The BBC should know better than to serve up dodgy opinion as news. These three pieces feature the ‘Florida voting disaster’ of the 2000 presidential elections. I wonder if the BBC, singing the tune of MSM, now looks to discredit the US electoral process altogether. The articles fail to note a few key facts:
The machinery of an anxious democracy
Carter fears Florida vote trouble
Compare them to this fact-based, allegation-free column by conservative political analyst John Fund and this one by John Lott and Brian Blase
Fact 1: ‘Voter intimidation’ allegedly occurred in a number of Florida counties, but nothing was conclusively proven. One would think that if there was evidence for voter intimidation or fraud, those adversely affected would have clearly proven their case by now. Why does the BBC fail to report this? [UPDATE: As john b notes in Comments, the 2nd BBC article notes (toward the end of the article) the statement of a Florida state election official that “not a single person had filed suit to say he or she had been wrongfully disenfranchised in 2000.” 28-09-04]
Fact 2: The Michael Moore mantra that “Bush stole the election” has no factual basis. Give us facts, not allegations. Several surveys by major media outlets determined that Al Gore lost fair and square. Why does the BBC fail to report this?
Fact 3: In Palm Beach County where so many elderly and minority voters were allegedly confused by a poorly designed “butterfly ballot” the election supervisor was/is a Democrat (as in 24 of 25 Florida counties [where the highest percentage of ballot spoilage occurred–Updated 28-09-04]. Why does the BBC fail to report this?
Fact 4: Democratic presidential candidate, Al Gore, had a bevy of lawyers primed to hit every county in Florida by the time polls closed to contest the legality of the high percentage of U.S. Military personnel who use Florida as their home address. There was a concerted effort on the part of the Gore team to disallow all military absentee ballots. Why does the BBC fail to report this?
Fact 5: Jimmy Carter, the former US President, may (or may not) be perceived as a fair arbiter of elections internationally but in the USA he is one of the most partisan figures in national politics. Read his speech from the DNC here. He has continually gone out of his way to snub and embarrass George Bush. Former presidents are normally very hesitant to demean a sitting president, but not Carter.
The BBC fails to balance Carter’s position with a view from the center if not the center-right.
UPDATE 28-09-04: For more on Carter and Florida 2000 see this Wall Street Journal editorial. While you’re thinking of Jimmuh, read Jane Galt’s (aka Megan McArdle)perspective on his glaring inconsistencies (via Instapundit).
Fact 6: No mention or allegation is made of the negative impact early TV projections seem to have made in suppressing voter turnout in the pro-Bush Florida panhandle. Conservative analyst John Fund estimates that Bush lost up to 30,000 votes given the rate of turnout earlier that day.
The BBC fails to report this too.
As with hurricanes in Florida, elections seem to bring out the “allegators” at the BBC. By now we’ve learned to live with them. Welcome to ‘Gatorland’!
I’m confused about your wording in Fact 3. There are more than 25 counties in Florida. Are you suggesting that only 25 counties used the butterfly ballots in 2000, and that 24 of those 25 had Democratic elections commissioners?
And the 30,000 “suppressed” votes listed in Fact 6 is quite high, I think. About 350,000 votes actually were cast in the Central Time Zone part of Florida in 2000. I don’t think the vote would have increased by another 10% if only the networks hadn’t mistakenly declared Gore the winner. Also, that 350,000 votes translates to something like 27k votes per hour. Even though the pre-9AM and post-5PM hours would have more votes, I don’t think there would have been enough votes in the final hour to suppress the Republican tally by 30,000. (My personal guess on this matter is several dozen.)
Whether your guess is accurate or not is irrelevent. Where is the news coverage? The beebs silence once again shouts out it’s bias.
Re fact 1: “she added that not a single person had filed suit to say he or she had been wrongfully disenfranchised in 2000.” – from the second article you link.
Re fact 2: Gore would’ve won on the Republicans’ preferred recount mechanism, while Bush would’ve won on the Dems’ preferred mechanism. There are also still questions about the accuracy of the out-of-state felons list, leaving the claim that he ‘lost fair and square’ far from proven.
