Town of Braintree

Suppressing The Minority Vote,

Florida Redux?

Becoming more and more hysterical at the possibility of losing the presidential election, the liberals and their media allies are psyching up the public to expect legal challenges in any states that have close elections. Florida is the focus of their paranoia because of George W. Bush's narrow win there by 537 votes in 2000.

The Democrats are not claiming election fraud, and Al Gore didn't claim fraud in 2000. Gore was free to present evidence of fraud or other misconduct, but he had no such evidence and that's why his strategy was to demand a different method of counting the ballots.

This time the Democrats' game plan is to accuse Republicans of suppressing the minority vote, asserting that ''ballot security'' and ''preventing voter fraud'' are just code words for intimidating minority voters. John Edwards was in Florida last week accusing Republicans of ''trying to keep people from voting.''

It's good to keep people from voting who are not eligible to vote. Unfortunately, there are many ways that ballots are cast and counted for people who are not eligible.

A New York Daily News investigation discovered that 46,000 New Yorkers are registered to vote in both New York and Florida. That's illegal of course, punishable by up to five years in prison and a $10,000 fine, but nobody checks registration rolls across state lines and these election frauds go unpunished.

Of the 46,000, 68 percent are Democrats, 12 percent are Republicans, and 16 percent didn't claim a party. The Daily News also found that between 400 and 1,000 registered voters voted twice in at least one election, and one man voted twice in seven elections including the last four presidential races.
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Across the country and especially in Florida, the Democrats are trying to register felons. This is despite the fact that Florida has disenfranchised felons for as long as it has been a state, as specifically allowed by the U.S. Constitution in Section 2 of the 14th Amendment.

The Democrats conducted voter registration drives in Florida county jails in an effort to harvest the vote of the 31,591 pre-trial detainees. They are eligible to vote if they are not already felons.

The jails treat the Democratic precinct workers like any other visitors and allow them to talk privately with detainees. The jail supervisor subsequently provides and collects the absentee ballots.

The U.S. Justice Department and state police are investigating criminal vote fraud in Florida based on widespread allegations of phony voter registrations and forged party-affiliation change cards. Absentee ballots are highly susceptible to fraud and forgery, and Palm Beach County is sending out 100,000 absentee ballots for the November 2 election.
One of the good things about the 2002 Help America Vote Act was its requirement that voter registration forms include a box where the applicant can check to affirm his citizenship, and then sign the application. A lawsuit has been filed in Florida calling the citizenship box ''nonsensical'' and asking an activist judge to require the state to register the applicants even if they fail to check the citizenship box.

One of the best ways to prevent voter fraud is to require each voter to present picture I.D. The Democrats oppose this at every turn despite the fact that we already have to show picture I.D. for everything from boarding a plane to renting a video.

In New Mexico, where Al Gore won in 2000 by only 366 votes, an activist state supreme court just ''interpreted'' a 2003 state law to wipe out its requirement that every voter present ''current and valid'' identification in order to receive a ballot. Senator Pete Domenici said, now ''there will be few if any checks at the polls this fall to ensure that a voter is who they say they are.''


By Al Gore didn't claim election

They?’re Not Referees

They?’re Not Referees

If anyone is still being sold the civics-book baloney that our national press corps is just the referee of our democracy, the disinterested moderator of our national debate, the media?’s performance in this election year has just blown that concept to smithereens in their collective and transparent desire to deny George W. Bush another four years.

To the uncommitted voter, let us state directly: The media are partisan players. They see their role as journalists as not to inform, but to persuade.
They aim to make society better, and believe the great society is a society drained of its poisonous vestiges of conservatism

They aim to elect liberal Democrats to office, pretending all the while that these liberals are really moderates, and even ?– don?’t laugh ?– fierce warriors for our national defense.
The media do not believe in an ''axis of evil'' in the world, or a ''war on terror.''

This, they deeply believe, is right-wing fear-mongering. In the 1990s, they did not crusade against the evils of al-Qaeda, but did crusade against our real mortal enemies:
Microsoft, the tobacco companies, gun manufacturers,
talk-radio hosts, the House impeachment managers,
and independent counsel Kenneth Starr.

The national media aim to set the agenda, and set it in a way that perpetually puts right-leaning, wrong-thinking Republicans at a disadvantage. Just look at the network story counts.

This year, ABC, CBS, and NBC have combined for more than 75 stories on George W. Bush's National Guard Service, with virtually nothing to say about Kerry?’s scandalous anti-war behavior. They?’ve done more than 50 stories on ''skyrocketing'' or ''record high'' gasoline prices, rarely admitting prices are lower today than they were under St. Jimmy Carter. They?’ve aired hundreds on prison abuse at Abu Ghraib, while the mass graves of Saddam are a yawner.


Do some authors have an anti-Bush agenda? If so, the networks welcome them in.
Bush-hating Kitty Kelley just makes stuff up about the Bushes, and she gets three days in a row on NBC.
Bush-hating Seymour Hersh and Al Franken were all over NBC, as well as the other networks. Bush-despising Michael Moore is everywhere. ''60 Minutes'' spotlighted a pile of anti-Bush authors: Paul O?’Neill, Richard Clarke, Bob Woodward, Anthony Zinni. Liberals at the top of the best-seller list? The networks deserve a thank-you card.


Stories that might embarrass John Kerry? Never mind.
The U.N. Oil for Food scandal certainly would hurt Kerry, since he wants the U.N. to run Iraq, and he wants France to be a major partner.
Arms inspector Charles Duelfer found the U.N. Oil for Food czar was taking oil-voucher bribes from Saddam Hussein, as were officials close to French President Jacques Chirac. How many stories did the networks do? Four.
NBC was the best ?– with a piddly three. ABC aired one. CBS, working on a perfect record of partisanship, aired nothing.


In July, Newsweek?’s Evan Thomas said the media would favor and promote Kerry and Edwards as young and dynamic and optimistic and all,'' and ''that?’s going to be worth maybe 15 points.'' At the Democratic convention, New York Times columnist John Tierney asked a sample of 50 Washington-based journalists who they favored, and they said Kerry, by 12 to 1. In May, the Pew Research Center for the People and the Press found that 34 percent of national reporters surveyed described themselves as liberals, while only 7 percent said they were conservative.


A majority of 55 percent told Pew pollsters the media weren?’t critical enough of President Bush, while only eight percent thought they were too critical. How critical is critical enough for the national press? Enough to get President Kerry elected.





By Deny George W. Bush