Posted on 04/17/2002 10:57:50 PM PDT by smaturin
People tend to keep ignoring this important aspect. While I don't for a second think that Bush lost two million votes, I do indeed passionately believe that this incredibly unethical premature call for Gore cost Bush several hundred to a thousand votes in Florida. Probably enough to give this nation a President the next morning. And it undoubtedly cost him the state of New Mexico. Perhaps Washington, too, although I believe the final winning margin there was close to 200,000 votes - probably too much to overcome in a couple of hours. (Oregon, as I understand, did all their voting by mail, and was therefore not affected by the premature call.)
Estimates I've heard (even from arch-democrat Bob Beckel) are that the premature call cost Bush in the range from 5 to 8 thousand votes. Yet incredibly, none of the Gore apologists even mention this. If it happened to THEIR candidate, we'd never hear the end of it.
Additionally, in California, there are many reports of campaign workers going home in tears at 5 pm Pacific time upon hearing that Bush "lost" the must-win Florida. This severely depressed his get out the vote effort there.
In order to believe it was just an error or mix-up we have to believe that two seperate companies -- Voter News Service, AND the media outlets that called early, BOTH made horrific blunders at the exact same time in the exact same state. In other words, the networks couldn't have miscalled Florida for Gore if VNS's data was accurate -- but VNS's miscalculations wouldn't have helped Gore much if the networks had held off their calls till the exit-poll projections were VERIFIED by real vote count data. (They would have seen the data was wrong)
If, in the days after the election, the media had chosen to key in on the VNS-CNN situation, instead of hypnotizing America with Butterfly ballots and hanging chads, Gore's post-election antics would have gotten no traction, and Americans would have see how outrageous and unfair Gore's whole process was. But Gore knew he could count on the media to talk only about what HE wanted them to talk about. And so today, the premature call is merely an "amusing footnote" to the story, when IMO, it was the beginnings of a coup attempt.
As much as I think Bush was screwed in FL, I simply don't buy these numbers. The outrageous premature call was about 15-20 minutes before the polls closed. Bush was winning by a 2:1 ratio in western FL. To gain 5,000 votes, 15,000 voters (about 1,000 per minute) would have had to turn around and not voted. I don't believe that happened. But regardless, as close as this race was, the impact of losing even a few hundred votes was huge and ended up dragging our nation through 35 days of shame.
Concerning the VNS and media acting separately, it's my understanding that the media bases all of its projections on the VNS. So once the VNS called the race, all the media outlets (even the unconvinced ones) fell all over each other to call Florida.
But they didn't need to do that while the polls were still open. There was NO OTHER state of the union where they did that, even ones won by Bush by 18 or 20 points -- only Florida. The fact that VNS had a monopoly over exit-poll projections, is the very thing that made the system vulnerable to rigging. There was no competing data to act as check and balance.
If someone (GORE) got hold of the secret VNS exit-poll locations, and concentrated their get-out-the-vote tactics on THOSE exact precints, they could be guaranteed to fake the VNS computer into thinking THEY were winning by a landslide, when in fact, the race was even. VNS reported that they had Gore winning Florida by 6.6 per cent (equal to a 400,000 vote margin!!)
No election in history has been as meticulously counted and re-counted as Florida. We KNOW FOR A FACT that the race came down to just a few hundred votes. That proves, IMO, that there HAD to be fraud in the system, not error, to account for a discrepancy THAT big. THAT is why it's imperative for networks to not call based on exit-polls, but WAIT till the exit-poll projections are backed up by raw vote count.
Regarding the 5 to 8 thousand votes, Florida cast 6 million votes in 12 hours. That's 500,000 votes per hour. If west Florida is even 1/10th as big as "vertical" Florida, that would be about one thousand votes per minute.
I agree completely.
Regarding the 5 to 8 thousand votes, Florida cast 6 million votes in 12 hours. That's 500,000 votes per hour. If west Florida is even 1/10th as big as "vertical" Florida, that would be about one thousand votes per minute.
Yes, but in this case the hypothetical 1,000 per minute were turning around and going home. Were that really to have occurred, the polls should have gone from busy to completely empty. I think reality, if we can truly recapture the events, would fall short of that scenario. But while I take issue with the projected numbers Bush lost, I agree with all your points. The travesty that occurred was no accident.
If the poster wants some detailed background to the whole FL election fraud by the DNC, he just has to do a search on FR. I agree with the poster that said the first move by the DNC was when the media called FL for Gore but when that started to fall apart, they moved to the next phase. Research on FR articles will show that the Gore/Daley/Clinton/McAuliffe team had a plan. They had the recount plan in place for several states if they were close - FL just got lucky!! If I recall, before the end of election night - when it appeared things weren't going to go their way - the first team was dispatched from Gore HQO's in TN, headed by Daley. They set up shop in the FL counties favoring Gore and started with the "recount" plan.
