Palm Beach County Ballot:
Myth: Palm Beach County had an abnormal 19,000 ballots disqualified from double punching. These numbers prove that the ballot was confusing.
FACT: Palm Beach County has a documented history of having a large number of disqualified ballots. In the 1996 Presidential Election, when turnout was lower, almost 15,000 were disqualified. Several surrounding counties in Florida, including some Republican counties such as Duval County, had similarly high totals of disqualified double punched ballots.
Myth: Palm Beach County's butterfly ballot was illegal. Florida law says that the holes must appear to the right of the candidate's name.
FACT: Gore supporters making this claim aren't even using the right statute. They are citing from Florida Statute Title IX Section 101.151 which prescribes ballot specifications “In counties in which voting machines are not used.” Palm Beach County used a mechanical punch card machine commonly called a Votomatic. Ballot requirements for machines are laid out in Section 101.5609. Clause 6 specifically states “Voting squares may be placed in front of or in back of the names of candidates.” Butterfly ballots are used in counties throughout the country, including in Illinois' Cook County, the home of Gore campaign manager William Daley and his family’s political machine.
Myth: Pat Buchanan received an abnormally high 3,000 votes in Palm Beach County. This proves a confusing ballot was used.
FACT: Palm Beach County historically produced more than 8,700 votes for Pat Buchanan during the 1996 Republican Primary. This proves that at least 8,700 Palm Beach County voters have in past elections considered Pat Buchanan to be the candidate of their choice. It is therefore perfectly conceivable that several of these same people would support Buchanan again when presented with his name on a ballot.
Myth: George W. Bush signed a law in Texas requiring dimpled chads to count as votes
FACT: Bush never signed any law pertaining to the counting of chads in Texas. Democrats including Al Gore and Dick Gephardt have openly spread this lie. The Texas law pertaining to the counting of chads was passed under Ann Richards in 1993 and it does not require all dimpled ballots to count as votes. Rather it prescribes a very precise statewide standard for the counting of chads meeting a uniform statewide guideline. This guideline prescribes that the intent of a voter must be "clearly discernible" to a degree of certitude in order to count. A common dimple cannot be established under any reasonable standard as a clearly intended vote.
Myth: A 1997 law signed by George W. Bush requires manual recounts in close elections in Texas
FACT: Texas law prescribes a very precise and detailed procedure for recounts. In fact, Texas law provides for an electronic recount, not a manual recount, by default. Unless the candidate specifically requests a special counting method, Texas law provides that “the ballots shall be counted electronically using the same program as the original count” (Texas Elections Code Section 214.042c). Texas law under the Election Code section 212.005 requires a manual recount on punch card ballots ONLY when (1) multiple requests for a recount are made pursuant to Section 214.042a by multiple parties and (2) those requests choose "different counting methods." The purpose of this law was not to promote manual recounts as several Democrats have falsely asserted. Rather, it was to resolve a contradiction in the Elections Code prior to 1997, which failed to state what to do when this rare case occurred and therefore technically permitted the continuation of recounts for an infinite amount of time if these circumstances occurred.
Counting all the Votes:
Myth: Al Gore simply wanted all the votes to count. Isn't that the only fair thing to do?
FACT: Al Gore only wanted votes for him to count. Gore lawyers launched an orchestrated statewide effort to disqualify thousands of military absentee ballots in Florida. The military ballots went to Bush overwhelmingly. In order to minimize and dilute the military voters support for Bush, Gore lawyers constructed a 5 page memo detailing hyper-technicalities upon which military ballots could be challenged. Sadly Gore’s lawyers even went so far as to falsely cite the law pertaining to postmarks. Many military ballots were disqualified under the claim “lack of postmark” when in fact these ballots were carried by military mail systems that do not use conventional postmarks. Instead of postmarks, several hundred military voters provided a dated signature as is permitted under the Florida Administrative Code, Section 1S 2.013 clause 7 (which also supersedes conflicting language in Title IX pursuant to standing federal court order, despite democrat claims to the contrary). This section specifically mandates that absentee ballots that are "postmarked or signed and dated...shall be counted" if recieved within 10 days after the election. While Gore repeatedly claimed he wanted “every vote to count” in reference to ballots that had already been counted two and three times, Gore simultaneously had little hesitation in blocking military ballots that were not counted even once.
