Help me with this GOP email about election 2000

Alright, I got this email this morning from a GOPper friend of mine (I love him, and he and I dance around the politics, I did tell him once that they know what causes Republicanism and they can cure it, but I digress).

Here is the part of the email that I need some help rebutting. I struck out on Snopes and all I come up with on Google is webpages posting the email:

"Professor Joseph Olson of Hamline University School of Law, St. Paul, Minnesota, wrote about the 2000 Presidential election between Al Gore and George Bush.

Population of counties won by Gore 127 million -- by Bush 143 million.

Square miles of country won by Gore 580,000 -- by Bush 2,427,000.

States won by Gore 19 -- by Bush 29.

Murder per 100,000 residents in counties won by Gore 13.2 -- by Bush 2.1 (not a typo).

Professor Olson adds: "The map of the territory Bush won was (mostly) the land owned by the people of this great country. NOT the citizens living in cities in tenements owned by the government and living off the government."

Professor Olson thinks the US is now between the apathy and complacency phase of democracy although he believes that 40 percent of the nation's population has already reached the dependency phase."


What I have been able to determine is that Olson is a real professor at Hamline University. He is an outspoken anti-gun control advocate and supports concealed weapons permits. So, far that's all I can find of the good professor.

So, if anyone can give me some feedback, I appreciate it. I used to hit the "delete" button on the RW forwards, but I have to decided to respond to them. If I can get one person to think about their views I think it will be worthwhile. Thanks for the help.

Gore 50,999,897

AWOLbush 50,456,002

Works every time!!

Number of African Americans, Hispanics and registered Democrats wrongly disenfranchised by Jeb Bush and Katherine Harris in Florida prior to the 2000 election: Over 90,000

To me, these are the numbers that matter. Who cares what the population of a county was or the square miles of the country won per candidate?

And if Olson did indeed say that about people "living in cities in tenements", then I think that reveals his bias, don't you?

"He drafted the close corporation amendments to the Minnesota Business Corporation act and writes articles on corporate planning. He is a frequent lecturer and arbitrator in contractual disputes involving securities dealer-client and manufacturer-distributor issues. Professor Olson has served as administrative law judge for the state of Minnesota and has consulted with judges, state legislators, and municipal officials.

Prior to joining the faculty, Professor Olson was with Dorsey & Whitney. While in law school he was elected to the academic honor society Order of the Coif. He was an officer in the Air Force. Currently, Professor Olson is president of Academics for the Second Amendment, and serves on the board of directors of the National Rifle Association. He is past-president of The Corporate Counsel Association and has been on the Board of Minnesota Continuing Legal Education."

from his bio at the school page: http://www.hamline.edu/law/faculty/olson.shtml

"I am a perfect professor," said Olson, who was one of the founding faculty members of the Hamline University School of Law in St. Paul.

snip...

"But to live in Joe's world, you would have a pistol on your belt, another under the front seat of your car, one in your nightstand and another under your pillow," Flaherty said. "And there can be no restrictions on anywhere you want to go with a loaded gun. He has not been completely successful with that, but he's come pretty darn close this time."

And proud of it, Olson would add.

From: http://www.twincities.com/mld/pioneerpress/living/education/6231634.htm

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

Welcome to DU.

:hi:

:kick:

It's electoral, not electorial and poll, not pole. If you're coming here to give us a lecture in civics try to get it right.
While you're kissing Rush's ass, try to avoid the cyst, it pains him so, he has to send his housekeeper out for dope.

You got the point! Admit it; YOU'RE WRONG!

electoral college, but by five republican-appointed justices of the supreme court (appointed, in case you have forgotten, by ronald reagan and georg h.w bush) in a totally illegal tactic. funny how the party of "states' rights" couldn't wait to go running to the feds when it suited their purposes.

the constitution. Do you have a problem with it?

the Constitution. States determine rules for elections. The state court should have had jurisdiction. Or don't you believe in states' rights?

I guess you could argue the Constitution means whatever five justices say it means. But that would be judicial activism, wouldn't it? Do you have a problem with that???

believe in states rights. But the States DO NOT have the right to change the rules which was wat was going on in FL. The FL Supreme Court tried to put forth their OWN rules. Our Supreme Justices are supposed to go by the constitution NOT "case history" which is the problem with the Supreme Court today. Also don't forget, it was Al Gore who filed first.

Bush 2004!

Had to go for a bit Bubbadog. Since you seem to want to argue the Constitution, let's talk about it. Bush and Cheney were prohibited from running together as they were both residents of the same state. You can buy, if you wish, that Cheney was a resident of Wyoming since he owned a place there. But he had resided in Texas for years, worked in Texas for years so that makes him a resident.
Him being the hunter that he is, I would certainly be curious to find if he had purchased any firearms while living in Texas. If he has that would be a violation of federal law since he claims residence in another state.

Freeper or not, and spellchecking aside, bubbadog does bring up some interesting points:

You forgot to mention that the election is won on the electorial college NOT the number of votes.

