I have been following this story from the UK about the debacle in Florida with the gubernatorial Primary election.

What a disgrace.

I think the candidates there have shown good grace after enduring yet another farce.

Rigged in 2000 now super rigged in 2002 why cant they get things right down in Florida?



Last edited by M31 at Today at 9:33 pm

I live in Florida, and besides the people here not paying much attention to details, I would hardly call the elections rigged. I know that it is a popular urban myth, and if it was true there would certainly be an uproar from the people in our great DEMOCRACY. It is not possible to RIG a national election in the US. We still run the show. It was Al Bores HUGH strategic mistake that cost him the election. He did not even win his own state of Tennessee. As for this last one, Janet Reno is the worst there is. In addition to not defending our constitution like she swore in her oath (instead she defended the Liar in Chief), She has the burnt blood of WACO on her hands, not to mention sending that poor little boy Elian back to Castro.

Zo

moved to chit chat as asked by M31.

I'm sure that many people agree with your point of view, but there may be just as many who view those 2 issues in a completely different light. For myself, I believe David Koresh wanted to commit mass suicide/murder and I also think Elian belongs with his father. I try to view each event on it's own merits and without a partisant slant. Some people just determine thier view on an issue by whether a Democrat or Republican in in office. I am not that simple-minded. I view ALL leadership with a healthy dose of skepticism and look at things from many angles. Not just my own party's view.

I'm also not going to sit here and slam our current President, even though I have serious doubts about his short-sighted foreign policy. I also think we are sitting by and waving our civil liberties bye-bye with some of Ashcroft's proposed changes. But I am a patient man and time will tell us all if Bush's coming decisions will be correct. Hopefully, if he decides to go after Iraq, he will do a MUCH better job of it than his father did! Because this time, I think we're going to suffer many more casualties. And so are the Brits, unfortunately.

But that's what great about America. We can openly criticize our leadership and have no fear of punishment as in other countries (aka Iraq).

As for Florida, we just need one standard ballot across the whole country instead of the hundreds of types we have now.

And since only about 50% of Americans even bother to vote once every four years, a lot of people can't complain shit about the leadership that results from that apathy and lack of responsibility.



Last edited by MinnesotaKid at Today at 10:14 pm

i think we need to throw florida outta the union...seriously.
its not like they're votes are getting accounted for :D.
:P

Wow wee seems as though I have sturred everyone from the Seventh Day Adventists to the armed militias with this one.

I thought that it was a bit more simple than that i.e. spending $35 million on machines that couldn't be switched on? Voters being sent home as there wasn't an alternative manual way to vote? or sent to the wrong polling station?

Jeb Bush called it "shameful"

LOL

LOL[/b][/quote]
glad to se *SOMEONE* realized it was a joke....

i got a nice PM all sayin i was 'ignorant' ..

@jessica

at least this floridian knows how to read. My private pm to you was meant to keep personal feelings off the board. I never called you ignorant, just your remark (it was)

Z

OK now only nice remarks below this post.......

I think as a country we should support our Commander in Chief, even if we do not agree w/ him. His decision whether to attack or not attack Iraq will be a difficult one, and what was so bad about what his father did? as i recall we stomped the hell out of Iraq w/ a brute force attack of rangers. seals, marine force recon, army special forces, and delta force.. we only lost a few soldiers, wasnt the war tagged as the most sucessful military stike in US history. Maybe you are refering to the after, where sadam hussien basically told us to "sit on it and spin w/o any lube" he kicked out the weapons inspectors and the like, i seem to blame that more on clinton than bush sr. because clinton never did much. just my opinions tryin to keep it nice as requested by pcservicetech...

Key Largo with Humphrey Bogart has a great line about voting in FL when Edward G. Robinson says some like "we get our guy in, because we count and keep recounting the votes until he wins". I guess it's a tradition. Want more fun with Floriday, read some of Hiassen's novels. Great toungue in cheek stuff.

I love my Florida buddies, btw. Never lose your sense of humor.

....ur the one that admitted this.
I didn't say ur name for the 'personal' reason.

so don't try to make it seem like *I'm* the one that pointed you out.

and if you *could* read.....how did you miss my smilies?



