Very interesting perspective on the U.S. election from abroad. Please Read!

[Guest]

A history professor from Uppsala Universitet in Sweden, called to tell me about an article she had read in which a Zimbabwe politician was quoted as saying that children should study this even more closely for it shows that election fraud is not only a phenomenon of the developing Third World.

1. Imagine that we read of an election occurring anywhere in the third world in which the self-declared winner was the son of the former prime minister and that the former prime minister was himself the former head of the nation's secret police secret police (CIA).

2. Imagine that the self-declared winner lost the popular vote but won based on some old colonial holdover (electoral college) from the nation's pre-democracy past.

3. Imagine that the self-declared winner's victory turned on disputed votes cast in a province governed by his brother!

4. Imagine that the poorly drafted ballots of one district, a district heavily favoring the self-declared winner's opponent, led thousands of voters to vote for the wrong candidate.

5. Imagine that members of that nation's most despised caste (African-Americans) fearing for their lives/livelihoods, turned out in record numbers to vote in near-universal opposition to the self-declared winner's candidacy.

6. Imagine that hundreds of members of that most-despised caste were intercepted on their way to the polls by state police operating under the authority of the self-declared winner's brother.

7. Imagine that six million people voted in the disputed province and that the self-declared winner's "lead" was only 327 votes. Fewer, certainly, than the vote counting machines' margin of error.

8. Imagine that the self-declared winner and his political party opposed a more careful by-hand inspection and re-counting of the ballots in the disputed province or in its mostly hotly disputed district.

9. Imagine that the self-declared winner, himself a governor of a major province, had the worst human rights record of any province in his nation and actually led the nation in executions.

10. Imagine that a major campaign promise of the self-declared winner was to appoint like-minded human rights violators to lifetime positions on the high court of that nation.

None of us would deem such an election to be representative of anything other than the self-declared winner's will-to-power. All of us, I imagine, would wearily turn the page thinking that it was another sad tale of pitiful pre- or anti-democracy peoples in some strange elsewhere.

 

[MADDOG]

Interesting. Welcome to Literotia Mr Gore. Enjoy your stay.

 

[Cheyenne]

Hey, what can I say? I fill out the complaint card at a Marriott!

Miami Heat
A burgher rebellion in Dade County.
BY PAUL A. GIGOT
Friday, November 24, 2000 12:01 a.m. EST
http://www.opinionjournal.com/columnists/pgigot/?id=65000673


MIAMI--If it's possible to have a bourgeois riot, it happened here Wednesday. And it could end up saving the presidency for George W. Bush.

With both parties spinning, I thought I'd go south to see the Miami-Dade manual recount firsthand. Surely it couldn't be as arbitrary as it sounded from Washington? And it wasn't. It was worse. Little did I know it'd be bad enough to inspire 50-year- old white lawyers with cell phones and Hermès ties to behave, well, like Democrats.

These normally placid burghers popped their corks after a
week of watching a recount they felt was rigged for Al Gore.
They kept mum but stewed for days as a three-member,
Democratic-leaning canvassing board tried to divine the
"intent" of the voter without any standards at all.

One of the canvassers, a career bureaucrat named David
Leahy, had even declared the lack of any vote-counting
standard a virtue. He needed "the flexibility," as his
spokeswoman put it, to "look at the totality of the ballot to determine the intent of the voter."

Like other reporters, I had to watch from 10 feet away and
strain to hear this subtle, epic search for "intent." Mr. Leahy would take a ballot and hunt not just for dimples but for any mark at all, even pregnant chads still in their first trimester. I saw him bend or twist several ballots, which can't be good for chads that have already been machine-counted three times.

Then he'd say, "that's a 6," meaning for Gore (who was sixth
on the ballot) or a "no vote," or much more rarely, "a vote for 4" (Bush). He then handed the ballot to Lawrence King, a
Democratic judge who looks like an older Charlie Sheen. Only
once did I see him disagree with Mr. Leahy's declaration of a new Gore vote.

The challenge usually came, if it did at all, from the third board member, county judge and independent Myriam Lehr. She'd grimace and focus and turn the ballot over and over before saying she disagreed. But it didn't matter. A 2-1 vote--and I witnessed six in about 30 minutes--still counted for the veep.

Most of these ballots were clearly punched for a Senate
candidate and other offices. Only the presidential mark was in doubt. So they weren't the ballots of seniors too confused or weak to punch through. They might have been those of voters who disliked both presidential candidates. But a partisan vote down the ballot was deemed to be one indication of intent.

Every Democrat described this guesswork recounting as
"professional" or "fair." But every Republican was seething.
"You should see what they're calling a dimple," said Neal
Conolly, a mild-mannered New York lawyer who volunteered
to spend his vacation here. "It's the most minor imperfection in the paper. I wouldn't even call it a crease."

In one instance, he says (and I witnessed his objection), a
Gore chad was displaced but a smaller hole was also present
in the Bush chad. They counted it for Mr. Gore. A reporter's
reflex is to dismiss such complaints as "partisan." But having covered elections for 20 years, I hope I can distinguish real from synthetic protest. These folks were ready to blow.

The tipping point came Wednesday, after the Florida Supreme
Court said manual counts must be included, but by a Sunday
deadline. The three canvassers reacted first by dropping a
complete recount, thus omitting pro-Bush Cuban-American
precincts. They would count only the 10,750 ballots that
machines had spit out for no presidential vote. These were
mostly from Democratic precincts.

Then the Three Counting Sages repaired to semi-isolation,
forcing TV cameras to watch through a window and keeping
reporters 25 feet away. That did it. Street-smart New York
Rep. John Sweeney, a visiting GOP monitor, told an aide to
"Shut it down," and semi- spontaneous combustion took over.