One of the resaons for the Electoral College's existance is to give a slight advantage to the less-populated states. I see this as being similar to affirmative action, in that it assists a minoriy (smaller states) against being overrun by a majority (the more-populated states).

You forgot to mention that Algore thru out military ballots

I don't believe this was under Al Gore's control; it could have only been county or state control. Let's face it, Jeb wouldn't have been the one to throw out votes that were supposedly mostly Republican.

You forgot to mention that poles in Nashville and St. Louis were left open in minority neighborhoods long AFTER they were to be closed.

I don't know about Nashville, but it was well documented that this happened in St. Louis. There were attempts by both sides to go to successive higher judges to alternately close the polls and keep them open after the mandated closing time had passed.

You forgot to mention theat the IDIOTs in FL (3 counties) had used the same ballot (designed by a Democrat) for the past 3-4 elections.

Again, it was documented that the Palm Beach ballot was designed by and approved by the Palm Beach County election board, supposedly made up of mostly Democrats. Many places in the U.S. used the punch card system for years without major problems.

"Democrats too dumb to vote"

Let's face it, there are people on both sides that are misinformed and uninformed about who/what they are voting for. Should people pass a very basic test about the issues before they are allowed to vote?

niyad responds to bubbadog:

YOU forgot to mention that the 2000 election was NOT decided in the
electoral college, but by five republican-appointed justices of the supreme court...

Technically, ALL presidential elections are decided in the Electoral College. It's just that we always know the outcome prior to their vote. The Supreme Court's decisions were:

1. That the Florida Supreme Court had tried to change (or allow the counties to change) the manner in which votes were counted after the election had occurred, and

2. That the Florida-imposed legal deadline had passed for vote recounts, therefore the standing vote counts at that time were to be used.

I haven't seen some of these points discussed in a reasonable manner since the 2000 election.

YOU forgot to mention that the 2000 election was NOT decided in the
electoral college, but by five republican-appointed justices of the supreme court...

The election WAS won by the electoral college. Bush WON the 25 votes from the State of FL. It was re-inforced by The Supreme Court; by the CONSTITUTION! NOT by the Republican-appointed justices of the supreme court. It doesn't matter if they are Democrat OR Republican IF they follow the constitution! The constitution knows no political party!

Bush WON FL, end of story! Also, there were several states that President Bush could've "protested" as they were within the "margin of error". Maybe he should have and it would be clear that George W. Bush WON!!!!

I do not know how it works in other states but I've been an election official in Virginia and we close the doors to the polling place at 7 pm but anybody still in line GETS TO VOTE, no matter if it takes all night to get through the line of people waiting.

Well I got your email this fine Saturday morning and being that 'tis the season for the primaries I am in quite the political mood of late. How's that for a coffee induced run on sentence?

I did some Googleing of my own and found that the article you sent me has a few errors. The actual statistics quoted for the county breakdown didn't come from Professor Olson at all, but rather from a Disc Jockey named Neal Boortz (think Rush Limbaugh without the humor or Hillbilly Heroin). The crime statistics were the only part that came from Professor Olsen.

Although I think that Boortz has made a few errors in his concepts. First and foremost, the principles of American Democracy are "one man, one vote", although I am aware that Jefferson wanted to limit voting to land owners, that never came to pass. The major statistic that Boortz also ignores is this one, Gore received 50,999,897 votes and Bush had 50,456,002. Also, many of the states that were won by Bush were by razor thin margins, but Boortz puts every resident of those states squarely into the Bush camp. Which, although, it shores up this argument, also shows that it is nothing more than a house of cards. Also lacking was an in-depth look at the population stats. For example, in the counties won by Bush, what is the total number of eligible voters? (This would provide a baseline to start an analysis) What percentage of eligible voters voted for Bush in the counties he won? (This would enable us to hit the true support level rather than doing a lump sum, "Bush won the county/state so everyone there supports him" argument that Boortz builds his case around). Without that, it is a nice set of numbers that doesn't add up to a verifiable conclusion. Which is probably why the email version attempts to give the numbers some scholarly ring, by incorrectly attributing them to Professor Olson.

I got this great book some years ago, it was called How to lie with statistics. It was actually written in the fortes or fifties and it covered such things like this. Then, of course, there is Mark Twian, "There are three kinds of liars: liars, damned liars, and statistics."

Note: I believe suffrage was extended to white non-landowners prior to or during the age of Andrew Jackson. Remember, states determine voting rules.

That bullcrap about dependent tenement-dwellers really irks me. I wish I could give you some good ammo to fire back over that one. There are 5 million Americans living in subsidized housing, with a good number on Indian reservations, in Appalachia, and the deep south.

Dependent on government? I guess federal civilian workers are, and most government union members vote Democratic. I'd also consider men and women in our military dependent on the government. And federal defense contractors. And lots of farmers.

