner) is superior to Palm
Beach's baffling ballot, faulty "memory cards" in the machines caused the
16,000-vote disappearance on election night. The glitch was soon fixed.
Also, Volusia secures ballots in blue canvas tote bags, sealed with tape
that keeps popping off. Its fancy system also has a problem accepting
damaged absentee ballots.
But both sides here blame human error, and particularly Lowe. "She's a nice
lady, [but] she's a bumbling idiot," said Republican Clayton. "How do you
lose a bag of ballots? She doesn't dot her i's and cross her t's."
Democrat Giorno's solution to the mess: "Elect a new supervisor of
elections." In fact, the people of Volusia rendered their verdict on Lowe
last week, they reelected her.
Even McDermott, admired by Republicans and Democrats, seems overwhelmed as
chairman of the elections canvassing board. "I'm going to go home and take
a nap," he said at lunchtime Friday. "You'll have to be patient with me. I
haven't had very much sleep lately."
And he's not about to get much soon. Even if the recount ends by Tuesday,
he's likely to face more doubts about the process. It turns out Volusia's
Bethune-Cookman College, a traditionally black school, held a voter
registration drive that produced 2,000 new voters. But a large number, the
school says 50; the Democrats say more than 100--claim they were turned
away at the polls. "It'll be thrown in the hopper," vows Democratic lawyer
Daniels.
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Who Counted the Votes?
<http://www.indymedia.org/display.php3?article_id=9123>
by B-C Greens <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Sat Nov 11 '00
Dear Citizens,
Why have there been so many reported voting irregularities in the 2000
elections - not just in Florida, but in New Mexico and many other States
unmentioned by the national corporate media?
Why did so many voters line up at the booths this year? Were they really so
excited by Bush or Gore? If so, why did so few watch the debates? Why did
Ralph Nader's support seem to dissolve at the last minute?
Who managed the 2000 elections? The government? (Who is the government,
anyway?)
In many States, perhaps in all, the elections were managed by a private
corporation based in (you guessed it!) Fairfax, Virginia and McKinney, Texas:
<http://www.secinfo.com/dsvrp.77f8.htm>
<http://www.gesn.com>
We are only beginning to uncover the facts of the nationwide electoral
fraud and urge all concerned citizens to research the issue as best they can.
Lisa Williams
B-C Greens
----
See also: <http://www.secinfo.com/dsvrp.582q.htm#egy>
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Linked stories:
********************
The vote, county by county
<http://www.geocities.com/statechurch/e2000map.jpg>
********************
Survey: U.S. jurors biased against corporations
<http://www.cnn.com/2000/LAW/11/10/life.juries.oth.reut/index.html>
A survey conducted by the National Law Journal found that 75.6
percent of potential jurors think "executives of big companies
often try to cover up the harm they do" and that jurors think
they must impose billions of dollars in punitive damages to send
a message. (11/14/00)
********************
Recounts might spread to New Mexico, Oregon
<http://www.cnn.com/2000/ALLPOLITICS/stories/11/13/votes.elsewhere/>
New Mexico's tally, once in favor of Gore, has turned into
a slight advantage for Bush, while Oregon's mail-in-only election
has raised special concerns. Recounts are likely in both states.
(11/14/00)
********************
Law at first bite
<http://www.salon.com/politics/feature/2000/11/13/coffey/index.html?CP=SAL&DN=664>
Gore hires Kendall Coffey, a high-profile attorney known for
sinking his teeth into his work -- and into a Miami stripper
who nearly ended his career.
********************
Recount fight reverses partisan roles
<http://www.salon.com/politics/feature/2000/11/13/miami/index.html?CP=SAL&DN=664>
Republicans argue -- unsuccessfully -- for federal intervention,
while Democrats make plea for states' rights.
********************
Powerless at the polls
<http://bf.salon.com/XART0717CF573B525C74>
Black voters complain that the Florida election was plagued by
incompetent and racist poll workers at an NAACP meeting in Miami.
********************
The Volusia triangle
<http://bf.salon.com/XART0717CF533B525C74>
Where ballots disappear, partisans scuffle and election officials
try to put the genie back in the bottle. By Anthony York
********************
Making the world safe for democracy?
<http://bf.salon.com/XART0717CF5E3B525C74>
From the streets of Paris to offices in Japan, the world chuckles
and shrugs at the U.S. election circus. By Salon foreign correspondents
********************
What could go wrong at a polling place?
<http://bf.salon.com/XART0717CF593B525C74>
Everything, says an experienced poll worker.
********************
Harsh lessons
<http://bf.salon.com/XART0717CF4A3B525C74>
How the drug war cost Al Gore African-American votes in Florida.
********************
Report: Gore, Bush Teams Discuss Ending Stalemate
<http://news.findlaw.com/politics/s/20001114/electionreportdc.html>
********************
Florida's recount rules from their Division of Elections
<http://www.leg.state.fl.us/statutes/index.cfm?App_mode=Display_Statute&Search_String=&URL=Ch0102/SEC166.HTM&Title=->2000->Ch0102->Section%20166>
Protest of election returns; procedure.
********************
Electoral College web site
<http://www.nara.gov/fedreg/elctcoll/index.html#top>
********************
=====================================================
"Anarchy doesn't mean out of control. It means out of 'their' control."
-Jim Dodge
======================================================
"Communications without intelligence is noise;
intelligence without communications is irrelevant."
-Gen. Alfred. M. Gray, USMC
======================================================
"It is not a sign of good health to be well adjusted to a sick society."
-J. Krishnamurti
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