GOING TO THE SUPREME COURT

THE ABSENTEE BALLOTS: THE GOP'S STRATEGY TO ELECT BUSH

JEB BUSH'S UNETHICAL ROLE

DISCRIMINATION AGAINST BLACKS

STUDIES SHOW GORE WAS THE WINNER

KATHERINE HARRIS’ DISCLOSURE TWO YEARS LATER

A CALL FOR VOTING REFORM

MOVING TO IMPEACH THE FIVE JUSTICES

THE ILLUSION OF INCLUSION

THE COMMISSION ON CIVIL RIGHTS

GORE'S MISTAKES

STUDIES SHOW GORE TO BE THE WINNER

GOING TO THE SUPREME COURT

During the legal battle to win Florida’s 25 electoral votes, Bush’s recount committee used corporate jets owned by 10 companies to ferry lawyers and campaign workers to Florida and elsewhere, according to Internal Revenue Service records and a committee lawyer. Three of those companies came under investigation in 2001 and 2002. Enron, Halliburton, and Reliant Energy were among the corporations reimbursed for the use of their corporate jets by the Bush committee during the 36-day recount.

Enron filed for bankruptcy protection in late 2001 after allegations surfaced that the enrgy-trader hid $1 billion in losses. CEO Ken Lay was a leading contributor to Bush’s political career. Lay and his wife donated $10,000 to the recount fund. Halliburton, the second-largest oilfield services firm, came under SEC investigation in mid-2002 for allegedly accelerating booking of revenue from construction work, an accounting change started in 1998, when Cheney was chairman and CEO. And Reliant Resources, a Houston-based energy trader that is 83 percent owned by Reliant Energy, was also investigated by the SEC in the summer of 2002 by the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission for “round-trip” trades that inflated revenue and contributed to a restatement of earnings in 2001.

Several other executive jets rented by Bush’ recount committee belonged to oil industry companies, including Houston- based Anadarko Petroleum, Los Angeles-based Occidental Petroleum, and Tom Brown Incorporatedr-based oil- exploration company. Tom Brown was formerly headed by Don Evans, Bush’s Commerce Secretary. Bush sat on Tom Brown’s board in the early 1990s. (Bloomberg News, August 2, 2002)

The Washington Post (November 12, 2001) said that Gore "did at one point call on Bush to join him in asking for a statewide recount" and accepting the results without further legal challenge, but that Bush rejected the proposal as "a public relations gesture." Instead of supporting a full and fair recount, Bush chose to cling to his official lead of 537 votes out of some 6 million cast, Bush counted on his brother Jeb's state officials to ensure the Bush family's return to national power.

With Bush rejecting a full recount and media pundits calling for Gore to concede, Gore opted for recounts in four southern Florida counties where irregularities seemed greatest. Those recounts were opposed by Bush's supporters, both inside Governor Jeb Bush's administration and in the streets by Republican sympathizers flown in from Washington D.C.

Stymied on that recount front, Gore carried the fight to the state courts, where pro-Bush forces engaged in more delaying tactics, leaving the Florida Supreme Court only days to fashion a recount remedy.

Finally, on December 8, facing an imminent deadline for submitting the presidential election returns, the state Supreme Court ordered a statewide recount of "undervotes." This tally would have excluded so-called "overvotes" -- which were disqualified for supposedly indicating two choices for president.

Bush fought this court-ordered recount, too, sending his lawyers to the United States Supreme Court. There, five Republican justices stopped the recount on December 9 and gave a sympathetic hearing to Bush's claim that the varying ballot standards in Florida violated constitutional equal-protection requirements. At 10 p.m. on December 12, two hours before a deadline to submit voting results, the Republican-controlled Supreme Court instructed the state courts to devise a recount method that would apply equal standards, a move that would have included all ballots where the intent of the voter was clear. The hitch was that the Supreme Court gave the state only two hours to complete this assignment, effectively handing Florida's 25 electoral votes and the White House to Bush. If the Supreme Court had given the state enough time to fashion a comprehensive remedy or if Bush had agreed to a full-and-fair recount earlier, the popular will of the American voters -- both nationally and in Florida -- might well have been respected. Gore would have been inaugurated president of the United States.

