Unprecedented: How Bush Won FloridaSaturday, 22nd of February at 7.30pm
This is the riveting story about the battle for the presidency in Florida,
made by Richard Ray P�rez and Joan Sekler. From the moments the polls
opened in Florida, it was painfully clear that something was wrong. While
the media seized on the controversy surrounding the poorly designed
�butterfly ballot�, much larger civil rights abuses were overlooked.
Focusing on election day, as well as events leading up to it, Unprecedented
examines a suspicious pattern of irregularities, injustices and voter
purges � all in a state governed by the winning candidate�s brother.
One of the first indications that something was wrong came early on
election day. Thousands of African-Americans who had voted in previous
elections discovered their names were missing from the voter rolls.
Investigators later uncovered an elaborate strategy that purged thousands
of Democratic voters from the rolls. These voters were disproportionately
African-American. It appeared that Governor Jeb Bush, Secretary of State,
Katherine Harris, and other Republican state officials ordered the
manipulation of a list of former felons to include thousands of legitimate
voters who had no criminal history. In Florida, ex-felony offenders lose
their right to vote. The manipulation of this list denied thousands of
legitimate voters of their franchise. In an election that was determined by
537 votes, these purged voters would have reversed the outcome.
The drama of the 2000 election had other chapters too. The day after the
election, a startling picture emerged. George W Bush was ahead by a
razor-thin margin. In addition, a disquieting number of ballots � 175,000 �
were unread by counting machines. The normal procedure in such situations
is to conduct a manual recount. However, no complete recount was ever
conducted. Instead, there was a 36-day battle � among state officials, in
the courts and in the streets. The Bush campaign was determined to stop any
recount, while the Gore campaign petitioned for manual recounts in four
counties. In one of these counties, Miami-Dade, Republican staffers from
around the country staged an unruly protest. That protest intimidated
election officials and they abandoned the recount.
Meanwhile, a remarkable courtroom drama played out. Attorneys for Al Gore
appealed to the Florida Supreme Court, which eventually ordered a manual
recount of the state�s votes. In turn, the Bush team went directly to the
federal courts aiming ultimately for the US Supreme Court. In the end, the
US Supreme Court overruled the Florida Court, halting the recount and
casting doubt on the outcome of the 2000 presidential election.
A year later, a consortium of US media organisations published results of
an exhaustive study of Florida�s 175,000 unread ballots. The consortium
concluded that had all these ballots been counted, Al Gore would be the
43rd President of the United States.
http://www.sbs.com.au/whatson/index.php3?id=152
