Steve Veritas and the Staff of Just Facts have written a commentary entitled, "Votes, Lies, and Videotape." Read it at http://www.justfacts.com/votefraud.htm
Votes, Lies, and Videotape
By Steve Veritas and the Staff of Just Facts
11-26-00
Available on the web at www.justfacts.com/votefraud.htm
With the Presidency of the United States hanging in the balance, news
reporters have abandoned their normal bias in favor of outright lying. The
list of examples could fill a small book, but here are a few.
Exhibit A
On November 20th, the NBC Nightly News attempted to discredit eyewitness
accounts of irregularities associated with the hand recounts in Palm Beach
and Broward Counties. NBC Reporter Jim Avila dismissed the problem of chads
falling off the ballots by reporting that this only happens "rarely."
"Rarely?" Who does Avila think he's kidding? On one occasion, police gathered
78 fallen chads after a Democrat election official refused to pick them up.
At the end of another day, 283 fallen chads were collected. I guess it all
depends on how NBC defines "rarely."
        (AP Picture of Fallen Chads)
Avila also stated, "Election officials say missing chads change nothing."
Does NBC take us for idiots? Anyone familiar with the process knows that an
extra chad mistakenly or purposely punched out in the presidential section of
the ballot will directly affect the vote tabulation. If there is an existing
vote for Bush and an extra chad is punched out, the Bush vote is cancelled.
If there is no vote selected and a chad is punched or even dimpled for Gore,
then Gore picks up a vote (and vice-versa.)
Watch this video of a Democrat molesting a ballot. Bear in mind that these
chads are fragile, and before the hand recount process was even started,
several election officials stepped forward to warn that aggressive handling
of these ballots is a common method of election fraud used to create and
eliminate votes. As you watch this clip, ask yourself, "If the situation were
reversed, and it was a Republican who was doing this, how many times would
you have seen this on TV already?"
56k Video I
100k Video II
Here's another lie from that very same NBC News story. Avila brushed aside the fact that ballots with votes for George W. Bush were discovered in the pile of votes for Al Gore by stating, “The election judges say yes, that happened once, but observers caught the mistake."
"Once?" There are at least 4 people including a Democrat who claim to have
seen Bush ballots in Gore piles. One Republican observer stated that in a 45
minute time period, she caught a Democrat on 5 occasions attempting to put a
Bush ballot into the Gore pile. One Democrat observer, who twice discovered
Bush ballots in Gore piles, apologized to the Republican observer and told
him that the ballots had been “sabotaged.”
NBC summarized their story with Avila remarking, "election officials say
ignore the spin and watch the less dramatic inside story." If anyone wants to
"ignore the spin," they should begin with the whirlwind of misinformation
coming from Avila's mouth.
Exhibit B
A Newsweek article written by Matt Bai and Michael Isikoff focused on the
19,000 ballots that were disqualified in Palm Beach County. They highlighted
concerns that the ballot was confusing and stated that the 3,400 votes cast
for Pat Buchanan in Palm Beach County amounted to "far more than anywhere
else in the state." This article is a textbook example of selective
reporting. Absent from the article were a number of important facts that
undermine the false impression that the article creates.
First of all, the article failed to note that sample ballots were mailed to
all registered voters and published in the local paper before the election.
Among the hundreds of thousands of registered voters in that county, not one
of them filed a single complaint prior to the election. Also, the article
ignores the fact that there are 7 other counties in Florida that cast a
greater percentage of votes for Pat Buchanan than Palm Beach County,
including 2 counties that voted for Buchanan at more than twice the rate of
Palm Beach. So when Newsweek tells us about how Palm Beach County had "far
more" votes for Pat Buchanan "than anywhere else in the state," wouldn't it
also make sense for them to inform us that Palm Beach is one of the larger
counties in the state?
Furthermore, this article neglects to mention that in Duval County, which is
a Republican stronghold, 26,000 ballots were disqualified. How can it be that
the disqualification of 19,000 votes in a Democrat county is BIG NEWS, but
the disqualification of an even greater number of votes in a Republican
county is irrelevant? The scary thing is that some people probably think that
because they read Newsweek, they are informed. The truth is that they'd be
far better off if they were incapable of reading, because they would at least
be aware of the fact that they are ignorant.
The Big Picture
When election officials start counting dimpled chads, pregnant chads, and
chads with three corners still attached, they are obviously going to find
more votes. Since this is only being done in counties where the majority of
people voted for Gore, the result of this type of recount will inevitably
produce more votes for Gore. Gore, Lieberman, and their operatives have all
been claiming that their guiding principle is that every attempt to vote
should be counted, but I don't see them taking any legal action to ensure
that the 26,000 ballots that were disqualified in Republican dominated Duval
County get hand recounted. I also don't see the press asking any tough
questions as to the hypocritical and unjust nature of this selective recount.