There's even a book on "how to win a close election through recounts" written by a couple of DNC operatives. Those guys were in place in West Palm Beach if I remember correctly.
In short, the plan is you disqualify ballots for Bush by "double punching" enough ballots for Gore to win - remember the poll worker who was caught with a voting punch machine in his trunk? The problem the DNC had was they didn't double punch enough ballots!! Then they moved to part 2 of their plan where you call for repeated recounts - machine and hand - because you know the "chads" are going to become dislodged with constant handling. I have to insert here that this technique was learned by Bill Daley at his father's knee in Chicago. Richard Daley was and probably still is - the best election "thrower" ever.
If the poster does his research on FR, he should come across the position of a math genius who clearly showed that the numbers the DNC was quoting were impossible. Sorry, I don't recall his name, but his theory was brilliant.
As I said before, I hate to see this all being brought up again -- BUT, since it is and since it appears the DNC are going to use it to whip up their folks - my concern is that the RNC is not preparing as they should. Believe it or not, I USED to be a registered Democrat - but had always been probably an Independent because I voted on who I thought was the better man. After Clinton and the Gore 2000 election scheme, I wouldn't vote for G*D if he said he was a Democrat. Sorry, I think they are all crooks.
Good theory, but I have to disagree... I was watching the state results as they were being reported on TV as well as on the media web sites. Both FL and MI had a high 6-digit (800,000+) lead for Bush when they were called for Gore. Detroit's area then came crashing in for Gore, giving him MI. FL never had that sudden attack, and the numbers were never even close until hours after the newsies called the state for Gore... then recanted... then for Bush... then recanted... then aired Gore's concession call... which he recanted, but only after a few hundred million dollars of tax money was wasted and some REALLY deep divisions were gashed into the psyches of the American voters.
You're very right, but don't forget that CNN and others called Florida for Gore based on exit-poll projections, which are seperate from vote counts. VNS told the media afterwards that their exit-poll projections showed Gore winning Florida by 6.6 per cent == 400,000 votes.
Since we know for a fact that in the final count, Bush & Gore were within just a few hundred votes of each other, there is no way, IMO, to account for a projected 400,000 vote "error" except by fraud.
The reason I believe human error is ruled out, is because the statewide exit-poll projections are built up precinct by precinct. There had to be a statewide deception to "fool" the VNS computer model THAT badly. But this could be easily done, if one candidate were to obtain the secret VNS exit-poll locations ahead of time, and concentrate their get-out-the-vote tactics on THOSE exact precincts. (Which is what I believe Gore did. If they were willing to subvert the Constitution during the re-count, what would make anyone think the Gore camp wouldn't stoop to rigging the election beforehand?)
To the VNS computers it looked like Gore was exceeding expectations in every single precinct they sampled. I know of no other scenario that would produce projected a 6 point "win" for Gore that later proves to be completely illusory, than Gore faking out the exit poll precincts. Here is an interesting link to the Florida miscall on election night.....
Yes, by the book: First: create a "controversy and doubt." Next call for recounts because of the controversy you created.
This is exactly the way they began the whole attempt in Broward County - in violation of the election law on recounts.
Kristallnacht comes to mind. The overlords rarely come up with any new material... unfortunately, we sheeple are stupid enough to let it continue to be successful.
Then there were also the articles that spread the word that northern and panhandle Florida are racist anyway (they made anyone complaining about the loss of voting rights in that region a defacto racist).
All I can say is that they must have taken the campaign "slogan" to heart:
Go Lie!
Look at Gore in that first photo. I'll give him one thing. He's definitely not taking kickbacks from the anti-perspirant lobby!
There were names of the sort "gorereallywon.com" (not necessarily that name as it is now available). I posted the registration information online last year and think that some other posters did research in that area.
If they had all gone home, it would swing about 30,000 votes. That's ridiculous, and nobody is asserting that. However, a reasonable guesstimate (5% went home upon hearing the "news" that their presidential votes wouldn't matter) gives a difference of about 1500 votes, which would have easily overcome the amount of cheating Gore's people could hope to pull off and thus forestalled the mess.
His conscience?
What frosts me still is the way liberals - most who know better - still maintain that "Bush stole the election" - a total lie and the other mantra: "The Supreme Court gave Bush the Presidency" a bigger lie, along with "5 to 4". Then again, lies are the native language of the left so this is nothing to be surprised about, just annoyed with.
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