Re fact 3: the first article is the only one to talk about voting machines, and doesn’t mention any Rep or Dem political affiliations.
Re fact 5: the article reports *factual* concerns raised by Mr Carter. What could a centre-rightist say – “Mr Carter is a partisan Democrat, so we should ignore the facts he raises”?
But you’re missing out the single most indefensible part of Carter’s allegations – that the Republicans were perverting democracy by ALLOWING NADER TO STAND AS A CANDIDATE. That alone surely disqualifies Carter from any serious consideration on any electoral question whatever.
Ted,
I’m not sure if all 25 Florida counties used ‘butterfly’ ballots. The layout of the Palm Beach County butterfly ballot was in question. The person responsible for its design, Theresa Lapore, is an elected official and a Democrat. 24 of 25 Florida counties had, in 2000, an election supervisor whose party affiliation is Democrat.
-continued-
Regarding the 30,000 estimate, it is based on John Fund’s book from which I quote: http://www.realclearpolitics.com/Commentary/com-9_21_04_JF.html
“By prematurely declaring Gore the winner shortly before the polls had closed in Florida’s conservative western Panhandle, the media ended up suppressing the Republican vote,” concluded John Lott of the American Enterprise Institute. John McLaughlin & Associates, a Republican polling firm based in Virginia, pegged the loss at 11,500 votes. Its poll, conducted November 15 and 16, showed that the misinformation about poll hours and the premature calling of Florida for Gore dissuaded 28,050 voters from casting ballots; 64 percent of these would have voted for Bush. Even a study commissioned by Democratic strategist Bob Beckel concluded that Bush suffered a net loss of up to 8,000 votes in the western Panhandle as a result of confusion sown by the networks.”
Ted, you may be right that 30,000 is high, but even Democrat researchers admit to some vote suppression (Beckel says 8,000) my point is that the BBC did not even report on this important aspect of the Florida result.
Yawn.
Dwight, fuck off.
Must’ve been a BBC lunch if he didn’t get back to his desk until 3.15pm 🙂
I have no idea who Dwight is, or RW for that matter, but kindly lay off the obscenities – thank you!
john b–
Thanks for your comments.
Re fact 1: “she added that…”
Updated to reflect what is in that article. Unfortunately, the allegations of ‘voter intimidation’ have reached urban legend status.
Re fact 2: “Gore would’ve won …” Why does the BBC insist on the Michael Moore line? It is not only unhelpful but downright misleading.
Re fact 3: “the first article is the only one to talk about voting machines, and doesn’t mention any Rep or Dem political affiliations.” But the underlying charge in this article is that international observers are there because of intimidation and fraud. Who was so accused? Republicans.
Re fact 5: “the article reports *factual* concerns raised by Mr Carter. What could a centre-rightist say – “Mr Carter is a partisan Democrat, so we should ignore the facts he raises”?” We should not ignore facts Carter may raise. Why is he the only ‘fact-raiser’ chosen by the Beeb?
Well done for exposing the outrageous bias of the BBC coverage on this.
KB – thanks for the fair reply.
Re your final point – I’ve not seen any official response to Carter’s points; I suspect this is because the felons list containing all the black cons and none of the Hispanics is completely indefensible (either it’s deliberate vote-rigging, or it’s unbelievably incompetent database management), so no official in Fla wishes to defend it.
And the Nader accusation is not as Martin Adamson states – Carter’s point is that the Secretary of State allowed Nader on the ballot even while the Supreme Court was still debating whether or not this was legal, not merely that she favoured putting him on the ballot.
I’ve heard that the recent hurricanes were actually manufactured by a secret atmospheric lab located in a hollowed out island volcano owned by the GOP. Where’s the news coverage for this? the Beeb should be all over this story about evil Republicans trying to sway the Floriduh vote.
It was actually a Republican butterfly in North Africa flapping its wings. Have you neve heard of chaos theory 😎
Humphrys interviews Blair on R4 “Today”.
