Shamelessly playing the "race card" again

[fintstone]

The Florida Myth
Spinning tales about 2000 to boost black turnout.

Tuesday, September 28, 2004 12:01 a.m. EDT

In case you were lucky enough to miss it, here's a recent fund-raising letter from New Jersey Democratic Senator Jon Corzine:

"Voter suppression and intimidation . . . in Florida again!? The GOP used voter intimidation and outright fraud to hand Florida to George W. Bush in 2000, and if we don't stop them, they'll do it again."

Yes, the political urban legend that black voters in Florida were harassed and intimidated on Election Day four years ago is making a comeback. Only yesterday Jimmy Carter, fresh from blessing Hugo Chavez's dubious victory in Venezuela, moaned that in 2000 "several thousand ballots of African Americans were thrown out on technicalities" in Florida, and that this year more black than (Republican) Hispanic felons are being disqualified to vote--as if all felons weren't supposed to be barred, regardless of race.

As the Corzine letter and the "Jim Crow" pamphlet nearby suggest, this is all election-year demagoguery. Democrats and their acolytes are raising this myth from the dead to scare up black turnout and lay the groundwork for challenges in court if John Kerry loses. So, before Dan Rather concludes this is another scoop, let's all remember the fraud that didn't happen in 2000.

In June 2001, following a six-month investigation that included subpoenas of Florida state officials from Governor Jeb Bush on down, the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights issued a report that found no evidence of voter intimidation, no evidence of voter harassment, and no evidence of intentional or systematic disenfranchisement of black voters.

Headed by a fiercely partisan Democrat, Mary Frances Berry, the Commission was very critical of Florida election officials (many of whom were Democrats). For example, "Potential voters confronted inexperienced poll workers, antiquated machinery, inaccessible polling locations, and other barriers to being able to exercise their right to vote." But the report found no basis for the contention that officials conspired to disenfranchise voters. "Moreover," it said, "even if it was foreseeable that certain actions by officials led to voter disenfranchisement, this alone does not mean that intentional discrimination occurred," let alone racial discrimination.

The Justice Department's Civil Rights Division conducted a separate investigation of these charges and also came up empty. In a May 2002 letter to Democratic Senator Pat Leahy of Vermont, who at the time headed the Judiciary Committee, Assistant Attorney General Ralph Boyd wrote, "The Civil Rights Division found no credible evidence in our investigations that Floridians were intentionally denied their right to vote during the November 2000 election."
Peter Kirsanow, a Republican member of the Civil Rights Commission, told us in an interview that "the press has tried to spin what happened in Florida into something sinister. But there's a disconnect between what was actually found [in these various investigations] and how it's been portrayed."

Senator Corzine's letter references the New York Times, where heavy-breathing columnists are trying to link a routine investigation of voter fraud in an Orlando mayoral election with a statewide effort by Governor Jeb Bush to intimidate blacks into staying home in November. Elsewhere, the NAACP and People for the American Way have issued a report claiming that "intimidation" led to racially motivated voter disenfranchisement in Florida. These and other left-wing groups are planning to dispatch 5,000 lawyers nationwide on Election Day in the name of "voter protection," presumably to prevent a "repeat" of something that didn't happen the first time.

Another prong of the attack on the legitimacy of the Florida outcome, at least as it pertains to the notion the black voters were intentionally disenfranchised, is the number of black voters whose ballots were spoiled. The Civil Rights Commission concluded that blacks were more likely to spoil their votes than whites by a factor of 10 to 1. Other investigations put that ratio closer to 3 to 1. In any case, the numbers are educated guesses extrapolated from sample precincts because ballots don't record the race of the voter.

But the idea that racial animus rather than all-around incompetence produced higher spoilage rates for blacks, or accounted for their misplacement on the infamously inaccurate "felon purge list," is fanciful at best. In Florida, as in many other states, the manner in which elections are conducted, including all of the essentials of the voting process, is determined at the county level.

Which leaves the "stolen election" crowd with these inconvenient facts: In 24 of the 25 Florida counties with the highest ballot spoilage rate, the county supervisor was a Democrat. In the 25th county, the supervisor was an Independent. And as for the "felon purge list," the Miami Herald found that whites were twice as likely to be incorrectly placed on the list as blacks.
The real spectacle here is that some Democrats are only too willing to exploit the painful history of black voter disenfranchisement for some short-term partisan advantage. And it just might backfire. Democrats played up the Florida fiasco in the 2002 midterm elections, repeatedly telling blacks that their votes hadn't been counted in 2000. Rather than being riled up, many black voters believed what they were told and stayed home.

[A Quiet Boom]

Why would radicals ever let the facts get in the way of there message?

Funny thing about Bush and the black community, he has spent more money on programs oriented to help blacks than any other president and he has appointed more blacks to positions of real power than any other president. Sadly he doesn't get credit for any of this from the black leadership who are steering their people down the wrong path. Instead of listening to the NAACP they should take heed of Bill Cosby's words.

