Florida Remains a National Disgrace

In what is becoming a nearly unbelievable perpetuation of possible election fraud - yet again in Florida - more than 21,000 electronic ballots that were cast on November 7th in the 13th Congressional District race failed to record a selection.

The 13th District is the seat that was previously occupied by Katherine Harris, before she decided to run for the Senate.  Harris, of course, was the Secretary of State who certified the election for George W. Bush over Al Gore in 2000, despite unresolved disputes concerning the true intentions of tens of thousands of voters.

Incidentally, Harris was recently snubbed by the very man she helped to win the presidency, and then was defeated in her bid for a Senate seat.

But lets get back to that messy 13th District.  The current situation there has coined - or at least popularized - a brand new descriptive word.  Instead of "hanging chads" or "butterfly ballots," we now have "undervotes."  This is the term used when voters are recorded as skipping a race.

In the Sarasota County portion of the 13th District, Democrat Christine Jennings enjoyed her strongest support over her Republican opponent, Vern Buchanan.

Unnaccountably, however, one out of every five ballots in that Democratic area showed no vote in the House race.

That repesents a virtual landslide of undervotes, being about eight times larger than in other counties and previous elections.  Eight times!  A 700% increase! This is clear evidence of a major problem.

Meanwhile, the Republican candidate is claiming victory by a margin of 400 votes.

Suspicions originally surfaced when hundreds of voters, who happened to take the trouble to check their ballot summaries, complained that they found no vote had been recorded for the House race.

And perhaps we shouldn't be surprised that the official reaction by Sarasota County election supervisor Kathy Dent was simply: "Machines don't make mistakes."

Of course, she neglected to add the tail end of that statement, "people do."

A machine recount has confirmed the results, and a manual recount that is now ongoing is expected to do so as well.

However, the not-so-funny truth is that they can retabulate the votes until doomsday, and there probably will be no change.  IF THE VOTES WERE NEVER RECORDED, THEY WILL NOT BE THERE TO BE RECOUNTED (Election Fraud 101).  Their are no paper records.

Susan Pynchon, founder of the nonpartisan Florida Fair Elections Coalition called the machine recount "a sham."

Reginald Mitchell, legal counsel in Florida for the nonpartisan People for the American Way Foundation said: "Something clearly went very wrong in Sarasota County."

Republicans in the state are calling on Jennings to concede, but, at this time, it appears that the situation will continue to be played out in the "sham" recount arena, in an audit committee review, and possibly in the judicial system as well.

The machines in question were supplied by Omaha-based Election Systems and Software.

Perhaps the greatest insult to the integrity of the democratic process in Florida is the choice by the state's Republican administration, headed, of course, by John Ellis "Jeb" Bush, of the individual who will carry out the inspection of the Sarasota voting Machines.

He is Alec Yasinsac, a Florida State University professor who is well remembered as the man who wore a "Bush won" button as he fought fiercely against Democratic demands for a recount in 2000.