BS: Deja Vu: Florida Elections?

Subject: Deja Vu: Florida Elections?
From: Bobert
Date: 12 Sep 02 - 12:31 PM

Well, danged, Florida goes out ans spends millions of bucks to clean up the mess that came tro light in 2000 and guess what? Another totally messed up elction. Polling places opening three hours late, missing PEB's (vote tallying devices), wrong ballots, voting machines inoperable... Hmmmmmm? Sound fimiliar?

Back before the 2000 election Florida, under the direction of Jebster and Kate themselves, hired Database Technologies, (a division of ChoicePoint which is loaded with Repub sugar daddies on the the Board of Directors) to purge the Florida voting roles of ex-felons. Problem was that, sure 57,700 folks were purged but most of them weren't felons since social security numbers were not used to verify identities. But race was used as a factor, Hmmmmmmmmm? So a disporportionate number of thge folks, not only were no felons, but werfe black. Hmmmmmmmm, Part B, C, D & E.

But it didn't matter in the end because the Repubs had a secret backup weapon. The Repub. Supreme Court. Hmmmmmmmmmm?, Part F thru L.

Well after the heist, Jeb and Kate figgured that someone might come sniffin' 'round so they just threw up their hands, admitted that there might be a few problems, and swore that'd get it fixed. Well, maybe "fix" ain't the right word 'cause we still have this mess.

Now if this were Selma in the 60's, I'd kinda undertand this better, but Iz been up all night with my trusty Wes Ginny slide rule and can't make no sense out of it at all!

Now, I know that someone's gonna call this ol' hillbilly some kind of liberal or Democrat but, hey, as far as I'm concerned, I don't like Al Gore no better than the other guy so you can forget that tact.

I'd just like to see the country practice Jefferson's ideals with a little more honesty. That's all...

Bobert

Subject: RE: BS: Deja Vu: Florida Elections?
From: GUEST,Gern
Date: 12 Sep 02 - 01:13 PM

I have dark suspicions about all this, well-fed by my predatory cynicism. Bush interfered with the Dem. primary with attack ads against McBride, "unexpectedly" boosting McBride in the polls over Janet Reno. Bush kept running those ads, so he must have liked their "unexpected" results. Now on his watch and Katherine Harris', polls close early and votes are lost in greater Miami, Reno's stronghold. Jeb has chosen his opponent. Florida needs Jimmy Carter and the UN election monitors, and probably peacekeeping troops. Better still, Bush's brother should send in the special forces and install a democratic government here. It isn't a free country when elected officials can officially throw an election (or two) and throw out our votes in the process.

Subject: RE: BS: Deja Vu: Florida Elections?
From: Amos
Date: 12 Sep 02 - 01:24 PM

Yeah, but lil brother would tattle to Dad, and then all hell would be to pay in the Great Cave. So it ain't gonna happen.

A

Subject: RE: BS: Deja Vu: Florida Elections?
From: Tiger
Date: 12 Sep 02 - 02:27 PM

Give it a rest. You lost.

Subject: RE: BS: Deja Vu: Florida Elections?
From: Bee-dubya-ell
Date: 12 Sep 02 - 02:53 PM

WARNING: DANGEROUSLY SUBVERSIVE THINKING FOLLOWS!

Elections are supposed to be a governmental function. So why are they run by a very, very, very small handful of government employees (The Supervisor of Elections and his/her miniscule staff) and a great big huge lot of unpaid volunteers? The powers that be say that they have to depend on volunteers because elections just don't happen frequently enough to merit the staffing that would be required. Bullshit! There are tons of people already working for the government that do no meaningful work anyway! Why not assign a few non-essential federal, state and local government employees to election-day-duty instead of their regular paper-shuffling jobs for one or two days out of the year? We're already paying their salaries, so let's put 'em to work doing something useful. That way there could be A) some genuine training and B) some genuine accountability. People seem to do a better job if they know they can get fired for screw-ups. You can't fire or otherwise discipline volunteers, so keep 'em away from anything having to do with the actual vote-taking procees. Let'em drive old women to the polling places instead. God knows there are plenty of old women in Florida.

END OF RANT

Bruce

Subject: RE: BS: Deja Vu: Florida Elections?
From: Bobert
Date: 12 Sep 02 - 03:24 PM

Tiger: I was fully expecting to loose because I don't vote for too many Repubocrats, of which Al Gore very much is.

No, the biggest looser in 2000 was the country... and democracy.

And the way things are going, neither seem to be on the road toward recovery.

Bobert

Subject: RE: BS: Deja Vu: Florida Elections?
From: harpgirl
Date: 12 Sep 02 - 04:01 PM

...like Leno said...Flori-DUH!

