Posted on 07/14/2004 10:13:47 PM PDT by esryle
Democratic presidential candidate John Kerry yesterday announced the formation of a nationwide SWAT team of election lawyers to combat the kind of voting irregularities that occurred in Florida four years ago, contributing to the disputed election of President Bush.
Kerry said his team would take "tough action" to prevent the kind of voter "intimidation and harassment" that kept about 1 million African American voters from the polls in 2000 and prevented about 57,000 black voters from casting votes in Palm Beach County, Fla.
The legal team is led by Washington, D.C., attorney Robert Bauer and backed by teams of lawyers around the nation.
Kerry outlined the election program in an interview with executives of The Hearst Corp. and representatives from the company's newspapers, including Kenneth Bunting, executive editor of the Seattle Post-Intelligencer.
Also at the meeting were representatives from Hearst's television stations and magazines from across the country.
Kerry said his lawyers would "go after" local election officials who erroneously "purge people" from the rolls of registered voters.
Kerry also expressed concern about some of the new digital voting machines fielded in some states as part of the congressionally backed, multibillion-dollar effort to modernize the election system in the aftermath of the 2000 irregularities.
On other issues, Kerry:
Hinted that he may travel overseas before the Nov. 2 election "not to negotiate but to listen" to foreign leaders about their views on U.S.-led operations in Iraq and other international issues.
Declined to rule out a visit to Iraq "at the appropriate time."
Promised to hold monthly news conferences if elected.
Kerry declined to identify countries he may visit before the election, but he mentioned Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak, Jordanian King Abdullah II, French President Jacques Chirac and German Chancellor Helmut Schroeder as allied leaders who should be enlisted in U.S. efforts to stabilize and rebuild Iraq.
Kerry noted that some past presidential nominees have traveled overseas before elections.
Iraq was "not high on the list" of countries he might visit, Kerry said, adding: "If I could (visit Iraq) at the appropriate moment, of course I'd go - for a troop visit, certainly."
Separately, Bauer said in an interview that the election teams would work in every state during the next few months, talking with local authorities, gathering information on voting procedures and researching possible legal issues that could arise.
"We have an operation that's nationwide," he said. "We want to make sure that every eligible voter who votes has that vote counted."
Bauer said the teams will examine a range of issues, including making sure new voting machines work properly, that voters receive adequate education and training on using the machines and that states don't mistakenly leave eligible voters off registration lists.
"We're trying to anticipate problems, so that when an issue comes up, it's not a matter of free-lancing a solution on the spot, but fixing it before it blows up," he said.
Kerry criticized Bush for building a "flimflam, fraudulent coalition" of nations for the invasion and occupation of Iraq, saying that the United States and Britain bore the burden, the casualties and the costs with only symbolic help coming from a variety of countries claimed as full coalition partners by Bush administration officials.
Kerry said his goal as president would be to get "as many damn countries involved on the ground as possible" in Iraq, in part by sharing reconstruction contracts with participating nations.
Kerry continued to defend his vote in favor of the congressional resolution in October 2002 authorizing Bush to go to war in Iraq as a "last resort," despite the findings last week by the Senate Intelligence Committee that the administration had relied on wrong information about Saddam Hussein's alleged weapons of mass destruction.
If he had been president at the time, Kerry said, he would have "wanted authority to use force so I could get something done, but I would have used (the authority) differently" to build an effective international coalition and solicit wider support within the U.N. Security Council to intensify diplomatic, economic and military pressure on Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein to comply with U.N. weapons inspections.
"My regret is not my vote; my regret is the way the president went about going to war," Kerry said.
Hugh Hewitt's got a book coming out, IF IT'S NOT CLOSE, THEY CAN'T CHEAT. It sounds like we need that title to be a reality or we're going to be in trouble.
Thanks for the Ping and BUMP, prohetic!!!!
Best FReegards, D2
We are taking these charges of voter intimidation seriously. Voting is one of our fundamental rights. We wish to ensure that every person legally eligible to vote has that chance.
We will be placing members of the FBI at polling stations with a history of problems. These people will be there to make sure that both the voters and the poll workers are not intimidated. We will set up an election hot line. Any poll worker with a question will be able to talk an election lawyer in a timely fahion. We will have counters outside problem polling places to count the number of voters who go in. We will also have on hand in every county that has a history of slow counting a vote counting expert. This way we will not have to wait so long for the final tally.
This will maintain the integrity of our electoral system by allowing all legitimate voters have their voice heard and stopping fraudulent voting practices.
Needless to day, these attorneys would be rather prejudiced!
I AGREE 100%.
There has been way too much chatter from the left and "voter rights" groups about watching the election.
I think they are setting up to steal this in certain areas.
The Bush team better have people on the ground to watch these people.
PS.
"SWAT TEAM"?
Talk about intimidating people from voting.
Oh they are up to something and are using the excuse of the 2000 FLA election to get away with it.
They all know they lost FLA fair and square.
You can "thank" Stewart M. Powell and Mark Helm from the Seattle Post-Intelligencer's Washington Bureau for this "news" story with the great voter intimidation "facts". As far as I can tell, the story first appeared in the Seattle P.I. om July 13:
http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/national/181877_kerry13.html
We need to form anti-SWAT teams who will hound the "SWAT" teams pushing for illegal voters. F--- them.
These scare tactics work with many black voters -- even though those voters know their condition has vastly improved over the past four decades, even though they know they have suffered no harm when Republicans have been in the White House. I have to conclude that they actually like feeling scared and voting out of fear.
"They are either going to steal this election or riot"
Well said!
Excellent!
Actually this is true. 57,000 blacks did not vote. However the real reason wasn't given. The reason 57,000 blacks did not vote was because the media already announced that Gore won Florida.
The problem for the RATS is that they could not get enough buses to go pick these people up after the media admitted its little mistake.
Add this to the hanging Chad, the butterfly ballot and Gore losing Tennessee.
...."nationwide SWAT team of election lawyers"...
That says it all. Go legal team, the fix is in.
Thank you! Who on our side will assure us that our votes are properly tabulated?
"Why hasn't he announced that he'll stop the Republicans from burning the black churches and sending them back into slavery?"
Be patient my friend. Give them time.
And kerry see's a problem denying the vote to felons because.....? Who needs the rule of law, unless of course it helps a lawyer to collect a well deserved fee.
Narrow minded people hang on his every word.
"In Kerry's world everyone but Kerry seems to be a crook. And out to "steal" things. Like votes? But it's Kerry who has not been to work in over a year but still takes the money. Who is dishonest? Who is the thief?"
Can Bush quote you from the debate podium?
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