Nathan Newman wrote:
>Doug, so you think white Oregonians, Wisconsins and Iowans suffer similar
>voter intimidation as Black, Haitians and Hispanics in Florida?
-Of course not. Are you going to tell me there weren't/aren't local -Democratic machines that have sustained themselves on vote fraud -since time immemorial? I've read a bunch about some pretty scurrilous -stuff done by Willie Brown in the San Francisco stadium plebescite, -just to pick one recent example.
I was in SF during that campaign. There was NOTHING on the order of what is charged across Florida in this election. Many bad things can be said about California politics, but they are amazingly clean compared to many other states. Elections are bought by the corporations long before election day or they are not bought at all.
The fact that you named a black liberal politician to compare to the racist intimidation charged in Florida is reactionary.
Black students in Florida are holding mass sitdowns to protest their denial of the right to vote and you are sitting there comparing it to the opression of a bunch of white lefties who didn't like the stadium vote in San Francisco? In a time when black mass organizations are mobilizing on this issue, you continue to spout the propaganda lines of the GOP opposing investigations.
How is that not reactionary?
-- Nathan
NY TIMES November 11, 2000 THE RACE FACTOR Blacks, Citing Flaws, Seek Inquiry Into Florida Vote By DAVID GONZALEZ
EST PALM BEACH, Fla., Nov. 10 - African-American voters and community leaders here are calling not just for a recount, but also a re- vote, saying that irregularities at polling places and what they insisted was an illegal ballot layout in Palm Beach County thwarted the true intent of their vote.
African-American voters said many minority voters were denied the chance to vote because their names did not appear on voting lists, and because understaffed and overworked poll workers were unable to resolve discrepancies. Haitian- American voters said that some polling places in Miami did not have Creole interpreters and that some poll watchers were not allowed to help them.
These complaints may add to the stalemate in Palm Beach County arising from the ballot layout that Democrats said led to the invalidation of 19,000 ballots because of double-voting and to some 3,000 more being mistakenly cast.
The accusations have also prompted national black organizations to call for a federal investigation into election irregularities in Florida. Spurred by politicians, education campaigns and radio talk shows, a record number of African- American voters, overwhelmingly favoring Vice President Al Gore over Gov. George W. Bush of Texas, went to the polls on Tuesday, surpassing their 1996 numbers by 60 percent.
"The bottom line is, the electoral process was the best, I thought, in terms of getting out the vote," said Evette Simmons, a Florida lawyer who is the president of the National Bar Association, the largest group representing black lawyers. "But the result is one of the worst because despite those who voted, we may not know which candidate truly represents the will of the people."
While not claiming foul play, the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People has said many blacks were not allowed to vote in the state. Lawyers from the N.A.A.C.P. will be in Miami on Saturday to speak with voters who say they had difficulty voting.
"We are trying to get sworn testimony to use to present to the Justice Department in support of a request for an investigation," said Thomasina Williams, the assistant general counsel for the Miami-Dade chapter of the N.A.A.C.P. "We need to get sworn, factual testimony so we can get an idea of what happened: are these isolated cases or sufficient in number or concentrated, to see if there is a systemic problem."
Part of the problem, some politicians said, was that election officials were not prepared to handle the large numbers of African-American voters who went to the polls, many for the first time. Representative Alcee L. Hastings, a Democrat from South Florida, said the turnout in some predominantly African-American precincts in Broward County was as high as 85 percent.
"I don't think they were staffed for the overall amount," Mr. Hastings said. "It's so easy to cry race and to demagogue the issue based on race. Here we have a pretty grave situation for our country, and it should not, in my judgment, be relegated to the continuing dispute that is going to go on for time immemorial regarding black and white folks in this country."
Attorney General Janet Reno said on Thursday that the Justice Department would carefully review any complaints from Florida or any other state that federal election laws had been violated. But Ms. Reno said that so far she had seen no reason to "jump in" to an issue that is largely regulated by state laws.
In various parts of the state, people who thought they had registered to vote when they obtained their driver's license were told that their names did not appear on the lists. Several African-American politicians said they knew of instances where blacks who were waiting in line to vote were turned away when the polls closed.
Election officials could not be reached because their offices were closed for Veterans Day.
At Bethune-Cookman College, a historically black college in Daytona Beach, many students who said they had signed up in voter-registration drives on campus said they had been turned away from the polls because their names were not on the rolls.
Some students, especially those who argued or cajoled, said they were able to vote by presenting a photo identification and signing an affidavit. But many more students said they had no idea what to do and just left the polling stations.
At least 40 written complaints have been collected so far by the local Democratic Party officials.
Ursula Harvey, 20, said she went to the same polling place near the college as she had two years ago but was told that her name was not on the list and that she would have to vote 120 miles away in her hometown. But Ms. Harvey said she was unable to make the trip.
"It's for the presidential election," Ms. Harvey said, holding a flier with a photograph from 1965 of black men being beaten by the police. "It's for our financial aid, it's for our Social Security, it's for our life."
The students who were unable to vote said they thought they could have given Mr. Gore the edge he needed to win the state.
David Byron, a spokesman for Volusia County, which includes Daytona Beach, said he was not familiar with the specific complaints raised by the students, but he insisted that anyone who registered to vote on time was allowed to cast a ballot.
"I feel confident saying we didn't turn away any registered voters," Mr. Byron said.
Phillip Brutus, a Haitian-American who was elected on Tuesday to the State Legislature, said that some polling places in Dade County closed early and that at others, people were turned away erroneously because they did not have their voter registration card.
"That's not right because you're supposed to be able to vote," Mr. Brutus said, "and they are supposed to have a system where you can look up a voter's name."