Help me battle a conservative

[neverborn]

Okay, I was -thirteen- when the whole Bush v. Gore thing erupted -- I was sitting in Wicca Chat on TalkCity being horrified at the prospect Bush may actually eke it out... but I don't know all the gory details.

I understand that Bush v. Gore stopped manual recounts. A conservative keeps bringing up to me that Bush v. Gore was a good decision, and "you don't want to defend a man who didn't want to count offshore absentee military ballots."

Is this true? What should I say? :x

[NightTrain]

1. I'd recommend these two books:

1. Vincent Bugliosi, "The Betrayal of America: How the Supreme Court Undermined the Constitution and Chose Our President."

2. John Nichols, "Jews for Buchanan: Did You Hear the One About the Theft of the American Presidency?"

They'll give you all the ammo you need to shoot down each and every argument on Bush v. Gore that a conservative comes up with!

[Skittles]

2. they cheated with absentee military ballots too

Another area in which concern for public relations prevented the Gore team from pursuing what would have been a fruitful strategy concerns absentee ballots. As noted in Jake Tapper's Down & Dirty, Republican operatives executed a concerted plan to encourage the filing of absentee ballots by likely Republican voters, even if they arrived after the legal deadline. This was confirmed by a New York Times study published in July, which found 680 absentee ballots arriving after Election Day were counted, in violation of Florida state law. Operating inside Katherine Harris's offices, Republican consultants developed detailed instructions for county canvassing boards that would ensure that the greatest number of absentee ballots likely to favor Bush were accepted. Bush campaign officials in Washington enlisted the help of the Pentagon in expediting collection and delivery of military ballots. Republicans on the House Armed Services committee helped the campaign obtain private contact information for voters in the military.


http://www.thedubyareport.com/recount2.html

[nannygoat]

3. Other great resources

Stolen Election 2000
http://democrats.com/display.cfm?id=248

TOP 10 LIES OF ELECTION 2000
http://www.iknowwhatyoudidlastelection.com/bush-election-2000-lies.htm

Edited to add another resource

[never cry wolf]

4. He wanted to count LEGAL offshore absentee military ballots

The problem was that there were quite a number of military absentee ballots coming in very late without postmarks or proof that they were completed prior to election day. The repugs were pushing to count these despite the fact that appearances were that it was a concerted organized effort at vote fruad.

Here's a nice site I found: http://www.failureisimpossible.com/floridafollies/absentee.htm#overseas

[olacan]

7. One

thing to remember is that ballots from the military overseas do not require a post mark. I beleive that was put into effect during the Clinton years. I seem to remember hearing that because some some smaller outposts, ie smaller ships do have a post office per say that for federal elections they can come in late.

[never cry wolf]

12. It was fraud

snip----

Their goal was simple: to count the maximum number of overseas ballots in counties won by Bush, particularly those with a high concentration of military voters, while seeking to disqualify overseas ballots in counties won by Vice President Al Gore.

A six-month investigation by the New York Times of this chapter in the closest presidential election in American history shows that the Republican effort had a decided impact. Under intense pressure from the Republicans, Florida officials accepted hundreds of overseas absentee ballots that failed to comply with state election laws.
snip----

In an analysis of the 2,490 ballots from Americans living abroad that were counted as legal votes after Election Day, the New York Times found 680 questionable votes. Although it is not known for whom the flawed ballots were cast, four out of five were accepted in counties carried by Bush, the analysis found. Bush's final margin in the official total was 537 votes.

The flawed votes included ballots without postmarks, ballots postmarked after the election, ballots without witness signatures, ballots mailed from towns and cities within the United States and even ballots from voters who voted twice. All would have been disqualified had the state's election laws been strictly enforced.
more--------> http://sptimes.com/News/071501/Worldandnation/Bush_focus__Get_in_ov.shtml

[Qutzupalotl]

5. Many of the absentee military ballots lacked a postmark

and didn't comply with Florida law. When Gore relented and accepted them, lots more suddenly showed up. Go figure.

