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Politics : Why is Gore Trying to Steal the Presidency? -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Carolyn who wrote (925)	11/17/2000 11:23:36 PM
From: Proud_Infidel	Respond to of 3887

If they get special handcounts for the dimwits in PB, then I think the LEAST we could give to our people in the armed forces is at least equal weight when it comes to reviewing theirs. Though they would most likely protest and claim this as unfair. LOL

To: Carolyn who wrote (925)	11/18/2000 12:21:09 AM
From: MasonS	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 3887

How do they get away with that? Because they can...

To: Carolyn who wrote (925)	11/18/2000 2:10:02 AM
From: KLP	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 3887

And the 10:17 PM ET article: Hundreds of Overseas Ballots Rejected: Isn't it interesting that FINALLY AP is now floowing this...To be fair they did a small note a couple of days ago....WHERE ARE THE AMERICAN PEOPLE...WHERE IS OUR CONGRESS and SENATE, and WHERE IS THE PRESS????? There have been articles since Nov 4th before the election about this situation......DEPLORABLE! NO MATTER WHO THE MILITARY VOTED FOR....IT SHOULD COUNT! Friday November 17 10:17 PM ET Hundreds of Overseas Ballots Rejected dailynews.yahoo.com By BRENT KALLESTAD, Associated Press Writer TALLAHASSEE, Fla. (AP) - More than 1,000 overseas absentee ballots were thrown out Friday as Republicans complained of a coordinated challenge by Democrats, particularly against ballots from military personnel. In some counties, half or nearly all of the ballots were rejected, many of them military ballots that apparently didn't have postmarks. Orange County, for example, rejected 117 of its 147 overseas ballots. ``The party of the man who wants to be the next commander-in-chief is trying to throw out the votes of the men and women he will be commanding,'' charged Jim Post, a Republican lawyer in Duval County, where 107 ballots were rejected. ``We had a lot of ballots with no postmarks so we had to declare them invalid,'' said Dick Carlberg, assistant elections supervisor in Duval County. Thomas Spencer, a Miami attorney for Bush, said the GOP legal team would weigh whether to sue this weekend. ``One of the problems with those ballots is it is so difficult under Florida and federal law that you almost have to be a rocket scientist to comply,'' he said. Earlier this week, Mark Herron, a Tallahassee lawyer helping shepherd Democratic presidential election lawsuits through the local courts, sent a five-page letter to Democratic attorneys throughout Florida giving them tips on how to lodge protests against overseas ballots. Such protests must be lodged before the ballot is taken out of the envelope. The letter, given to The Associated Press by a Republican source, focused on protesting military ballots, which are assumed to be heavily in favor of Bush, and included a section on military postmarks. Herron didn't return a telephone call for comment Friday. Republicans circulated a letter dated Friday from Navy Capt. E.M DuCom, deputy director of the military postal service, who said military mail is required to be postmarked. But he added, ``There are instances when time constraints do not allow for proper postmarking/cancellation of the mail. The last flight may be departing the ship and the mail has to get on it.'' Ed Gillespie, a Republican strategist working for Bush in Florida, said 110 of 113 write-in ballots, mostly from military forces, were invalidated by officials in Miami-Dade County. He said more than half were thrown out because they had no witness or witness address listed but ``the form doesn't indicate that a witness is necessary.'' With all but about a few counties reporting, Bush was leading Gore by more than 600 votes, including overseas totals and those already certified by the state, an AP survey showed. Counties have until noon Saturday to report their results to Secretary of State Katherine Harris, who will not be able to certify the election until after the Florida Supreme Court meets Monday to hear arguments about ongoing hand recounts in South Florida. But the latest battle was over the overseas ballots. ``There are more attorneys than there are ballots,'' said Bob Edwards, Chairman of the Republican Executive Committee for Walton County, where five votes were tossed out, including those of four people who had already voted absentee. More than three-quarters of Orange County's 147 overseas absentee ballots were rejected by that county's canvassing board. Supervisor of Elections Bill Cowles said he was shocked by that number but attributes the 117 rejections to voters failing to keep their records current. However, Republicans handed out an affidavit from the chief postal clerk of the aircraft carrier USS John F. Kennedy to counter Democratic challenges to envelopes without postmarks. ``It is not unusual for mail being sent by naval personnel, whether embarked on naval vessels or otherwise, not to have a postmark,'' said Edgardo Rodriguez. In Hillsborough County, 74 of the 135 overseas ballots were rejected after Democrats raised concerns about postmark or signature problems. Alachua County rejected half of the 56 overseas ballots received. St. Lucie rejected 13 of 14 and Lake County, all five. The overseas counting process was painstakingly slow in some counties, with canvassing board members taking several minutes to discuss whether to accept or reject each ballot.

