Report from the Voter Rights Institute 05/07/01
By: Jeannine Ross
What an interesting day. It started out with filming Bob Kunst being interviewed by student reporters at the Sun Coast High School in Riviera Beach. I must say, the media has done a number on our kids too. They all seemed so smart and “with it” and respectful. If you only watched what the media says about teens you wouldn’t believe it. In fact many bought his “No more Bushit” bumperstickers. In fact, A lot of people bought the stickers and were interested in talking to Bob. They all seemed to agree with us, as usual. Even if the Democratic higher ups did seem to “shun” us somewhat.
We didn’t spend too much time inside at the actual hearings because most of it was about “voter reform,” and our position is you have to deal with the fraud before you can deal with the voter machines. They had several different people showing off different types of voting systems, but noone dealing with the theft.
Bob seemed to know much more about all the evidence than anyone there.
Carol Roberts said 2/3 of the people in a recent poll say their vote counts. What about the other third? That’s a lot of people. She seemed to be proud of that. I had a bad feeling about what she said, but Bob and I ambushed her outside and she seemed pretty genuine. She talked to us for at least 10 minutes. Bob asked her why they didn’t work on Thanksgiving and she said she wanted to but was voted down 2 to 1 by Burton and LePore. I believed her. She also said “The Republican party really went out of their way to obstruct (the counting).”
Finally, Robert Stagle, from Texas no less, asked the panel about the felons list. Interestingly enough Terry McAuliffe didn’t even know the name of the company who compiled the felon’s list. How could he not know who made this felons list? Isn’t he the chairman of the DNC? I know it is Choicepoint. You probably do as well. It was admitted that the list was authorized by Katherine Harris. Stagle said they had a felon’s list in Texas in 1982 that was just as flawed. He wanted to know if it was possible to sue the Secretary of State in Florida. Everyone clapped. The election’s official from Leon county said only 33 people on the first list they received from Harris out of 590 were actual felons. Then they got a 2nd list that they refused to use. He said 95% of the list was in error. Stagle said over 500 people had their reputations slandered in Leon County and should be allowed to sue. The Leon county official said he read that Choicepoint told the Division of Elections in Florida that the criteria for compiling the list was too lax and would capture too many people and they were told not to alter the formula at all by the staff at the Division of Elections. He said “ There was a deliberate attempt to make this as wide a net as possible.” I smell evidence for an investigation! McAuliffe said this was a lawsuit the party would like to join in on! I like what he had to say more than any other Democrat so far. Finally. I hope we see some results and not just talk!
Afterward, they set up a press conference for McAuliffe. We snuck in on it. Bob asked him where the hearings were on election theft and weren’t they going to ask for a federal investigation. McAuliffe said “That’s a great question.” He said Bob Graham and Bill Nelson call the Attorney Generals office and the Department of Justice everyday to ask what is being done on this issue and still haven’t received a reply. Before Bob could finish asking his next question about Gore’s silence on this issue he was carted away by staff. They said it was only for the press. The guy who pulled him away was Andrew Rivera with The Voting Rights Institute and he was really supportive of our position. He even bought a bumpersticker! He was asking us how to reach out to the grassroots. Also, Jenny Backus, the press secretary for Chairman McAuliffe followed us out and was asking me if we knew about the Oral Majority. I said we are the Oral Majority! She said she really like what we were doing and was on our mailing list. Isn’t that a hoot! I guess we really have a beeline to Democratic leadership after all.