Myth: Manual recounts were necessary to protect the integrity of the vote and make sure every vote is counted
FACT: Manual recounts are highly prone to human error and ballot security problems. When these errors are irreconcilable due to partisan county officials who control the count, as was the case in south Florida, there is no way that a hand recount can honestly be said to be more accurate or fair than an objective machine count. The punch cards being used in Palm Beach County are not designed to undergo extensive handling and wear. As a result, repeated handling can easily dislodge “chads” where no vote was made. More importantly, the delicate nature of these ballots makes it extremely easy for mischievous workers with partisan leanings to intentionally dislodge “chads” to spoil and change certain ballots while they are being handled. Watcher intervention is strictly limited by the law and by Democrat controlled canvassing boards. This was seen in Palm Beach and Broward Counties where Bush observers were thrown out of the counting rooms for simply exercising their right to challenge the corrupt counting processes being conducted both of these counties. Unnoticed fraud may be accomplished with careful hand movement and in little time. Manual recounts give prolonged ballot access to persons other than the voter that cast the ballot, naturally inviting fraud.
"Disenfranchisement":
Myth: Katherine Harris illegally purged thousands of innocent minority voters from the voter roles by mistaking them as felons. Gregory Palast's investigation proves it.
FACT: Katherine Harris does not have the legal authority, power, or means to purge a single person from the voter roles. Gregory Palast, a left wing British tabloid writer, has conveniently ignored this simple fact in practically all of his attempts to smear Harris with multiple attack pieces accusing her of "purging" voters frol the roles. In Florida, the individual counties are responsible for conducting the purges. Harris merely compiled a suspect list of possible felons on the voter roles, not a purge list. This suspect list was then forwarded to all of the counties with instructions for each county to verify the felons on the list and, where applicable, take action to remove those who were indeed convicted felons. In most counties, this was done without any major problems. In a small number of predominantly Democrat counties, the suspect list was botched and later illegally implemented by Democrat county officials, resulting in the removal of a small number of legitimate voters from the voter roles. Meanwhile, despite numerous reports from Palast and other leftists citing all sorts of wild high number statistics of supposedly "purged" voters, the Democrats have found it near impossible to name one single person in Florida who actually tried to vote but found himself wrongly denied access to the polls. Even the highly publicized US Civil Rights Commission public hearing for voter complaints, which was conducted on site in Florida, failed to draw even one single person who had been illegally denied a vote.
Myth:Minority voters faced intimidation and disenfranchisement in Tennessee in a degree that was even worse than Florida.
FACT: The Tennessee claims of "intimidation" and "disenfranchisement"
have, upon investigation, turned out to be just as frivolous as those propagated
in Florida. Despite their frivolous nature, the radical left has bought
into these claims word for word. It started shortly after the election
when aa small number of accusations of "intimidation" and "disenfranchisement"
were reported by the Tennessee NAACP, creating a field day for left wingers.
One left wing "journalist" responded to the NAACP's reports with a story
claiming that "disenfranchisement" in Tennessee was "worse than
Florida" and implied it was the reason Gore narrowly lost his home state.
But an examination of the claims reveals their fraudulent nature. One of
the key claims made in the NAACP report was that black voters had been
told to remove NAACP political advocacy signs from automobiles parked in
front of polling places. In reality, it is plainly obvious that these signs
violated the state's law against electioneering inside the perimeter ring
around a polling place! Practically every state has a law preventing anybody
from engaging in any form of political advocacy within an established boundary
around a polling place. This includes setting up signs, which must be placed
outside of a marked barrier. Therefore when somebody brings a sign inside
that perimeter, the law says election officials must ask that those signs
be removed.
