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Indybay Feature

New Florida vote scandal feared

by BBC (reposted)
A secret document obtained from inside Bush campaign headquarters in Florida suggests a plan - possibly in violation of US law - to disrupt voting in the state's African-American voting districts, a BBC Newsnight investigation reveals.
Two e-mails, prepared for the executive director of the Bush campaign in Florida and the campaign's national research director in Washington DC, contain a 15-page so-called "caging list".

It lists 1,886 names and addresses of voters in predominantly black and traditionally Democrat areas of Jacksonville, Florida.

An elections supervisor in Tallahassee, when shown the list, told Newsnight: "The only possible reason why they would keep such a thing is to challenge voters on election day."

Ion Sancho, a Democrat, noted that Florida law allows political party operatives inside polling stations to stop voters from obtaining a ballot.

Mass challenges

They may then only vote "provisionally" after signing an affidavit attesting to their legal voting status.

Mass challenges have never occurred in Florida. Indeed, says Mr Sancho, not one challenge has been made to a voter "in the 16 years I've been supervisor of elections."

"Quite frankly, this process can be used to slow down the voting process and cause chaos on election day; and discourage voters from voting."

Sancho calls it "intimidation." And it may be illegal.

...

In Jacksonville, to determine if Republicans were using the lists or other means of intimidating voters, we filmed a private detective filming every "early voter" - the majority of whom are black - from behind a vehicle with blacked-out windows.

The private detective claimed not to know who was paying for his all-day services.

On the scene, Democratic Congresswoman Corinne Brown said the surveillance operation was part of a campaign of intimidation tactics used by the Republican Party to intimate and scare off African American voters, almost all of whom are registered Democrats.

Read More

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/programmes/newsnight/3956129.stm
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Comments (Hide Comments)
by Collin Baber (roach747 [at] yahoo.com)
For all of you under 34, join the party!
http://www.enjoythedraft.com
by kika
This year, Third Party and Independent voters were constantly intimidated and harrassed, and dirty tricks were played by Democrats to keep candidates off the ballot.

• Nader Charges DNC Chair McAuliffe Told Him "We're Going to Try to Get You Off the Ballot in All of the Close States"
http://www.democracynow.org/static/nader.shtml

• "There's intimidation and harassment. Dozens of phony lawsuits against petitioners to appear on short notice in court."

• "58-year-old woman in Portland who collected signatures for Nader / Camejo. She went back home and there was a knock on her door -A man and woman appeared, well dressed, to inform her, if there were fraudulent signatures on her petition, she can be prosecuted and sent to jail for three years"

• In Oregon:
Nader supporters appeared to have collected more than the 15,306 signatures of registered voters needed to qualify for the ballot. But after a review by the state Elections Division, more than 1,000 of the Nader signature sheets were disqualified for a variety of reasons, leaving Nader 218 signatures short.

http://www.oregonlive.com/news/oregonian/index.ssf?/base/front_page/109481744154490.xml

This also happened locally in San Francisco in the Bayview Recall and in the Baum's Green for Congress write-in campaign.

This is just an example of what can happen to anyone who decides to run outside the flawed two-party system. But we look the other way because of our fear of Bush, and let democracy corrode even further.
by west (west [at] westy1.net)
They had their vote, now it's time for the People's Vote, LIVE on the Internet in January. Voting will be open for 7 days, where voters will vote online via Secure Servers. The votes can be viewed on the Internet, as they are cast and tabulated. All voters IP addresses will be logged, and they must obtain a voter ID and Signature on the top of the Ballot Page.
Wireless Laptops will be positioned in all cities nationwide for people without internet access to vote. There will be mobile trucks with laptops also.
It doesn't matter if this Vote is recognised or not, it will show what the vote should've been, without any Voting Machine Fraud.
In Peace and Love. West
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