'Recount' Film Triggers Repressed 'Memories' of Vote Suppression and Fraud

NewsBusters ^ | May 28, 2008 | P.J. Gladnick

[PJ-Comix]

It seems that the HBO fictional film Recount has triggered some horrible memories of vote suppression and fraud perpetrated by the evil Republicans. At least that is the allegation circulating in the leftwing blogosphere. One of the most specific of these allegations comes from the Democratic Underground where a DUer by the screen name of "Lorien" has made some rather shocking charges about betrayal by a high level Democrat campaign official and intimidation of minority voters by a racist cop in the Orlando FL area. Let us join Lorien as she lays out her charges in the DU thread, RECOUNT: My own Florida election day 2000 nightmare (emphasis mine):

As always, I volunteered with my local Democratic party (Orange county, FL in 2000) during the election year. I was appalled by the attitude of the director of our downtown HQ "Jared" towards Gore: "We won't be focusing on the Presidency here because we can't win it. We'll work for our local candidates instead". Jared stated. He didn't even order more than a handful of Gore bumper stickers or lawn signs to give away to supporters because "signs don't win elections", and what we did have on hand he charged the public for. $5 for a bumper sticker, $10 per lawn sign. Many Democrats who came in left empty handed and grumbling "well, if they are going to take THAT attitude then why bother? I don't have to go anywhere on election day". Despite my hectic schedule as a self employed illustrator and animator, I volunteered to man the front desk and phones just to improve relations and slip good Democrats a few free stickers and signs.

Lorien's suspicions about "Jared" grew when he mysteriously increased the cost of the campaign paraphernalia:

In the final weeks he jacked up the price to $8 for a sticker and $20 for a sign. Democrats aren't the wealthiest lot, so that was a bit uncalled for. It turned voters off, and that, I believe was a very bad thing indeed. I personally bought muffins and other bakery items from Costco and sold them at the front desk, using the money to buy stickers and signs for those who wanted them but couldn't pay.

And when "Jared" jacked the prices up to a full $25, that really set off the alarm bells for Lorien:

I was standing by the front desk one evening when a middle aged couple came in for signs and button. They were told that that would be $25.00 for one of each.

Finally comes the accusation by Lorien that "Jared" was a mole whose purpose was to sabotage the Gore campaign:

I still think that "Jared" was a mole while the rest of us were making phone calls, stuffing envelopes, delivering absentee ballots, etc. he was always there reading CNN online or surfing the net. He wouldn't place orders for supplies for weeks at a time. He pissed off voters who came in to volunteer. I locked horns with him many times, but he would never take any kind of significant action personally to help the cause. I wonder who the hell had put him there.

Perhaps "Jared" was a sleeper agent assigned by Karl Rove to undermine the Gore campaign in Florida. At least according to popular leftwing fantasies. But as ridiculous as the paranoia about "Jared" sounds, it doesn't come close to matching Lorien's racist cop story:

But those annoyances were NOTHING compared to what I experienced on election day. I was taken into an all minority section of town to distribute Democratic voter guides (lists of candidates and our positions on the issues) outside of the polling place. I had to stand 20 feet or more from the front door and was eyed warily by the only other white person there, a cop. Once voters started arriving the cop started intimidating them-especially the elderly and women. "What ya gonna do when your boy loses, huh? Ya gonna CRY when your boy loses"? he sneered in their faces. I was absolutely shocked by his behavior ;I had grown up in a liberal college town in the midwest and had never seen such unprofessional and stereotypical "southern white cop" behavior in action before.

Lorien was so absolutely shocked by this cop's behavior that she never bothered to note the officer's name or badge number. Apparently the voters were so intimidated by this police officer that they were too frightened to report on his unprofessional conduct except for Lorien who mentioned this incident to "Jared" the Betrayer:

I went back to HQ during lunch and told Jared what was happening. "We're getting a lot of complaints from every minority precinct about police intimidation, but there are so many other problems right now we can't deal with it" he didn't elaborate.

So why haven't we heard of these and other such incidents related by Lorien? An answer is provided:

I was shocked, however, that NONE of these local stories made it into the Orlando Sentinel or any other Florida papers or news outlets. Thousands of affidavits had been signed, but the media didn't give a crap.

...My next door neighbor is the news director for our local PBS station, and even she won't do a story about it because her boss-a repug-won't allow those kinds of stories. Neither she nor her top reporters even knew that these things had happened!

Oh yes. The media didn't report it because they are a notorious hotbed of "repugs," especially PBS. Fortunately "Recount" has given new hope to Lorien that these repressed memory stories about Election 2000 will finally be revealed:

...If my story doesn't reinforce the realities of that day, maybe the movie "RECOUNT" will; Florida went for Gore but was stolen By BushCo.