A second allegation on the Tennessee NAACP report
claimed a polling place with lines out the door into the parking lot in
Hadley Park, Tennessee. Reportedly, a voter complained about the long lines
and moments later police cars, which "intimidated" black voters, came driving
up to the site. As one left wing collumnist suggested, this incident sounded
like a scene from Mississippi Burning. But in reality, the claim
being described was a blatantly dishonest distortion. Here's what really
happened, as reported by The Tennessean (4/6/01): Around 3PM on election
day, the Hadley Park polling place in Davidson County, Tennessee, became
increasingly backlogged and a huge line formed out the door. The situation
was reported to the elections office, and County Election Administrator
Michael McDonald personally travelled to the site as fast as he could with
a police escort for the purpose of opening up additional polling booths
to alleviate the long line! Contrary to the trumped up accusations
of the left, the police cars came, carrying the county's elections administrator,
to correct the problem, not to "intimidate" minority voters!
Even the most serious sounding allegation made by
the Tennessee NAACP turned out to be questionable. A highly publicized
claim made by the NAACP in Tennesee was that black voters had been told
to stand behind white voters in lines at a polling place. Reportedly, an
as of yet to be named poll worker told minority voters "you know what it
is to stand at the back of the bus." A closer look at the NAACP report
revealed this allegation was of a single incedent involving one black voter
in Murfreesboro, not several. But that's not the end of it. When the U.S.
Justice Department tried to investigate the claim of the Murfreesboro voter,
they asked the NAACP for more details on their report. Sure enough, the
NAACP official who reported that claim could not even give the name of
the voter who was purportedly asked to go to the back of the line, nor
the location of the polling place. According to The Tennessean (4/6/01)
the NAACP official who reported the Murfreesboro allegation had "neither
proof of the allegation nor any information about the woman who complained."
In the end, what was presented by the press and the left as a horrible
incident of racism turned out to be based entirely upon one single anonymous,
unverified allegation by an unnamed voter at an unknown polling place.
Myth: Bush stole the election with illegally cast ballots
FACT: To date, several organizations have undertaken extensive county
and statewide studies of voter fraud during the Florida election of 2000.
Included are the Miami Herald, the Palm Beach Post, the Florida Times-Union,
and others. Each of these studies have sought to identify instances where
common types of voter fraud occurred: felons illegally voting, non-citizens
voting, deceased persons voting, persons casting more than one ballot,
persons voting in the wrong county or state, and physical ballot theft
and tampering. These studies have all revealed extensive fraudulent voting
in Florida to the tune of several thousand votes. A statewide Palm Beach
Post study found 5,643 November 2000 voters who appeared on the Florida
Department of Law Enforcement's registry of convicted felons, meaning they
weren't legally allowed to cast a vote. Several regional and county studies
of felon voters in the Miami Herald found similar numbers. Studies elsewhere
in the state have found in excess of 1,100 additional illegal votes cast
by non-registered voters. Other common cases have included non-citizens
and deceased persons casting ballots, as well as persons voting more than
once. In total, reasonable estimates of illegal votes identified in Florida
to date exceed 8,000.
Contrary to the common Gore supporter claim, each
and every study of these votes has pointed to Democrats as the main culprits,
not Bush. The Palm Beach Post study alone concluded that at least 68%
of the 5,643 illegal felon voters were confirmed Democrats. The Florida
Times-Union noted that their study in Duval County similarly suggested
that the fraud was overwhelmingly Democrat. The Miami Herald's many investigations
produced similar results. In one case, massive fraud was traced back to
a precinct that voted 90% for Al Gore. Another Miami Herald study estimated
that 75% of the illegal voters it found were Democrats. After extensive
investigations of voter fraud, the results could not be more clear: voter
fraud was widespread in Florida, and was committed overwhelmingly by Democrats
in almost every single case. In other words, Al Gore would have easily
fallen several thousand votes short of George W. Bush instead of just a
few hundred had Gore not benefited from massive and widespread voter fraud
on his behalf in Florida.