THE ABSENTEE VOTES: THE GOP'S STRATEGY TO ELECT BUSH

A

New York Times

When the Bush team knew that the outcome of the election hinged on the Florida vote, the Republicans Party mounted a legal and public relations campaign to persuade canvassing boards in Bush strongholds to waive the state's election laws when counting overseas absentee ballots. According to a six-month study conducted by the New York Times, their goal was to count the maximum number of overseas ballots in counties won by Bush, particularly those with a high concentration of military voters, while seeking to disqualify overseas ballots in counties won by Gore. (New York Times, July 15, 2001)

Under Florida standards, all overseas ballots needed to show clear evidence they were cast on or before Election Day and mailed from outside the United States. State law required all overseas ballots to have foreign postmarks. In addition, a state rule said that such ballots must be either "postmarked or signed and dated" by Election Day.

But most of the ballots did not have dated signatures because only one of Florida's 67 counties even provided a spot on the ballot for a voter to write a date next to his or her signature. This seemingly obscure postmark standard was suddenly of crucial importance to the Bush strategists. Hundreds of overseas ballots that they wanted counted met neither requirement -- the envelopes had no postmarks, and the signatures had no dates. Not only were ballots coming in without postmarks, the Bush team had also heard scattered accounts of ballots sitting in mailbags on the decks of Navy ships.

On November 8, Bush's team began plotting strategy on overseas ballots. Their first thoughts were about the potential for fraud, according to interviews and internal strategy documents obtained by the New York Times. They looked at every angle. Democrats could urge liberal Israelis to send in ballots. Or they might interfere with the delivery of ballots from Navy ships, military installations, and American embassies.

Three days later, the Bush campaign understood that defending against fraud alone was too limited a strategy. To take full advantage of Bush's support in the military, offensive measures would be needed too. And with Gore closing the gap in the recounts, Bush strategists said in interviews that they calculated that they would need a net gain of 1,000 votes among the overseas ballots to seal victory.

Meanwhile, the Bush campaign worked through channels to communicate directly with military personnel overseas, encouraging them to send in their absentee ballots. GOP Congressman Steve Buyer, a member of the House Armed Services Committee, requested from the Pentagon the phone numbers or e-mail addresses of a number of service men and women. The New York Times learned that this information was used to put sailors in contact with Florida Republicans who were organizing a public relations campaign to persuade counties to reconsider rejected ballots.

The first message, which the New York Times obtained under the Freedom of Information Act, was sent at 9:29 p.m. on November 22 from Washington to senior officers on the George Washington in the Mediterranean. Other messages followed. Through the e-mail, the Bush campaign could directly encourage them to send in their absentee ballots.

Under intense pressure from the Republicans, Florida officials accepted hundreds of overseas absentee ballots that failed to comply with state election laws. In an analysis of the 2,490 ballots from Americans living abroad that were counted as legal votes after Election Day, the New York Times found 680 questionable votes. Although it was not known for whom the flawed ballots were cast, four out of five were accepted in counties carried by Bush. And Bush's final margin in the official total was 537 votes.

The flawed votes included ballots without postmarks, ballots postmarked after the election, ballots without witness signatures, ballots mailed from towns and cities within the United States, and even ballots from voters who voted twice. All would have been disqualified had the state's election laws been strictly enforced. The Republican push on absentee ballots forced Gore's team to push for manual recounts in mainly Democratic counties in southern Florida.

In its investigation, the New York Times found that these overseas ballots -- the only votes that could legally be received and counted after Election Day -- were judged by markedly different standards, depending on where they were counted. This strategy conflicted with statements made by Bush's campaign leaders and by the Florida Secretary of State Katherine Harris. They had stated that rules should be applied uniformly and certainly not changed in the middle of a contested election. It also conflicted with the equal protection guarantee that the United States Supreme Court invoked in December when it halted a state-wide manual recount and effectively handed Bush the presidency.

The study found no evidence of vote fraud by either party. While some voters admitted in interviews that they had cast illegal ballots after Election Day, the investigation found no support for the suspicions of Democrats that the Bush campaign had organized an effort to solicit late votes. Instead, the Republicans concentrated on overseas absentee ballots, since most of those votes went to Bush. In Washington, Bush campaign officials urged the Pentagon to expedite the collection and delivery of military ballots. As it turned out, these ballots arrived more quickly than they had in previous elections. Republicans on the House Armed Services Committee helped the campaign obtain private contact information for military voters.

In the end, the vast majority of the ballots -- 97 percent -- arrived before the November 17 deadline. In previous elections, according to records and interviews, as many as a third arrived after the 10-day window had closed. But the New York Times investigation indicated that the push to get the ballots in quickly only aggravated a problem that had concerned the Bush camp: 17 percent of military ballots arrived without postmarks, despite military regulations that required all mail to be postmarked. There was no evidence that the Pentagon knowingly delivered ballots cast illegally after Election Day.