[fintstone]

Here they go again:

Black Voters 'Afraid' of Electronic Voting Machines, Activist Says
By Marc Morano
CNSNews.com Senior Staff Writer
September 30, 2004

Miami (CNSNews.com) - An African-American civil rights spokeswoman said on Wednesday that the new computerized voting machines "terrify" her, and that blacks are "afraid of machines like that."

Joanne Bland, the director and co-founder of the National Voting Rights Museum and Institute in Selma, Ala., told CNSNews.com on Wednesday that the new computerized voting machines are going to intimidate black voters in Florida and elsewhere and suppress their vote in the November presidential election because many blacks are not "technologically savvy."

"The computers really terrify me. The electronic voting -- the new machines -- I think it will turn off a segment in my community, particularly the elderly. We are not as technically savvy, and we are afraid of machines like that, and they (African-Americans) probably won't go [to the polls] and they probably won't ask for assistance, said Bland, who spent the last week in Florida.

"It is going to turn them off totally and I want that to stop," said Bland, who also serves as a spokeswoman for the Washington, D.C.-based Institute for Public Accuracy, which predicts that "several million voters" may be "deprived of voting rights again" in 2004.

When asked if she preferred low-tech punch-card ballots that produced the controversial hanging chads in Florida in 2000, Bland responded, "Now that was low technology to who? People that have been privileged to learn technology? There have been lots of changes in the United States, but if you look at the statistics, our biggest block of voters would be between 40 and 80, so when did those people have access to any kind of technology?"

As an 11-year-old in 1965, Bland took part in the Selma-to-Montgomery voting rights march with Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. She has just concluded a speaking tour on the history of the civil rights movement in the Miami area.

"I got the hell out of there Saturday, and I would suggest you do, too. Until we get rid of those Bushes (President George W. Bush and his brother, Florida Governor Jeb Bush), we're going to have a problem in Florida," Bland said.

GOP political operatives were quick to denounce Bland's comments.

African-American GOP consultant Tara Setmayer, who has worked on Florida congressional campaigns, called Bland's remarks "insulting" to black Americans.

"I think it's insulting to imply that African-Americans are unable to comprehend or assimilate modern-day technology," Setmayer said.

"As a registered voter in Florida, I am familiar with these touch screen voting machines,and they're very easy to understand, very voter-friendly," Setmayer told CNSNews.com. "Her claim is absurd," she added.

Syd Dinerstein, the chairman of Republican Party of Palm Beach County, also denounced Bland's comments.

"If there was ever proof positive that the black community needs a different set of leaders, statements like [Bland's] are exactly it," Dinerstein told CNSNews.com .

"I wish the Democrats thought as highly of the black community as Republicans do. We trust black parents to pick the right schools for their children, the Democrats don't. We trust black people to make informed electoral choices, the Democrats don't," Dinerstein said.

"It is sad that the soft bigotry of low expectations is at the core of the fundamental principles of the Democratic Party," he added.

Republican consultant and former political and government affairs director of the African American Republican Leadership Council Kevin Martin also rejected the idea that blacks can't grasp computerized voting.

"What Bland is trying to say is voters down there [in Florida] are dumb, they are not educating themselves. She is saying that African-Americans-- when it comes to voting -- are intellectually inferior," Martin told CNSNews.com.

"You have touch screens in grocery stores, at [state run motor vehicle offices] and African-Americans seem to have no problem using those," he added.

'Voter intimidation' by Republicans

On Wednesday, the eve of the first presidential debate between Sen. John F. Kerry and President George W. Bush at the University of Miami, the NAACP and People for the American Way announced the results of a new study entitled "The Long Shadow of Jim Crow: Voter Intimidation and Suppression in America."

The report alleges that the Republican Party is attempting to systematically suppress the voting rights of African-Americans.

Ralph G. Neas, president of People for the American Way, said, "Although voter intimidation has not historically been confined to a single political party, we are increasingly concerned about recent incidents indicating that Republican officials may be planning to challenge voters this year based on race."

Neas said, "There is more than one way to deprive people of their right to vote, from systematic and technical problems to inadequate voter education to illegal actions by public officials."

Martin, however, challenged the new report.

"I am sick and tired of hearing rhetoric about corruption. Show me some evidence. Name a government official involved in suppressing the black vote," Martin said.

"They can't [name officials] because it's nothing more than red herrings to feed to the black community to try to scare them so the Democrats can get 90 percent of the vote and people like Julian Bond, Jesse Jackson, Al Sharpton and these groups can feel they have the right to sit at the table with Democrats like Kerry," Martin added.

Dinerstein completely dismissed any allegations of GOP vote suppression.

"In the [2000 presidential] election, not a single black person was deprived of their right to vote, but a significant number of the men and women in our service overseas were deprived of their right to vote by the Democratic Party," Dinerstein said, referring to the controversy over disqualified absentee ballots cast by members of the military.

Setmayer also rejected the new study from People for the American Way and the NAACP.