Rent-a-Mobs and Conspiracies:
Myth: Rented out of state Republican mobs organized protests across the nation to intimidate supporters of Gore’s challenges to the election
FACT: The Bush supporters who participated in nationwide protest efforts were neither “rented” nor “mob like.” These protests were composed almost entirely of ordinary American citizens who found themselves angry with Gore’s behavior in the post election battle in Florida. Protests were organized by ordinary citizens in local communities through the use of the websites www.freerepublic.com and www.loudcitizen.com. These protests came together due to the hard work of hundreds of concerned citizens across the nation who volunteered part of their time to publicizing Bush rallies in their own communities. Sadly several powerful Democrats such as Robert Wexler and Sheila Jackson Lee have called for investigations of Florida protesters in what amounts to little more than an assault on the constitutional rights to free speech and freedom of assembly. Further, many of the very same people who labelled Bush protesters as “rent-a-mobs” were themselves organizers and supporters of protest efforts that actually bussed in Gore supporters to protest at “hot spots” in Florida. A 12/6/00 rally in Tallahassee included the bussing in of several hundred Democrats from out of state to protest. Floridians who came to support Bush at a locally organized rally on the same day reported encountering an unruly group of Gore supporters who carried professionally printed protest signs and had been driven in on charter busses. During the course of the two rallies, Bush supporters reported being bumped and verbally abused by the bussed in Democrat group.
Myth: The Bush team launched an orchestrated statewide effort to halt Gore's challenges to the election
FACT: If there was any single orchestrated statewide effort in Florida on behalf of any candidate, it was that of Al Gore. Gore lawyers challenged military ballots, often on false legal grounds, in an orchestrated military disenfranchisement campaign in counties all over the state. Elsewhere the Democrats enlisted countless Democrat organizations to engage in professional protests on Gore's behalf. Gore's campaign even benefited from countless left wing cover organizations, many with close ties to the campaign, and their many lawsuits on Gore's behalf. One organization alone, the leftist website Democrats.com, participated in the Seminole County lawsuit, several lawsuits challenging Dick Cheney's residency, and the legal manuevers to challenge the Palm Beach County butterfly ballot. Democrats.com spent thousands of dollars to fund these efforts after raising them under a disclaimer on their website purporting absolutely no affiliation with the Gore campaign or Democrat party. Unfortunately they forgot to mention that several people sitting on the Democrats.com advisory board are closely affiliated with Gore and the Democrat party. Stan Greenberg (husband of Democrat Rep. Rosa DeLauro) was one of Gore's main pollsters, and Greg Simon was Gore's chief campaign strategist. Both Simon and Greenberg are currently on Democrats.com's board of directors. As are David Lytel (former Clinton White House webmaster), Dick Bell (former head of a DNC media department), and Jonathan P. "Jock" Gill (former Clinton administration Office of Media Affairs). Other prominent Democrats currently and/or formerly affiliated with Democrats.com include Jeff Eller (a former top level media official for Clinton), Jim Buie (former head of the "Friends of Hillary" website organization), and Bob Fertik (founder of the feminist group Women Leaders Online, which is affiliated with Geraldine Ferarro and several Democrat congresswomen). In fact, even the well known liberal magazine The New Republic (5/28/01) noted Democrats.com's doublespeak regarding their ties to the Democrat party. The leftist magazine correctly observed in a story unrelated to the presidential election that Democrats.com is portrayed as "unaffiliated with the Democratic Party" but "top Democratic strategists like Stan Greenberg, Al Gore's storied pollster, and Greg Simon" are "both listed on the website as members of the Democrats.com Advisory Board." In typical fashion, the media completely ignored the close ties between Democrats.com and the Democrat party when Democrats.com was funding and promoting an orchestrated effort to aide Gore with legal challenges against Bush votes. Yet when the Bush campaign recruited Republican party activists to simply volunteer as watchers during the recounts, the news media went wild claiming all sorts of Republican conspiracies and purported conflicts of interest. All the while, Democrat cover organizations like Democrats.com got a free pass and continue to get a free pass to this day.
Myth: Voter News Services correctly called Florida for Gore early in the evening of November 7th, but Jeb Bush made secret phone calls to make sure that was not to be.
FACT: Voter News Services (VNS) never correctly called Florida for Al
Gore. Rather, they dishonestly and erroniously called Florida for Gore
before
all the polls had closed in one of the state's most solidly Republican
regions. Any traveller to Florida knows that the state is separated into
two time zones. The Florida peninsula is in the eastern time zone, while
the Florida panhandle west of Apalachicola is in the central time zone.