The lack of postmarks made it impossible for canvassing boards to answer the threshold questions that determined the validity of an overseas vote: Was the ballot indeed mailed from a foreign country? And was it mailed on or before Election Day? The lack of postmarks also posed political problems for the Bush strategists. Some Bush advisers, still fearful of votes from Israel, were preparing to seek strict enforcement of the postmark standard, according to documents and interviews. The Bush campaign even dispatched Jim Smith, a former Florida secretary of state, to emphasize the postmarking rule at a news conference on November 12.

Still, the Bush team tried to ensure that local election officials set aside the state's rules on late postmarking that would have excluded hundreds of ballots. In a single phrase of federal law, they found the statutory tool by which the Bush team would seek to undo Florida's postmarking rules. The phrase was contained in the Uniformed and Overseas Citizens Absentee Voting Act, a 1986 federal law intended to make overseas voting easier. One part of the law, a directive to postal officials, states that overseas ballots "shall be carried expeditiously and free of postage." Although the law said nothing about postmarks, those eight words demonstrated that Congress never intended to require postmarks on overseas military ballots. Bush's lawyers knew that they were putting their faith in an untested legal theory. The same federal law emphasized the importance of state election rules.

As a backup, they used a 1975 Florida Supreme Court ruling that said as long as there were no signs of fraud, canvassing boards had some discretion to accept ballots with minor flaws -- such as putting a signature in the wrong place or omitting a witness's address. So they used this argument to get the get military ballots counted. However, this conflicted with the Bush strategy to thwart manual recounts. In public statements by lead counsel James Baker, and in the campaign's legal briefs, the Bush team argued repeatedly that it was unfair and patently unconstitutional for Gore to seek liberal recount standards in Democratic strongholds.

Secretary of State Harris said nothing about the absentee ballots until November 13, when she touched on them at the end of a televised statement that focused mainly on trying to bring an end to the South Florida recounts. In her statement, she said that the overseas ballots had to be "executed" -- a vague word that could have meant either signed or both signed and dated -- by Election Day and that they had to bear a foreign postmark. Then she added, "They are not required, however, to be postmarked on or prior to" Election Day.

According to the New York Times, Republicans provided their lawyers with instructions, showing how to challenge likely Gore votes while fighting for more likely Bush votes. In some counties where Gore was strong, Bush lawyers stood by silently while Gore lawyers challenged overseas ballots, even likely Gore ballots.

The double-standard strategy of the GOP was reflected in how different counties counted ballots. In counties carried by Gore, 2 in 10 ballots that had no evidence they were mailed on or before Election Day were accepted. In counties carried by Bush, 6 in 10 of the same kinds of ballots were counted. Bush counties were four times as likely as Gore counties to count ballots lacking witness signatures and addresses.

In reconstructing the story of the absentee vote, the New York Times collected copies of virtually all the overseas ballot envelopes that arrived after Election Day and built a comprehensive database for statistical analysis. The Times also examined thousands of pages of election documents and canvassing board meeting transcripts and interviewed more than 300 voters in 43 countries. Because the ballots themselves were separated from the envelopes containing voter information, it was impossible to know whether the outcome of the election would have been different had the flawed ballot envelopes been treated consistently.

Many of the 680 flawed ballots in the analysis of the overseas envelopes had multiple defects, so the total number of flaws exceeds the number of defective ballots. The following questionable ballots were found:

344 ballots with no evidence they were cast on or before Election Day. They had late, illegible or missing postmarks.

183 ballots with United States postmarks.

96 ballots lacking the required signature or address of a witness.

169 ballots from voters who were not registered, who failed to sign the envelope or who had not requested a ballot. A request is required by federal law.

5 ballots received after the Nov. 17 deadline.

19 voters cast two ballots, both of which counted.

Gary King, a Harvard expert on voting patterns and statistical models, told the New York Times that there was no way to declare a winner with mathematical certainty under those circumstances. His best estimate was that Bush's margin would have been reduced to 245 votes. King estimated that there was only a slight chance that discarding the questionable ballots would have made Gore the winner.