But he needs to hear about Greg Palast's research. He obtained an incriminating memo dated 9/18/00 about illegally purging voters from Florida's rolls, misidentifying them as felons. Some 90,000 people were purged, and most were Democrats. The memo proves this was intentional.

Writing for the London-based Guardian and Observer, Palast broke the story of how Katherine Harris and Jeb Bush removed thousands of Black and Democratic voters from registration roles prior to the presidential election.

Since then, Palast has dug deeper into the voter scandal reporting for BBC Television and for page one of London’s Guardian. These new revelations, which became big news in Europe, are now available in his book. “Here’s how your President was elected,” says Palast in an excerpt from the book appearing in Harper’s magazine in March 2002, “In the year leading up to the Presidential election, Katherine Harris and Jeb Bush removed tens of thousands of citizens from the voter rolls. Harris claimed they were felons – but almost none were – though 54% were guilty of being African-American.” -Palast
http://www.seattlevotermarch.com/html/palast.html

More here:
http://www.workingforchange.com/article.cfm?ItemID=15394

[mitchtv]

6. you want to count all "legitimate" ballots

many "military" ballots had glaring problems eith legitamcy. The pugs were just as tough on military ballots in Dem aresa. Besides the 50,000 purged for having the same name as felons.

[On the Road]

8. Bush Wanted to Count Military Ballots

that were illegal since they had no postmark and may have been mailed after election day. Gore agreed to count those ballots even though the law was on his side. It's an example of the Bush team ignoring the law, not the Democrats.

Anyone who says the Bush v. Gore was a good decision knows nothing about it. One of the few serious people the right can dredge up to defend it is Gerald Posner, and EVEN HE can't justify the decision.

For example, the decision stated that the recount must be wrapped up by Dec 12, and since it was already that date, there was no time to review it. The Dec 12 date is a "safe haven" date, which limits challenges to the slate of electors. Recounts have changed the results after Dec 12 many times. For example, Hawaii changed from Nixon to Kennedy in the early days of January, 1960. Posner's comment? "That was the weakest part of the decision." Meaning that he cannot justify cutting the process short.

There are many, many legal tactics pursued by the Bush team. Virtually all of them were designed to ingore the law at the expense of winning. Examples inlcude:

- Not counting overvotes and undervotes in the original count ("No ballot shall be ignored that is rejected by a machine and on which the intent of the voter is clear")
- Attempting to have the legislature vote a slate of delegates for Bush which would have taken precedence over the will of the voters.

[BurtWorm]

9. Here's an article from 12/11/00

about what the Bushists were pulling with those ballots.


http://www.salon.com/politics/feature/2000/12/11/absentee/index.html

Bending the rules boosted Bush totals

Republicans objected to Democratic efforts to extend vote tally deadlines -- but pressed to change standards for absentee ballots.

- - - - - - - - - - - - By Eric Boehlert

Dec. 11, 2000 | Going into oral arguments before the U.S. Supreme Court Monday, attorneys for Gov. George W. Bush have argued that the manual recount ordered Friday by the Florida Supreme Court was unconstitutional because there was no uniform statewide standard for judging ballots. As spelled out in its brief to the court, Bush's legal team stressed, "The new set of manual recount procedures concocted by the Florida Supreme Court is arbitrary, standardless, and subjective, and will necessarily vary in application in violation of Equal Protection and Due Process Clauses of the Fourteenth Amendment."

Yet Bush's slim lead of less than 200 votes -- down from 537 before Friday's ruling -- stands precisely because a handful of sympathetic county canvassing boards in late November used an arbitrary, standardless procedure to quietly boost Bush's total by reinstating some invalid overseas military ballots. Not only did the boards clearly change the rules in the middle of the game -- something else the Republicans have repeatedly accused the Florida Supreme Court of doing -- but they created a hodgepodge of new standards, some of dubious legitimacy. These included accepting ballots postmarked after Nov. 7 as well as ballots faxed to county election offices. Both instances violate Florida election law.

"It was anything goes," says Mike Langton, chairman of Gore's northeast Florida campaign. "Should those ballots have counted? Probably not."