The panhandle region is one of the most conservative Republican areas in
Florida and in the nation. It is home to several military bases around
Pensacola and has a long history of sending conservative Republicans like
Joe Scarborough to Congress. Voter News Services incorrectly called Florida
for Al Gore at 7:40 PM eastern time, which is 6:40 PM central
time. Polling places close at 7:00 PM, meaning that Voter News Services
made their call 20 minutes before the polls were even closed in part of
the state! The effects this fraudulent call had on Republican turnout in
the Florida panhandle were widespread. In an election as close as Florida's,
every single vote was important. Yet countless residents of the Florida
panhandle decided not to vote because they heard on the radio that
their state had already gone to Gore even though the polls had not even
closed yet! In short, regardless of what type of polling and early
returns VNS used, it is impossible that they could have accurately called
a close state like Florida before the polls had even closed in many parts
of the state. As for the claims about secret phone calls by Jeb Bush, they
are completely unsubstantiated and anonymous accusations that have circulated
on Democrat email lists and left wing websites. Not one of these allegations
has ever been proven, and not one of these allegations has ever been made
in anything more than vague and anonymous terms.
Myth: In Miami-Dade County unruly Republican protesters forced an end to hand recounts.
FACT: The Miami Dade canvassing board publicly announced that time constraints, not the protest rally outside, prompted them to halt the manual recount. The canvassing board also publicly announced that the protesters had not intimidated them to their decision despite numerous left wing allegations otherwise. As printed in the LA Times (11/26/00), elections supervisor David Leahy maintained the protesters had nothing to do with the decision. Leahy described the group as "a noisy, peaceful protest," then noted that he "was not intimidated by that protest" and even described the protester's concerns as "understandable" and shared by the news media. The concerns Leahy described as "understandable" include a valid Republican and news media complaint about the Miami Dade canvassing board's decision to move the count into a private back room. Florida law Title X Sec. 102.166 (6) specifically states "Any manual recount shall be open to the public." A private count in a back room is not "open to the public" and is therefore illegal. Despite these facts being publicly acknowledged and announced, several Democrats have propagated the myth that hostile protesters forced an end to recounts.
The US Supreme Court:
Myth: The U.S. Supreme Court ruled in Bush's favor on a closely divided partisan 5-4 vote
FACT: As with many cases, the U.S. Supreme Court decision in Bush v. Gore answered more than one question with more than one count of the Justices. In answer to the question of the constitutionality of the non-existant standards during Florida's re-re-recounts, the Court ruled 7-2 in favor of Bush. In answer to the question of deadlines for conducting the count, the Court ruled 5-4 in favor of Bush. The 7-2 vote in particular was anything but partisan, considering that two traditionally leftist justices joined the court's two moderates and three conservatives.
Myth: The unsigned per curiam ruling proves that the Supreme Court was politically motivated, since per curiam decisions are only issued in unanimous and uncontroversial cases
FACT: The United States Supreme Court has a long history of issuing per curiam opinions in cases that are neither unanimous nor uncontroversial. In fact, some of the biggest landmark cases in the court's history were issued per curiam. The landmark civil rights case of Sipuel v. Board of Regents of the University of Oklahoma was issued per curiam in 1948. As were the cases of Harris v. Rosario and Califano v. Torres, two major cases on government entitlement programs. The famous case of Brandenburg v. Ohio, which ruled on freedom of expression, was per curiam. So was the landmark death penalty case Furman v. Georgia, which was also a 5-4 ruling. New York Times v. United States, also known as the "Pentagon Papers" case, was issued per curiam on a 6-3 ruling. For the Supreme Court to decide a major case with a per curiam decision is certainly not unheard of, and in fact has a history of occurrence in some of the biggest landmark cases of all time.
The US Civil Rights Commission Investigation:
Myth: The United States Commission on Civil Rights (USCCR) proved that minorities and Democrats were unfairly targetted and disenfranchised in Florida.
