Posted on 10/21/2001 6:06:48 PM PDT by John Jorsett
The most detailed analysis yet of the contested Florida votes from last year's presidential election - with the potential to question President George Bush's legitimacy - is being withheld by the news organisations that commissioned it.
Results of the inspection of more than 170,000 votes rejected as unreadable in the "hanging chad" chaos of last November's vote count were ready at the end of August.
The study was commissioned early this year by a consortium including The Wall Street Journal, The Washington Post and The New York Times and the broadcaster CNN. The cost was more than $A2million.
Now, however, spokesmen for the consortium say that they decided to postpone the story of the analysis by the National Opinion Research Centre at the University of Chicago for lack of resources and lack of interest in the face of the enormous story after the September11 attacks.
Newspapers were saying last week that the final phase of the analysis, counting the 170,000 votes, had been postponed.
"Our belief is that the priorities of the country have changed, and our priorities have changed," said Steven Goldstein, vice-president of corporate communications at Dow Jones, owner of The Wall Street Journal.
Catherine Mathis, a spokeswoman for The New York Times, said: "The consortium agreed that because of the war, because of our lack of resources, we were postponing the vote-count investigation. But this is not final. The intention is to go forward."
However David Podvin, an investigative journalist who runs an independent Web page, Make Them Accountable, said he had been tipped off that the consortium was covering up the results.
He refused to disclose his source other than to describe him as a former media executive whom he knew "as an accurate conduit of information" and who claimed that the consortium "is deliberately hiding the results of its recount because [former Democrat vice-president Al] Gore was the indisputable winner".
He also claims that a New York Times journalist involved in the recount project had told "a former companion" that the Gore victory margin was big enough to create "major trouble for the Bush presidency if this ever gets out".
"The goosiness, the sensitivity, that the press which organised this analysis is now showing to publishing the results and the persistence of questions about the Florida ballots raise questions," said Dr John Mason, a professor of political science at William Paterson University, in New Jersey.
"There is a sensitivity over the legitimacy of this president."
National Opinion Research Centre staff have been puzzled by the idea that the media would lack the resources because, they said, they had computer programs already designed and fitted for the final count.
Uh, November to September is TEN months. Ridiculous.
Dewey Wins...
Those areas have the largest populations of illegals.
It isin't hard to figure out what went on in those cities.
The sooner we boot all these illegal bastards out of the Country the sooner we get back to a more representative government!
Is it any wonder that the dems, who were so loudly screaming about vote fraud, disenfranchisement of legal votes and "irregularities" they attributed to Republicans and promising exhaustive investigations to expose the same, fell deafeningly silent when the election and Gore's frivolous contests were finally concluded? Those leftist screamers knew exactly who such investigations would implicate.
These idiots that have spent a lot of somebody's money, time and energy to try to make our President Bush and our Commander-In-Chief look illegimate.
What the hell is this aussie crap? If it were somehow really discovered that Bush should have lost to Gore, you would hear it on every TV channel 24/7.
If the DemonRats had really discovered that Gore should have won and could offer a decent explanation and analysis, we would have heard it by the first of June. That didn't happen. We're still hearing a few whisperings of the election, but it is all heresay and B.S. The media in mid-May found out that GW actually won by a wider margin than originally thought. The TV news media said almost nothing and the newspapers printed it on page A-16 in an article the size of a postage stamp.
Bingo Tator! I can just hear the Conversation now at the Big Consortium Meeting!
First Consortium Bigwig: Damnit Bush Really did win... How we gonna Pay for all this stupid recount crap now?
Second Consortium Bigwig: Hey let's create a controversey by NOT releasing the recount numbers saying that due to the War Effort we must show unity!
Third Consortium Bigwig: Yea and when election time rolls around we can sell portions of the recount numbers to the Dumocrats and the Repubs with skewed results.
Fourth Consortium Bigwig: Yea and we can get on all the talk shows and get invited to all the parties in the interim cause we can leak bits and pieces of the info!
Fifth Consortium Bigwig: Ok now That's a plan!
UPSHOT? GW was & is the 'legitaimate' President of Los Estados Unidos. The USSC simply cut to the chase ....
and just who pray tell is this? Where is his URL and who is his "reliable" source? Smells like garbage to me. Anyone here know anything about this guy?
By the way, I really love how the article says that the people who "discovered" that Gore should have won are saying that they won't release the info because of the war out of the goodness of their hearts. They're actually doing the smart thing here. If this story was widely disseminated, it would be shot down pretty quick. What they are doing is subtly planting seeds of doubt for use later.
Rejected as unreadable. Legally. Succintly. Forever.
What possible difference can these votes make? They are unreadable. Therefore rejected...thrown out...discarded.
Am I being redundant redundant?
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