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spoiled ballots

Florida By The NumbersAl Gore Won Florida in 2000 by 77,000 Votes

You like numbers?
Numbers Here’s how to estimate the effect of spoilage on the election outcome. For fun, let’s take Florida 2000. We know from comparison of census tracts to precincts that 54% of the 179,855 ballots “spoiled” were cast by African-American voters, that is, 97,000 of the total.
Every poll put the Black vote in Florida for Al Gore at over 90%. Reasonably assuming “spoiled” ballots matched the typical racial preferences, Gore lost more than 87,000 votes

Recipe for a Cooked Election

for Yes! Magazine

A nasty little secret of American democracy is that, in every national election, ballots cast are simply thrown in the garbage. Most are called “spoiled,” supposedly unreadable, damaged, invalid. They just don’t get counted. This “spoilage”Proportion of Ballots That were not Counted has occurred for decades, but it reached unprecedented heights in the last two presidential elections. In the 2004 election, for example, more than three million ballots were never counted.
Almost as deep a secret is that people are doing something about it. In New Mexico, citizen activists, disgusted by systematic vote disappearance, demanded change ”” and got it.
In Ohio, during the 2004 Presidential election, 153,237 ballots were simply thrown away ”” more than the Bush “victory” margin. In New Mexico the uncounted vote was five times the Bush alleged victory margin of 5,988. In Iowa, Bush’s triumph of 13,498 was

Jim Crow Returns to The Voting Booth

Does America Have An Apartheid Vote-Counting System?
by Rev. Jesse Jackson and Greg Palast
The inaugural confetti has been swept away and with it, the last quarrel over who really won the presidential election.
But there is still unfinished business that can’t be swept away. After taking his oath, the president called for a “concerted effort to promote democracy.” The president should begin with the United States.

WE BEEN NORC'D!

On 15 February, for BBC TV, I reported that inside information from the Consortium of newspapers conducting a thorough review of Florida’s 180,000 uncounted ballots showed Gore picking up about 20,000 votes. The information came from sources involved with the newspaper group’s contractor, National Opinion Research Center of the University of Chicago.
I’m sure the final was not far off – but understand that NORC did not designate ANY ballot as either a Bush or Gore vote.