JEB BUSH'S UNETHICAL ROLE

When it became clear that the disputed Florida election could deliver the White House to his brother, Jeb Bush immediately recused himself from any official role in the recount. He promised to avoid even the "slightest appearance of a conflict of interest." He directed his staff to spend their time on government business and pledged to do the same.(Los Angeles Times, July 14, 2001)

Despite that hands-off policy, the Florida governor's office made 95 telephone calls to the George W. Bush presidential campaign, its advisors, lawyers, and staffers during the 36-day recount period, records showed. At least 10 calls came from an office number used primarily by Jeb Bush, including one call to a private line in George W. Bush's gubernatorial office in Austin. Another call from Jeb Bush's number went to Karl Rove. One went to the Texas governor's chief of staff, Clay Johnson. Another went to Michigan Governor John Engler who soon flew to Florida to monitor the ballot recount in Broward County. Additional calls were logged to cell phones assigned to Bush campaign staffers. (Los Angeles Times, July 14, 2001)

In a reply to Los Angeles Times reporter Lisa Getter, Jeb Bush said in an e-mail that he could not recall the purpose of the calls: "Lisa, I have no clue what these calls were about. They most likely were return phone calls. In the alternative, they could have been my assistant passing on a request for an invitation to speak or an autographed picture. They might have been answering a request on where to eat in Tallahassee for the hoards of Austin folks that made their way here. They could have been for many reasons. I cannot remember. (Los Angeles Times, July 14, 2001)

But some supporters of Gore questioned whether Jeb Bush used his position to influence events behind the scenes after the election. It appeared as if he was more involved than he had publicly acknowledged. Jeb Bush visited the state GOP headquarters in Tallahassee that functioned as the Bush campaign command center for the recount at least once. He also dialed into at least one conference call with campaign operatives, aides said. And days after the recount ended, he hired Kathleen Shanahan, the Bush-Cheney deputy campaign manager, as his chief of staff in Tallahassee. Al Cardenas, chairman of the Florida Republican Party, said, "I talked to him every few days." Although Cardenas said the governor "took himself out of the strategy end of things," he said that Bush was kept abreast of developments in each of the state's 67 counties and given a "heads up on litigation." (Los Angeles Times, July 14, 2001)

Randy Enwright, a political consultant to the George W. Bush campaign in Florida, said he spoke to Jeb Bush "a couple of times" during the recount period but said he did not recall the substance of the conversations. Enwright said, "He was trying to be as objective and fair as possible. But he obviously cared about getting his brother elected." (Los Angeles Times, July 14, 2001)

The Los Angeles Times filed a public records request to obtain Jeb Bush's personal cell phone records, the visitors' log to his mansion, his daily calendar, and his phone messages during the recount. The phone records showed 34 calls from the governor's office to the Bush for President campaign office in Miami. Six were made November 22, the day the Miami-Dade canvassing board abruptly abandoned its manual recount. The governor's office also made a call that day to the Miami law firm that employed Miguel De Grandy who represented the Bush campaign before the canvassing board. An additional 25 calls were made to the Washington law firm then known as Cooper, Carvin & Rosenthal. Law firm partner Michael Carvin wrote briefs for the George W. Bush campaign during the recount and argued his case before the Florida Supreme Court. In addition, several of the firm's associates flew to Tallahassee to help. (Los Angeles Times, July 14, 2001)

Bush's legal staff also phoned the Washington offices of the Los Angeles law firm of Gibson, Dunn and Crutcher on December 5, the day after the United States Supreme Court sent the recount case back to Florida. Theodore Olson and a team of lawyers from that firm worked on the case for the Bush campaign. After he was elected, George W. Bush appointed Olson solicitor general.

DISCRIMINATION AGAINST BLACKS

One specific factor that allowed Bush to steal the election was racial injustice. The more Black and Democratic a precinct, the more likely it was to suffer high rates of invalidated votes.

Many minority voters, who were registered and had voted for years, were told they did not appear on voter lists. Voters without Florida IDs were turned away, though the law said they could cast “affidavit ballots.” In some counties, minority voters said they were asked for a photo ID -- while Anglo voters were not -- or turned away even when they showed up with a voter card and photo ID. People who lacked a photo ID or were not on the voting list were put into a “problem line,” where they were told that voting officials were trying to call headquarters to find out what to do. But the lines were jammed and they just could not get through. Many discouraged voters gave up and went home. (Village Voice, November 29, 2000)

Many Blacks were harassed and intimidated by police in some counties, and turned away by registrars who claimed a shortage of ballots. Some Blacks were mistakenly removed from voter rolls because their names were similar to those of ex-convicts. Many arrived at polls only to be told they were not registered. Others were told they could not vote because they had been mailed absentee ballots -- ballots the voters complained they had not sought. Still other Blacks were harassed, turned away, or given misleading ballot instructions. In several counties, there were long lines of Blacks waiting to vote. Assuming there was confusion and faced with a long wait, many turned around and went home. However in affluent Anglo precincts, voters had modern, optical scanners, and lower rates of uncounted ballots. (New York Times, December 1, 2000; Mother Jones, November 8, 2000)

In counties comprised of a high percentage of Democrats and Blacks, antiquated voting machines that dated back to the 1950s were used. These machines did not immediately check ballots for errors -- so Blacks were less likely than Whites to get a chance to correct their ballots if they made mistakes. While hundreds and probably thousands of Black ballots were disqualified because of faulty machines in those areas, more affluent Florida counties had modern voting equipment which had a much smaller degree of failure.

