I found this article written for the Howard University student newspaper:

http://www.thehilltoponline.com/news/2004/...tionWorld/Bush-
Campaign.Accused.Of.Suppressing.Black.Vote-802813.shtml

The Hilltop - Nation & World
Issue: 11/12/04

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Bush Campaign Accused of Suppressing Black Vote
By Charlene Drayton

An elections supervisor in Tallahassee, Florida has accused the Bush Campaign of taking steps to suppress the Black vote during last week's election. The supervisor, Ion Sancho, has been an elections supervisor for 16 years.

He has gone public recently, charging the Bush campaign with using a little known Florida law that allows political party operatives working inside polling stations to stop voters from obtaining a ballot.

The law, allows operatives to challenge whether a voter is eligible to vote based on certain criteria. Voters are allowed to only vote "provisionally" after they agree to sign an affidavit validating their legal status.

However, Sancho says not one challenge had been made to a voter in the 16 years he has been supervisor of elections. He called this year's sudden challenges "intimidation." Sancho first made his claims to the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) news show "Newsnight." Newsnight also claimed to have knowledge of secret documents and e-mails from the Bush campaign head quarters that suggested a plan to disrupt voting in Florida's African-American voting districts.

According to the report, e-mails and documents prepared for the executive director of the Bush campaign in Florida, contained a 15-page "caging list" of nearly 2,000 names and addresses for voters in predominantly Black neighborhoods throughout Jacksonville.

"The only possible reason why they would keep such a thing is to challenge voters on Election Day," Sancho said to News night. "Quite frankly, this process can be used to slow down the voting process and cause chaos on Election Day, and discourage voters from voting."

Federal law prohibits targeting voters for challenges if race is a factor. A republican spokesperson denied any wrong doing and told Newsnight the "caging list" was only a record of returned mail from fundraising solicitations or returned letters sent to newly registered voters to verify an address.

Mindy Tucker Fletcher, a republican state campaign spokeswoman, told Newsnight the list was not put together "in order to create" a list of voters to challenge, but Fletcher refused to deny the list would not be used for that purpose.

Florida was not the only state to face accusations of voter suppression on Election Day. Several New York radio stations received calls from listeners alleging that they had been victims of voter suppression tactics.

In Bedford-Stuyvesant, Brooklyn, police officers were accused of selectively pulling Black voters to the side and asking them for proof that they had not been sent to prison in the past two years. Many disgruntled voters left the line without casting a ballot and never returned. This caused an uproar in New York because residents felt police were overwhelmingly stationed in predominantly Black communities.

"It was crazy because I saw people being pulled from the line," said LaTanya Walker, a Brooklyn resident who witnessed the chaos on Election Day. "No one wants to wait for hours in that line, get to the front and then be told to go home to get information and have to wait in the back of the line again."

Lawyers were also posted at this Brooklyn voting station, and were said to be challenging people they suspected of being a felon. Some say they were even threatened and were told by the lawyers they would be taken to jail if they attempted to vote without presenting the information needed to prove they were eligible.

"I was pulled from the line for no reason at all," said Brooklyn resident Damien Jenkins. "What really made me upset was the fact that they pulled me just when I got to the front of the line. I've never been to jail before, I've never even been arrested before." Jenkins added, "When I was told to come back with proof, I left and never went back. I was so disgusted." Voter suppression was also alleged in Iowa and Nevada.

According to the website, vote2004.eriposte.com, the state of Iowa incorrectly labeled dozens of voters as felons and struck them from voting rolls. At a Nevada checkpoint, a bus carrying Kerry supporters was held and searched by state troopers for 40 minutes. The bus driver told news organizations that the troopers repeatedly made anti-Kerry comments while checking the vehicle over.


So I went to the BBC program site and found this:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/programmes/newsnight/3956129.stm
New Florida vote scandal feared

By Greg Palast
Reporting for Newsnight

A secret document obtained from inside Bush campaign headquarters in Florida suggests a plan - possibly in violation of US law - to disrupt voting in the state's African-American voting districts, a BBC Newsnight investigation reveals.

Two e-mails, prepared for the executive director of the Bush campaign in Florida and the campaign's national research director in Washington DC, contain a 15-page so-called "caging list".
It lists 1,886 names and addresses of voters in predominantly black and traditionally Democrat areas of Jacksonville, Florida.

An elections supervisor in Tallahassee, when shown the list, told Newsnight: "The only possible reason why they would keep such a thing is to challenge voters on election day."

Ion Sancho, a Democrat, noted that Florida law allows political party operatives inside polling stations to stop voters from obtaining a ballot.

Mass challenges

They may then only vote "provisionally" after signing an affidavit attesting to their legal voting status.

Mass challenges have never occurred in Florida. Indeed, says Mr Sancho, not one challenge has been made to a voter "in the 16 years I've been supervisor of elections."

"Quite frankly, this process can be used to slow down the voting process and cause chaos on election day; and discourage voters from voting."

Sancho calls it "intimidation." And it may be illegal.


In Washington, well-known civil rights attorney, Ralph Neas, noted that US federal law prohibits targeting challenges to voters, even if there is a basis for the challenge, if race is a factor in targeting the voters.
The list of Jacksonville voters covers an area with a majority of black residents.

When asked by Newsnight for an explanation of the list, Republican spokespersons claim the list merely records returned mail from either fundraising solicitations or returned letters sent to newly registered voters to verify their addresses for purposes of mailing campaign literature.

Republican state campaign spokeswoman Mindy Tucker Fletcher stated the list was not put together "in order to create" a challenge list, but refused to say it would not be used in that manner.

