By: Mary Mostert, Analyst, Original Sources (www.originalsources.com)
November 15, 2000
Well, in spite of the bluster and bluff, in the end the law of the State of Florida requiring all counties to report their votes to the Secretary of State was upheld by a Democrat on the bench. Circuit Judge Terry Lewis of Leon County upheld the secretary of state's 5 p.m. deadline. The 5 p.m. deadline is mandated by Florida Election law:
What the law does not seem to provide is a constant recount, and then a manual count, until the losing candidate is presented with a number he likes, which is what seems to be happening.
In spite of all the counts and recounts, George Bush is currently 300 votes ahead and there are an estimated 10,000 overseas absentee ballots due to be counted by Friday. Traditionally, the majority of those votes have been Republican votes. However, this year that may not be the case.
First, I, and other media people, have been getting numerous e-mail saying that many of the military overseas voters have not received their absentee ballots. Secondly, there are a number of Florida Jews who are living in Israel who, it is assumed, will vote for Gore and Lieberman.
Can we assume that, perhaps, its about over and, because of those 10,000 absentee ballots, George Bush will be the next president? Maybe. Maybe not. What we have not yet gotten through is the Absentee Ballot counting. And, the State of Florida has a history of campaign fraud with absentee ballots. In fact, the Miami Herald received a Pulitzer prize for uncovering the absentee voter fraud in the 1997 Miami election for Mayor. In fact, an appeals court threw out 4,799 absentee ballots in the first election; and all 44,000 votes in the run-off and declared the loser in the first election the winner.
In that race there were reported "ballot brokers" passing out absentee ballots and helping people vote for the "right" candidates.
I have had reports from various areas about absentee voter fraud in this election. One of the charges has been the absentee ballots simply not getting to voters - especially voters in the military. In my own household, a young woman from Florida who stayed with me while in school was unable to vote because, although requested, her absentee ballot never arrived. In a couple of cases, absentee ballots have been stolen from the mail, filled out and sent in.
The close vote in Wisconsin has triggered comments about voter fraud there, where homeless people were given cigarettes in exchange for their vote.
In the State of Arkansas, the voter fraud was widespread, according to a reader, Tim, who wrote:
The Democrat Party has become a criminal enterprise under the Clintons, just as it was in Arkansas when they ran it. Democrats have paid black people to vote for Democrats for years here, and did so again, massively, in this election. In 1990 I was county campaign chairman for a fellow running against our long-time Congressman, the crook Bill Alexander (later defeated by the girl who is now one of our Senators - ain't politics grand?!?)
Although we campaigned extensively in black areas Alexander got 99% of the black vote in that election. I had asked a black friend to go to one of the black churches the night before the election - when the "walking around money" was traditionally passed out by Democratic politicians, and he reported to me the next day. The head of the county Democratic Party had stood in the pulpit of the local black First Baptist Church with two large grocery sacks of twenty dollar bills, and had "paid" the "workers" present: $100.00 for hauling all the way down to $20.00 for just "supporting". Every black person in attendance was paid at least $20.00. The same performance was repeated in every other black church in the county.
The next day, election day, a member of our committee, a black man, came into headquarters around 2:00 in the afternoon in tears, saying he could not get a single one his black friends to even talk to him without asking for money. I had asked another black supporter to "haul" - give black people rides to the poll - without pay, and with no cash to pass out. This knowledgeable and frank fellow told me I was nuts - that election day in East Arkansas is viewed in the black community as a major payday, and we were wasting our time if we were not willing to meet the Democrats' offer. We weren't, and lost, although we carried the white vote.
Sorry to burden you all with that story, which I've probably told before - the point now is that after this I lodged a complaint with the FBI SAC in Little Rock, and he basically laughed at me. He told me that Democrats paying blacks for votes, while a clear violation of the Voting Rights Act of 1965, was so low on the priorities of his office that he doubted the FBI would get around to investigating it during my lifetime - and I was only 46 at the time!
The practice continues, and I have no doubt that Democrats in Florida spent megabucks in the black community last Tuesday.
Will any of the reported voter fraud be investigated after the year 2000 election? Perhaps. Then, perhaps it will never become an important issue, regardless of who is elected. If Al Gore is elected, we can hardly expect him to be very concerned about the procedures that not only got him elected to the presidency, but that got him elected to the vice-presidency in 1992 and 1996.
To comment: mmostert@originalsources.com
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