About 26 percent of Black voters lived in counties that verified ballots as valid in precincts as soon as they were cast. Consequently, poll workers could immediately tell voters that they disqualified ballots, and voters had a second chance to cast a valid ballot. By comparison, 34 percent of Anglo voters lived in these areas. That meant Anglo voters were more likely to have their votes counted than Blacks. Voters, whose ballots were checked immediately, were using cutting-edge optical scanners, which read pen marks. The other voters were using either optical scanners that did not check ballots instantly, or punch-card machines in which voters punch out chads to make a selection.

Some Blacks were turned away by registrars who claimed a shortage of ballots in others. Others reported of being harassed, turned away, or given misleading ballot instructions. Some said they were mistakenly removed from voter rolls, because their names were similar to those of ex-convicts. Some Black registered voters arrived at polls only to be told they were not registered. Others were told they could not vote, because they had been mailed absentee ballots -- ballots the voters complained they had not sought. In at least one case, Blacks found their traditional polling site -- an elementary school -- had been razed and complained that they had not been given an alternative. (Mother Jones, November 8, 2000)

Florida A&M students had always voted on campus. When they went to vote in the 2000 election, they were told that they had to go somewhere else to vote this time. When they went to the precinct to which they had been directed, they were told that they were not registered to vote there and were turned away and did not get to vote. (Village Voice, November 29, 2000)

Car pools of African-American voters were stopped by police, and in some cases, officers demanded to see a “taxi license.” Some polls located in minority areas closed with people still in line in Tampa. In Osceola County, ballots did not line up properly, possibly causing Gore voters to have their ballots cast for Harry Browne. Latino voters were required to produce two forms of identification when only one is required. (Los Angeles Times, November 11, 2000; Associated Press, November 11, 2000)

STUDIES SHOW GORE WAS THE WINNER

A study conducted by California Institute of Technology and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology concluded that between 4 million and 6 million Americans either failed to cast votes or had their votes invalidated in the election. The report was the first analysis of the 2000 presidential election that studied the entire national vote. The large number of disqualified ballots was largely a result of faulty equipment, mismarked ballots, polling place failures, and foul-ups with registration or absentee voting. (Washington Post, July 17, 2001)

MIT and Cal Tech researchers estimated that 40 million registered voters in the United States did not participate in the election. Roughly 7 percent -- or about 3 million voters -- said they failed to vote because of registration problems, and another 1 million cited “long lines” or other polling place shortcomings. The research showed that faulty equipment or confusing ballots caused 1.5 million to 2 million votes to be unmarked or mismarked. The study also revealed that poor and minority voters were more than three times as likely as wealthy ones to have their ballots discarded. In all, the researchers estimated that between 4 million and 6 million votes were lost in the election. (Washington Post, July 17, 2001)

A study by the Orlando Sentinel in December 2000 revealed about 3,000 overvotes in Lake County. The study found more than 600 valid ballots that had been ignored by the machines, with Gore picking up 130 even in this heavily pro-Bush county.

In January 2001, the Chicago Tribune reported that in 15 Florida counties with a particularly high rate of overvotes, more than 1,700 votes that showed a clear choice had been discarded. Most of the counties in the Tribune’s study were small, rural, and predominantly Republican. Yet even so Gore’s net gain was 366 votes.

The Palm Beach Post evaluation of the election showed that if all votes were counted -- from the dimple to chads barely hanging on ballots – Gore would have had a net gain of 784 votes in Palm Beach County, if the board had also counted the 5,361 ballots that had a dimpled chad. That would be enough to carry the state’s 25 electoral votes. (Palm Beach Post, January 11, 2001; March 11, 2001

A study by USA Today showed that Gore won, even if one did not count the 15,000-25,000 votes that the newspaper estimated he lost because of: (1) illegally designed “butterfly ballots,” or (2) the hundreds of predominantly African-American voters who were falsely identified by the state as felons and turned away from the polls. Gore won even if there was no adjustment for Bush’s windfall of about 290 votes from improperly counted military absentee ballots where lax standards were applied to Republican counties and strict standards to Democratic ones. The analysis found that Gore won regardless of which standard was applied and even when varying county judgments were factored in. Counting fully punched chads and limited marks on optical ballots, Gore won by 115 votes. With any dimple or optical mark, Gore won by 107 votes. With one corner of a chad detached or any optical mark, Gore won by 60 votes. Applying the standards set by each county, Gore won by 171 votes. (USA Today, November 12, 2001

