No Closure, No Peace

There will never be closure; there will never be peace. That is, until the full facts of the 2000 election are aired in the media.

Past is Prologue. When will Dean or Clark just come out and make it an issue?

Bush Knew. He made it happen on purpose.

http://www.counterpunch.org/nofinality.html

December 13, 2000
Supreme Ironies
No Closure, No Peace

Snip

Try this story from Ron Davis of Miami-Dade County. "Our family always votes together. This year it was my turn to drive. After work, my wife Lisa and I borrowed a van from a friend and picked up my brother, my parents and my uncle and aunt. About a block away from the polling place, we were pulled over by a county sheriff. He looked in the van and asked me if I had a chauffeur's license. I said, this is my family and we're going to vote. He said, 'You can't take all those people to the polling place without a license. Go home and I won't write you a ticket.' I was tired of arguing. We went home and all tried to vote later. But it was too late."

Or how about this account told to us by Dave Crawford of Broward County: "I showed up at the polling place with my five-year old daughter. I was stopped at the door by an election official. He asked me my name. I told him. He said, 'Son, we've got a problem. You're not allowed to vote.' I asked him what the hell he was talking about. He said, 'Son, says here you're a convict. Convicts can't vote.' He had this list in his hand. And I told him that I'd never even been arrested in my life. I handed him my voter ID card. He just shook his head, smiled and pointed at a list. He never showed me my name. My daughter began to cry and I left in disgust."

On November 7, blacks and Hispanics turned out to vote in record numbers. But tens of thousands were shunted away before they reached the polling booth. The scenes, many of them narrated during an extraordinary 5-hour hearing sponsored by the NAACP and the Lawyers Committee for Civil Rights Under Law, harked back to the pre-voting rights act South, when black voters were denied the franchise through a variety of schemes, from the poll tax and character vouchers to loyalty oaths and literacy tests.

Across Florida, black voters were turned away from the polls by hostile election workers who demanded voter ID cards, even though those weren't required from white voters. Police set up roadblocks in black precincts around Tallahassee. Other police intimidated voters by asking if they were felons. Polls in black precincts closed early, often with dozens of voters waiting in line. Other polls were moved from their original locations without notice. Dozen of black college students who had registered this summer weren't permitted to vote. Other voters were told that their names weren't on the voter rolls only to find out later that they were. Haitian voters were often asked for two forms of identification.

Snip

Throughout Florida, more than 187,000 votes were dismissed, more than half of them from black precincts. Nationally more than 2.8 million ballot were eliminated, often because of some trifling error by the voter. A disproportionate percentage of these discarded votes originated in black and hispanic precincts.

more..