Carter says Florida Voting Still Not Fair 191
linuxwrangler writes "Ex president Jimmy Carter is claiming that Florida has still not created conditions for a fair election. The Carter Center has monitored over 50 elections worldwide for fairness and says that the absence of uniformity in voting procedures and the lack of a non-partisan election commission sets the stage for a repeat of the 2000 election. That election, overseen by Florida Secretary of State Katherine Harris (aka co-chair of the Bush-Cheney state campaign committee), was officially decided by a margin of 537 votes. According to Carter, Florida governor Jeb Bush (aka brother of George W. Bush) has done little to correct the problems found in the 2000 election. In addition, Harris' successor Glenda Hood, (aka an elector for George W. Bush in 2000) recently attempted to disqualify 22,000 African Americans (likely Democrats), but only 61 Hispanics (likely Republicans), as alleged felons."
Of course! (Score:2, Insightful)
And they never even check Oregon (Score:3, Insightful)
LeftDot (Score:1, Insightful)
Typical of slashdot editors. "Were in our world, as far left as we want to be." Slashdot bashs and bash, either microsoft, or sun, or republicians or whomever...Yet there never is a real solution in sight.
S/N ratio....
Carter should go back to Habitat for Humanity (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Carter's comments are totally partisan! (Score:4, Insightful)
The issue isn't whether Glenda Hood is going to fix the result but that someone so partisan is in that position in the first place.
If Iraq had had an election in which Tariq Aziz was in charge of the election and Saddam Hussein had been elected would anyone believe it had been a fair election? Same thing applies here, the process should be seen to impartial and it isn't.
Re:waahhhh (Score:5, Insightful)
It also hurts the rest of us, because we live in a society where some people are not considered full-class citizens, and justice is not served. Unless we constantly strive to make our country MORE equal and MORE just, we will not have been the best country that we can be.
Your tough-guy talk is all very impressive to some people, but we're all better served by some rational arguments here.
Something bothers me.. (Score:5, Insightful)
Isn't there some conflict of interest there?
Re:Carter's comments are totally partisan! (Score:2, Insightful)
How come this post is modded insightful?
The only claim is that Carter is being partisan?
That isn't insightful, that's ridiculous.
Attack his claims first, if you can convince me that he's not telling the truth or doesn't understand how democracies work - *then* I'll beleive you when you say he's partisan.
Re:waahhhh (Score:5, Insightful)
Another problem is that felons aren't the only ones being excluded. In the 2000 elections, there were people turned away from the polls because their name was the same as or similar to a convicted felon's, or even because of bad data entry which was never corrected. It's one thing that felons can't vote. It's quite another that law-abiding citizens can't vote because they're black, or their name is similar to someone who has commited a crime. That's just plain wrong.
Carter? (Score:4, Insightful)
Not a word about the estimated 15000-20000 voters in the FL panhandle (generally a Republican area) who didn't vote after the networks called the election for Gore before the polls closed in the panhandle.
Not a word about the 4.4% error rate (mostly overvotes) in Palm Beach County (controlled by Democrat election officials) vice the 0.4% statewide error rate. Or about the interesting fact that Bush got fewer votes in Palm Beach County than all four Republican congressional candidates combined.
No word about the tens of thousands of New Yorkers (generally Democrat-leaning) also registered in Florida.
Not a word about motor voter issues, or the illegality of even asking for an ID at the polling place in most states.
Not a word about electronic voting machines that don't produce a paper record. Not a word about problems with absentee ballot fraud. Not a word about the interesting character of elections in Chicago.
I think that there are problems with the integrity of votes in the US. But I only see the Democrats getting exercised about it when the issue might play against them. Then, they are vitriolic. But never when the problems help them.
There is room for a dispassionate look at the issue. This is just partisan grandstanding.
Re:LeftDot (Score:4, Insightful)
The editors aren't required to cater to anyone's views, yours included. If you don't like it, leave and send Taco or somebody else important an email explaining why you left. If enough people do this, then advertising numbers will go down, and the site will eventually shrivel and die. However, judging by the number of people who hang around here complaining and never leave, that day will probably be far in the future.
Re:waahhhh (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Carter's comments are totally partisan! (Score:5, Insightful)
Yeah, well... are you partisan?
Obviously, Jimmy Carter is a Democrat. If being a Democrat entails being so partisan that his comments should be ignored... then you should ignore my comment too. And probably yours as well.
Otherwise, Carter has proven himself to be one of the most honorable and honest people to have ever entered public service. No, I don't think he was necesarily a great president. But he was certainly honest. His credibility is impeccable.
Right?
Re:waahhhh (Score:3, Insightful)
1) Create law that states a formerly innocuous act is now a crime.
2) Lock up people who commit that act and deny them the ability to change the law by virtue of their guilt.
3) Profit!
Bottom line, if the point of having prisons is to rehabilitate people, then any punishments administered by those prisons should end at some point. And really, don't you know about the electoral college? The presidential vote doesn't count anyway. Who cares if felons can do it or not? Let them have their fun!
Re:Carter Lies. (Score:2, Insightful)
Four years ago, the top election official, Florida Secretary of State Katherine Harris, was also the co-chair of the Bush-Cheney state campaign committee. The same strong bias has become evident in her successor, Glenda Hood, who was a highly partisan elector for George W. Bush in 2000. Several thousand ballots of African Americans were thrown out on technicalities in 2000, and a fumbling attempt has been made recently to disqualify 22,000 African Americans (likely Democrats), but only 61 Hispanics (likely Republicans), as alleged felons.
Perhaps YOU should read the fucking article before you tell others they haven't.
What a bunch of crap (Score:3, Insightful)
Yet another case of the slashdot editorial bias. It isn't the governors job to take care of these issues. It may make for more sensational headlines to link them in this way but it is a lie and for gods sake the state has just been hit by three hurricanes in a row. Not to mention the articles lack of anything but subjective factoids that do nothing but stir emotion when invoked out of context.
Re:Carter's comments are totally partisan! (Score:3, Insightful)
I can't believe this crap is modded Insightful.
Are you even vaguely aware of what Carter has done since he was president? That he's a widely-respected elections monitor? And that he recently won the Nobel Peace Prize for this? We're not talking about some partisan hack like James Carville, here.
And the thing about Katherine Harris (and the FL Supreme Court, too, btw), is that the law wasn't particularly clear or helpful. So human decisions had to be made. And those decisions never went against the partisan interests involved. Never. Call me cynical, but that looks dirty to me.
-Esme
Re:waahhhh (Score:4, Insightful)
"It's the punishment of being a second-class citizen in this country."
It's the punishment of being a felon convicted by a jury of his or her peers.
"One thing that justice strives for is a punishment measured to the crime."
The comission of a felony shows a gross indifference to the rights of others (at best), and as such those others (namely the population at large) has the right to take steps to make sure that they can't continue to abuse the rights of others in the voting booth.
"It also hurts the rest of us, because we live in a society where some people are not considered full-class citizens, and justice is not served."
It has, by definition, been served. If you're in jail you may still be able to vote; if you've never been convicted of anything worse than a misdemeanor you can still vote. Only upon conviction by a court of law of a felony are voting privileges revoked.
"It's unAmerican."
No, it's "being held accountable for your own actions."
Re:waahhhh (Score:4, Insightful)
Nonsense. Prisons are full to overflowing with people who went there in order to support the rights of others to control their own thoughts through the use of the chemical supplements of their choice.
Re:Something bothers me.. (Score:3, Insightful)
Do you have your tin foil hat on too tightly?