The Washington Post scrutinized computerized records of 2.7 million ballots in Florida’s eight largest counties. The study concluded that, had all the ballots been properly counted, Gore would have carried Florida, regardless of which standard of counting ballots was applied. The study of 2.7 million votes cast in eight of Florida’s largest counties showed that overvotes trended toward Gore at a rate of three to one. Add these together, even with the new undervote count, and Bush would have lost Florida. When fully punched chads or dimpled chads were counted, Gore would have carried Florida by between 60 and 171 votes. (Washington Post, January 28, 2001)

Another study by the Washington Post in November 2001 examined 175,010 Florida ballots. It concluded that Gore could have had a net gain of 662 votes in a hand recount of optical overvotes, almost entirely because of those double-bubbles. But the state-wide recount, ordered by the Florida Supreme Court and stopped by the United States Supreme Court the following day, specified only undervotes would be examined and not overvotes.

In Miami-Dade County precincts where fewer than 30 percent of the voters were Blacks, about 3 percent of ballots did not register a vote for president. In precincts where more than 70 percent of the voters were Blacks, it was nearly 10 percent. Some 40 percent of the state’s Black voters were new voters, and election experts said that they were the most vulnerable to confusion about oddly designed ballots. (Washington Post, December 3, 2000)

KATHERINE HARRIS’ DISCLOSURE TWO YEARS LATER

In the summer of 2002, Florida Secretary of State Katherine Harris acknowledged that she failed to follow an election law herself and abruptly resigned. Harris said she made a mistake when she qualified to run for Congress by failing to submit a letter of resignation required of all state officeholders seeking federal office. She said she did not think the law applied to her because Florida’s elected secretary of state post was being abolished in January. She said, “I just made that assumption. I should have read the law. I didn’t. I take full responsibility.” (St. Petersburg Times, August 2, 2002)

The resignation letter would have allowed her to remain in office until January, though she repeatedly insisted she planned to resign early. State law required all state officials to submit a resignation letter when they qualify to run for federal office. Otherwise they faced “an automatic irrevocable resignation, effective immediately, from the office he or she presently holds.” (St. Petersburg Times, August 2, 2002)

A CALL FOR VOTING REFORM

A private, bipartisan commission on voting reforms, chaired by former Presidents Ford and Carter, recommended a broad series of changes in how the nation votes. The 100-page report was issued by the 19-member National Commission on Federal Election Reform. It recommended:

The formation of a new federal agency to establish uniform voting standards. The new agency, called the Election Administration Commission, would develop federal voting system standards to oversee testing and certification of voting machines and to administer federal assistance to the states.

That states adopt voter registration systems to permit provisional voting by anyone who claimed to be registered and that they restore voting rights to felons who have served their sentences.

That Congress impose a plan for uniform closing hours at the polls in the continental United States for presidential elections if news organizations continued to report election projections.

That news organizations voluntarily refrain from projecting presidential election outcomes until 11 p.m. Eastern time (8 p.m. in California), after polls have closed in the 48 contiguous states. If they refused, the report suggested that Congress and states should pass laws to prohibit government officials from disclosing official tallies at precinct levels and above until 11 p.m.

That Congress and the 50 states spend an additional $300 million to $400 million each year for election administration, an increase of 30 percent to 40 percent over current spending. To reach that goal, the report suggested Congress provide $1 billion to $2 billion to help create a revolving fund that can be used for matching grants to the states in coming years.

That national television networks provide at least five minutes of free prime time to each qualified candidate each night during the last 30 days of the presidential campaign, as well as free time for voter education.

The report did not endorse one kind of technology or call for abandoning the punch-card machines made infamous during the Florida recounts. The chief alternative, optical scan technology that required a voter to color in a circle on a paper ballot, was not foolproof and was opposed by some advocates for the blind and disabled. The document especially was critical of the exit polling used by broadcast media and the projections that led major television networks to repeatedly miscall Florida for Gore and for Bush on election night. (New York Times, July 31, 2001)

THE ILLUSION OF INCLUSION

On Election Day, fewer than 10 percent of the nation's Black voters cast their ballots for Bush. Only five days before his inauguration day, Bush chose to speak to an all-Black Kelso School in Houston on Martin Luther King Day. Only 19 of 1,106 of the school's staff and parents of the students had voted for the GOP nominee two months earlier. Bush's remarks to the audience echoed his empty promises that he had continuously made throughout the vicious 2000 campaign. He told parents, teachers, and students that he would strive to achieve King's vision of "equal opportunity, equal treatment, and equal rights."

