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A. His popular vote lead
over Bush in the 2000 presidential election was 540,000.
B. The analysis commissioned
by the Miami Herald indicates that Gore would have won Florida by
23,000 votes if all the state's contested ballots had been completely
counted. C. With Florida's 25
electoral votes Gore goes over the top to win the electoral vote,
292-246, rather than the "official" December 18 count
of 271-267 for President-appointee Bush. 1. Florida Secretary
of State Katharine Harris (co-chair of the Florida for Bush campaign
committee) scrubbed the voter registry of thousands of purported
"felons" based on a flawed
list from ChoicePoint, a private company with deep Republican ties.
Many of those listed had committed misdemeanors, not felonies. Many
had committed felonies in other states, served their time, and had
their voting rights restored. Those thousands illegally denied the
right to vote were disproportionately African-American; Florida
African-Americans voted 93 percent for Gore. 2. In violation of the law Republican officials in Seminole and Martin counties were allowed to add missing ID numbers to absentee ballots that would otherwise have been disqualified. A similar "privilege" was not offered for Democratic ballots. Absentee
vote cases provide evidence of Republican vote-rigging 3. On Election Day thousands of people in minority precincts were turned away from the polls, polling locations were moved without previous notice, and polling places "ran out" of ballots. There was a road block set up by Florida Highway Patrol officers near a black voting precinct in Tallahassee. Florida
A&M students describe Republican attack on voting rights. In Palm Beach County
Jewish senior citizens complained about the new "butterfly
ballot" in which candidates were, contrary to state law, arranged
in two columns. They feared they may have mistakenly voted for anti-semitic
Pat Buchanan. 4. There were some most
unusual events on Election Night. First, the exit polls conducted
by the Voter News Service indicated that Gore had carried Florida
by 100,000 votes. So an early award was given to Gore fifty minutes
after the polls had closed in the majority of the state, but ten
minutes before their closing in the western part of the panhandle
which is on Central Time. We were then treated to CNN interviewing
George W. en famille with George Sr. and Barbara with George declaring
that there had been a mistake, that he "knew" he had carried
Florida. (This was without precedent. Heretofore, the public had
not heard from either candidate until one conceded and then the
other announced victory.) Shortly thereafter, the networks put Florida
into the "undecided" category. Soon it was clear from
the other returns that Florida and its 25 electoral votes would
decide the election. Then at 2:16 AM Fox News Channel declared Bush
the winner and the other networks quickly followed suit. The call
was made by John Ellis without any input from the Voter News Service,
the consortium which is supposed to make the projections for the
TV news outlets. Ellis is George and Jeb Bush's first cousin and,
as he later told The New Yorker, was in telephone communication
with George W. and Florida Governor Jeb Bush all evening. The
US election: The conspiracy begins to unravel How
Bush's Man at Fox News worked to shape the outcome Gore, who had telephoned
a concession to Bush, was literally on his way to make a televised
concession speech when he was advised that Bush's supposed lead
in Florida was dwindling rapidly. |
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© Janette Rainwater 1997-2004 All rights reserved.
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