Two years ago, after public fury over the"election" that gave George W. Bush the presidency reached a frenzy, it was almost certain that the 2002 elections would be the perfect opportunity for the millions of voters who did not vote for Bush to exact their revenge. Back then, the midterm elections to be held two years later promised to have great purpose and meaning.
Not even two years since the demonstration that this country cannot always guarantee free and fair elections, American voters seem to have forgotten the injustices that allowed our current president to take office. For those who do not remember the atrocities committed that year, I present to you a summary of the great conspiracy that was the 2000 presidential election. My hope in reopening this issue is that readers will realize how absurd and twisted this exercise in voting was and will express their outrage by voting against Bush and his Republican junta on Nov. 5.
In the summer of 2000, Katherine Harris, Florida Secretary of State in charge of elections and also George W. Bush's campaign co-chairwoman (no conflict of interest there), contracted Database Technologies -- a company with strong connections with the Republican party -- to peruse Florida's voter rolls for people suspected of committing felonies in Florida. Florida law requires that ex-felons lose their right to vote. (It's comforting to know, by the way, that while some states like Florida prohibit felons from voting, our country allows them to become president -- as Bush put it, he has committed "no felonies in the last 25 years"). So what's the big deal? The problem was that thousands of eligible voters were thrown off voting lists by Database Technologies, most of them black voters who had committed misdemeanors, had names similar to those of actual felons or were simply tossed off the list for no apparent reason. As a result, hundreds of Floridian African-American and Hispanic voters (at least 1,100 of them), who vote predominantly Democratic (in Florida, 93 percent of blacks voted for Gore), were turned away from polling booths.
Linda Howell was one of the many who was informed that, because she was a felon,she would not be allowed to vote. Not only was Howell not a felon, she also happened to be the elections supervisor of Madison County, Fla. Even the project manager of Database Technologies warned Katherine Harris that her orders would yield many "false positives." But why would Katherine Harris care if some black voters were disenfranchised? It's not like she was in charge of ensuring free and fair elections. Oh wait
But there's more. In addition to purging suspected Florida felons from voting lists, Database Technologies also requested lists of suspected felons who had moved to Florida from other states. One state sent a list of 8,000 supposed felons -- most of them black -- who once lived in that state and were now living in Florida. In fact, none of these 8,000 had committed felonies; they had only committed misdemeanors or were felons who had had their voting rights reinstated. What state had supplied this grossly erroneous information? Texas. Bush's own state.
Then, on election day, thousands of voters were turned away from polls several minutes before polling places closed -- evidently some polling places decided to close up early. Most of the places where polls closed early happened to be in areas with large black populations.
Don't forget about the right-wing conservative Jews who voted for Buchanan. I certainly know that I would purposefully vote for the person who wants to ship my race out of the country off to some island. Honestly, the screwed up butterfly ballots had nothing to do with thousands of elderly Jews semi-impregnating their votes and voting for Buchanan.
There's more. A "New York Times" investigation showed that of the 2,490 overseas ballots that were included in the certified election results in Florida, 680 were flawed and problematic and probably should not have been counted. Most of these overseas ballots came from members of the military, who traditionally vote Republican (Bush won 80 percent of the overseas vote). The law stated that only ballots "postmarked or signed and dated" by election-day would count. But according to "The New York Times," Katherine Harris, for some strange reason, changed the law and allowed overseas ballots to be counted even if they were sent past the deadline. And then, by some stroke of luck, all the computer records with evidence of what happened somehow disappeared. A little strange, wouldn't you say?
We can't blame Katherine Harris, Governor Jeb Bush, the president himself or any of the stupid ballot designers for any of this, however. Obviously, all the blame rests on black voters and old Jewish people for screwing up. Yes, black voters who had voted for decades without any problems should have checked to see if their name was removed from voting rolls for no reason. Black voters should have known that polling stations would close early. They should have known that the one-page sample ballot many of them were given wouldn't look anything like the actual two-page ballot. They should have checked to see if they were mistakenly assigned to be absentee voters even though they had never signed up to vote absentee. They should have known that they would need multiple pieces of identification when most white voters wouldn't.
Bush "won" the election by 537 votes. It is estimated that at least 1,100 people were incorrectly tossed off the voter rolls because they were suspected felons. Another 8,000 people were tossed off the voter rolls because of the false list provided by Texas. Thousands of voters were blocked from voting because polling stations closed early. Confusing and ill-designed ballots resulted in thousands of over-votes and under-votes and halfway-pregnant votes. Changes in absentee ballot laws during the election allowed hundreds of votes to be counted when they probably shouldn't have. We can all do the math. The outcome would have at least been a lot closer. More likely, it would have been different.
This year, more than any year before, American voters need to send a strong, clear message to the government: we will not tolerate politicians getting elected because of connections rather than votes. Next Tuesday, show that you do remember what happened during the last election: vote for anybody without an 'R' next to their name -- a Democrat, a Green, a Libertarian, a Socialist, Mickey Mouse. Send the message that needs to be sent. For those of you who have trouble believing what I have explained above, I urge you to look at the investigative studies done by "The Los Angeles Times," "The Washington Post," the "British Broadcasting Company" and "The Guardian." This is not conspiracy theory.
This is conspiracy fact.