The Republicans marched on the counting room en masse,
chanting "Three Blind Mice" and "Fraud, Fraud, Fraud." True,
it wasn't exactly Chicago 1968, but these are Republicans.
Their normal idea of political protest is filling out the complaint card at a Marriott.

They also let it be known that 1,000 local Cuban-American
Republicans were on the way--not a happy prospect for
Anglo judges who must run for re-election. Inside the room,
GOP lawyers also pointed out that the law--recall that quaint concept-- required that any recount include all ballots.

The canvassers then stunned everybody and caved in. They
cancelled any recount and certified the original Nov. 7 election vote, claiming that the Sunday deadline didn't allow enough time to recount everywhere. Republicans rejoiced and hugged like they'd just won the lottery.

All of this leaves the Gore campaign as frustrated as
Republicans were after watching Democrats trash Katherine
Harris. Mr. Gore was counting on Miami-Dade dimples to
give him at least 600 more votes. Now he'll have to get them
from Palm Beach and Broward counties, but there may not be
enough.

So, true to form, Mr. Gore's lawyers are suing the
Miami-Dade canvassers to restart the hand count. But this
contradicts the Florida Supreme Court decision that the vice
president had heralded only the night before as a victory for "democracy." The court said that the decision to recount is up the counties. A lower court rejected the Gore request late Wednesday, and even the Gore-friendly supremes turned down his request to extend their own deadline.

If Al Gore loses his brazen attempt to win on the dimples, one reason will be that he finally convinced enough Republicans to fight like Democrats.

 

[insideShiraz]

Maddog, coming from you...

That's total Bush league for you...I was thinking many of these same things as Election Day unfolded. My preference for President has been Jack Kemp for a number of years, though I consider myself a Democrat. Something tells me that Dole and Bush are the types to lead us into WW III, they're for the Rich, Bush puts to Death much, and feels abortion is somehow different than what he does. I'm beginning to wonder if JohnJohn was really a foggy accident.

 

[MADDOG]

Hey, don't get me wrong. I consider myself a Democrat (as a Labour voter in Australia), so I'm rooting for Gore, but I very much doubt that Bush played any part in the confusion in Florida. That said, I think it was a complete shambles, and if I was Gore, I'd be calling foul too. He is well within his rights to do what he is doing.

In a perfect world, there would be a new election. Or at least a re-vote in Florida. With a margin that close and so many people voting for the wrong candidate, and with Gore actually winning the election if it weren't for that electoral college thing, I think it's very likely that you guys will have a President that doesn't deserve to be there... and that's not cool.

MADDOG

 

[insideShiraz]

With Democracy on the Line...

The Republicans are the ones who would hate to see a re-vote beyond the Hype Nation-wide...

 

[WriterDom]

Sore
Loserman
2000

 

[Dixon Carter Lee]

Yeah. I saw those posters. Great way to ge to the heart of a complicated issue, rhyme "Gore" with "Sore". Makes me wanna go, "Gee, you're right. Let's stop thinking critically about this, and go right to the low I.Q. catch-phrases. Give up Gore, because I wanna change the channel."

I'm fascinated with how the world views this election. Politics is perception, after all.

It's also interesting to note that these discrepensies occur every American election, we're just noticing them this time because it's so stunningly close.

 

[Golden]

So whoever wins no, will co0mpletely lack the moral authority of nationwide acceptance, of having "won fair and square", or whatever.

What amazes me is: half the people didn't even get off their f***ing arses and bother to go and vote for either of the white middle class, middle aged hetero (we are told) multi millionaire males ....

What you lot need is a system which throws up credible candidates, representative of the people, and appealing to the people, and who don't need to spend milions of dollars getting elected. Why is it assumed that a system put together over 200 years ago should be immutable?

In the meantime the only sensible thing would be to declare the election void and start again; this would at least provide some decent entertainment to the rest of the world who are going to have to live for four years with one of these pomppous assholes ruling the most powerful "democracy" in the zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz, ooops sorry, dozed off there for a moment....

 

[CreamyLady]

Sigh. One more time: It's a republic, NOT a democracy.

 

[CelestialBody]

 

[CreamyLady]

I'm not sure, CB. Probably thousands. Part of the problem is vocabulary; the words have been used interchangeably (and incorrectly) so many times they've taken on new meaning.

I'm so tired of all the fertilizer flying about -- from both sides -- I'm rather wishing that the two candidates could be disqualified for poor sportsmanship.

 

[forgetunome]

Sigh. One more time: It's a republic, NOT a democracy.

.....and to the republic for which it stands....

Republic--a state in which sovereign power is invested in representatives chosen by the people to govern. And government is the people;and it's from the people to the leaders, not from the leaders to the people.

Here Creamy lady maybe this will help them understand it's a Republic not a Democracy...of course I doubt it...they read but...don't comprehend!

Personally, I think we should kick both candidates out and let Ol' Billy stay in there! I'm tired of the whole charade!!

 

[Samuari]

Re: Maddog, coming from you...

My preference for President has been Jack Kemp for a number of years, though I consider myself a Democrat.

Yeah! You finally said somthing that makes since. A return to the gold standard would repalce the curancy based system with real money.

Of course they wouldn't dare do that. What would they do if you could walk in to a bank and demand a dollar's worth of gold for the peice of paper in your hand? If they could not fiance thier pet projects by just running the printing presses faster, longer.


And these new bill are so ugly

 

[Laurel]

Personally, I think we should kick both candidates out and let Ol' Billy stay in there! I'm tired of the whole charade!!

Amen!

And these new bills are so ugly

Amen...and Hallelujah!

 

[Samuari]

pass the alms basins

while the chior sings Louie, Lou I.