Golgot
10-23-04, 09:42 PM
In the 2000 election thousands of Florida voters were classed incorrectly as felons and removed from the voting rolls. The number would have been far higher if it hadn't been for various local officials checking the lists of names produced (including an original list of 8,000 names submitted from Texas, of which "almost none" turned out to be legitimate!).
These selected voters were far more likely to be black, and therefore more likely to vote Democrat. This action was instigated and overseen by Republicans Jeb Bush and Katherine Harris.
This highly suspicious ineptitude has still not been explained.
[for more details see here: http://www.movieforums.com/community/showthread.php?t=4718&highlight=dbt ]
Now on for the next round of highly dubious and undemocratic behaviour by the Republican incumbants in Florida...
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Fresh Republican attempts to disenfranchise black voters!
Jimmy Carter fears repeat of election fiasco in Florida
http://www.guardian.co.uk/international/story/0,,1314205,00.html
In May, Florida's secretary of state, Glenda Hood (a Bush family partisan), distributed a secret list of 48,000 alleged former felons and instructed county election supervisors to remove them from the voter rolls. When a court ordered the list be published, it was found that more than 20,000 people on the list were black (black Floridians vote Democratic by more than nine to one) and only 61 were Hispanics (who are much more likely to vote Republican). The Miami Herald newspaper found at least 2,000 people should not have been on the list, having regained their voting rights.
In his commentary, Mr Carter called the distribution of the list a "fumbling attempt" to disenfranchise black people. It was dropped after it became public, but by then 14 counties had sent letters to the residents named, informing them they would be ineligible to vote.
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Undue partisan control over electoral proceedures and yet more highly dubious activities
Something rotten in the State of Floridahttp://news.independent.co.uk/world/americas/story.jsp?story=566688
The Republican Party finds itself in an unusual position in Florida: although voter registration slightly favours the Democrats, the Republicans have managed to engineer the demographics - through the gerrymandering of electoral districts - so that they have a lock on both houses of the state legislature and the Governor's office. They control almost all the machinery of government, including, in large part, the management of elections.
There have even been efforts - by the Florida legislature, and by the new Secretary of State, Glenda Hood - to make re-counts on electronic machines illegal. Only the intervention of the courts, relying on a Florida statute calling for the possibility of manual re-counts, has forestalled them - so far.
As for the hotch-potch set of voting systems in place (and the seemingly unreliable ES&S electronic voting systems), this guy seems to have it right:
The only certainty, as Congressman Wexler said, is that "both Bush and Kerry lawyers will be in several courts on election night".
The mess that is Florida nevertheless came as a profound shock to a group of international election monitors who toured the state last week. Dr Brigalia Bam, who chairs South Africa's Independent Electoral Commission, was stunned by the patchwork of jurisdictions, rules and anomalies. "Absolutely everything is a violation," she said. "All these different systems in different counties with no accountability... It's like the poorest village in Africa."
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Two influential activists are being intimidated and criminally investigated by the Florida police for switching their support from Republican to Democrat
Ezzie Thomas, an activist who helps voters to use absentee ballots, and Steve Clelland, the head of the local firefighters' union have both campaigned on behalf of the Republicans, but this election they've switched allegiances.
Suddenly, their activies have led to the Florida Department of Law Enforcement conducting aggressive interviews with them and threatening legal action. And yet their activities raised no eyebrows before.
Politics and sleaze envelop Orlando
http://news.independent.co.uk/world/americas/story.jsp?story=566037
What makes the troubles facing the two men particularly sinister is that they are declared Kerry supporters, with the power to bring in hundreds if not thousands of votes for the Democratic Party.
The Republicans have been hard put to explain what exactly the two men have done wrong.
---
The Firemen
A grand jury examining allegations concerning the firefighters' union concluded that no laws had been broken, which has not deterred the FDLE from pursuing the case.
