-------------------------- eGroups Sponsor -------------------------~-~> <FONT COLOR="#000099">eGroups eLerts It's Easy. It's Fun. Best of All, it's Free! </FONT><A HREF="http://click.egroups.com/1/9698/2/_/1406/_/974222791/"><B>Click Here!</B></A> ---------------------------------------------------------------------_-> Please send as far and wide as possible. Thanks, Robert Sterling Editor, The Konformist http://www.konformist.com http://www.konformist.com/dark-conspiracy.htm Update: according to an article in Salon.com, half of all disqualified votes in Republican-dominated Duval County also are from the four African-American city districts of the county out of the 14 total, or 12,000 out of 27,000 total. Unlike Palm Beach, Duval County has no butterfly ballot. This is evidence that the disqualification of African-American voters is widespread. A Dark Conspiracy African-American Precincts Victims of Widespread Fraud Robert Sterling Editor, The Konformist http://www.konformist.com In the over four and a half years time period I've ran The Konformist via email and the web, I have never come across a story this huge. What we have before us is an election scandal that makes Watergate and The October Surprise look like patty cake. In Palm Beach County, as reported, 28,036 votes in the Presidential race have been tossed, a number nearly twice as much as the previous election. Until recently, the focus has been on the effects due to the butterfly ballot, which appears to have caused confusion and led to votes for Pat Buchanan. What has only been uncovered now is that nearly half of those votes tossed out are in African-American precincts. The percentage of disqualified votes countywide was seven percent, an admittedly high number. However, in two precints of Riviera Beach with African-American populates at 94 and 96 percent, the figure of disqualifications was 20%. As confusing as the ballot may have been, these numbers of mistakes are virtually impossible. There is an explanation: there are now reports that African-Americans have complained they were given ballots that were already marked for rival candidates. While some may have caught the problem, it is likely that many people would not notice the problem while voting. The implications are tremendous: a major attempt to swindle votes from African-Americans was a deciding factor in the 2000 election. We are no longer talking about "honest" fuck-ups. We're talking about a sinister conspiracy. The Konformist will not state for sure who the culprit is, but some questions must be asked: who would benefit from suppressing African- American votes in the Presidential race? How could these votes have been tampered with and who could have done it? And, perhaps most important, why is Katherine Harris, Florida's GOP Secretary of State, so eager to end the investigation of the vote totals in Palm Beach? (She has claimed, falsely, that Tuesday at 5PM is the drop-dead date for submitting voter totals.) The Konformist will have this full story on its website tonight. It should also be on Conspire.com's and Disinfo.com's websites too. Parascope is working on this as well. Please feel free to post this, and the articles below which supply the evidence to back up everything that is stated above. Thank you, Robert Sterling Nearly half of tossed ballots from black precincts By Stephen Kiehl and Elliot Jaspin, Palm Beach Post Staff Writers Sunday, November 12, 2000 Nearly half of the 28,036 ballots that Palm Beach County tossed out in the presidential election came from areas of the county that are mostly black or elderly, a Palm Beach Post computer analysis shows. Those ballots were thrown out because the voter either didn't vote for president or voted for two presidential candidates. Almost 10 percent of the ballots cast in precincts where most of the voters are over age 65 were thrown out, the Post found. And 16 percent of the ballots cast in majority-black precincts were thrown out -- more than double the percentage of ballots thrown out from overwhelmingly white precincts. Overall, about 7 percent of the 387,094 ballots cast in the county were tossed. (Another 75,000 absentee ballots were cast, though their precinct wasn't reported.) The disproportionate number of invalidated ballots in black and elderly precincts -- traditional Democratic strongholds in West Palm Beach, Riviera Beach and southern Palm Beach County -- gives a clue as to why Republicans oppose a manual recount of all ballots in the county. On Saturday, elections officials began counting by hand 4,695 ballots from three precincts chosen by the Gore campaign and another precinct the county canvassing board chose. If a lot of problems turn up, officials will consider recounting the whole county. The punch-card ballot used in Palm Beach County presented a number of problems for seniors that could have led them to punch two holes or none at all, according to ballot experts and geriatricians. They said the now-infamous "butterfly" listing of presidential candidates, along with the tiny stylus used to punch holes and the closeness of the holes, all contributed to a senior-unfriendly ballot -- especially for seniors with poor vision and arthritis. "From a vision standpoint, you could even go so far as to say it discriminated against the elderly," said Dr. Barry Schultz, a Boynton Beach geriatrician. "It was designed for a young person with good hand-eye coordination." The Rev. Thomas Masters said some black elderly voters were confused by the ballot. The disproportionate share of those votes being thrown out coming from the black community is evidence enough for a revote, Masters said. "We need to correct the first vote," said Masters, who along with local leaders have been organizing local rallies to protect Tuesday's election. "The people's vote must count." The Post found: * In Precinct 66 in Riviera Beach, 256 ballots were thrown out. The precinct is 94 percent black and gave Gore 1,203 votes and George W. Bush 25. * Also in Riviera Beach, 250 of the votes in Precinct 59 were tossed. The precinct is 96 percent black and gave Gore 1,206 votes and Bush 21. * In the Lakes of Delray, where 85 percent of the voters are seniors, 258 ballots were thrown out. The precinct gave 1,500 votes to Gore, 151 to Bush and 47 to Pat Buchanan. The Palm Beach Post reached these findings after creating a database of the number and type of ballots rejected in each precinct and then matching that with each precinct's demographic profile. The data were provided by the Palm Beach County Elections Office. Many seniors have said they voted for Buchanan mistakenly or punched two holes, thinking one was for Gore and one was for his running mate, Joe Lieberman, listed below Gore. "People just couldn't see clearly," said Leon Weekes, 74, a former chairman of the Mae Volen Senior Center in Boca Raton. "If it had been larger or more clearly delineated, we wouldn't have this problem." Marilyn Newman, 65, of Boca Raton said she punched what she thought was the hole for Gore and continued on with the ballot. Then, worried she punched the wrong hole, she turned back to the presidential listing and punched again. "The ballot was not great to read," she said, adding that she didn't see the arrows pointing from the candidates' names to the holes. "The ballot poses problems to seniors with poor eyesight and physical strength," said Susan MacManus, a political science professor at the University of South Florida in Tampa who has studied seniors and voting. "Punch cards make it difficult for seniors not as strong as they used to be." Counties that use punch card ballots often have larger styluses available to seniors upon request, MacManus said. The larger styluses were not available in Palm Beach County. Another problem for seniors, some said, was the 5-minute time limit while in the voting booth. "There was a lot of pressure for them to move along," said State Rep. Susan Bucher, D-West Palm Beach. But GOP leaders and some seniors said the ballot was understandable, even for elderly. "It may be there are people with eyesight that's a little bad and things like that, but I don't think that's a reason for the problem in this election," said Murray Kalish, 82, a Democratic party activist who lives west of Delray Beach. Database coordinator Christine Stapleton and staff writers Noah Bierman and William Cooper Jr. contributed to this story. [EMAIL PROTECTED] ***** Click here to see original article Monday, 13 November, 2000, 15:54 GMT Anger over US poll deadline BBC Bush supporters say hand counting is inaccurate The Tuesday deadline to certify votes in the US presidential election from Florida's 67 counties will be enforced, the Florida state government has said. The decision by Florida Secretary of State Katherine Harris has angered the Democratic camp, which says the deadline will not leave enough time to finish the recount. The party is reportedly taking steps to challenge the decision in court, believing that it reflects political bias within the Republican state government. An automatic recount was ordered in Florida after Republican candidate George W Bush won a slim victory - a result which would have assured him the presidency. Democratic candidate Al Gore demanded a hand recount in four Florida counties over what he claimed were anomalies in the voting. But Ms Harris's decision to stick to the 1700 local time (2200GMT) deadline brought an immediate response from Gore spokesman Warren Christopher who said: "We regard the action of the secretary of state to be arbitrary and unreasonable, and seeks to nullify and frustrate the whole hand count vote provided by statute." Mr Christopher said Ms Harris was a long-standing supporter of George W Bush, adding: "I think her statement has to be taken in that context." A Democratic source told Reuters news agency that a party lawyer was on his way to court to challenge the decision. Ballot challenge However the