Indeed, Bush gave the illusion that he was an advocate for the Black community. He claimed that he would attempt to correct voting irregularities that had propelled him into the White House. He sounded as if he was empathetic as he made still another promise to halt racial profiling. And once again, the inexperienced president failed to give any specifics on how he would "unify" the nation. He failed to lay out any specific plan to bridge the increasing gap between the nation's Black and White communities.

In November and December, Bush raised nearly $6 million in mostly small contributions to pay for the legal battle over Florida's contested vote, federal records show. Bush, who limited individual contributions to $5,000, still came out ahead of Gore in post-election fund-raising, according to filings with the Internal Revenue Service that were analyzed by the Center for Responsive Politics. Gore took in $3.7 million after the November 7 vote. He relied heavily on a handful of large contributions from Democratic Party loyalists who began fund-raising once it became clear that the election would hinge on the results in Florida.

A solid plurality of Americans, Blacks and Whites alike, believed that -- if the United States Supreme Court had allowed the vote count to continue -- Gore would have won Florida and the presidency. According to a Los Angeles Times (December 17, 2000) poll, only a slight majority of Americans believed that Bush won the presidency legitimately, and only a slight majority believed that after the controversy Bush can effectively unite the country. The survey also found enormous ambivalence about the United States Supreme Court. While half of Americans believed that the court's decision was not based on partisan loyalties, a slightly larger majority -- 53 percent -- said that it agreed with the dissenting four justices who wanted to complete the recount in Florida.

Americans clearly viewed the Florida quagmire as a serious concern. Only 28 percent said that the controversy over the election's outcome was just a minor problem. Sixty-one percent of those surveyed said that the nation should eliminate the Electoral College and elect as president the candidate who wins the most popular votes. Eighty percent of Democrats said that after the disputed election compared with half that many Republicans.

Racial divisions were ominous. Most Whites agreed with the Supreme Court's decision and considered the court above politics. But more than 8 in 10 nonwhites opposed the decision and fully two-thirds considered the court motivated by partisanship. A large number of Americans also said that Justices Scalia and Thomas should have recused themselves because of conflicts of interest. Asked who would have won if the Supreme Court had allowed the recount to continue, 44 percent said Gore, 33 percent said Bush, and 23 percent said they did not know.

A plurality of voters believed that, if all the votes in Florida had been counted, it would be Gore who would have been elected. Three-quarters of Democrats said that they believed Gore would have won in a full count. Only three-fifths of Republicans were as confident about Bush's prospects. Moreover, large numbers of Democrats and independents believed that Bush's credibility as president will be damaged if outside groups gain access to the disputed ballots and conclude, through further unofficial recounts, that Gore won the most votes in Florida. More than one-fourth of all Americans (including 43 percent of Democrats) believed that Bush would be badly damaged by such a revelation. An additional 32 percent said that he would be somewhat damaged. Only about one-third of Americans believed Bush would not be hurt at all. Sixty percent of Americans said that the controversy over the outcome would make it much harder for Bush to accomplish his goals and keep his campaign promises. And only 52 percent were confident that he would be an effective leader.

According to an MSNBC poll on January 18, 2001, 52 percent said that they were either very optimistic or somewhat optimistic about the next four years, compared to 47 percent who said they either had mixed feelings (26 percent), were somewhat pessimistic (12 percent) or very pessimistic (9 percent). At the same time, a majority of Americans expressed some doubt that Bush has the right personal characteristics or the right goals and policies to be president, indicating that supporters of Gore were not ready to give Bush any benefit of the doubt.

Only 40 percent said they were "extremely confident" or "quite confident" in Bush's personal characteristics and his goals and policies -- somewhat less than the confidence levels that President Clinton enjoyed when he began his presidency in 1993. Fifty-eight percent said they were "only somewhat confident" or "not at all confident" about Bush's personal characteristics. And 58 percent said the same about their level of confidence in his goals and policies.

After the Electoral College proclaimed Bush president, civil rights groups sued Florida election officials in a bid to overhaul how elections are run. The lawsuit asked a federal judge to get rid of punch-card ballots used in 25 counties, fix the state's system for purging voter lists and monitor Florida elections for 10 years. Secretary of State Katherine Harris was named in the suit.

The lawsuit said that some Blacks were kept from casting ballots by antiquated voting machines, were purged of registration lists that discarded rightful voters, were not given required language assistance, the groups charged and were turned away from Florida polls. The groups said that some applications from people who signed up at state motor vehicle offices were not processed, and about 17,000 letters were sent out informing people they could not vote because they were convicted felons.