Perhaps Lorien's tragic Election 2000 story will now be made public. In fact I completely agree with a DUer who had this advice for Lorien:

Please send this off as an OP to as many newspapers as you can think of. It is an important experience and we need to keep shoving it in front of the American public's collective face.

It is an important experience that, when the laughter stops, needs to be investigated. Of course, there is the strong possibility that Lorien's story will end up as about as valid as thousands of other similar Election 2000 tales that were investigated by the Civil Rights Division of the U.S. Department of Justice. Here is part of what the Assistant Attorney General of the DOJ reported about the electoral abuse phenomenom of 2000 in a letter to the U.S. Senate:

As I summarized in my testimony before the Senate Judiciary Committee on May 21, 2002, beginning November 7, 2000 the Department of Justice received many calls from citizens voicing concerns about the election and subsequent events, the total eventually reaching about 11,000. The Civil Rights Division's Voting Section coordinated efforts to handle and review these calls. Very few of the callers, however, relayed substantive information indicating a possible violation of the federal voting rights laws enforced by the Civil Rights Division. In fact, most calls came from outside Florida, and the vast majority - over 95% - simply expressed opinions or vented frustrations about daily events in the ongoing election
dispute.

The rest of that same letter knocks down the major charges of the time alleging voter suppression or fraud. Perhaps the same Civil Rights Division will have to go back into action again to investigate all the repressed "memories" triggered by HBO's fictional film "Recount."

For those of you who appreciate great comedy of the paranoid variety, you can read a lot more material from that DU thread at the DUmmie FUnnies including this gem:

It was our local rank and file Fascists that stole 2000 and 2004. And how they were all co-ordinated, I'll never know I guess. The cop, the election worker, even the do nothings in local dem management, the religious righties. They must have been under instructions to foul up things however they could because they are the ones who were at fault for most of it. Sure, the voters were caged and the machines were rigged but it seemed like the rank and file zombies in our midst they were the ones who robbed us.

[conservativeharleyguy]

Oh boy, where to begin?

”…I volunteered to man the front desk and phones just to improve relations and slip good Democrats a few free stickers and signs….”

In other words, steal supplies and hand them out. Just a “Modern-day Robin Hood”. Small wonder she's "self-employed. Note to Florida business owners: Don't hire an independent Illustrator/Animator named Lorien. She'll pilfer your products, and give them away if she doesn't agree with your pricing structure!!!

“…Democrats aren't the wealthiest lot…”

Well, there’s a lot to be said there. Suffice to say: Democrats may not be the “wealthiest lot”, but some of the “wealthiest lot” are certainly Democrats.

“…I still think that "Jared" was a mole while the rest of us were making phone calls, stuffing envelopes, delivering absentee ballots, etc. he was always there reading CNN online or surfing the net. He wouldn't place orders for supplies for weeks at a time….”

Maybe Jared was just lazy, and unqualified for his job, after all, he’s a Democrat, and has probably never had a real one.

“…I was taken into an all minority section of town to distribute Democratic voter guides…”

“All minority section of town”???? WTF is that??? That’s just too stupid to address, but it does sound kind of racist to me.

“I had to stand 20 feet or more from the front door and was eyed warily by the only other white person there, a cop…”

That's because it's the law! Political workers are required by law to maintain a certain distance from the polling place. 20 feet is pretty liberal, considering most places it is at least 50 to 100 feet. Maybe the officer was watching her closely because she was engaged in polling place political activism, and he wanted to make sure she didn’t break the law.

[mdmathis6]

It didn’t work so well in 2004 when a huge turn out guaranteed Bush’s election with more votes for him than any presisdent in history. Vote fraud couldn’t over come the 3 million plus margin. I love how folks lied in the exit polls as well making Kerry think early on that he had it in the bag when he didn’t in the end!

[Sacajaweau]

Ya know what....I'd call it destiny and thank God!!

I think it was Sandra who said about the hanging chads when reading the directions..."Now, what's so hard about that".

Remember, Gore didn't carry his own state. That would have given him the election no matter what happened in Florida. Shhhhhh....No one was supposed to notice.

[cake_crumb]

Me too...of course, they only wanted votes FOR Gore to count.

[DoughtyOne]

They made Warran Christofer look like a nice guy, and Baker look like a cut throat. They did their best to trash the Secretary of state, and just about anyone else who didn’t buy into their swill.

Republicans pulled in a massive number of attornies, and the Dems just brought in enough to get them by.

In the end someone had mentioned they would surely address the fact that some media reps had conducted their own count, and Bush won. That wasn’t even addressed in the move. Baker came off as having pulled a fast one, and the Democrat bowed out rather than protest any longer.

