Palast: A Million dis-counted black votes, '04 could be worse

[G_j]

THE SOUR SMELL OF SPOILED BALLOTS
Greg Palast, AlterNet

One million black votes didn't count in the 2000
presidential election; this year it could be worse.

http://www.alternet.org/election04/18992/

In the 2000 presidential election, 1.9 million Americans cast ballots that no one counted. "Spoiled votes" is the technical term. The pile of ballots left to rot has a distinctly dark hue: About 1 million of them -- half of the rejected ballots -- were cast by African Americans although black voters make up only 12 percent of the electorate.

This year, it could get worse.

These ugly racial statistics are hidden away in the mathematical thickets of the appendices to official reports coming out of the investigation of ballot-box monkey business in Florida from the last go-'round.

How do you spoil 2 million ballots? Not by leaving them out of the fridge too long. A stray mark, a jammed machine, a punch card punched twice will do it. It's easy to lose your vote, especially when some politicians want your vote lost.

While investigating the 2000 ballot count in Florida for BBC Television, I saw firsthand how the spoilage game was played -- with black voters the predetermined losers.

..more..

[Mistress Quickly]

1. How do they know

the race of the people who cast those ballots?

[Cheswick2.0]

2. they pick certain communities

They choose who to disenfranchise based on address.

[Mistress Quickly]

3. Thanks!

:hi:

[G_j]

4. yes that is precisely what happened

in Florida in 2000

[G_j]

5. kick

[Forkboy]

6. Where's the fun in this story

when we can be bashing Nader instead?

[G_j]

8. yes democracy is trashed

the civil rights/voting rights clock gets turned back-wards, but hey...

[GreenPartyVoter]

7. The question now is, how can we prevent this from happening?