Rather, she did acknowledge that the party's poll workers will be instructed to challenge voters, "Where it's stated in the law."

There was no explanation as to why such clerical matters would be sent to top officials of the Bush campaign in Florida and Washington.

Private detective

In Jacksonville, to determine if Republicans were using the lists or other means of intimidating voters, we filmed a private detective filming every "early voter" - the majority of whom are black - from behind a vehicle with blacked-out windows.
The private detective claimed not to know who was paying for his all-day services.

On the scene, Democratic Congresswoman Corinne Brown said the surveillance operation was part of a campaign of intimidation tactics used by the Republican Party to intimidate and scare off African American voters, almost all of whom are registered Democrats.


Greg Palast's film was broadcast by Newsnight on Tuesday, 26 October, 2004.

Newsnight is broadcast on BBC Two at 2230 BST every weeknight in the UK.



With link to this:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/programmes/newsnight/3958475.stm

Republican response to Florida vote story
October 26, 2004
To: Peter Barron
Editor, Newsnight

Delivered via e-mail

In an effort to make sure that the public has the facts regarding a recent story by Greg Palast for Newsnight, I respectfully request that the following information be shared with your viewers and posted on-line where the story was published.

It was evident that the reporter did not have a strong background in the political process and had not done much research beyond talking to an opinionated Democrat who is the Supervisor of Elections in Tallahassee, which is not even the area referenced by the list in the story.

First, caging is a commonly used term in the political process by which someone opens a large amount of mail and logs it into a database.

This is routinely done when an organization receives a great deal of mail from a fundraising appeal or returned mail from a mailing to a large number of people. The reporter was not familiar with this term or this process and did not seem to understand it even after it was explained to him.

Second, the list was a listing of returned mail that came from a mailing that the Republican National Committee sent to new registrants in Duval County in Florida, encouraging newly registered Republicans, Democrats and Independents to vote Republican.

Voter registration has been a heavy concentration of both parties this year and both national and state Republican parties have been reaching out to new registrants for the upcoming election.

The Duval County list was created to collect the returned mail information from the Republican National Committee mailing and was intended and has been used for no purpose other than that.

Palast's insinuation that it was created for and will be used for the purposes of an Election Day challenge is erroneous and frankly illustrates his willingness to twist information to suit his and others' political agenda. Reporting of these types of baseless allegations by the news media comes directly from the Democrats election playbook.

If the reporter had asked the Elections Supervisor in Duval County, the area in question, he would have learned that this area has been affected by massive fraud efforts this year as a result of the work of ACORN, a third party organization supporting the Kerry campaign and the Democrats.

He would have learned that many people who were registered this year in Duval County in fact do not have valid addresses. It seems his goal was not to obtain accurate information, but to help the Democrats launch a political attack.

In a year when reporters are under heavy scrutiny for showing political leanings toward the Democratic Party, I would think that your new organization would take greater care to understand the facts and use sources that will yield objective information, rather than carry one party's political agenda.

Please post this letter on your website and in any other place that the above-mentioned story appears. It is your responsibility to make sure that the facts are relayed to your viewers and readers.

Sincerely,

Mindy Tucker Fletcher
Senior Advisor, Victory 2004



And this:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/programmes/newsnight/3963089.stm

Newsnight response to Republican complaint

The Republican's Florida campaign headquarters have criticised Greg Palast's Newsnight report on fears of a new vote scandal.
Newsnight firmly stands by the research and the subsequent report for this investigation as screened on BBC Two and published on our website.

Plainly, Mindy Tucker Fletcher does not accept our findings. She is entitled to her view and we have published her e-mail on our website.

However, we would ask why Ms Tucker-Fletcher has still not answered the most important questions.

Why hasn't she been able to deny that the Republicans in Florida will use such lists to challenge voters at the polling booths on 2 November, potentially disrupting the vote?

Can the Republicans give assurances that they are not targeting African-American areas to challenge voters?

Ion Sancho is a hugely experienced elections official with 16 years in post. He is greatly respected both sides of the fence. He stands every time as an Independent and is re-elected without opposition because all parties are confident of his fairness and efficiency. If the Republicans trust him enough to decline to run their own candidate against him - why shouldn't we trust his judgement too?

The Republicans have said we should have spoken to Bill Scheu, the election supervisor of Duval, a traditionally Democrat area. Mr Scheu, who unlike Mr Sancho was not elected, was appointed by Jeb Bush the Chairman of Bush's campaign in Florida, despite the fact he was a major Republican donor.

We haven't suggested that he is dishonest in any way and are not making any allegations against Mr Scheu. The questions we ask are for Republican Headquarters in Florida to answer.

Can Ms Tucker Fletcher explain why thousands of students have been tricked by Republican operatives into signing registrations which appear to be fraudulent and which could lose them their vote?

Does Ms Tucker Fletcher deny that voters in the African-American polling districts of Jacksonville were being filmed by a private investigator?

If she does not deny that, will she give a positive assurance that the investigators activities were not connected to the Republicans?

Newsnight reports on the big issues around the world. The result of the US presidential elections impacts around the globe, and the way it is conducted is of worldwide interest.

Newsnight does not believe that either the Democrats or the Republicans have the monopoly on dirty tricks, but it is our duty to report whatever our investigations reveal.

Story from BBC NEWS:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/pr/fr/-/1/hi/prog...ght/3963089.stm

Published: 2004/10/28 16:36:53 GMT


If the American media covered this before the election, I missed it.