It's like year 2000 all over again, at least, that's the question at the bottom of the screen as Mika interviews Nelson.
Nelson: it was the Republicans in Florida in 2000 who were responsible for votes not being counted, and it's the Republicans in the Florida legislature who are responsible this time around for Florida's situation.
When Pat Buchanan, noted as a co-host on the program, has an opportunity to clearly state why the United States Supreme Court had to stop the Florida 2000 recount (because Florida was not using uniform statewide recount standards), Buchanan fails to do so and stop the misrepresentations by Nelson.
Buchanan discredited himself from here on regarding any pertinent or useful comments about Year 2000's Presidential Election and Bush v Gore's meaning in American history. We'll have to see what he's had published already, but it can't be much since he said absolutely nothing to stop Nelson's misrepresentations.
Mika B.: understand how you describe it, (Sen. Nelson) you disagreed with it at the time, (the Florida date change)(the Democratic National Committee punishment)(implied), but how do you do this (count the Florida votes when Obama and others didn't campaign there)(implied), and make it look fair.
Senator Bill Nelson doesn't answer, and Mika doesn't press.
Mika B. turns things over to Pat Buchanan who merely jokes about Year 2000, saying his name isn't on the ballot this time around in Florida.
Well, all we can say is these people wouldn't know a fact if it were presented to them in an I-Report youtube video. For instance, how about the floor vote in May 2007 in the Florida state House of Representatives.
Unanimous vote on the bill which both replaced the state's use of electronic touch-screen voting machines with paper ballot optical scanners and altered the Primary date.
Florida Acts to Eliminate Touch-Screen Voting System
By TERRY AGUAYO and CHRISTINE JORDAN SEXTON
Published: May 4, 2007
The plan, part of a bill that moves the state’s presidential primary to Jan. 29, was announced by Governor Crist in February. The Florida Senate voted for it last week, and the House of Representatives approved it unanimously on Thursday.
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/05/04/us/politics/04vote.html
The local Dem. Party didn't object to the date switch until after the National Dem. Party sanctions appeared set in stone.
However, the state Dem. legislators were well aware of the potential for sanctions earlier than the date on which the legislation passed unanimously and was signed into law May 2007.
Not only were Democratic officials aware of the sanctions, the officials were steadfast in participating in setting the Primary's earlier date, even though they could have submitted an alternative plan back in August, 2007 which surprisingly, could have included all-mail-in balloting.
Fla. Dems Stand Firm on Primary Date
By Jeff Zeleny
August 22, 2007, 5:27 pm
The Florida Democratic Party has no plans, at least for now, of blinking in the showdown over the date of its presidential primary next year.
Karen Thurman, chairwoman of the Florida Democratic Party, said in a late afternoon conference call with reporters today that she intends to go ahead with the state’s primary on Jan. 29. Even if the Democratic National Committee follows through with its threat to take away Florida delegates, she says she believes the nominee of the party will intercede and allow the delegates to be counted at the party’s nominating convention in Denver.
Florida, she says, is too important of a state in the general election.
“We’re going to fight for all of our delegates,” Ms. Thurman said. “The disenfranchisement is on their hands.”
In this case, “their” is the Rules and Bylaws Committee of the D.N.C. They have asked the Florida Democratic Party to come up with an alternate primary date - or a Plan B - to choose delegates. The Florida Democrats argued that the state’s Republican-controlled Legislature and governor changed the primary date and they had little control.
At issue is the so-called window for states to hold their nominating contests. If Florida goes ahead with its date of Jan. 29, the state is in violation of D.N.C. rules. Choosing an alternative date such as a vote-by-mail on another day, she said, would cost $5 to $8 million.
So the next stage of the showdown comes Saturday when the Florida Democratic Party presents its plan to the D.N.C. at a meeting in Washington.
http://thecaucus.blogs.nytimes.com/2007/08/22/fla-dems-stand-firm-on-primary-date/
The situation was, the Florida state Democratic Party did not present a plan to conduct their own election rather than let the state of Florida conduct the election for the Democratic Party.
