Posted on 05/21/2002 2:52:19 PM PDT by Mean Spirited
The government will file three lawsuits against Florida counties alleging voting rights violations resulting from the bitterly disputed 2000 presidential election, a Justice Department official said Tuesday.
TWO OTHER LAWSUITS also will be filed, in Missouri and Tennessee, by the department’s civil rights division, Assistant Attorney General Ralph Boyd told the Senate Judiciary Committee. The lawsuits will allege disparate treatment of minority voters, improper purging of voter rolls, “motor voter” registration violations and failure to provide access to disabled voters, Boyd said. Other charges, he said, include failing to allow voters with limited proficiency in English to have assistance at the polls and failing to provide bilingual assistance.
Did the Justice Department have a choice? If this were started under the Clinton Justice Department, wouldn't any inaction by the Bush Justice Department be labeled as "covering up the truth?"
Much of this has to do with giving access to the polls of non-English speaking individuals. How much do people in "fly over country" really support recent immigrants voting?
In taking a sad song and making it better mode, this will give the Bush Justice Department a chance to highlight that these irregularities in Miami-Dade county happened under Democratic leadership, voter turnout in some black precincts in Missouri approached (and some say exceeded) 100%, a virtual impossibility unless their was fraud involved, and the subsequent efforts of the Bush Administrations in Washington and Florida to enact new voting laws to prevent fraud.
This is also happening over five months before the election. Imagine if the Dems in the press had been able to run "Bush Justice Department Refuses to Investage 2000 Election Irregularities" in mid-October.
This current situation may just be close enough to the election to be remembered, but far enough away so as to not be galvanizing.
Let's be honest. Most black voters hate the Republicans. I don't think we will see a majority of Blacks voting for a Republican candidate for national office in our lifetime. The best we can hope for is that they have no reason to turn out in droves, like they would if they thought someone was trying to keep them from voting. Like most voters, if everything in their world is okay, they will not have high turnout at the polls. This lawsuit, at this time, is damage control and appeasement.
I would bet big money that the investigation extends past the November elections and in about January 2003 is concluded with a statement that current efforts by the parties involved to prevent fraud have been sufficient.
What's even funnier is that I'll bet that most of the defendants are not only going to be Democrats ... they're going to be black Democrats. I simply won't be surprised if this was just one amazingly sharp chess move by the Bush Administration to demoralize the Left base.
I live in Miami-Dade County, where 72% of my precinct went for Bush and COUNTY WIDE 85% of the Cuban vote went for Bush. NOBODY in the Cuban community would let themselves be "strong armed" into voting for Gore, particularly the older people, who would be the ones with language problems.
90% of you guys sound like idiots. There are nine jillion accusations out there, stemming from the 2000 election, but Like a Vetoed CFR bill, just brushing them aside does not make them go away. What Does?
having a Court say there is no merit to the charges. I am sure you all followed the election news as closely as I did, and what did it tell you? After removing the media slant, the allegations are baseless. Story after Story after Story, over time revealed no truth to the allegations.
I'll also go out on a limb here and say that the limited english thing, will turn around and bite some dems on the ass. (Cubans living in Dem Controlled precincts....)
But that having een said, Having DOJ sue the aforementioned states, removes the ability to criticize the Administration, from the lefts list of things to whine about, Plus it opens the door, for increased Scrutiny at the Polls by a REPUBLICAN CONTROLLED JUSTICE DEPARTMENT. Which is how these cases usually turn out...(Jeb = Gov. Geo. = Pres... What do you really think is going on here...sheesh..)
You guy really ought to learn to think things thru, from a strategery standpoint.
In the sentence above, what, exactly, does the term "the government" mean?
Think about it, people! President George W. Bush IS the government. He's the head of the executive branch of it -- the branch that would bring a lawsuit. The Department of Justice lawyers, presumably, supposedly, report to him, by way of the chain of command through the Attorney General, correct? In other words, they can't bring a suit without it being all right by him, or they are independent of him and can act, in violation of the Constitution, against his policy directives. So, which is it? Is this lawsuit Bush policy, or is Bush a figurehead without any actual authority?
Who, pray tell, is "the government"?
When I read an article in the WSJ a little while ago, I LOL when I read Missouri was included in the lawsuit! Ashcroft is going to get the last laugh over the widow carnahan, I do believe.
I did a search to see if the WSJ piece had been posted, which it was not; but doesn't need to - this thread, and the few reasoned replies from you, Miss Marple, and a few others suffice.
Back to work, mombonn!
"Politically, pursuit of the Missouri voting complaints provides a sort of GOP balance to the better-known Florida controversy. Many Republican activists take it as a matter of faith that voting fraud occurred in mostly black Missouri precincts, to the benefit of Democrats, including Sen. Jean Carnahan, who bested Mr. Ashcroft."
It's a win - win !
I am in total agreement with you. It will take these idiotic allegations from the realm of urban legend into a cold courtroom where those who make these (baseless) accusations will actually have to PROVE them. They can't. They will have had their fair day in court and been proven about as credible as OJ searching for the real killers.
It's win-win. Exactly.
This will be a good move for Bush because it will be a real investigation. Any semi-competent investigation will reveal massive corruption -all DemocRATic.
But will the professional Bushwhackers stop whacking? No, they will latch on to some other misunderstanding and mindlessly launch their whines and shivels.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.