-Caveat Lector-
Can't believe anyone is still wasting time about this. You better
believe
that if Gore really won, the NY TIMES and THE WASHINGTON
COMPOST and the other liars would put it in the HEADLINES!
--------------------------------------------------------------
On Fri, 6 Apr 2001 17:09:29 -0700 radman <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes:
> -Caveat Lector-
>
> Online Journal - http://www.onlinejournal.com
>
> 04-05-01: Once again, the media try to con the people into believing
> Bush
> won
>
> By Bev Conover
>
> April 5, 2001-With each little game the major media, with the
> exception of
> the Palm Beach Post, are playing with the Florida ballots in a
> feeble
> attempt to legitimize the illegitimate Bush administration, it
> becomes
> clearer and clearer, that, if one carefully reads what they are
> saying, Al
> Gore won the Sunshine State, was entitled to its 25 electoral votes
> and
> should be residing in the White House today.
>
> Perhaps if Kendall Coffey, a former U.S. attorney in Miami, had been
> the
> lead attorney on Gore's post-election legal team, instead of playing
> second or third fiddle to the flamboyant David Boies, Gore would be
> president today and we would not today be suffering the Bushistas'
> rampage
> to reverse engineer their way to the Fourth Reich.
>
> Instead we have headlines from the media's latest creative recount
> that
> scream:
>
> REVIEW SHOWS BALLOTS SAY BUSH -Miami Herald, April 4, 2001
>
> Newspapers' recount shows Bush prevailed -USA Today, April 4, 2001
>
> An Analysis of Florida Balloting Favors Bush -The New York Times,
> April
> 4, 2001
>
> Another Ballot Review Shows Bush Still Won -Washington Post, April
> 4, 2001
>
> Ballot Review: Bush Would Have Won Anyway -Los Angeles Times, April
> 4,
> 2001
>
> . . . ad nauseum.
>
> Make the headlines big enough, bold enough, and put up charts and
> graphs,
> and the people will buy the lie, right? You know the old adage:
> Repeat the
> lie often enough and people will believe it.
>
> Obfuscate the issue with claims of inconsistencies in the way
> recounts
> that were underway were being conducted when the U.S. Supreme Court
> halted
> the process. To paraphrase Poppy Bush's "it's the vision thing" with
> another of the media's bold-faced lies, "It's the standards thing."
>
> Well, Florida has very clear laws about the way ballots will be
> designed,
> when and why ballots are to be recounted by machine and hand, and by
> whom,
> and who may apply for an absentee ballot.
>
> Coffey understood these laws. Boies, who focused on "the big
> picture," did
> not. It's much like that bloody forest that keeps getting in the way
> of
> seeing the trees.
>
> Ironically, buried in the April 4, 2001, Miami Herald is this story:
>
> Law: Check 'defective' ballots
>
> with the subhead:
>
> But officials often ignore code's call for inspection
>
> Herald reporter Jay Weaver wrote, "A revision of Florida's election
> code
> in the 1970s calls for county officials to inspect any ''damaged or
> defective'' ballot that cannot be tabulated by machine. In 1998, the
> Florida Supreme Court ruled that 'defective'' includes a ballot
> 'marked in
> a manner such that it cannot be read by a scanner.'"
>
> In the next paragraph Weaver pointed out, "Canvassing boards in most
> of
> Florida routinely ignore that provision of state law because they
> maintain
> they are only required to examine unreadable ballots if there is
> machine
> error, not voter error. On Nov. 7, they considered thousands of
> ballots
> that did not register a vote for any candidate the fault of voters
> who
> incorrectly marked them."
>
> But Florida Secretary of State Katherine Harris's boy, Clay Roberts,
> a
> Republican who heads the Florida Division of Elections, told Weaver,
> "It's
> hard to know what the right answer is now."
>
> Might we translate that to mean he know what the right answers are,
> but if
> he gives them some folks would be facing a prison cell?
>
> Yet, the law says [section 101.5614 (5)]:
>
> "If any ballot card . . . is damaged or defective so that it cannot
> properly be counted by the automatic tabulating equipment, a true
> duplicate copy shall be made of the damaged ballot card in the
> presence of
> witnesses and substituted for the damaged ballot. . . .
>
> "If any paper ballot is damaged or defective so that it cannot be
> counted
> properly by the automatic tabulating equipment, the ballot shall be
> counted manually at the counting center by the canvassing board. The
> totals for all such ballots or ballot cards counted manually shall
> be
> added to the totals for the several precincts or election districts.