situation was further confused by a separate court appeal. A federal judge hearing a complaint by Democrat voters, who objected to an allegedly confusing ballot paper known as the butterfly ballot, has already ruled that the state cannot certify the results until this case has been heard. Earlier, the Republicans had asked a federal judge to rule against the hand-counting, saying it will only produce more delay and confusion. The hearing was due to start on Monday afternoon. Hand counting is still taking place in Palm Beach and Volusia, and is under consideration in Dade and Broward counties. Uncertainty grows The impasse in Florida means that six days after last Tuesday's vote, the world is no closer to knowing who will succeed Bill Clinton in January. In the split of decisive electoral votes awarded by each state, Mr Gore held a 262-246 lead over Mr Bush, so Florida's 25 could put either man in the White House. Some Gore supporters are demanding a new vote Unofficial voting figures in Florida gave Mr Bush a 288-vote margin out of some 6 million votes cast last Tuesday. But there will be no final result while questions remain over the manual recounts and the counting of overseas ballots that are due on Friday. Meanwhile, black rights groups are calling for the FBI to investigate allegations of electoral fraud in Florida. Some voters claim they were given pre-punched ballot papers at polling stations in Miami and north-west Florida, in what the Democrats allege was an attempt to fix the election. While the world's attention was focused on Florida, other electoral dramas were quietly being played out elsewhere in the United States that could have just as large a bearing on the US presidency. Other election battlegrounds Wisconsin (11 electoral votes) Iowa (seven electoral votes) Oregon (seven electoral votes) New Mexico (Five electoral votes) Most dramatically, a recount in the south-western state of New Mexico, which Mr Gore won narrowly in the first vote, gave Mr Bush the lead by a mere 21 votes out of some 570,000 cast, according to the CBS network. The Republicans were also threatening to challenge apparent victories by Mr Gore in the mid-western states of Wisconsin (11 electoral college votes) and Iowa (seven), and the north-western state of Oregon (seven). Mr Gore led in all by some 6,000 votes or less. So, although Florida is a must-win for Mr Gore, who had a 200,000 vote lead nationwide out of 101 million ballots cast, Mr Bush knows that legal challenges in other states may still deliver him the presidency. Two votes cast for the US presidential elections have turned up in a family's letterbox - in Denmark. They opened one of the envelopes to find a vote in favour of Mr Bush. ***** Click here to see original article MONDAY NOVEMBER 13 2000 Gore camp demands FBI inquiry FROM DANIEL MCGRORY IN MIAMI The London Times THE FBI is being asked to investigate how thousands of mainly black supporters of Al Gore were given ballot papers that had allegedly already been marked for rival candidates. Yesterday Democrat officials were examining claims that up to 17,000 ballot papers in the Miami area had been tampered with in what they described as "organised corruption". Lawyers from across the United States descended on Miami and were busy taking statements from those complaining that they had been cheated or intimidated out of voting for Mr Gore. A senior Democrat official in Miami, who has hired a team of 20 investigators to carry out an inquiry, told The Times: "Until now in Florida, we have been arguing foul-ups, human error and stupidity. But this is deliberate corruption to spoil votes for Gore and that must be a matter for the FBI. "We don't want to be seen as playing the race card here, but the areas where this happened are in poorer precincts, which are predominantly black areas that would be expected to vote almost unanimously for Vice-President Gore. We are not accusing the Republican Party or any other ethnic groups for being behind this. All we are saying is the vote was corrupted. There are just too many double-punched papers." Jewish leaders in staunch Democrat areas of the city claimed that they, too, had evidence of voting slips being marked before they reached polling stations in areas populated by retired Jewish couples. At a rally in a Miami synagogue, Lisa Versaci, Florida director of People for the American Way, said: "There can be no innocent explanation for a pre-punched ballot sheet." Republican leaders in Miami dismissed the allegations as "dirty-trick claims". A spokesman said: "A spoiled ballot is not uncommon. There is no dark plot here." If you are interested in a free subscription to The Konformist Newswire, please visit http://www.eGroups.com/list/konformist/ and sign up. Or, e-mail [EMAIL PROTECTED] with the subject: "I NEED 2 KONFORM!!!" (Okay, you can use something else, but it's a kool catch phrase.) Visit the Klub Konformist at Yahoo!: http://clubs.yahoo.com/clubs/klubkonformist