FACT: The USCCR investigation into Florida's election was characterized
by sloppy research, obvious pro-Gore biases, and hyped up show trials without
results or substance. In all aspects of the USCCR's investigation, evidence
is lacking while the integrity of the manner in which the report was drafted
is not just questionable, but practically non-existant.
Let's start with the USCCR's highly publicized investigation.
Despite heavily hyped show trial investigations in Florida where the public
was invited to testify about alleged voting rights violations, the USCCR
reported hearing testimony from a grand whopping total of 100 witnesses,
65 of whom were not even testifying about personal experiences due to the
fact that they were hand picked voting "experts" and government officials
invited to testify by the USCCR. Of the "witnesses" who alleged violations,
practically all of them had frivolous claims. Witness Roberta Tucker reported
encountering the now infamous "police checkpoint at the polling place,"
which in actuality was over two miles away from that particular
voter's polling place and was unrelated to anything whatsoever involving
elections. Tucker was briefly stopped with the rest of traffic at the checkpoint,
showed her driver's license, drove several miles up the road to her polling
place, and voted without and problems whatsoever. A second witness's complaint
ammounted to him seeing an empty police car near his polling place, which
was "intimidating" to him! He voted without any trouble, and any person
with basic common sense has to admit the frivolous nature of the complaint.
Perhaps the worst problem reported to the commission and also one of the
only non-frivolous complaints was that of Willie Whiting. Whiting's name
had been incorrectly suspended from the voter rolls by an error at the
county government offices. When this error was discovered, Whiting immediately
contacted the county, which corrected the error and allowed him to vote
without any trouble! The USCCR report lists a large number of anonymous
"irregularities" in Florida's election, some of them quite serious sounding
if they are to be believed. But even Whiting's complaint, the worst
complaint made at the USCCR's hearing, was minor as the situation had corrected
itself only moments after Whiting ran into trouble voting! In the end,
the USCCR could not produce any witnesses who were illegally prevented
from voting.
As frivolous as the USCCR's hearings may have been,
they only scratch the surface of the problems surrounding Mary Frances
Berry's report. The USCCR's report alleging civil rights violations in
Florida was approved under high controversy and without fair input from
either of the commission's two Republican commissioners. The Democrat dominated
USCCR not only leaked their report to the press before it had been approved
by the commission, but they also appear to have intentionally excluded
the two Republican commissioners to the point that one of the Republicans
reported submitting a Freedom of Information Act Request to her own commission
to simply gain access to the data contained in the Democrat-drafted report!
Be wary of any supposedly "academic" study that takes measures to protect
itself from peer scrutiny. Being able to withstand peer scrutiny is key
to the credibility of ANY academic study, but in the case of the USCCR's
study such scrutiny was prevented by denying access to certain USCCR members,
members who are supposed to be fully entitled to participate in all USCCR
activities.
But perhaps there is more reason behind the exclusion
of the two Republican commissioners than politics alone. You see, the Democrat
drafted USCCR report was based largely on the work of Professor Allan Lichtman
of American University. Lichtman, it turns out, has a background including
working as a political consultant for none other than Al Gore. If Lichtman's
pro-Gore conflict of interest were not enough to discredit the objectivity
of the report itself, surely USCCR chair Mary Frances Berry's are! Berry,
the driving force behind the report, often purports herself to be a political
"independent." She even lists herself as an independent on the USCCR website.
Nothing could be further from the truth. Federal Elections Commission records
show that Berry wrote sizable checks to the Al Gore for President campaign
on at least two occassions during the election. Further, Berry has contributed
almost $20,000 of her own money to the Democrat Party and Democrat candidates
in the last decade alone. Berry's other radical left wing political activism
includes serving as the chair of the Pacifica Foundation, an ultra left
radio network tied closely to radical socialist movements and socialist
factions within the Democrat Party. The fact that such a blatantly partisan
person headed the drafting of the USCCR report alone should question the
credibility of that report's findings. Combined with other problems in
the report (including but not limited to Berry's dishonest attempts to
hide her partisan history) it is hard to see how any honest person could
give any credibility to the report's findings whatsoever!
Facts about the Florida Count:
