Edwards revives memories of Florida 2000

[Cocoa]

http://www.cnn.com/2004/ALLPOLITICS/07/18/edwards.florida/

ORLANDO, Florida (CNN) -- Democratic vice presidential hopeful Sen. John Edwards vowed Sunday to get out the vote in the Sunshine State, site of the controversial 2000 presidential election recount.

"We will get voters registered, we will get voters mobilized, we will get voters to the polls!" Edwards said during a campaign stop at Orlando's St. Mark African Methodist Episcopal Church. "We're going to make sure that all those voters that go to the polls and cast their votes, that votes are counted this time."

Edwards, of North Carolina, was following the lead of AME Bishop McKinley Young, who had enthusiastically introduced him.

"The eyes of the world will be on Florida again this year," Young told the congregation of about 400 people. "Thousands of votes were not counted" in 2000, he said, depriving Floridians of a "sacred right" won through "blood, sweat, tears and death."

more...

[Malva Zebrina]

1. I hope so--really hope so

has Edwards or anyone proposed how they are going to do this?


Will there be exit polls? Or, like the election 2002, will the exit pollers simply drop out, suddenly, so there can be no comparisons to be made?

[tlcandie]

3. Agree Marianne, sounds all nice and stuff, but exactly what will

be done to make sure they are all counted? Lawyers after the fact, won't stop the mess while it's happening and there will be no UN watchers.

[DavidDvorkin]

2. It's great that he's talking about this.

The Republicans will sneer about getting over it, or they'll act self-righteous because anyone even implies that Georgie isn't legitimately the president, but the Kerry-Edwards campaign needs to ignore them and to keep tapping into the Democrats' anger.

[Myrina]

4. We truly do need the UN to monitor this election ...

... in Florida, especially.

[geek tragedy]

5. My guess is that the Dems kick Repug ass in terms of turnout

and that it's not close enough for Jeb to steal.

[Dimsdale]

6. Right. How does the same shit happen again?

It was fucking bloody obvious to everybody with higher brain functions that Jebbo and his admin. stole the election through purging of the voter rolls and assorted other bullshit. Chimpy is going down. And ever so rightly so...

[Zhade]

9. You'd be surprised.

There are even Dems here, on this very board, who ARGUE that Gore LOST.

Hell, this site was founded on the fact that the 2000 (s)election was illegitimate!

[geek tragedy]

10. There's plenty to be pissed about

Iraq will get more people out than 2000, imo.

[AlGore-08.com]

11. Well, for a start, Florida has already purged the voter roles AGAIN

They've made a big show about it being "fair" and "double checked" this time, but gimme a break. There will continue to be, as there always has been, a disproportionate number of African-American votes "lost" nationwide, due to substandard machines and polling resources. (In 2000, there were around 6 million votes "lost" due to faulty equipment.) There are a huge number of folks serving overseas in the military, which provides a large opportunity for absentee ballot fraud. (In 2000, there were two counties in Florida where the GOP illegally altered up to 5,000 absentee ballots which were never thrown out.)

Of course, the biggest problem in 2000 was the Cheneying Extreme Court, who, after the Florida Supreme Court ruled that there needed to be a statewide recount agreed to hear an argument from Team Bush that they had rejected as being without merit three days earlier. Then they issued a ruling that was so bogus they wouldn't sign their names to it, and wrote into Bush v Gore that it could not be used as a precedent. Ever.

So let's say that 2004 falls out the exact same way that 2000 did - - that the GOP suppresses enough votes in Florida that the case makes it's way all the way to the Extreme Court. So exactly what can Team Kerry do to keep the Extreme Court from making another totally bogus ruling? Absolutely nothing.

To take another scenario from 2000 - - what if there is a state (say Florida) that experiences massive voter fraud, and the state government spends over a month making sure the votes aren't counted, and it's obvious that Kerry won that state, but the electors are given to Smirk. Supposing that the Dems actually challenge the electors this time, the Congress gets to decide who is President. What can Team Kerry do when the GOP Congress votes that Smirk is President? Absolutely nothing. (Well, they can kick it up to the Extreme Court, but dollars to donuts the case gets sent back without being heard.)

If Kerry were in the position that Gore was in the day after election day 2000, the only thing he could do differently that would get him in the White House would be to start a civil war.

[fearnobush]

7. The forces of the GOP dark side are strong. They control the media,

they control the minds of the sheeple. Only by raising sheer passion can we vote these FUCKERS out. We need about a 10% real margin to win by the slimmest of majority. It would be too obvious for them to try and steal 10%.

[struggle4progress]

8. kick

:kick:

[progressivebydesign]

12. Remember.. Bush's COUSIN called the race in 2000!

He had a job with.. gosh, was it FOX? He called the election for Bush, after it was called and retracted for Gore. REMEMBER.. Bush won because his cousin called it. The argument that won the presidency for him was that because he was declared the winner in the public (by his cousin, no less), and because he BELIEVED he won, it would do tremendous harm to him to have it taken away. Equal protection. Remember, after all of the hanging chads, all of the Palm Beach rioters in Brooks Bros. suits, after all that legal wrangling, the bastard won because his cousin called the election for him, and he believed that he won, and the Supreme Court argued that because he was seen as the new President by the country (that's debatable), it would harm him to take it away. It's like those cases of babies switched at birth, judges will rule that the baby stays with the wrong family, because it would do harm to take them away from what they thought was their parents. Go figure.

[colonel odis]

13. get out the vote? tough to do when a "terror" attack takes place

the morning of the election.

or the al-qaedas place a special poison on the buttons beside the democratic candidates. a poison that gets into your bloodstream and kills within minutes if you touch that button. a poison there's no known antidote for.

or they pull a fast switcheroo and move polling places at the last minute without telling voters. or "malfunctions" keep machines from operating while people wait and wait and wait in line.

there are a million ways the republicans can/will mess with turnout this november. just wait and watch.