"I think it's a desperate attempt at trying to mobilize the black vote, because if you look historically at the areas in Florida where we have had the most voter fraud -- or suppression, as they call it -- [it has] been in the Democratic districts.

"It's an absurd claim," Setmayer said, considering that the election supervisors all have been Democrats.

"And they are taking that approach because they have a weak candidate. Kerry is a weak candidate because he has no rapport with the black community," she added.

Setmayer said Kerry's announcement on Wednesday that Jesse Jackson had officially joined his campaign was spurred by recent polls showing that Kerry's support is "slipping" in the African-American community."

A new Pew Research Center poll shows African American voters support for Bush has doubled to 12 percent from 6 percent, while Kerry's support has dropped 10 points since August.

Bland said it's too bad that black voters give such overwhelming support to the Democratic Party.

"One of our problems is we are classified as Democrats -- that whole block of African-American voters. The largest portion of us will more than likely vote Democrat, and that makes us not a party in the game, period," Bland said.

[911pcars]

I think it's been shown (in CA anyway) that computerized voting machines leave too much room for error and are not secure enough to prevent electronic "stuffing" by those in the know. In addition, there's no paper trail backup in case the storage medium is zapped. Let's make it easy for eligible voters, whatever ethnic background they may be, to voice their choice for either candidate.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but I think ex-felons have the constitutional right to vote unless they're on parole.

Sherwood

[fintstone]

Originally posted by 911pcars
Correct me if I'm wrong, but I think ex-felons have the constitutional right to vote unless they're on parole.

Sherwood

Ok. You are wrong.

[SteveStromberg]

Paper ballots marked with blood so we can DNA test would be a start. That way we can check and make sure no one voted twice.

[911pcars]

Flint, I stand corrected. Convicted felons (in or out of prison), have forever lost their right to vote. Sad.

However, some states have found they could even gain a further advantage by including non-felons in their voter exclusion lists. Does this one sound familiar?

http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,126256,00.html

Sherwood

[fintstone]

Is is just a big problem to identify felons and prevent them from voting...(after all, they would not be felons to start with if they were staunch law abiding citizens)..particularly after all the democratic sign-up-a-felon voting drives.

[911pcars]

"Is is just a big problem to identify felons and prevent them from voting"

Most felons commit crimes for monetary gain. I don't imagine many ex-felons are forging papers/identities in order to exercise their right to vote though I might be wrong. There are more eligible voters cheating on their income taxes. Big problem? I think not. There are bigger problems in this country. Let's put your indignation in perspective.

In the link I posted, there were many more eligible voters who would have been denied a right to vote.

Sherwood

[fintstone]

Originally posted by 911pcars
"Is is just a big problem to identify felons and prevent them from voting"

Most felons commit crimes for monetary gain. I don't imagine many ex-felons are forging papers/identities in order to exercise their right to vote though I might be wrong. There are more eligible voters cheating on their income taxes. Big problem? I think not. There are bigger problems in this country. Let's put your indignation in perspective.

In the link I posted, there were many more eligible voters who would have been denied a right to vote.

Sherwood

Yes, you are wrong. 1. They do not have to "forge papers/identities to vote." They only have to register and vote like anyone else...using their own identity Obviously if they were creating new identities to vote, a list of felons would be of no value. 2. They cannot exercise their "right to vote" since they do not have that right. It is indeed a problem if even one voter is voting illegally, much less hundreds of thousands of felons in this country. There may be larger problems in the US, but not many that go against the founding principle of the nation as much as voter fraud. In you article, the problem is not the fact that there is a list of felons that cannot vote, but that the list is incorrect.

[911pcars]

".... the problem is not the fact that there is a list of felons that cannot vote, but that the list is incorrect."

Incorrect is an understatement.

The company that was contracted by Florida officials to compile this list included many who were eligible to vote and would then be prevented from voting. Sorta like the same list they used in 2000 to exclude voters.

"In November the U.S. media, lost in patriotic reverie, dressed up the Florida recount as a victory for President Bush. But however one reads the ballots, Bush's win would certainly have been jeopardized had not some Floridians been barred from casting ballots at all. Between May 1999 and Election Day 2000, two Florida secretaries of state - Sandra Mortham and Katherine Harris, both protégées of Governor Jeb Bush- ordered 57,700 "ex-felons," who are prohibited from voting by state law, to be removed from voter rolls. (In the thirty-five states where former felons can vote, roughly 90 percent vote Democratic.) A portion of the list, which was compiled for Florida by DBT Online, can be seen for the first time here; DBT, a company now owned by ChoicePoint of Atlanta, was paid $4.3 million for its work, replacing a firm that charged $5,700 per year for the same service. If the hope was that DBT would enable Florida to exclude more voters, then the state appears to have spent its money wisely......"

Full text from 2000 here:
http://www.gregpalast.com/detail.cfm?artid=122&row=1

.....and an overview of what happened in the 2000 election and history trying to repeat itself for 2004 here:
http://www.cnn.com/2004/ALLPOLITICS/07/01/florida.elections/

Sherwood