In Florida 40,000 pro-Gore voters were prevented from voting to ensure Bush would win
Your Vote Counts—Only if you're allowed to vote
Letter to the Editor:
Regarding the contested legitimacy of the Bush presidency, recall
that in the state of Florida over 40,000 registered Democrats,
mostly black, of which statistically 90% were pro-Gore, were
illegally denied their constitutional right to vote. Their names
were simply removed from the list of registered voters prior to the
election. Florida's Secretary of State Katharine Harris, a devout
Republican who was also George W. Bush's presidential campaign
cochairwoman, removed their names claiming they were ex-felons,
citing a post civil war law originally enacted to eliminate as many
black voters as possible. However, these people were not ex-felons,
they were legally entitled to vote, they wanted to vote, they tried
to vote, but when they showed up to vote they were turned away. Had
these 40,000 people been allowed to vote as was their right Gore
would have easily won the state of Florida.
Keep in mind Florida and Texas are the two most southern states in
our nation, where blacks were enslaved until the whites were forced
to stop the practice after a bloody civil war. Oppression of blacks
continued after the civil war and obviously still exists today.
George W. Bush was the governor of Texas, and his brother Jeb
Bush was and still is the Governor of Florida.
What are we to think of our President who "won" the election only
because 40,000 black voters were illegally denied their
right to vote?
-David W. Deley
June 23, 2002
For more information see:
The U.S. Commission on Civil Rights
See also:
The Best Democracy Money Can Buy
by Greg Palast (2003)
Chapter 1: JIM CROW IN CYBERSPACE: The Unreported Story of How They Fixed the Vote in Florida.
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