Last edited by Jessica at Today at 12:54 am

I know I'm a little late into this, but the discussions is gaining such a level I can't resist...
Theese questions are never simple - there are such a lot of details, reasons back in in history affecting things today and so on. When this is mixed up with patriotism funny things happen.

F eks: Zonko wrote: would certainly be an uproar from the people in our great DEMOCRACY. It is not possible to RIG a national election <snipped>

No, I don't think it was rigged. Neither do I think it's such a great democracy when you can become president while the competitor gets the majority of the votes. (btw: The old machines were sold for $1 each later...)

Lets face it. We're all doing errorneous things. In Florida they can't get the elections right and when Fidel offered to help out with the counting I seriously think they should have invited him.... :lol:

From what I read this morning in the Orlando Sentinel the votes are still being found nearly a week after the polls closed !

....we're not a true democracy..never have been...probably never will be.
We are a republic.

Lack of training blamed in election

THE ASSOCIATED PRESS

posted 09/16/02



MIAMI -- Eleven other Florida counties had the same kind of touch-screen voting machines used in Miami-Dade County, where voting irregularities have tied up another major election.

They were operated by similar crews of mainly senior-citizen volunteers who had worked low-tech elections for years.

So why did Tuesday's primary go so well in those places and so miserably here? For starters, those other counties trained their poll workers up to three times longer than Miami-Dade.



Most had their machines longer then Miami-Dade did, and they didn't experience the same cascade of last-minute technical glitches that faced the state's most populous county.

"We kept modifying procedures," Miami-Dade Elections Supervisor David Leahy said Sunday as workers continued going through machines to retrieve uncounted votes. "We had to train and retrain. But going into the election, we thought we had it covered."

Results of Florida's Democratic gubernatorial race are on hold until final totals can be tabulated this week.



The state's certification deadline is Wednesday. Based on unofficial results, Tampa lawyer Bill McBride leads former U.S. Attorney General Janet Reno by about 8,000 votes.

In the 2000 presidential election, it was Palm Beach's confusing butterfly ballot that drew ridicule.

Other counties had punch card ballots plagued by hanging and dimpled chads.

This time, it's Miami-Dade's touch-screen terminals and overwhelmed poll workers.

Retiree Jack Wile said he trained with some 40 others on the new iVotronic machines for about four hours. He has a computer and understood the instructions but says only about four people in the class seemed to grasp the nuances of the system.



"The rest of the people who were in the class were in a fog," said Wile, an assistant precinct clerk. "Some of them couldn't even figure out where to sign the sheet to show that they took the class."

Precinct clerk Dorothy Walton, who has been working polls since 1973, said she came away from training without knowing exactly how to close out the machines at day's end. She said she didn't ask questions because she was supposed to have a helper who did know.



The helper didn't show up Tuesday.


Workers in Pasco and Sarasota counties got 12 hours of training, and Sarasota County required them to pass a written test.

But in Miami-Dade, where the ballots were in English, Spanish and Creole, workers weren't even required to prove basic literacy.



And there were other problems:



A lengthy bidding process meant Miami-Dade didn't get all of its 7,250 machines until June.

They had to be tinkered with right up to the eve of the election, and instruction manuals still were being updated a month after workers completed their training.


Software required for the trilingual ballot increased the machines' boot-up time from six minutes to about 10. And because an antifraud feature prevented workers from booting the machines up before 6 a.m., Wile said, it was impossible to get all 17 of his precinct's machines ready by the 7 a.m. start time.



Clerks were told they could open with just a few machines, but some sites waited for hours until all of their machines were ready.



Wile opened on time with six machines.



Poll workers were told to call a help desk if necessary, but when Walton tried that she got no answer.



"I called and called and called," she said.


Elections Supervisor David Leahy, who is facing cries for his removal, described it all as akin to shoveling sand against the tide.

"We had almost 100 people in the field, which is far more than we had before," he said. "Before election day it sounded like a reasonable plan."

ok, so who is next in the next election?
jessica or kid or who......so that you guys can re-arrange every thing.....

Seems like something has to be done, I will go to Miami-Dade County
and set thing's stright next month ! :P