Has Florida Become a Third-World Dictatorship?

I found a link to this truly frightening BBC article while reading American Black.

At first glance, I was tempted to dismiss it as mere blogger hype. After all the war raging between conservative and liberal bloggers on the net has gotten so divisive that I’m beginning to wonder if we are going to be able to put this country back together after this election, no matter who wins.

If this story is true, though, one suspects that there may well be lawsuits that will cast doubts on this election far into the future. These apparently deliberate attempts to disenfranchise voters because of their party affiliation casts doubt on the entire democratic process in America, not to mention making Florida appear to be some third-world dictatorship that manipulates the vote to serve its own purposes.

How truly sad that the BBC feels it necessary to set up cameras outside polling places in AMERICA, for Christ’s sake. This is truly a disgrace that reflects badly on all Americans, but particularly on the Republicans. Has America suddenly reverted to an anti-bellum South where blacks and other minorities were prevented from voting by those in power?

On one hand, this truly casts doubt on whether Bush did defeat Gore in Florida four years ago. If this kind of intimidation is still going on when Florida authorities must realize that they are being observed, can there be little doubt that it was much worse four years ago when they weren’t being observed?

I guess you could argue that the fact that the Republicans feel so desperate that they will stoop to these tactics in the face of international exposurure that they must know how close they are to being thrown out of office.

UPDATED:

Speak of the devil, here’s a Christian Scientist Article that suggests that recent changes in voting rules may well end up with one, or both, of the candidates challenging the votes in a number of states.

The article suggests new voters were passed because:

An estimated 1.5 million to 3 million would-be voters were turned away from the polls in similar challenges during the 2000 election. Congress created provisional voting as a mechanism to capture those lost votes.

Unfortunately, the very laws intended to ensure that every American who is eligible to vote is allowed to vote may result in new problems because:

But definitions in the federal law are vague, and voter eligibility ultimately turns on an interpretation of state law that may differ from judge to judge. Analysts say that is a recipe for bare-knuckled legal tactics that could swing the election one way or the other in a close race.

I don’t know about you, but personally I’m hoping that Kerry wins so overwhelmingly that such challenges are irrelevant. It would be truly ironic if Bush were to attempt to overthrow election results in ways that Gore finally rejected.

One thought on “Has Florida Become a Third-World Dictatorship?”

  1. Did you watch the video Loren? It’s on that page in the right hand calumn. It will only be there a short while longer (they’re only available for 24 hours). It’s very real. THe journalist is Greg Palast and he’s actually an American. One of America’s finest journalists actually except no one here has the balls to publish his work. He was the first journalist to catch onto the US involvement in the attempted coup on Chavez in Argentina 2 years ago and it was Palast that exposed Katherine Harris and all the monkeyshines in Florida in 2000. He’s very good. You should get on his mailing list – http://www.gregpalast.com

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