advisors had not anticipated. They thought that Bush would most likely win the largest number of votes nationwide, but that Gore would win in the states that Writings on George W. Bush would give him the winning votes in the Electoral College. So they had prepared a strategy of getting all the radio talk shows and all the conservative TV September, 2004 commentators to call on Gore to step down and allow the “real” winner, Bush, to step into the presidency. They intended to keep up this call on radio, TV and in Part 2 — Stealing Elections print until Gore and the Democrats caved in. But, of course, the U.S. election ended up just the reverse, and Gore obtained the popular vote. So the Bush folks scrapped the idea of pushing for the winner of the popular vote to be the “real” There are many ways to steal an election. Among the more blatant is to pass out winner! handbills saying “if the lines are too long, come back tomorrow.” Another is to spread the rumor that they will check for past traffic tickets before letting you What was needed now was to get the electoral votes of Florida. Bush chose the vote, or put extra police in a minority neighborhood and have them start pulling old family friend James Baker III (the fellow from Princeton that had the over folks for “routine checks.” Perhaps the most blatant is to ask for a photo id roommate who bought a million dollars of Bush’s failing business) to be the when none is required and turn away those that do not produce one — this was leader of his team of lawyers. Baker faced a huge uphill battle. All the legal done repeatedly in South Dakota and Florida in the spring of 2004. And it was precedents were in Gore’s favor, most notably: Florida explicitly allowed continued even when poll watchers showed the election workers that the law manual recounts and had used them frequently. Bush, as governor of Texas, had permitted voting without a photo id. just signed an “intent of the voter” law just like Florida’s. Mailed in ballots were explicitly required by law to be postmarked before the date of the election to be But in Florida in 2000 a method was used that was difficult for journalists to see valid, no matter if they came from military personnel or not. So Baker had to or report until the election results were long in the past. Polling, done long control the narrative being talked about in the media and the court room so that before the election, showed that black voters were far more likely to vote for he could ignore the laws and legal precedents in order that the incomplete vote Gore than Bush. So Katherine Harris, the person in Governor Jeb Bush’s could be certified as complete by the Florida Secretary of State, Katherine administration in charge of voting procedures (and also, it must be noted, in Harris, the lady mentioned above that carried out the purge of the registered charge of Dubya’s campaign in Florida), decided it was time to purge the voting voter rolls. A second possible ploy was considered — to get the Republican rolls of all the persons that had been released from prison convicted of a felony dominated Florida legislature, or the U.S. Congress, or the U.S. Supreme Court — in Florida you are taken off the registered voter roles while in prison and to get the recount stopped or overturned, and Bush certified as the winner. But must reapply after getting out. She contracted with an outside firm to do this this ploy was considered such a nakedly political move that it might damage task. The firm compared the list of registered voters to the list of felons and Bush’s image and seemed unlikely to succeed. But… removed names from the registration rolls that were similar to names on the felons list. They were required by law to do some checking to make sure they The media picked up the story line that they were given by James Baker; they were removing the correct persons. But they did little or no checking, in almost began putting pressure on the process by calling it “legal wrangling”, “endless every case they did no checks at all (perhaps because checking would have challenges” and “unduly prolonging the election”. Tom Brokaw said, “If the taken time and reduced the profit on their contract, or maybe they were quietly Florida recount drags on, the national markets are a risk here. National security given the message that they shouldn’t check too closely). It is estimated that is involved.” These comments are wildly off the mark since, throughout the they removed at least 10,000 registered voters incorrectly. We simply do not entire process, polls taken of U.S. voters found that the citizens backed manual know how bad the damage was since we do not know how many tried to vote recounting by very high percentages: between 75 and 80%. What the voters and were turned away. None of the folks removed from the rolls knew of this wanted was a fair and accurate recount. The Bush team pressed the media to cast until they went to vote. What we do know is that the majority of the folks on the the entire process as a crisis. list were African-Americans. Had this purge of innocent voters from the The ultraconservatives got tough. Tom DeLay, a Republican from Texas and registered list not taken place Gore’s vote total would have been much higher currently the Majority Leader in the House of Representatives, began rounding since the African-American community voted overwhelmingly for Gore. up Republican supporters from around the country. They were flown to Florida They tried to pull off a similar same scam in the spring of 2004. But this time by Enron and Halliburton, either in the companies’ private jets, or on regular jet they were caught and the State of Florida quickly dropped the whole process of aircraft with their tickets paid for by these companies. They were then put up in eliminating registered voters through the use of an incomplete and biased list. good hotels, and on some nights even entertained by the likes of Wayne Newton. The companies paid the whole bill, and we know that this took place only because it showed up on their income tax filings for the year 2000. Once in Florida and the 2000 Election Miami these protesters were controlled from a small group of trailers set up for DeLay and his crew to use as a headquarters. The task of the recruited folks was When the election deadlocked in Florida it did so in a manner that Bush and his Page 1 of 7 to create demonstrations (which turned into riots on several occasions) around billions (as we can most easily see in Iraq). Enron is also easy to connect to the Miami and to get nasty with the folks who would try to recount the votes. In one action. Ken Lay, the CEO of Enron, has been a long time friend of Dubya and instance, on November 22, they assaulted the Miami-Dade canvassing board as was the largest contributor to Bush’s campaign for the presidency. He also stood they showed up to start the recount. The head of the board was attacked with a to make billions if Bush were president — and he did in the electric power baseball bat and another member was knocked down, punched and kicked debacle of the winter and spring of 2000-2001 where Enron and the power around. This board never came back to recount the votes — they were afraid. At generators stole about $30 billion from the citizens of California with the help of another site a poll worker was trampled when the mob tried to knock down a the Bush administration. Helping the Bush campaign in Florida by flying in and door. In other instances the rioters only beat on doors and windows, waved paying support for volunteer demonstrators with its corresponding payoff for placards and signs. Some of the local Cuban population was recruited. (This Enron and Halliburton is an example of the corrupt interplay that takes place group comes from the modestly wealthy Cubans that fled Cuba before Castro’s between business and politicians. This sort of collaboration between government revolution took over Cuba. They are mostly very conservative and Republican, and big business shows one way in which we are snuffing out democracy and so they made a good group from which to recruit). They mobbed the Cuban sinking toward fascism. radio station and called for a riot against a ballot recounting site. The recount there closed down when the crowd arrived. Supreme Court and Election 2000 No arrests were ever made and no charges were ever filed against anyone during any of this. From the newspaper, TV and radio reports at the time it is clear that Action in the Courtroom the reporters never understood that many of the demonstrators were called in Several books have been written on the actions of the Supreme Court in the from out of town with all expenses paid by the leadership of the Bush campaign. election of 2000. Each describes the events in a similar manner and interprets Without doubt the Miami-Dade election board could have recounted their the outcome in slightly different fashion. The book that was clearest to me, and 10,750 ballots in five days if they had not been scared off.