[Logic]

Recall seen as battle against Bush


Very interesting article about the difference in how open the Venezuelan and American democracies are.

Discuss!�

[Taliesin]

Very interesting points:

- It seems like the US is financing the opposition in Venezuela. Is there no law in the US prohibiting the US-government from financing foreign parties? There can't be one as the US did it numerous times in the last sixty years, or is it that the US-governments deliberately broke the existing law again and again?

- In Venezueal there are are lots of observers invited for every election it seems, and still the US asks for observers, what does that mean?

- In 2000 the US didn't allow for observers during the US-elections, why was that?

- Is it true that in the US a president can win an election eventhough most of the voters voted for the other candidate? I have heard of the system of the electors who get voted and that those elected vote for the president-candidate, but isn't that system open to manipulation by redefining of disctricts?

- What the hell is the article talking about when it refers to a Florida-coup or fraud?

Taliesin

[lil'babykitten]

Very interesting article.

Originally posted by Taliesin:
What the hell is the article talking about when it refers to a Florida-coup or fraud?

I think that's referring to the 2000 Presidential election where Florida was at the heart of all the controversy. There's lots of evidence suggesting that votes were tampered with in favour of Bush and that many African-Americans were denied the right to place their vote (since they would probably vote for the Democrats).

[SimeyTheLimey]

Originally posted by lil'babykitten:
Very interesting article.

I think that's referring to the 2000 Presidential election where Florida was at the heart of all the controversy. There's lots of evidence suggesting that votes were tampered with in favour of Bush and that many African-Americans were denied the right to place their vote (since they would probably vote for the Democrats).

No, there is no evidence for ether of those things. Just unfounded myth.

[spacefreak]

Originally posted by lil'babykitten:
There's lots of evidence suggesting that votes were tampered with in favour of Bush and that many African-Americans were denied the right to place their vote (since they would probably vote for the Democrats).

What a giant load of crap. There is absolutely no evidence of of any systematic disenfranchisement.

The six-month investigation of the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights found absolutely no evidence of systematic disenfranchisement of black voters. The investigation by the Civil Rights Division of the Department of Justice also found no credible evidence that any Floridians were intentionally denied the right to vote in the 2000 election.

Many Florida voters, irrespective of race, spoiled their ballots by mistake. But voter error is not the same thing as "disenfranchisement" and it certainly isn't evidence of a nefarious plot to steal black votes.

In fact, Florida 2000 was not a startling anomaly. Ballot-spoilage rates across the country range between 2-3 percent of total ballots cast. Florida's rate in 2000 was 3 percent. In 1996 it was 2.5 percent.

Glitches occur in every election. Some glitches are massive, others not. This is not to downplay the problem, but to put it into perspective. For example, the number of ruined ballots in Chicago alone was 125,000, compared to 174,000 for the entire state of Florida. Several states experienced voting problems remarkably similar to those in Florida. But the closeness of the 2000 election in Florida, and the attendant electoral implications, placed the state at the fulcrum of a remarkable opportunity for racial demagoguery.

[TailsToo]

Originally posted by spacefreak:
What a giant load of crap. There is absolutely no evidence of of any systematic disenfranchisement.

spacefreak, do you ever link news sources that don't have Bush plastered all over their homepage? It's like reading republican ads.

That said, I lived in West Palm Beach, Flordia durring the election, and basically, the whole thing was just F***ed up. Those stupid punch card ballots counted by machine and then later by hand could have gone either way.

[HotSoup]

Well, I just think Bush is a dumbhead.

[Spliffdaddy]

49 other states managed to figure out how to vote reliably. I mean, it sounds kinda stupid for Floridians to claim they haven't figured it out after 159 years.

Even though nothing was any different, I'm sure the Florida ballot was dead-nuts accurate during the two previous Presidential elections. Right?

[Invictus]

Originally posted by TailsToo:
spacefreak, do you ever link news sources that don't have Bush plastered all over their homepage? It's like reading republican ads.

I thought it was a white supremacist site.

[Saul Goode]

Originally posted by Spliffdaddy:
I'm sure the Florida ballot was dead-nuts accurate during the two previous Presidential elections. Right?

Well yes, the "right" guy won then, that's different.

[mikellanes]

Database Technologies, a subsidiary of ChoicePoint, �was responsible for bungling an overhaul of Florida�s voter registration records, with the result that thousands of people, disproportionately black, were disenfranchised in the 2000 election. Had they been able to vote, they might have swung the state, and thus the presidency, for Al Gore, who lost in Florida. Oliver Burkeman, Jo Tuckman, �Firm in Florida Election Fiasco Earns Millions from Files on Foreigners,� The Guardian, May 5, 2003 http://www.guardian.co.uk/usa/story/...49709,00.html. See also, Atlanta-Journal-Constitution, May 28, 2001.

[A] consortium [Tribune Co., owner of the Times; Associated Press; CNN; the New York Times; the Palm Beach Post; the St. Petersburg Times; the Wall Street Journal; and the Washington Post] hired the NORC [National Opinion Research Center, a nonpartisan research organization affiliated with the University of Chicago] to view each untallied ballot and gather information about how it was marked. The media organizations then used computers to sort and tabulate votes, based on varying scenarios that had been raised during the post-election scramble in Florida. Under any standard that tabulated all disputed votes statewide, Mr. Gore erased Mr. Bush's advantage and emerged with a tiny lead that ranged from 42 to 171 votes. Donald Lambro, �Recount Provides No Firm Answers,� Washington Times, November 12, 2001.

�The review found that the result would have been different if every canvassing board in every county had examined every undervote, a situation that no election or court authority had ordered. Gore had called for such a statewide manual recount if Bush would agree, but Bush rejected the idea and there was no mechanism in place to conduct one.� Martin Merzer, �Review of Ballots Finds Bush's Win Would Have Endured Manual Recount,� Miami Herald, April 4, 2001.