The SCOTUS was portrayed as having stolen the election on behalf of Bush, but of course the Florida Supremes were all every reasoned.

Typical leftist replay...

[STONEWALLS]

....Cops were catching people at the polls who had outstanding warrants....I loved that strategy!!....of course to the Left that constituted “supression”....Florida has been inventive in the past in catching nefarious characters....remember when they went after the hunting and fishing licenses of dead beat Dads?...those bums raised a stink too, saying it was “unfair”.

[cake_crumb]

I also remember that Gore got the felon vote.

[cake_crumb]

[VeniVidiVici]

One thing I do remember about Orange County (Orlando) voting in 2000 was that the absentee ballots mailed out by the Democrats for their voters were constructed to be mailed back to Democrat HQ in Orange County instead of the Supervisor of Elections office as prescribed by law.

I believe that state law has since changed that all absentee ballots must come from the Supervisor of Elections.

[Dr. Bogus Pachysandra]

I just did an internet search on “Greg Palast, Lorien.”

Very interesting! Also found this book by that guy,
http://tinyurl.com/44tn4o

[tflabo]

Sure...Gore won Florida...the old canard ay? Even after numerous recounts show he never won the state. You can be sure though that ‘Rat voter fraud was occurring in Fl. with the NY-Fl-Israel dual citizenships double voting options. Plus they did not allow
some military votes to count and the media erroneously called the state for Gore early on election night. The ‘Rat party DID steal the Wa. state Gov. race back in 2004...they fraudulently stole it for Gregoire via fake homeless votes in Seattle.

[krb]

Therefore it really was the 7-2 ruling that is the important one. It was 7-2 that said that what Florida was doing was illegal. It was 5-4 that said it’s just too late to do anything about it.

[BamaDi]

Perhaps they would use the book “At Any Cost: How Al Gore Tried to Steal the Election” by Bill Sammon for “Recount II”....nah, I can’t believe I just wasted my time even typing that suggestion....that would be too much like right! And we know that the MSM and the Hollywood elite don’t care about right....

[RU88]

I'm wondering if all of these Florida libs will have the same sense of moral outrage when the votes for the 2008 rat primary are not counted. I also wonder if the beast does by some miracle win the popular vote count, will she be viewed as sympathetically as manbearpig was in 00?

[cake_crumb]

Hanging chads, pregnant chads, gloming voter intent and if all else failed, fold and spindle the ballot in order to get the correct chad to fall out on the floor...

[Always Right]

Therefore it really was the 7-2 ruling that is the important one.

All three rulings were important. The 9-0 ruling, which was early on, basically told them to stop changing the rules after the fact (which violated US elections laws) and told them to try again. The 7-2 ruling said your method of recount still violates the law (but I thought the 'equal protection' angle was weak), and the 5-4 ruling said we had enough stop this non-sense, the legal deadline for having your votes counted is here. Both the 7-2 ruling and the 5-4 ruling was on Dec 11, which was just one day prior to the deadline for Florida to submit their list of Electors and have them count.

[popdonnelly]

Gore lost in Florida. Get over it.

[Dems_R_Losers]

Apparently the guy who wrote this movie did not use Sammon's book as source material at all.

The thing that pissed me off the most about the movie, which I otherwise highly enjoyed, was that it glossed over the actual returns from Florida on election night. Bush led in the returns the entire night. CBS called Florida for Gore based completely on exit polls, which of course we now know were horribly wrong because they did not poll absentee voters who went heavily for Bush. Bush was leading by more than 50,000 votes as late as 1:00 a.m. The networks finally called it for Bush at around 2:00 a.m when it was clear that there were not enough votes left to be counted for Gore to possibly pull ahead. In fact, Bush was still ahead by over 20,000 votes at the time with 99% of the votes counted.

Then, suddenly, after the election was called for Bush, Broward County dumped a bunch of returns and Bush's lead went to less than 2,000. This has NEVER passed the smell test to me and and was never properly investigated. The margin suddenly shrank to just under the level that triggered an automatic machine recount. There was no confusing butterfly ballot used in Broward County, no allegations of voter suppression or any of that crap.

What happened in Broward County at 1:30 a.m. on election night? Will we ever know?

[Tanniker Smith]

'Recount' Film Triggers Repressed 'Memories' of Vote Suppression and Fraud,

I bet "Trigger" could've counted the votes better than the Dems. Roy taught him well.

[y6162]

“I believe it was 7-2 that what the FSC did was illegal..”

I liked Recount. It made the Republicans look more competent and determined than the Dems who came off as sissy babies.

Oh where did John Wayne go....?