Quote:
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Originally Posted by Lebell
Host,
To be honest, I don't follow how my statements "neatly mesh" with anything you've posted.
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You posted this: "don't know of anyone outside of the far left loony fringe that really believes Bush stole the election. Irregularities? Yes. Causes for concern? Yes. But did Kerry actually win? No.
In the Ukraine, it appears that might have actually happened.",
even though, in 2000 you give me the impression that you embraced Bush's
"victory" in Florida, despite that Bush was declared the winner by 537
votes when the SCOTUS issued a ruling at the request of Bush campaign
lawyers to halt the vote counting, followed by an unsigned 5 to 4 SCOTUS
opinion that determined that there was no time to resume and finish the
vote recount, and that specified that the ruling would not be a precedent.
Despite that the Florida state official who certified the vote was highly
partisan and...in addition holding the office of Secretary of State, was also
the State Chairperson of the Bush Campaign. Despite that candidate Bush's
brother was also governor of Florida and was deeply involved in the creation of a unique, controversial, (only a maximum of six other U.S. states use a similar statute to bar convicted felons who have completed their prison sentences, from voting) expensive, and surprisingly inaccurate database,
intended to identify and purge registered voters from the roles of each
county who it identified as convicted felons.
And......even if all the above could be dismissed or ignored in order to accept
the legitimacy of the 2000 Florida voting, the following has been exposed,
since, casting strong doubt on the veracity and integrity of Jeb Bush or of
state election officials, in matters related to the Florida felon purge lists
Quote:
The excuses are scattered amid ruins of voter list plan
By HOWARD TROXLER, Times Columnist
Published July 15, 2004
My question is, did my friends in Gov. Jeb Bush's administration intentionally try to look so goofy over this list of 47,000 names of potential purgees from Florida's voter rolls?
Was there a sale on rubber red noses and floppy shoes down at the Clown Emporium? Was this a plot to keep us all laughing while Karl Rove sneaks into the basement and steals the voting machines?
No sir, no ma'am. They do not get to stand there week after week, all self-righteous, declaring that anybody who questions their list is a fool - they do not get to do it, and then, when the whole ridiculous thing collapses, blithely declare, "Never mind," and walk away whistling like it was ancient history.
This is what the state did:
It came up with a list of 47,000 potential ex-felons to kick off the voter rolls. The Orlando Sentinel reported Wednesday that this list cost taxpayers $2-million, most of that paid to Accenture, a consulting firm with close ties to the Florida Republican Party.
The state spent $125,000 in court, fighting to keep this fatally flawed list secret. This cloak of secrecy, the Secretary of State's office explained with a straight face, was to protect the "privacy" of the people it was proposing to kick off the voter rolls.
The governor and Secretary of State Glenda Hood would have been better stewards of the public's money if they had just put $125,000 in a big pile in the Capitol courtyard and set it on fire.
A judge in Tallahassee ordered the state's list made public - and what happened next is the most beautiful proof I have ever seen of why the Almighty intended for there to be public-records and open-government laws.
Once the secrecy was stripped away from the list, the Miami Herald ascertained that about 2,100 names of those candidates for purging from the voter rolls had already been granted clemency. (No big deal? Remember, the 2000 election in Florida was decided by 537 votes.)
The secretary of state responded that subgroup of people had incorrectly been allowed to register to vote before their clemency was granted. They would have to register all over again, or else they couldn't vote, she declared. That was that.
That was that.
That was that.
(Brief pause.)
What, you can't understand simple English? That was that!
Until it wasn't that.
At the end of business the next day, Hood's office abruptly announced via e-mail that they wouldn't have to re-register after all. (We've always been at war with Eurasia!)
But, wait. It just keeps gettin' better.
Next, our friends at the Sarasota Herald-Tribune, who ought to win some kind of award, discovered another teeny, tiny flaw in the state's list. . . .
No Hispanics.
No Hispanics! Well, okay, something like 60 out of 47,000, when Hispanics make up a fifth of the state's population.
Lots of black guys on there, though.
Brain surgery skills are not required to know that black voters tend to vote Democrat, whereas Hispanic voters, especially in South Florida, tend to vote Republican............
Did they deliberately try to purge blacks and not Hispanics? Nah. It was, as they said, a "database glitch." The state's criminal database doesn't have a category for "Hispanic," but voting records do. So when they tried to match up the two lists, they didn't match.
To recap here: 2-million smackeroonies to match databases that, uh, didn't match.
Already, there is an air of vague irritation that anybody is still complaining about this. "We accept responsibility and we're pulling it back," the governor declared flatly, as if that were that.
I wonder if "accepting responsibility" means he's gonna get our $2-million back, or fire somebody?
It is bad government, regardless of party.
