The most ridiculous thing I've ever heard (debate possible)

[N.Bailey]

1st off, I must apologize for linking to an Aljazeera website. It's the 1st one I found after hearing this on Fox News.

http://english.aljazeera.net/NR/exeres/E471C8FD-72BC-4E79-8CE3-C32579325373.htm

US lawmakers ask for poll observers
Friday 02 July 2004, 8:17 Makka Time, 5:17 GMT

Several members of the US House of Representatives have requested the United Nations to send observers to monitor the 2 November US presidential election.

The request sent via a letter to UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan on Thursday said US officials wanted to avoid a contentious vote like in 2000, when the outcome was decided by Florida.

Recalling the long-drawn-out process in the southern state, nine lawmakers, including four blacks and one Hispanic, asked that the international body "ensure free and fair elections in America", according to a statement issued by Florida representative Eddie Bernice Johnson, who spearheaded the effort.

'Electoral nightmare'

"As lawmakers, we must assure the people of America that our nation will not experience the nightmare of the 2000 presidential election," she said in the letter.

"This is the first step in making sure that history does not repeat itself," she added, after requesting that the UN "deploy election observers across the United States" to monitor the
November 2004 election.

The lawmakers said in the letter that in a report released in June 2001, the US Commission on Civil Rights "found that the electoral process in Florida resulted in the denial of the right to vote for countless persons".

The bipartisan commission, they stressed, determined "that the "disenfranchisement of Florida's voters fell most harshly on the shoulders of black voters' and in poor counties". Both groups vote predominantly Democratic in US elections.

'Problems not fixed'

The commission also concluded, the lawmakers said, that "despite promised nationwide reforms (of the voting system) ... adequate steps have not been taken to ensure that a similar situation will not arise in 2004 that arose in 2000".

Thirty-six days after the 7 Novembe 2000 presidential election, after several state court interventions and vote recounts in numerous Florida counties, the US Supreme Court ruled in favour of Republican George Bush, awarding him all of Florida's 25 electoral votes.

The ruling tipped the balance against Democratic contender and then vice president Al Gore, who with 267 electoral votes lost to Bush's 271, only one more than the minimum 270 needed to clinch the presidential election.

 

[JimB.]

What a bunch of CA-CA.

These little tidbits about the "investigation" of the Civil Rights Commission....................

The House Judiciary Committee has accused the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights of deliberately withholding key documents and data used in its "investigations" of the 2000 presidential election in Florida. It called the commission's actions a "flagrant disregard" of Congress's authority to oversee the embattled agency.

Commissioner Abigail Thernstrom, a Republican, told United Press International on Wednesday that she was not surprised that Chairwoman Mary Frances Berry - a supporter of Al Gore - and the commission's administrative staff refused to answer the committee's questions

Documents obtained in July by United Press International show that the commission paid the Washington firm tens of thousands of dollars over the agency's $50,000 congressionally mandated cap for paid consultants.

Chabot expressed concern that the Democrat-dominated commission "arbitrarily disregards" its administrative guidelines, which he said were developed to provide the agency with an "orderly and cost-effective" means of conducting business. He said he was dismayed by a letter from commission Staff Director Les Jin, who said it was permissible for the commission to "modify or deviate from its [administrative instructions] if it fulfills the mission of the commission


Chabot demanded all documents relating to the Florida investigation that demonstrated the panel's decision to "modify or deviate" from its guidelines.

Thernstrom and Commissioner Russell Redenbaugh, an independent, issued a 50-page dissent that the Democrat commissioners initially refused to accept, citing its inclusion of statistical analysis from an unpaid consultant.

The dissent called the Florida report "faulty analysis" that relied on "vague and unsubstantiated claims" about problems with the Florida vote.

 

[MHopkins2]

*** is it, exactly, that the UN observers could do even if there were a problem? Purely political move, and a stupid one at that.

 

[jennyanydots]

We have considerable problems in some parts of the country. but I think we are fair minded enough to correct those problems ourselves.