Year 2000 had so many chad paper "dots" falling on the floor during the "recount" the Florida Supreme Court had to turn a blind eye or face revolt from the Democrats who put them in the judicial positions for near life terms.
The U.S. Supreme Court had to step in when it was obvious during the initial recount proceedings which started county by county, not as a whole in the state, that different methods were used to determine individual "voter intent" and those same non-uniform methods were going to continue to be the course of action during the "statewide" recount.
That's a no-no by anybody's legal standards. Different methods used are unacceptable since all must be uniform, especially statewide. When the Florida Supreme Court ordered the statewide recount to begin, some counties had already started their recounts because Gore chose those counties to recount. It was obvious from those proceedings things were done differently in each of the "4" counties and there were no uniform standards in place in the Florida to guide election officials.
The U.S. Supreme Court in Bush v Gore stopped the recount when more counties prepared and began the recount, but there were still no uniform standards for how counties should go about the recount.
Florida counties were not only using different standards, ones they themselves made up, some of the election officials reviewing the actual punchcard ballots were observed pushing out the chad and tallying the ballots for Al Gore.
An outcome of the election was already known - that is - Gore needed only one more vote to George W. Bush to win in Florida and those recounting the ballots knew the figure already "certified" some 500 votes or so.
The U.S. Supremes had to stop the recount since the magic number to change the outcome of the election was known as well. Had the statewide results not been certified in Florida, maybe there would have been an opening to recount, but then the matter of uniformity would have been problematic as well as FLORIDA HAD NO UNIFORM STANDARDS IN PLACE TO CONDUCT A STATEWIDE RECOUNT.
It's just too bad that not even Pat Buchanan could elucidate on these points when Nelson made the comments about Florida 2000.
Our material regarding Year 2000 Presidential Election can be found at Vote Fix. Our series is entitled: Trail of Treachery.
Read the introductory commentary here
Trail of Treachery Chad-Fraud
year 2000 Presidential election citizenmom tracking fraud
http://dirtline.tripod.com/votefix/id13.html
Links to additional material is contained in the sidebar. Note the article which shows officials were aware of voting machine errors four years earlier than 2000, in 1996, has since been taken off the Palm Beach Post site archives
Voting-machine errors discovered 4 years ago
By George Bennett and Marc Caputo, Palm Beach Post Staff Writers
Friday, December 8, 2000
http://dirtline.tripod.com/votefix/id13.html
Net the Truth Online
Florida Acts to Eliminate Touch-Screen Voting System
By TERRY AGUAYO and CHRISTINE JORDAN SEXTON
Published: May 4, 2007
May 3 — Florida legislators voted on Thursday to replace touch-screen voting machines installed in 15 counties after the troubled 2000 presidential election here with a system of optical scan voting.
...The move is the nation’s biggest repudiation of touch-screen voting, which was embraced after the 2000 recount as a way to restore confidence that every vote would count. But the reliability of touch-screen machines has increasingly come under scrutiny, as has the difficulty of doing recounts without a paper trail.
...The plan, part of a bill that moves the state’s presidential primary to Jan. 29, was announced by Governor Crist in February. The Florida Senate voted for it last week, and the House of Representatives approved it unanimously on Thursday.
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/05/04/us/politics/04vote.html
Florida Legislature OKs Plan to Move Up Presidential Primary to January
AP Thursday, May 03, 2007
...National Republican and Democratic leaders have said they will take away delegates to the nominating conventions if Florida moved its primary earlier than Feb. 5. The Democratic National Committee has said a candidate who campaigns in Florida for a primary earlier than Feb. 5 will be ineligible for receiving any of the state's delegates.
Lisa Camooso Miller, a Republican National Committee spokeswoman, said that under RNC rules any state that chooses to hold their primary outside the recommended window will be penalized half their delegates.
South Carolina Democratic Party Chairwoman Carol Fowler, a former DNC Rules Committee co-chair, said she has no doubts that the DNC will enforce rules that will deprive candidates and the state of delegates to the national convention for holding a primary outside of the party's rules.
"Under Democratic Party rules, this is an illegal process. They will have to have their own legal process later," she said. "This is not much more than a straw poll."