<a href="http://www.sptimes.com/2004/07/15/Columns/The_excuses_are_scatt.shtml">http://www.sptimes.com/2004/07/15/Columns/The_excuses_are_scatt.shtml</a>
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Quote:
HERALD FINDINGS
..................But a Herald investigation found:
• Nearly 40,000 people -- 80 percent of the 50,000 felons released from custody between 2001 and 2003 -- still can't vote. Among those barred from the polls: nonviolent offenders whose crimes warranted little or no prison time, the very people Clemency Board members say should quickly regain their rights.
Josh Craddock, of Boca Raton, was busted at 22 for breaking into a car dealership, his only felony conviction. He has been out of prison for almost three years. Now, he says he's working full time, saving to buy his first house.
According to the state's clemency rules, Craddock's name should have been forwarded to the Clemency Board and he should have heard back by now. He hasn't.
''The state of Florida has made it obvious that my opinion doesn't matter,'' Craddock said.
• The majority of felons released since 2001 can't vote because clemency rules are so restrictive that they all but guaranteed that most wouldn't get their rights back in time to cast a ballot in this presidential election.
<a href="http://www.miami.com/mld/miamiherald/news/special_packages/archive/10059491.htm?1c">http://www.miami.com/mld/miamiherald/news/special_packages/archive/10059491.htm?1c</a>
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Quote:
Jeb's defiance makes case for automatic clemency
Palm Beach Post Editorial
Thursday, July 29, 2004
Gov. Bush is attacking the judiciary with way more than the usual Republican
rhetoric. This time, he's resorted to outright defiance.
The governor couldn't have picked a more revealing way to display his
anti-court venom than by spurning the July 14 opinion of the 1st District Court
of
Appeal in Tallahassee. The court told the state that it must help felons fill
out a form needed to win back the right to vote after serving prison time.
Rather than follow the court's dictate, Gov. Bush eliminated the form.
That's the kind of inexcusable defiance that makes Florida the focal point
for national anxiety over the upcoming presidential election. Secretary of
State Glenda Hood, who was appointed by Gov. Bush and reports to him, already
has
gone too far in defending an indefensible list of nearly 48,000 ex-felons
who may or may not have been banned from voting. Fueling the conspiracy
theories that Ms. Hood says are groundless, nearly half the names on the list
belonged to African-Americans, who tend to vote for Democrats. Fewer than 100
belonged to Hispanics, who vote more often for Republicans than blacks do.
Both
parties are making strong appeals to Hispanic voters.
More than 50,000 felons were released from Florida prisons last year. About
85 percent must apply to get clemency. A year ago, the court found that about
125,000 inmates who completed their terms between 1992 and 2001 -- out of as
many as 700,000 -- had not been properly notified of their right to clemency.
Gov. Bush can't call the appellate court's ruling judicial activism. The
court didn't make the law; the state did. Here is the wording: "The authorized
agent (of the state) shall assist the offender in completing these forms...
before the offender is discharged from supervision." The court "interpreted"
that to mean the state must "assist the offender."
The governor whined that the form duplicates electronic filing methods and
did away with the form. But the governor's plan doesn't order the Department of
Correction to help inmates file electronically before they are discharged.
Instead, it promises only that the state will put a notice in the mail. Rather
than help people as they are about to leave custody, the state proposes
tracking these transient residents after they leave. Additionally, the state
is
finding flaws in its central voter database, which lists all Florida voters.
The errors on that list compounded the difficulty of screening out felons.
The long-term solution is for Floridians to change the state constitution to
automatically restore voting rights of felons. Florida is one of seven
states, including Mississippi and Alabama, that do not grant automatic
clemency.
State legislators chose to offer voters an amendment requiring parental notice
of abortions, not one that would lift the Civil War-era ban on voting rights.
The ban makes Florida look racist and uninterested in democracy. The
governor's actions make him appear to be complicit.
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Then, you posted: "In the Ukraine, that might have actually happened",
and Bush is quoted: "There's just a lot of allegations of vote fraud that placed their election, the validity of their elections, in doubt," Bush said. "The international community is watching very carefully. People are paying very close attention to this, and hopefully it will be resolved in a way that brings credit and confidence to the Ukrainian government."
You twice posted: "far left loony fringe that really believes Bush stole the election. Irregularities? Yes. Causes for concern? Yes. But did Kerry actually win? No."
From my point of view, what "neatly meshes", is Bush's hypocrisy.......to
my knowledge, he has never commented on the questionable conduct of his
brother or of two Florida Secretaries of State, but he is quick to talk
about possible voter fraud in Ukraine....... and that "the far left loony
fringe" could possibly include people who recognize Bush's hypocrisy and
the criminality of his brother and Bush's political associates with regard to
manipulation of voter eligibility in Florida in 2000 and 2004.
Did an informed electorate legitimately give Bush a plurality of votes ?
The notion that a majority could be informed and still vote for more of
Bush's "leadership" is what's on the "fringe", IMO.