Personally, I prefer people dependent on government over PEOPLE DEPENDENT ON ARAB SHEIKHS.

Point out that while KS has 67 counties, over half the population of the state lives in 2 of them. And over 75% of the population lives in the metro areas of those counties. There are more voters on my block than in some counties in KS... and that isn't a typo either. This pattern is repeated all over the country and especially in the Great Plains. More people live in my city than the Dakotas, and I live in a small city.

29,000 residents-- yes, in the entire county. there are subdivisions in my town that have more people in them. so simply saying county-by-county proves absolutely nothing.

what our freeper friend keeps ingoring is that fact that once the votes actually HAD been counted, GORE WON FLORIDA.

http://www.commondreams.org/views01/1115-02.htm

A consortium of news outlets - including The New York Times, The Washington Post, Tribune Co. (Newsday's parent company), The Wall Street Journal, Associated Press and CNN - spent nearly a year and $900,000 reexamining every disputed ballot. ....
there are two main findings: The Supreme Court's intervention probably did not affect the outcome of the limited recounts then under way, and more people probably cast valid votes for Gore than for Bush. emphasis added

n/t

you can try greg palast...I quote

"What really happened in Florida?

Five months before the election, Florida Secretary of State Katherine Harris ordered the removal of 57,700 names from Florida’s voter rolls on grounds that they were felons. Voter rolls contain the names of all eligible, registered voters. If you’re not on the list, you don’t get to vote.

If you commit a felony in Florida, you lose your right to vote there, and you‘re “scrubbed” from the rolls. You become a non-citizen, like in the old Soviet Union. This is not the case in most other states; it’s an uncivilized vestige of the Deep South.

My office carefully went through the scrub list and discovered that at minimum, 90.2 percent of the people were completely innocent of any crime – except for being African American. We didn’t have to guess about that, because next to each voter’s name was their race.

When I questioned Harris’ office about the high percentage of African Americans on the scrub list, they responded, “Well, you know how many black people commit crimes.”

But these people weren’t felons, so why were they scrubbed?

The Florida Republicans wanted to block African Americans, who largely vote as Democrats, from voting. In 1999 they fired the company they were paying $5,700 to compile their felony “scrub” lists and replaced them with Database Technologies , who they paid $2.3 million to do the same job.
There are a lot of Joe Smiths in the Florida phonebook. DBT was hired to verify which Joe Smith was a felon and which was not. They were supposed to use their extensive databases to check credit cards, bank information, addresses and phone numbers, in addition to names, ages, and social security numbers. But they didn’t. They didn’t use one of their 1,200 databases to verify personal information, nor did they make a single phone call to verify the identity of scrubbed names.

So where did DBT get their data?
From the Internet. They went to 11 other states’ Internet sites and took names off dirt-cheap. They scrubbed Florida voters whose names were similar to out-of-state felons. An Illinois felon named John Michaels could knock off Florida voter John, Johnny, Jonathan or Jon R. Michaels, or even J.R. Michaelson. DBT matched for race and gender, but names only had to be similar to a certain degree. Names could be reversed, and suffixes (Jr., Sr.) were ignored, but aliases were included. So the felon John “Buddy” Michaels could knock non-felon Michael Johns or Bud Johnson Jr. off the voter rolls. This happened again and again.

Although DBT didn’t get names, birthdays or social security numbers right, they were very careful to match for race. A black felon named Mr. Green would only knock off a black Mr. Green, but not a single white Mr. Green. That’s how DBT earned its $2.3 million.

Why didn’t DBT use their own databases?

They didn’t, because the state told them not to. Choicepoint vice-president James Lee was grilled by a Congressional committee, headed by Cynthia McKinney, and he admitted everything, but said DBT was following state directives. Florida state officials told DBT to knock off voters by incorrectly matching them with felons.

Congresswoman McKinney led this commission to her own peril. Choicepoint is in her Atlanta district. She was destroyed in the last election by fabricated quotes and a vicious propaganda campaign.

Is this the only way votes were stolen?

No. There were 8,000 Floridians who had committed misdemeanors, but were counted as felons. Their votes were scrubbed. Katherine Harris’ office illegally scrubbed people who’d served time in other states, then moved to Florida, and Jeb Bush’s office illegally barred these people from registering to vote at all. "

the rest is at http://www.gregpalast.com/detail.cfm?artid=217&row=2

The single best book about the 2000 election, with forewords by Molly Ivins and Gerry Spence, remains the most powerful, brilliant, and courageous examination of how the election was stolen. Anyone who argues that it was fair, based upon the crime rates, economics, etc, of the neighborhoods that voted for Gore does not comprehend the idea of "one person, one vote." People who make vicious attacks on the general public, ie-unidentified Gore supporters, is simply blaming the true victims of the national crime. I spent many years running psychiatric groups in jails; as a social worker, I know how common it is for thugs to point an accusing finger at victims, in order to justify their brutal behaviors. Gore won, fair and square.