To: Carolyn who wrote (925)	11/18/2000 8:10:59 AM
From: Proud_Infidel	Respond to of 3887

This Gore supporter hopes Bush wins By WILLIAM RASPBERRY Just so you'll know, I voted for Al Gore. And yet I find myself hoping he loses Florida and the presidency -- but that he loses fair and square. To put it plainly: I hope the combination of the certified, absentee and recounted votes will leave George W. Bush ahead in the total Florida tally. Why? Because it's the only scenario I can think of that would give the next president some semblance of legitimacy. If Gore wins because a court forces the inclusion of the recounted votes in the Florida total, it could turn out to be the costliest victory in the history of American politics. Similarly, if Bush wins because Florida's secretary of state (and co-chair of his campaign in Florida) refuses to consider the recounted ballots. Just imagine the outrage if Bush wins by a margin smaller than Gore's gain in the recount. America will be divided enough whoever wins the presidency. If it's Bush, African-Americans will be convinced that their votes would have made the difference in Gore's favor -- if those votes had been faithfully recorded and counted. The biggest blocs of rejected ballots were in areas in which they held the balance of power, blacks will say -- and with justification. The counter argument, I suppose, would be that the get-out-the-vote drive that produced so many black voters in Florida also produced an unusually large number of voters unfamiliar with the voting process. Democrats generally, in case of a Bush victory, will be upset if it turns out the votes recounted and rejected would have changed the outcome -- especially given Gore's offer to countenance a recount of the entire state, including those counties where Republicans dominate and therefore could be expected to pick up additional votes rejected by the mechanical counters. Refusal to accept Gore's magnanimity, they will say (and perhaps believe), is proof that the Republicans, unlike their worthy selves, were never interested in let-every-vote-count fairness, but only in victory. And they will have gotten away with it because the Republicans run the state. The Republicans, it would be widely believed, stole Florida and thus the presidency. Republicans, on the other hand, tend to begin from the premise that they won the election in the first instance and that it was only the Democrats' demand for a recount that put the issue in doubt. The premise, of course, rests on the assumption that the overseas votes, which greatly outnumber the 300 votes by which Bush was leading going into the weekend, would go heavily to Bush. I have no idea what their position would be in the unlikely event the overseas ballots turn up a plurality of, say, 310 for Gore. The point is that because the Republicans believe they've already won fairly, however narrowly, any procedure that threatens that outcome -- including recounting or revoting -- will be seen by them as an attempt to steal the presidency by stealing Florida. It's easy enough to wish that any number of things had been done differently -- from the campaigning to the design of the Palm Beach ballot to the decisions of Ralph Nader and his backers. What's hard is to find something worthwhile to wish for now. One could, I suppose, wish for someone to step forward and confess to being part of a criminal conspiracy designed to steal the Florida election. Or for a quick re-election in which only those Floridians who voted on Nov. 7 would be eligible. (That would cost Nader and Pat Buchanan some useless votes, but that's a relatively insignificant consideration.) Since neither of those things is likely to happen, the best I can hope for is that Bush's 300-vote lead will withstand both the overseas ballots and whatever additional votes Gore picks up in the recount. It wouldn't be the outcome favored by close to half of the electorate, in Florida and in America at large, but at least it would be an outcome dictated by the voters -- not by the courts, clever lawyers or partisan secretaries of state. I could live with that. chron.com

To: Carolyn who wrote (925)	11/18/2000 10:44:09 AM
From: edward miller	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 3887

The real problem here is that the press is supposed to be impartial, and is supposed to inform people and investigate matters that are important. The independent press has historically been considered the "fourth estate" of government - the people that keep tabs on government. Where are these people? They are aiding this election theft by their bias and are acting as if they have no responsibility for what is happening. Ordinary citizens have been trained to not believe unsubstantiated rumors, so they truly do rely on the news media to provide unbiased filtering of what is going on. They are being knifed in the back. "May you live in interesting times" is an old Chinese curse. Looking forward it appears that honest, hard working people in this country will be living the most interesting times of their lives, and this nations future depends on how this plays out. This is not about this one election, but about the complete destruction of the integrity of the government.