When the recounting of military ballots previously rejected was completed, Bush picked up a net gain of 115 questionable votes; votes that by the Bush team's logic in other contexts should not be valid. Without them, Bush's lead would shrink to 39 votes -- or 78, depending upon a final determination of which of two disputed tallies from Palm Beach County to include. Meanwhile, according to the Associated Press, Vice President Al Gore picked up a net gain of 16 votes during the aborted hand recount on Saturday, which means that -- as the Supreme Court ponders the fate of the election -- observers could argue Bush's lead is just 23 votes (or 62) out of more than 6 million cast in Florida.

...

[cjbuchanan]

10. No it is not

All they ever said is, shock of shocks, overseas ballots should only be counted if they follow the rules related to overseas ballots. These rules include:

Postmark on or before election day
Postmark must be from overseas
Voters must be registered
Must sign the envelope in which the vote came
Need the signature and address of a witness
Only voted once
Ballot was received by Nov. 17

These were the rules in place before the election. The only comment made about overseas ballots by Dems was that all these things need to be true for the ballot to count. The Repugs argued that any votes that made it in from overseas should be counted regardless of how many of the above items were not followed. It just seems to me that if these are the rules that everyone needs to follow (they are sent along with the ballot), then if they are not followed, they should not be counted.

Anyway, here is some information on overseas ballots (note, it is a PDF).
http://gking.harvard.edu/files/ballots-slides.pdf

[Nicholas D Wolfwood]

11. I've got a great hammer you can use

It's got a nice chrome finish on the head with a solid oak handle and a nice hand-carved DNC logo on the shaft.

---

oh, wait... you mean a VERBAL battle? oh, sorry, ain't got nothin for you there. I don't waste my time with words against the witless. }(

[cjbuchanan]

13. Here is a quick read that will help you out

http://hnn.us/blogs/entries/3798.html

It hits on some major points. For more information, take a look at all the other good posts people have put forward.

Best of luck.

[BurtWorm]

14. Part of the New York Times' July 15, 2001, article about the military vote

July 15, 2001, Sunday, Late Edition - Final

SECTION: Section 1; Page 1; Column 1; National Desk

LENGTH: 9100 words

HEADLINE: EXAMINING THE VOTE;
How Bush Took Florida: Mining the Overseas Absentee Vote

BYLINE: By DAVID BARSTOW and DON VAN NATTA Jr.

BODY:
On the morning after Election Day, George W. Bush held an unofficial lead of 1,784 votes in Florida, but to his campaign strategists the margin felt perilously slim. They were right to worry. Within a week, recounts would erode Mr. Bush's unofficial lead to just 300 votes.

With the presidency hanging on the outcome in Florida, the Bush team quickly grasped that the best hope of ensuring victory was the trove of ballots still arriving in the mail from Florida residents living abroad. Over the next 18 days, the Republicans mounted a legal and public relations campaign to persuade canvassing boards in Bush strongholds to waive the state's election laws when counting overseas absentee ballots. Their goal was simple: to count the maximum number of overseas ballots in counties won by Mr. Bush, particularly those with a high concentration of military voters, while seeking to disqualify overseas ballots in counties won by Vice President Al Gore.

A six-month investigation by The New York Times of this chapter in the closest presidential election in modern American history shows that the Republican effort had a decided impact. Under intense pressure from the Republicans, Florida officials accepted hundreds of overseas absentee ballots that failed to comply with state laws.

In an analysis of the 2,490 ballots from Americans living abroad that were counted as legal votes after Election Day, The Times found 680 questionable votes. Although it is not known for whom the flawed ballots were cast, four out of five were accepted in counties carried by Mr. Bush, The Times found. Mr. Bush's final margin in the official total was 537 votes.

The flawed votes included ballots without postmarks, ballots postmarked after the election, ballots without witness signatures, ballots mailed from towns and cities within the United States and even ballots from voters who voted twice. All would have been disqualified had the state's election laws been strictly enforced.

<end cite>

When faced with this article, the best Bushist apologists can do is blame the messenger.