Madame Butterfly Flies Off with Ballots, Florida Fixed Again?

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Madame Butterfly Flies Off with Ballots

Florida Fixed Again?

 

Absentee Ballots Go Absent

Sunday, August 29, 2004

 

by Greg Palast

 

 

 

On Friday, Theresa LePore, Supervisor of Elections in

Palm Beach, candidate for re-election as Supervisor of

Elections, chose to supervise her own election, no one

allowed. This Tuesday, Florida votes for these

nominally non-partisan posts.

 

 

 

You remember Theresa, " Madame Butterfly, " the one

whose ballots brought in the big vote for Pat Buchanan

in the Jewish precincts in November 2000. Then she

failed to do the hand count that would have changed

the White House from Red to Blue.

 

 

 

This time, Theresa's in a hurry to get to the

counting. She began tallying absentee ballots on

Friday in her own re-election race. Not to worry: the

law requires the Supervisor of Elections in each

county to certify poll-watchers to observe the count.

 

 

 

But Theresa has a better idea. She refused to certify

a single poll-watcher from opponents' organizations

despite the legal requirement she do so by last week.

She'll count her own votes herself, thank you very

much!

 

 

 

And so far, she's doing quite well. Although 37,000

citizens have requested absentee ballots, she says

she'd only received 22,000 when she began the count.

Where are the others? Don't ask: though she posts the

names of requesters, she won't release the list of

those who have voted, an eyebrow-raising deviation

from standard procedure.

 

 

 

And she has no intention of counting all the ballots

received. She has reserved for herself the right to

determine which ballots have acceptable signatures.

Her opponent, Democrat Art Anderson, had asked Theresa

to use certified hand-writing experts, instead of her

hand-picked hacks, to check the signatures.

 

 

 

Unfortunately, while Federal law requires Theresa to

allow a voter to correct a signature rejection when

registering, the Feds don't require her to permit

challenges to absentee ballot rejections.

 

 

 

I know what you're thinking. How could Madame

Butterfly know how people are voting? Well, she's

printed PARTY AFFILIATION on the OUTSIDE of each

return envelope. That certainly makes it easier to

figure out which ballot is valid, don't it?

 

 

 

And dear Reader, please take note of the implications

of this story for the big vote in November. Millions

have sought refuge in absentee ballots as a method to

avoid the dangers of the digitizing of democracy.

Florida and other states are reporting 400%-plus

increases in absentee ballot requests due to fear of

the new computer voting machinery. Some refuge. LePore

is giving us an early taste of how the Bush Leaguers

intend to care for your absentee ballot.

 

 

 

If there's no safety in the absentee ballot, how about

the computerized machines? The LePores of America have

that one figured out too.

 

 

 

On Friday, the day on which Theresa began her

Kremlim-style vote count, the New York Times ran a

puff piece on Jeb's Palm Beach political pet. Cub

reporter Amy Goodnough derided fears of Democrats who

painted " dark scenarios " about the computer voting

machines Madame Butterfly installed over the

objections of the state's official voting technology

task force.

 

If you're wondering why the experts told her not to

use the machines, I'll tell you -- because the New

York Times won't. It's not because the voting

specialists are anti-technology Luddites. The fact is

that Florida counties using touch-screens have

reported a known error rate 600% greater than the

alternative, paper ballots read by optical scanners.

And those errors have occurred -- surprise! --

overwhelmingly in African-American precincts.

 

First Brother Jeb has teamed with LePore to keep the

vote clean and white. Together they have refused the

Democrats request for the more-reliable paper ballots

as an option for voters.

 

In Leon County, by contrast, Elections Supervisor Ion

Sancho insisted on paper ballots and did not lose a

single vote to error in the March presidential

primary. Sancho told me it's a slam-dunk certainty

that the computer screens will snatch away several

thousand Palm Beach votes.

 

Theresa and the Jebster have been quite close since

LePore came out of the closet. The

Republican-turned-Democrat, nominally independent,

this year accepted the sticky embrace of the

Republican Party. One really has to wonder if she ever

truly left the Republicans in the first place.

 

It's a shame that Supervisor LePore was too busy

counting her votes and rejecting ballots to respond to

my phone calls. I wanted to be the first to

congratulate her on her election victory -- two days

before the election. Or maybe she fears I might be the

early birddog who catches the butterfly as she turns

back into a worm.

 

 

 

**********

 

Greg Palast is the author of the New York Times

bestseller, The Best Democracy Money Can Buy. His

article on vote manipulation in Florida for Harper's

Magazine, was nominated for a 2002 National Magazine

Award.

 

 

 

On September 28, Disinfo/Ryko will release on DVD his

film, " Bush Family Fortunes, " based on Palast's

investigative reports for BBC Television -- described

as " courageous reporting. " (Michael Moore) and

" twisted and maniacal " (Katherine Harris). View a

2-minute preview at

http://www.gregpalast.com/bff-dvd.htm

 

 

 

 

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