Subject: RE: BS: Deja Vu: Florida Elections?
From: DougR
Date: 12 Sep 02 - 07:06 PM

Bobert? You been grazing in the wet clover again? I do believe it is affecting your thought processes.

DougR

Subject: RE: BS: Deja Vu: Florida Elections?
From: Bobert
Date: 12 Sep 02 - 07:55 PM

Danged, Dougie. Wet clover, you say. Work as well as smoking banana peels?

(10 minutes later...)

Hey, man... That was some dynamite clover, man. Ahhhh, what were we talkin' 'bout anyway, Doug? Man, you got any Twinkies on ys, bro... Does it feel hot in here, or what... Danged

Bobbbbbbeeeer___________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

Subject: RE: BS: Deja Vu: Florida Elections?
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 12 Sep 02 - 09:35 PM

I'd have thought "fix" was exactly the right word, Bobert.

Once again I point out that the fact that the divisions over what was right and what was wrong in this coincided with political divisions was a bit disgusting.

For any (small-d) democrat or patriot in any country the most important thing has to be to make sure that the electoral system is as fair as possible, and to fight against any attempt to disrupt it or to interfere with the voting process, or to stop the votes being fully counted.

The question of whether failings in the voting or the counting system happen to help or hinder the candidate you prefer should be totally irrelevant. If there reaslly were genuine disagreements as to which was the fairest way to proceed, supporters of both candidates should have been found in both camps. Defending democracy is far more important than seeking partisan advantage.

But so far as I could see that wasn't how it worked out during those shabby proceedings back at the Presidential elections.

Subject: RE: BS: Deja Vu: Florida Elections?
From: Bobert
Date: 12 Sep 02 - 10:13 PM

Worst thing about it, well, other than the looser being declated the winner, is that the US has had a history of trying to disenfrancise the black voter. To go thru the list of things that the uS has done to keep black folks from voting is like watching a bad Road Runner/ Wylie Coyote cartoon. And just when folks were beginning to think that the country had taken a step away from the recism and moved forward, here we have Jeb Bush come up with yet another Wylie Coyote scheme purchased from the ACME Voter Disenfrancisment Company and the entire thing was about as amatuerish as a lot of the other stupid stiff that Wylie Coyote has tried over the years, but heck, like Tiger said up top, it worked.

And the rest is history.... and *will be* history... That is the important thing. In time, every one will know what happened. Even my buddy, DougR...

Bobert

Subject: RE: BS: Deja Vu: Florida Elections?
From: DougR
Date: 13 Sep 02 - 02:56 AM

Yep, Bobert, we are all aware of that, but the Civil War is over. Word may not have reached the hills of West Virginny yet, but 'tis.

DougR

Subject: RE: BS: Deja Vu: Florida Elections?
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 13 Sep 02 - 08:52 AM

"the Civil War is over" - well it doesn't read that way on the Mudcat, though the divisions may have shifted a bit.

The thing about a war is, the only thing that matters is winning, not winning fair. And if that is still the way of thinking, that's just another kind of Civil War.

Subject: RE: BS: Deja Vu: Florida Elections?
From: Bobert
Date: 13 Sep 02 - 11:27 AM

Well, Doug, if the Civil War is over then tell me who won...

(Caution: This question may be rigged with a nuclear device worse... a dimpled chad.)

Bobert

Subject: RE: BS: Deja Vu: Florida Elections?
From: DougR
Date: 13 Sep 02 - 11:29 AM

The damn Yankees won.

DougR

Subject: RE: BS: Deja Vu: Florida Elections?
From: Ironmule
Date: 13 Sep 02 - 11:52 AM

If I can throw in my two bits, from watching Florida elections since my family moved there in '57. The key to the mess is INCOMPETANCE. No state I've lived in since is so well quallified to be a demonstration of total incompetance in action. I predicted two years ago that the fix would be as bad as the problem.

There are many other states with technical problems like Florida, and some more with serious corruption problems, but they didn't get the headlines then because none of them teetered on the balance point. The exception was New Mexico, which didn't have enough electoral college votes to make a difference, and was ignored.

IMHO, the evil in the florida election was in the eye of the partisan beholders, and the reasons for the mess were incompetance on every side. Both parties were as organized as a litter of puppies with diarrhea, and that goes double for the so-called "Election Supervisors".

One final point, in the problem counties of Florida, and quite likely in your own state, the problems had been know for decades, but the county commissions penny pinched the fixes and assigned them to political cronies. Most elections aren't close enough for the mistakes to make a difference, and the public's memory is short.

Jeff Smith