Mayor Hood [the previous Republican Mayor] allowed the firefighters' union to spend up to $40,000 a year in city funds on political activities. In those days, the firefighters were considered allies of the Republican establishment in Orange County and had endorsed George Bush for President in 2000. But Mr Clelland and his members were deeply disappointed by the White House's failure to follow through on promises to put an extra 100,000 firefighters on American streets and update their equipment. So, in early June, they joined a statewide union vote endorsing Mr Kerry for President in 2004.
Days later, the FDLE, with television cameras in tow, raided City Hall, seized several computers and announced that the union and its so-called "leave bank" were being investigated. The beefy Mr Clelland said he was scared to death in his interview with the FDLE supervisor in Orlando and was told he might be slung into jail if he insisted on having his lawyer present. He duly asked Mr Egan to leave the room.
The accusation is that:
they colluded with City Hall to set up an illegal slush fund for political campaigning
---
Ezzie Thomas and the Orlando Voters' League:
Ezzie Thomas organised 270 absentee votes in the election of Buddy Dyer (one of only two prominent Democratic public officials along the I-4 corridor). Dyer replaced Hood as Mayor.
The FDLE investigation is focusing on the accusation (by Dyer's Republican opponent, Mr Mulvaney) that absentee ballots were illegally faxed in and that people had been paid for their votes.
The city attorney's office cross-checked the signatures on the absentee ballots with the original application forms and concluded they were valid. Intriguingly, the FDLE did the same thing and stated, in a letter written to the state attorney in Orlando in May, that there was "no basis to support the allegations" and that the case should be considered closed.
And yet even more intriguingly the FDLE are still pursuing their investigation, and are having trouble explaining that letter away.
As for the paying people for their votes...
Mr Thomas and his organisation, the Orlando Voters' League, have not been accused of paying for votes, but they have acknowledged paying the 37-cent postage for some people's absentee ballots. Mr Thomas, who received $10,000 from the Dyer campaign for his get-out-the-vote efforts, has also acknowledged paying his volunteers between $100 and $150 for petrol and other expenses over the campaign season.
At least the FDLE hasn't stooped so low as to trying and make that stick.
---
The question is though: on what grounds are the FDLE pursuing their criminal investigations, and threatening legal action, against these two men and their organisations? All the given charges have been discredited.
Both men feel they can't go out and campaign coz it might adversely affect any future legal action. Is this really democracy in action?
These selected voters were far more likely to be black, and therefore more likely to vote Democrat. This action was instigated and overseen by Republicans Jeb Bush and Katherine Harris.
This highly suspicious ineptitude has still not been explained.
[for more details see here: http://www.movieforums.com/community/showthread.php?t=4718&highlight=dbt ]
Now on for the next round of highly dubious and undemocratic behaviour by the Republican incumbants in Florida...
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Fresh Republican attempts to disenfranchise black voters!
Jimmy Carter fears repeat of election fiasco in Florida
http://www.guardian.co.uk/international/story/0,,1314205,00.html
In May, Florida's secretary of state, Glenda Hood (a Bush family partisan), distributed a secret list of 48,000 alleged former felons and instructed county election supervisors to remove them from the voter rolls. When a court ordered the list be published, it was found that more than 20,000 people on the list were black (black Floridians vote Democratic by more than nine to one) and only 61 were Hispanics (who are much more likely to vote Republican). The Miami Herald newspaper found at least 2,000 people should not have been on the list, having regained their voting rights.
In his commentary, Mr Carter called the distribution of the list a "fumbling attempt" to disenfranchise black people. It was dropped after it became public, but by then 14 counties had sent letters to the residents named, informing them they would be ineligible to vote.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Undue partisan control over electoral proceedures and yet more highly dubious activities
Something rotten in the State of Floridahttp://news.independent.co.uk/world/americas/story.jsp?story=566688
The Republican Party finds itself in an unusual position in Florida: although voter registration slightly favours the Democrats, the Republicans have managed to engineer the demographics - through the gerrymandering of electoral districts - so that they have a lock on both houses of the state legislature and the Governor's office. They control almost all the machinery of government, including, in large part, the management of elections.
There have even been efforts - by the Florida legislature, and by the new Secretary of State, Glenda Hood - to make re-counts on electronic machines illegal. Only the intervention of the courts, relying on a Florida statute calling for the possibility of manual re-counts, has forestalled them - so far.
