Gore Plots to Steal Election
I'm sick and tired of this election. It's not supposed to take a month to find out who the next President will be. Yet that's exactly what's occurred in the year 2000 with Al Gore blatantly trying to steal this election from the states, thereby trampling the Constitution and flouting established laws. Gore has learned well from his former boss Bill Clinton, lying at all turns and obfuscating every issue.
Gore launched his war of misinformation just after Election Day, ranting and raving about the "butterfly" ballots used in West Palm Beach, Florida. According to Gore, the ballot was so confusing many voters might have mistakenly voting for Pat Buchanan instead of Gore. I've seen pictures of that ballot. It was perfectly clear and understandable. Distinct arrows pointed to the circles for each candidate. The ballot was so simple half–blind old men and four–year–old children managed to correctly choose Al Gore using copies of the ballot. One would need the IQ of a donkey to misunderstand that ballot.
Those who insist the ballot must have been confusing because of the supposedly inordinate number of votes Pat Buchanan received in West Palm Beach are ignorant of the situation in that county. Thousands of registered Buchananites live in West Palm Beach. Also, Buchanan's campaign spent more money in West Palm Beach than in any other Florida county, and that campaign has more workers than any other Florida Buchanan group. Plus, 2,900 West Palm Beachers chose Buchanan for president in 1996; roughly the same percentage voted for Buchanan this year. Buchanan's high total in West Palm Beach is certainly no anomaly.
Al Gore's next tactic was to insist on manually recounting each ballot in Miami-Dade, Broward, Volusia, and West Palm Beach counties, ostensibly to ensure "the true and accurate will of the people... [will] prevail," in the words of Gore campaign manager Bill Daley. If Daley really wants a correct count, he should be outraged at the behavior of the partisan Florida canvassing boards, holding and waving ballots up in the air and straining their eyes in desperate attempts to determine whether the votes are for Gore. That's not the way elections should be determined. Most polling places post signs saying a ballot card must be punched all the way through—with chads completely dislodged—in order for a vote to count. That means, unless a vote is readily discernible, the vote was improperly cast, rendering it invalid. Invalid votes should not, and ordinarily would not, be considered. After all, elections are determined by ballots cast, not ballots idiots attempt to cast. (Do we really need mental delinquents deciding the outcomes of elections?)
Al Gore's standard defense against the argument decrying the Florida recounts is to say George Bush signed a law in Texas permitting hand recounts. That's true, but Texas has uniform standards for manual recounts. Changing standards in mid-count, like the Democratic canvassing boards did in Florida, would never be tolerated in Texas.
Al Gore doesn't care about the truth, though. Witness Gore's vociferous attacks against Florida's Secretary of State Katherine Harris. Gore's cronies have branded Harris a "Soviet commissar" who inappropriately set an unfair deadline for the Democratic counties to complete their fishing expeditions for more Gore votes. Gore's assertions are patently untrue. Florida statute Title IX: Electors and Elections, Chapter 102, Section 102.111 stipulates, "If the county returns are not received by the Department of State by 5 p.m. of the seventh day following an election, all missing counties shall be ignored, and the results shown by the returns on file shall be certified." Harris had no choice whatsoever in the matter, despite what the Florida kangaroo Supreme Court's assertions to the contrary. Now, the Democrats have launched a retaliatory smear campaign against Katherine Harris, á la Bill Clinton's blackmailing of his bimbos. According to NBC News, a Gore campaign official said this campaign will "…make Whitewater look like a picnic."
Nothing is more disgusting, though, than Al Gore's campaign to disqualify absentee military ballots in Florida. The men and women of America's armed forces put their lives on the line to protect our right to vote. But Gore doesn't think soldiers deserve that same right. Gore lawyer Mark Herron sent a five–page letter on November 15 to Democratic attorneys throughout Florida, detailing how to challenge military absentee ballots. Meanwhile, the Democrats are perfectly content to let murderers and rapists vote for Gore in Miami–Dade and Broward Counties. Apparently, Gore believes America's criminals deserve more respect than America's troops.
George Bush clearly won the election as set up by the Constitution. Democrat Bob Crawford of the Florida Election Canvassing Commission said, "We can keep going back and recounting and counting. We had the first count, [and] we had the second count. Some counties did a third count, [and] some counties did a fourth count. And no matter how you count it, George W. Bush is the winner." A true statesman in Al Gore's position would have conceded long ago. However, Gore is determined to become president, no matter how much he has to lie and cheat, no matter how many state certifications and laws go against him. This dishonest and corrupt man cannot become President of the United States if America places any value in its system of constitutional government and rule of law.