2000 Election (Score:1, Insightful)
A few pundits expressed the opinion that Pat Buchanan harmed George W. Bush's election chances. To test this theory, we gave all of Buchanan's votes to Bush but let Nader keep his votes ("three-way"). This resulted in Bush taking Iowa, New Mexico, Oregon, and Wisconsin from Gore, giving Bush a total of 301 electoral votes.
from here [verizon.net]
Flamebait Re:Something bothers me.. (Score:3, Insightful)
This power grab thing has nothing to do with "right wing Christians", it's all about people who are in power, wanting to stay in power.
When religion and politics get together, it's not because a religious person uses politics to spread his or her views, it's because a political person uses religion to increase his or her power.
Repeat after me: It's all about power. Power. Power! POWER!! Bwa-ha-ha-ha!!!!
SlashRight (Score:3, Insightful)
doh. (Score:3, Insightful)
Why can't convicted felons vote? If they are still citizens they should get to vote.
Maybe someone should ask Bush and Kerry what they think.
Why should alleged felons be disqualified? What next - people with p2p software on their computers not being allowed to vote?
I think the US should stop claiming superlatives for its brand of democracy.
Re:Carter? (Score:3, Insightful)
1. The voting machines used in the Venezuelan elections is from a Florida company with no ties to Chavez. There was a local Democratic candidate for Elections Supervisor in the Primary here in Hillsborough (he lost) who is a) runs an anti-Chavez group and b) a systems engineer at Verizon. I talked with him at length about the company in question and their product. They have produced source code for the product and it has all the safeguards that people here regularly complain about Diebold and other machines lack. One of the campaign promises was to implement these same machines in our county. Please cite a source that shows some doubt cast on the legitimacy of the machines used in Venezuela, all of my first hand knowledge is that it was very fair.
2. The Palm Beach County error rate was due to the butterfly ballot. I refuse to sit here and argue about whether or not old people are stupid, numerous experts on both sides of the issue agreed that the ballot used for that election was very confusing and not at all user-friendly. The fact that it was approved by a Democratic Supervisor is really dumb though. Also you shouldn't bring up the Palm Beach error rates without mentioning the thousands of black votes in Gadsden County that were spoiled (1 in 8 counted, pop is 39.7% white). The same system and ballots were used in Leon County (where Tallahassee is) and had a spoilage rate of 1% while the population is 66% white. In 2002 Gadsden County had a new Election Supervisor, using the same system, and only 1 in 500 ballots were spoiled. The governor is now known as "Jeb Crow" in some circles down here.
3. It was the Bush/Cheney 00 campaign that sent down James Baker and a team of lawyers before the recounts were over, before Gore even mentioned involving the courts. The riotous group attempting to stop the recount were GOP operatives flown in.
4. Don't accuse Dems of trying to rig elections when you've got that gerrymandering mess in Texas. Redistricting 3 years after the last one is a pure political play to lock in power. Just because it wasn't illegal, doesn't make it ethical. Note that DeLay is under investigation and 3 of his cohorts have been indicted for violating Texas campaign finance laws. The money was directly tied to the redistricting effort. Not to mention the voter purges here in Florida. The willful disregard for accuracy (90.2% wrong)in those felony purge lists borders on criminal negligence.
5. The Republicans in Florida are the ones who pushed for the ID's at the polling places. They have also been against the motor-voter registrations.
6. Whatever your opinion of Carter's presidency, he is a far more honorable and noble man than the majority of the crowd on this site. He has dedicated his life to helping the less fortunate and spreading peace and democracy in this world. Bringing up issues involving other states when Carter was specifically referring to Florida and then claiming he is partisan because he didn't mention them is disingenuous. I'm sure that Carter could talk you blue about elections and fairness. I'm also sure that he would address every single one of your complaints fairly and honestly, given the chance. Carter simply brought up the issues he felt were most gregarious and resulted in the largest damage to our system, if you'd read the column more carefully, you would have noticed the qualifiers "The most significant of these requirements are".
It seems that your response to Carter is far more partisan than you claim him to be.