-Caveat Lector-
[Looks like at least some of these workers really did plan to
call fraud in certain key areas. --MS]
Dems Call Fla. Voters About Ballots
By John Solomon Associated Press Writer
Friday, Nov. 10, 2000; 9:39 p.m. EST
WASHINGTON �� Faced with a cliffhanger election, the Democratic
Party directed a telemarketing firm on Election Night to begin
calling thousands of voters in Palm Beach, Fla., to raise
questions about a disputed ballot and urge them to contact local
election officials.
The Democratic National Committee paid Texas-based TeleQuest to
make the calls Tuesday night � while polls were still open �
alerting voters in the heavily Democratic enclave in Florida of
possible confusion with the ballots they cast.
"Some voters have encountered a problem today with punch card
ballots in Palm Beach County," the script for the call said.
"These voters have said that they believe that they accidentally
punched the wrong hole for the incorrect candidate."
"If you have already voted and think you may have punched the
wrong hole for the incorrect candidate, you should return to the
polls and request that the election officials write down your
name so that this problem can be fixed," the script said.
The firm took the names and numbers of voters who said they may
have cast an errant ballot, providing the Democratic Party a list
of about 2,400 voters in the county who thought they may have
misvoted.
If voters were about to go to the polls, the script called for
the caller to instruct them to "be sure to punch Number 5 for
Gore-Lieberman" and "do NOT punch any other number as you might
end up voting for someone else by mistake."
Democratic National Committee spokeswoman Jenny Backus said the
party had been making traditional get-out-the-vote calls all over
the country Tuesday, but shifted gears in Palm Beach after
hearing local news reports about possible voter confusion.
"Once we were informed by local news accounts of the magnitude of
the problem with confusion about the ballot, we shifted our
scripts to make sure that people who were voting were aware of
the questions and confusion around the ballot," she said.
The maneuver indicates that long before Americans awoke to the
reality of the Florida ballot dispute, Democrats were already
mobilizing voters there. The concern has focused on Palm Beach,
where 19,000 ballots were disqualified and hundreds of voters
have said they mistakenly voted for Patrick Buchanan while trying
to vote for Gore.
Within hours of the phone campaign, hundreds of Democratic voters
had called election officials in Palm Beach to complain they may
have been confused by the ballot and voted for the wrong
candidate.
Some Palm Beach County voters have filed lawsuits seeking a new
vote.
The outcome of the dispute is key because George W. Bush is
leading Gore by a mere 327 votes after a statewide recount. The
winner of Florida will lay claim to the electoral votes needed to
become the nation's 43rd president.
The calls indicate that Democrats were concerned about Palm Beach
problems even before they knew Florida's vote would end in a
razor-thin margin, said American University political science
professor Candice Nelson.
"To the extent there have been accusations that Democrats didn't
cry foul until they realized Wednesday that Bush may have won,
this cuts the other way," she said.
Nelson and other political and legal experts said the calls were
perfectly legal but could have contributed to what appeared to
most Americans to be a spontaneous explosion of concern in
Florida the morning after the election.
"I think those kinds of calls make perfect sense," Nelson said.
"In terms of people getting riled up, it would be a tactic that
might energize voters who might otherwise not have realized they
may have mistakenly voted for the wrong candidate."
One Florida Democrat said Republicans would take similar action
had the tables been turned.
"They'd be fighting this thing tooth and nail for months and
months," said Wayne Brewer, 45, of Juneau, Fla.
"They knew they ... lost, and now they want to win on an
assumption," he said, speaking outside the government center in
West Palm Beach.
Wade Scott, an account manager with TeleQuest, said Democratic
Party officials contacted his company shortly before 6 p.m. EST
Tuesday to make the calls.
With only an hour to go before Florida polls closed, his company
mobilized all of its telemarketers to make some 5,000 calls in
less than 45 minutes, Scott said.
"It was a very short burst of calling for our industry," Scott
said. He said only about 100 of the voters in Palm Beach it
contacted hadn't voted, and about 2,400 felt they may have made a
mistake on the ballot.
=================================================================
Kadosh, Kadosh, Kadosh, YHVH, TZEVAOT
FROM THE DESK OF:
*Michael Spitzer* <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
The Best Way To Destroy Enemies Is To Change Them To Friends
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