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.
These were not legal votes........
Ask any talking head no TV, ask any VP news of a major network, if they would surpress a war story to save amercian lives. The answer is always NO with a capital N and an Capital oh.. and that stands for f*ck America.
If Gore would have won the recount they would have printed it big time. If they had the co ordinates of any special forces in Afghanistan they would publish them in a heart beat.
If you are looking for someone in the major networks who gives a damn about America you will have a long and fruitless search.
The vote count was ready at the middle of November and certified by K. Harris.
History changes
The past is what is PC
Revisionism
Well, in this case, truth is in the eye of the beholder. And the papers involved have massive beams in their own eyes.
In other words, the prejudices of the media are more in evidence than anything else.
I think you're right about water, but I would put it "water in the bilge", considering who is involved.
I take the Wall Street Journal, which is supposedly conservative. But everything except the editorial page is massively liberal for THAT paper.
Nothin' more.
If Algore had actually won this election, you can be sure that the liberal media would not suppress it.
Exactly. But you can't tell that to those few that seem to be hanging on to this issue like a loose chad.
In other words, they counted the non-votes. A ballot rejected by the machine is a Non Vote. That's how it works.
Yes there is a provision for hand counting those Non Votes but such hand counting must be done by the Deadline. The Deadline was seven days after the election, not seven months or seven years.
In other words, this "analysis" is irrelevant. Whatever it says.
any doubt who would win now?
This swamp is dry...and they know it.
snooker
Maybe they should have paid to recount New Mexico where the margin was very close or Wisconsin, or Iowa. No they went to Florida which the clinton machine perpetrated the fraud to try and make it look like Gore won again from tainted ballots -- why else would clinton have had gore hire daley (member of the original vote fraud daley family!). Why didn't they throw out the number of ballots from illegals that most likely went to Gore? Or the dead voters that voted for Gore?
Bunch of morons in the press that love to leak when they are not permitted to complete their count and then say they can't say a word!
I think that you mean that if AlGore had actually stolen this election, the media would not supress it. But regardless of semantics, you're absolutely right, especially considering the date at which this data was supposedly amassed.
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.