My (other, GD) take on RFK Jr and Salon

[Land Shark]

Only "glitch' with Rolling Stone was a little too much of the Tokaji-inspired "old technologies are vote stealing technologies" baloney. A huge chunk of undervotes and overvotes (which do tend to have higher rates than DREs) are old fashioned fraud and voter suppression/alteration of ballots. Whereas, with DREs it's a whole different fraud ballgame and the typical stragies don't involve the creating of overvotes. Instead, undervotes might be assigned to default candidates, and other votes erased or switched. Plus the "notice" or reminder function of DREs makes many people think they've GOT TO vote all races before they will be allowed to use the cast vote button.

Like the 7.5% overvote for President in Duval COUnty, for 2000. This alone cost Gore the election despite Duval going for Bush, that's because huge number of overvotes were in 90% african american precincts.

Now, a lotta people were easily switched off the trail by the argument that the pres ballot was spread over too pages with instructions to vote all races or something like that, so this explains the overvotes for president being in African american precincts.

And, if you believe that, you can take your racist rear end and leave this humble thread. Nobody ABLE TO VOTE is dumb enough to think you can vote twice for President. INstead somebody got to the ballots and overvoted them on purpose to generate advantage for Bush. Sometiomes people also overvote in a misguided attempt to preserve their vote by both doing a write in as well as a regular vote for the same candidate.

the new thread:
<http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=132x2661019>

[Awsi Dooger]

1. We lost Florida 2000 because 10 names were on the ballot

I'm amazed that is never emphasized. All the chads, purging and outright theft would have been untold trivia if the number of candidates had threatened a standard number. The 10 names were the highest of any state. In 2004, Florida had 7.

Before I return to that subject, I'm admittedly puzzled by your final sentence, and attempted point. It takes a racist to think voters could vote on each of two pages: "Nobody ABLE TO VOTE is dumb enough..." Then you matter-of-factly acknowledge people over vote "in a misguided attempt to preserve their vote by both doing a write in as well as regular vote for the same candidate." That doesn't qualify as dumb? Why weren't the Duval voters also misguided, to use your word, after being told by GOTV workers outside the precinct to vote on every page? The sample ballot said that also.

Anyway, the GOP didn't know 10 names would equal multi page or butterfly ballots. I studied it at the time and there were dozens of counties run by Republican election officials who managed to sneak all 10 names on a single page. In 13 counties they were spread over two pages, plus the lone butterfly in Palm Beach. Some counties didn't know how to vary their standard ballot page to include every candidate on one page, and others thought the smaller font size would handicap senior citizens and others with limited vision.

These are the names on the Florida 2000 presidential ballot, along with Gore, Bush, Nader, Buchanon:

* Harry Browne
* James Harris
* John Hagelin
* David McReynolds
* Howard Phillips
* Monica Morehead

Does that look like a presidential list? Parties called Natural Law, Workers World and Constitution. Five of those six names appeared on page two of the Duval ballot. I know I'd have to double take at that list before passing.

The string of events required for Bush +537 is unfathomable when you look at it, but not everything was fraud.

Consider the double punches for Gore/Harry Browne, which would be funny minus the role in the catastrophic result. Election officials were initially stumped until a California elections analyst figured it out. This is how the Washington Post put it: "In the other seven counties, the largest group of over votes were for Gore and the candidate who followed immediately after him on the ballot, Libertarian Harry Browne. Such a combination is incomprehensible as a protest vote, especially one supposedly chosen by 6,800 voters. It more likely reflects confusion among voters who thought they had to cast votes for president and vice-president."

Browne's party was Libertarian, mistaken for Lieberman.