> . . .
>
> "After duplicating a ballot, the defective ballot shall be placed in
> an
> envelope provided for that purpose, and the duplicate ballot shall
> be
> tallied with the other ballots for that precinct."
>
> Hey, it's the Republicans who keep yammering about "the rule of
> law."
> Apparently, "the rule of law" doesn't apply when it's inconvenient
> or goes
> against their candidate.
>
> Weaver further noted, "Tucked into this section is the state's
> voter-intent law: 'No vote shall be declared invalid or void if
> there is a
> clear indication of the intent of the voter as determined by the
> canvassing board.'" Then he contended that law was ambiguous as to
> what "a
> damaged or defective ballot" is.
>
> Weaver has an interesting, to say the least, way of contradicting
> himself
> when the law clearly states that a damaged or defective ballot is
> one that
> "cannot be counted properly by the automatic tabulating equipment."
>
> Bend . . . reach . . . twist . . .
>
> Yet, in citing Beckman v. Volusia County, Weaver stated that the
> Florida
> Supreme Court "implied that the more important goal was the
> canvassing
> board's attempt to determine voter intent on those disputed absentee
> ballots-even if its methods were found to violate the statute."
>
> So here we have precedent for voter intent, which the Rehnquist Five
> completely scoffed at in handing the presidency to George W. Bush.
>
> And while the major media were having fun with hanging chad,
> "stupid" Jews
> and "illiterate" (okay, they didn't use that word, but the meaning
> was
> clear) blacks, they ignored the issues of an illegal butterfly
> ballot in
> Palm Beach County, an illegal ballot in Duval County-where the
> presidential candidates were spread over two pages, but the
> instructions
> on sample ballots mailed to voters said, "Vote every page"-some
> 64,000
> people cleansed from the voting rolls as felons, when the majority
> weren't; African Americans thwarted from voting by every means aside
> from
> being physically assaulted; absentee ballot applications passed out
> like
> candy to political party operatives in violation of the law-and
> allowing
> the operatives to "fix mistakes" on applications-and the acceptance
> and
> counting of questionable absentee ballots that weren't properly
> signed or
> didn't bear the required postmarks.
>
> Despite all the bobbing and weaving of Republican officials and
> former
> officials about what the law actually means, Coffey told Weaver, "It
> suggests that routinely the election supervisors [in Florida] have
> not
> been following the law. If you were literally applying the law, then
> those
> votes should be counted on election night if they can be discerned
> with
> sufficient certainty."
>
> Now the major media are cranking up for round two: counting the
> overvotes.
> It will be interesting to see how they diddle that outcome, too.
>
> Meanwhile, back at the ranch . . . er, in Tallahasee, who in the
> media is
> doing anything other than excepting p.r. handouts from the House
> Rules,
> Ethics and Elections Committee that just approved bills to "reform"
> (scary
> word) the state election system?
>
> If approved by both houses, the bills would do away with punchcard
> ballots, the old lever mechanical machines and, worst of all, ban
> paper
> ballots. The committee proposes to offer the counties, on a
> competitve
> basis, $100 million in interest free loans to lease optical scanners
> for
> the 2002 election. Then for 2004, a $400 million "state of the art"
> (oh
> boy) touch screen computer system is being considered.
>
> Once again, one of our most precious rights-the right to vote and
> have our
> vote counted-is being entrusted to the hands of private companies
> that
> will supply the equipment and hold the proprietary computer codes.
>
> The more things change, the more they stay the same. Or should we
> say,
> they get worse?
>
> While optically scanned ballots do leave a paper trail, touch
> screens
> don't. And even with a paper trail, what good is it if the scanners
> are
> rigged, and the rigging is subtle enough not to raise questions that
> result in a manual count of the ballots?
>
> We cannot say this often enough: When they steal your vote, the rest
> doesn't matter!
>
> Equally as worrisome is that the committee is proposing that every
> registered voter be listed in an Internet database allegedly
> accessible by
> only election officials and precinct workers. We all know how secure
> the
> Internet is, don't we?
>
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screeds are unwelcomed. Substance—not soap-boxing—please! These are
sordid matters and 'conspiracy theory'—with its many half-truths, mis-
directions and outright frauds—is used politically by different groups with
major and minor effects spread throughout the spectrum of time and thought.
That being said, CTRLgives no endorsement to the validity of posts, and
always suggests to readers; be wary of what you read. CTRL gives no
credence to Holocaust denial and nazi's need not apply.
Let us please be civil and as always, Caveat Lector.
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