Once in office, Bush refused to appropriate funds for the flawed voting system. Less than 100 days after the Supreme Court decided to let Bush take the White House in an election marred by voting irregularities, the president rejected a request from the Federal Election Commission (FEC) for $5.5 million over two years to improve its Office of Administration. The money would have been used to develop standards that ensure elections are run properly. Bush also cut another $1.4 million from the $42.8 million budget request made by the FEC. (USA Today, March 21, 2001)

THE COMMISSION ON CIVIL RIGHTS

In early January, the United States Commission on Civil Rights convened to investigate the Florida vote. The independent agency subpoenaed Governor Jeb Bush to testify in hearings in Tallahassee to determine if any Floridians' voting rights were denied in the presidential election. The commission, appointed primarily by President Clinton, resulted from complaints made to the Department of Justice by Jesse Jackson and others who alleged that they were the victims of discrimination. The agency wanted all of the communications between the Florida governor and Secretary of State Harris, the campaigns of his brother, George W. Bush, and Vice President Al Gore, Attorney General Bob Butterworth, the Republican and Democratic parties.

Members of a federal commission accused Harris of presiding over a "disaster" and trying to shift blame. (New York Times, January 13, 2001) After two days of hearings, the committee concluded that Harris failed to help county elections supervisors, and they criticized her for disparities in discarded ballots. Harris deferred most questions to Florida's elections director, Clay Roberts, saying she had delegated to him the day-to-day operations of her department's elections division.

"It was a disaster for your state as well as for the rest of the country," said Victoria Wilson, a commission member. Many claimed that Blacks and others in Florida were deprived of their right to vote through faulty purges of voting rolls, broken voting machines, and other problems. The Madison County elections chief, Linda Howell, testified that the state had mistakenly listed her as a felon. (New York Times, January 13, 2001)

Three months later, Florida's Legislature approved many election reforms in an effort to correct many of those problems. The Legislature voted to eliminate punch-cards, paper ballots, mechanical lever machines, and counting systems that contributed to high error rates. They also agreed to allow "provisional ballots" for voters who are challenged at the polls, and provided money to train poll workers. Even though these reforms would undoubtedly hurt Jeb Bush in the 2002 gubernatorial election and George W. Bush in his 2004 presidential bid, the Florida governor had no choice but to sign the bill into law.

The core of the probe by the Commission on Civil Rights centered around why 180,000 presidential ballots were disqualified and not counted in the Florida election. Over a course of four months, the commission questioned more than 100 witnesses as they sought to determine who made critical decisions and how they affected minority communities. In testimony before the agency, Jeb Bush and Harris argued that their powers were limited under the state's constitution and denied any wrongdoing.

In June, the independent agency published its 197-page findings of the Florida vote. It concluded that the disenfranchisement of Florida's voters in November "fell most harshly on the shoulders of African Americans" in a presidential election marked by "injustice, ineptitude and inefficiency." The commission urged the Justice Department and Florida's attorney general to immediately investigate whether Florida officials violated state or federal law by employing policies and practices that unfairly harmed minority voters. Furthermore, the commission criticized both Jeb Bush and Harris as well as other Florida officials for neglecting widespread weaknesses in the voting system and failing to prepare for increased voter turnout. However, it was highly unlikely that either the George W. Bush Justice Department or the Jeb Bush state attorney general's office would follow through in an investigation, since the disenfranchisement of many Blacks helped produce a victory for the Bushes. (New York Times, June 5, 2001)

The report stated that Black voters were nearly 10 times more likely than white voters to have had their ballots rejected in Florida. Of the 100 precincts in the state with the highest number of disqualified ballots, 83 were majority Black. Overall, 54 percent of the ballots disqualified were cast by Black voters. The commission concluded that investigators found no "conclusive evidence" that state officials conspired to disenfranchise Blacks or anyone else in Florida and that it did not affect Bush's 537-vote state-wide margin of victory over Gore which gave him the White House. (Los Angeles Times, June 5, 2001)

The report also focused heavily on error-prone punch-card ballots, confusing ballot designs, unreliable voting machines, inadequate resources, and a botched effort to cut felons from voter rolls that mistakenly disenfranchised legitimate voters. According to the report, the data on the computerized felon list had "at least a 14.1 percent error rate." The state's use of the list, combined with a state law that forced voters to get themselves off the list, "resulted in denying countless African Americans the right to vote." (Los Angeles Times, June 5, 2001)

GORE'S MISTAKES