Florida lawmakers have repeatedly said they will not cower in the face of sanctions from the national parties because they believe choosing the next president is more important than sending delegates to a convention with a preordained outcome.
http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,269898,00.html
Florida Embraces Paper Ballots, Changes Presidential Primary Date
By TERRY AGUAYO and CHRISTINE JORDAN SEXTON
Posted on Friday, 4 of May , 2007 at 11:48 am
TALLAHASSEE, FLA—In a 118-0 vote in the Florida House of Representatives, a bill was passed requiring all Florida counties to have paper ballot voting technology in place before the 2008 Florida primaries and general election. The House vote comes shortly after the Florida Senate approved a similar measure...
...“This is an outstanding bipartisan achievement by Governor Crist and the Florida Legislature,” said U.S. Representative Robert Wexler. “The citizens of Florida have long demanded an election system guaranteeing that every vote is counted. Today the Governor delivered a paper trail, and Florida now stands as a model for the nation.”
http://www.northcountrygazette.org/news/2007/05/04/florida_ballots/
South Carolina Democratic Party Chairwoman Carol Fowler, a former DNC Rules Committee co-chair: "This is not much more than a straw poll."
http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,269898,00.html
Green Papers with links provided
In August 2007, the Democratic National Committee voted to strip the Florida Democratic Party of its 210 national convention delegates because the Florida Democratic Delegate Selection Plan violates party rules. These rules state that only Iowa, New Hampshire, Nevada, and South Carolina can start their delegate selection process before 5 February 2008 but Florida has scheduled their primary for 29 January 2008. The DNC gave the Florida Democrats until 29 September 2007 to come up with an alternate delegate-selection plan that complies with party rules.
On 23 September 2007 the Florida Democrats responded:
"After months of careful deliberations, your Party's leaders have chosen overwhelmingly to reaffirm our strong commitment to fully participating in the state-run Democratic Presidential Primary on January 29, 2008, despite the penalties from the Democratic National Committee. ....
Sincerely,
Congresswoman Karen L. Thurman
Chairwoman, Florida Democratic Party"
On 30 August 2007, Victor DiMaio filed a lawsuit in the United States District Court (Middle District of Florida) against the Democratic National Committee and the Florida Democratic Party (Case No. 07CV1552). The suit is in regard to sanctions applied by the DNC to the Florida 2008 National Convention Delegation. The Florida Democrats are beginning their delegate selection process before 5 February 2008 in violation of DNC rules. The DNC has indicated that unless Florida changes their process, they will forfeit their entire delegation.
On Saturday 25 August 2007, the Democratic National Committee Rules and Bylaws Committee determined that the Florida 2008 National Convention Delegate Selection process, which begins with a 29 January 2008 primary, violates party rules. The DNC RBL voted to strip the Florida Democratic Party of all its 210 delegates to the 2008 Democratic National Convention unless a new plan is adopted within the next 30 days. DNC rules forbid states from beginning their 2008 Delegate Selection Process before 5 February 2008, except for Iowa (14 January), Nevada (19 January), New Hampshire (22 January), and South Carolina (29 January).
15 September 2007 media report: State Democrats backing down on primary. "Florida Democrats, unable to work out a compromise to avoid harsh sanctions imposed by the Democratic National Committee, appear ready to give in and declare the Jan. 29 presidential primary meaningless."
CS/HB 537, signed by Florida Governor Governor Charlie Crist (Republican) on 21 May 2007, moves the Florida 2008 Presidential Primary from the second Tuesday in March (11 March 2008) to the last Tuesday in January (Tuesday 29 January 2008). Both the DNC and RNC have indicated that Florida will be sanctioned should they hold their primary before 5 February 2008.
On 5 August 2008, (must be a misprint - means 2007) the Florida Democratic Party's Executive Committee requested that the Florida legislature move the state’s Presidential Primary from 29 January to 5 February 2008.
http://www.thegreenpapers.com/P08/
Also see
Sunday, March 09, 2008
Republican Delegates Affected by Florida Primary Election Date Move
http://netthetruthonline.blogspot.com/2008/03/republican-delegates-affected-by.html
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