In his conference speech, Blair identified a Western group who just want to keep their heads down, do nothing to upset the terrorists & hope they go away.
Humphrys claims never to have come across a person with such views.
Humphrys then goes on to point out that the war with Iraq has only served to upset jihadists & implies that without the war (& we kept our head down) there would not be any bother from such folks.
I was prevented from voting in florida by GW Bush wearing a plastic turkey outfit.
Have your say!
dave is the fluttering of african butterfly wings as chaoctic as say…an african swallow…given the velocity and such?
Yes, Melanie Phillips also discusses the interview with Tony Blair on the today programme.
I started listening but unfortunately am so tired of Humphreys on this line that I couldn’t proceed. Perhaps someone else could post some worthier comments.
Tony Blair and the Iraq conundrum
http://www.melaniephillips.com/diary/
As it happens I live in Florida and so can give you an eyewitness account of what happened:
1. There was no intimidation as is proven by the fact that the Civil Rights Commission headed by a rabid Democrat couldn’t manage to substantiate a single case. Jesse Jackson just threw out the charge at random assuming that it would be accepted without question since Florida is south of the Mason-Dixon line.
2. However there was a determined effort by the Democrats to throw out both the military vote and and the absentee ballots in Seminole county both of which were likely to be predominately Republican.
3. Instead of demanding a statewide recount like an honest man Gore wanted recounts in only three predominately democratic counties a practice known as ‘cherry picking’.
4. Third graders found the infamous ‘butterfly ballot’ completely understandable and it was only used in Palm Beach County. Frankly I couldn’t believe my ears when I heard the Democrats say that their voter base is too dim to figure out a slightly complex ballot or ask for help in doing so. Do we really want people that dumb voting?
5. A chad punching voting machine was found in the car of a democratic election worker, a story that was never followed up nor fully explained but casts an interesting light on all those ‘dangling chads’.
6. I have no sympathy whatsoever with sloppy or careless voters. I can manage to read and follow instructions and so can anybody who cares to take the trouble. And don’t tell me that people who live by filling out government forms, (welfare recipients and the like) can’t manage a ballot!
The thing that cost the Dems the 2000 election was not Florida, however much Dems harp on about it.
Zell Miller pointed to the “Metropolitan Elite” and it’s snobbish attitude to Southern and Appalachian Americans, the very people who have traditionally been Democrats.
Amusingly, last year, a Mr. Robert Fisk wrote an article in which he condemned the elitism of the Democrats, so all that “elitism” stuff is clearly just Republican smears!
What is amusing is to watch those who obviously know almost nothing about how elections work in the oldest and most successful democracy in the world throw out random and ignorant comments.
If you think that the implication, given by the networks in calling the state for Gore, that the polls were closed already, only caused a couple of dozen voters to stay home. I hope you don’t mind if I say that you chose your figures more out of the needs of your argument, than any independent judgement of the facts or knowledge of American voting habits. In the US it s common for there to be long lines at the polls at the end of the day, as voters get off of work. It is also custom to closely follow the news on election day.
Bush wanted all the votes counted, and Gore wanted some of the votes counted. Michael Moore can spin it however he wants, but that is a simple fact. With all of the votes counted that could be verified as legal votes, Bush won.
Since when has the US been the ‘oldest democracy in the world’? Iceland has been democratic since long before the US existed. ‘Most successful’ is pretty subjective as well.
“Iceland has been democratic since long before the US existed”
Was Ireland a republic in 1789? I thought Ireland was ruled by England as part of the UK until the 1920s. Don’t let the facts get in the way of a good rant though.
And not most successful? Whatever.
Iceland and Ireland aren’t the same country mate.
Over its long history, Iceland “belonged” to one or possibly two of the three Scandinavian kingdoms for a lengthy period of time. Still, your point is a good one Rich. The Althung is I believe the oldest parliamentary body in the world.
Iceland is considered the oldest, Westminster is considered to be ‘the mother of parliaments’, i.e. the version upon which many others are based or derived from.
As to the success or not of a ‘democracy’, surely that must be measured in terms of justice and the maintenance of said democracy…