In addition to the absurdity of performing hand recounts only in certain
Democrat dominated counties, the cumulative evidence indicates that the
process itself is fraught with corruption. The press makes it all look
harmless by giving these stories limited coverage and by reporting each
incident in a vacuum. Put all the facts together and what you've got tells a
far different story than what the press would have you believe.
1) Democrats control every county canvassing board where hand recounts are
taking place. This means that all decisions to have hand recounts, all
decisions as to what the standards will be, and all decisions regarding the
application of these standards, are made by Democrats. A CNN reporter
referred to the process as "fair."
2) Smack in the middle of the Broward County hand recount, as the process was
failing to produce enough votes to prevent Gore from losing, the Democrats on
the canvassing board changed the counting standards. They voted to count
pregnant and dimpled ballots as votes, a relaxed standard guaranteed to
produce more votes for Gore. Despite the fact that Democrats changed the
rules to Gore's benefit in the middle of the game, I haven't noticed the
press making a stink about it. Again, imagine the media outrage if the
situation was reversed and it was Republicans who did this.
3) During the Palm Beach County hand recount, the Democrats on the canvassing
board pulled the same stunt as the Democrats in Broward County, changing the
standards in the middle of the recount to the advantage of Al Gore.
4) In Palm Beach County, a police officer found a stolen voting machine in
the car of Irving Slosberg, a prominent local Democrat. This is a felony
offense, but Theresa LePore, who is the Supervisor of Elections and a member
of the canvassing board in Palm Beach County, refused to press charges. A few
days later, 2 people were caught trying to sell a stolen Palm Beach county
ballot machine on EBAY. These people were arrested.
5) Two months before the Democrats on the Palm Beach County canvassing board
voted to perform a hand recount in the presidential election, that same
canvassing board denied a request for a hand recount in a Republican primary
that was decided by a mere 14 votes. In this instance, Theresa LePore had
this to say: "It wasn't that close. The manual count is historically when
it's single digits."
6) According to a sworn affidavit, a Republican observer in Palm Beach County
found several Bush ballots in the pile for Al Gore. Instead of pulling those
ballots out and placing them in the Bush pile where they rightfully belonged,
Theresa LePore took all of the ballots and tossed them in a box without
offering any explanation to the observers.
7) Carol Roberts is a member of the Palm Beach County canvassing board, which
is comprised solely of Democrats. Five people have filed affidavits detailing
how they witnessed Carol Roberts manipulating ballots so as to create more
votes for Gore. By the way, a deliberately false affidavit can put you in
jail. Among the allegations is that Carol Roberts aggressively handled the
ballots in an attempt to dislodge chads and took ballots from the
questionable pile and mixed them into the Gore pile.
8) Mary Hergert, a Colorado elector for Bush, has alleged that ABC News
called her and tried to intimidate her into changing her vote to Gore. To
make sure the call was legitimate, Mary used her caller ID to trace the call
back to ABC. ABC denied that they tried to intimidate her and said they were
just asking her questions. When ABC was asked to release these questions,
they refused. If they had nothing to hide, why not just release the
questions?
We hear a lot from the press on the topic of campaign finance reform as they
spout axioms like "money corrupts." If the press says that money corrupts
politicians, isn't it fair to ask if money corrupts them? The money that runs
through the corporate media conglomerates dwarfs anything that any politician
could ever hope to raise. The total amount of money spent on the 400 plus
national elections held this year was about 3 billion dollars. The annual
budget of Time Warner exceeds 20 billion dollars. This means that a single
corporate media conglomerate spends more money than the combined total of
millions of citizens who financially supported the candidates of their
choice. It is amazing how the press complains about excessive money in
political campaigns, but voices no concern about the far greater sums running
through their own empires.
Take Action
The closeness of this election has dramatically illustrated that we are split
right down the middle in this country. Even though we may have different
political ideologies, we can still stand united in a common commitment to
honesty and decency. You may have voted for Gore, but don't let that preclude
you from standing up and doing the right thing. If you stand by and let the
truth be damned, who will come to your rescue when you are the one who is
being cheated? It is time for the honest and decent people of this nation to
unite.
There is something simple and practical that we all can do. Stop giving our
money to the corporate press. There are tens of millions of honest people in
this country who are subscribers to dishonest publications like Time and
Newsweek. The $50 a year we pay to get our newspaper or magazine may not seem
like much, but multiplied by 49 million people who voted for Bush, it is more
than enough money to empower the corporate press to spread their lies. If
you're mad about the fiasco in Florida and the manner in which the media acts
as Gore's mouthpiece, don't waste your time writing to an editor. There is a
far more effective solution to the problem. Cancel your subscriptions and
turn off the ABC's, NBC's, and CNN's of this world. Find other news sources
who are true to our country's ideal of Liberty and Justice for All.
This commentary is brought to you by the staff at