As for the hotch-potch set of voting systems in place (and the seemingly unreliable ES&S electronic voting systems), this guy seems to have it right:
The only certainty, as Congressman Wexler said, is that "both Bush and Kerry lawyers will be in several courts on election night".
The mess that is Florida nevertheless came as a profound shock to a group of international election monitors who toured the state last week. Dr Brigalia Bam, who chairs South Africa's Independent Electoral Commission, was stunned by the patchwork of jurisdictions, rules and anomalies. "Absolutely everything is a violation," she said. "All these different systems in different counties with no accountability... It's like the poorest village in Africa."
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Two influential activists are being intimidated and criminally investigated by the Florida police for switching their support from Republican to Democrat
Ezzie Thomas, an activist who helps voters to use absentee ballots, and Steve Clelland, the head of the local firefighters' union have both campaigned on behalf of the Republicans, but this election they've switched allegiances.
Suddenly, their activies have led to the Florida Department of Law Enforcement conducting aggressive interviews with them and threatening legal action. And yet their activities raised no eyebrows before.
Politics and sleaze envelop Orlando
http://news.independent.co.uk/world/americas/story.jsp?story=566037
What makes the troubles facing the two men particularly sinister is that they are declared Kerry supporters, with the power to bring in hundreds if not thousands of votes for the Democratic Party.
The Republicans have been hard put to explain what exactly the two men have done wrong.
---
The Firemen
A grand jury examining allegations concerning the firefighters' union concluded that no laws had been broken, which has not deterred the FDLE from pursuing the case.
Mayor Hood [the previous Republican Mayor] allowed the firefighters' union to spend up to $40,000 a year in city funds on political activities. In those days, the firefighters were considered allies of the Republican establishment in Orange County and had endorsed George Bush for President in 2000. But Mr Clelland and his members were deeply disappointed by the White House's failure to follow through on promises to put an extra 100,000 firefighters on American streets and update their equipment. So, in early June, they joined a statewide union vote endorsing Mr Kerry for President in 2004.
Days later, the FDLE, with television cameras in tow, raided City Hall, seized several computers and announced that the union and its so-called "leave bank" were being investigated. The beefy Mr Clelland said he was scared to death in his interview with the FDLE supervisor in Orlando and was told he might be slung into jail if he insisted on having his lawyer present. He duly asked Mr Egan to leave the room.
The accusation is that:
they colluded with City Hall to set up an illegal slush fund for political campaigning
---
Ezzie Thomas and the Orlando Voters' League:
Ezzie Thomas organised 270 absentee votes in the election of Buddy Dyer (one of only two prominent Democratic public officials along the I-4 corridor). Dyer replaced Hood as Mayor.
The FDLE investigation is focusing on the accusation (by Dyer's Republican opponent, Mr Mulvaney) that absentee ballots were illegally faxed in and that people had been paid for their votes.
The city attorney's office cross-checked the signatures on the absentee ballots with the original application forms and concluded they were valid. Intriguingly, the FDLE did the same thing and stated, in a letter written to the state attorney in Orlando in May, that there was "no basis to support the allegations" and that the case should be considered closed.
And yet even more intriguingly the FDLE are still pursuing their investigation, and are having trouble explaining that letter away.
As for the paying people for their votes...
Mr Thomas and his organisation, the Orlando Voters' League, have not been accused of paying for votes, but they have acknowledged paying the 37-cent postage for some people's absentee ballots. Mr Thomas, who received $10,000 from the Dyer campaign for his get-out-the-vote efforts, has also acknowledged paying his volunteers between $100 and $150 for petrol and other expenses over the campaign season.
At least the FDLE hasn't stooped so low as to trying and make that stick.
---
The question is though: on what grounds are the FDLE pursuing their criminal investigations, and threatening legal action, against these two men and their organisations? All the given charges have been discredited.
Both men feel they can't go out and campaign coz it might adversely affect any future legal action. Is this really democracy in action?