Fired pollster revisits 2000 election

[DoYouEverWonder]

September 28, 2006

Former UNH professor and pollster David Moore contends that his new book about the 2000 presidential election - titled "How to Steal an Election" - is not partisan. Moore said he knows it's a "hard sell," but he argues the book simply explains how George W. Bush took the presidency that was rightfully won by Al Gore.

<snip>

Moore's book tells the story of election night 2000 by focusing on the folks who crunched the numbers for network television. He argues that the television stations calling Florida - and therefore the election - for Bush in the early morning hours after the election may have been a self-fulfilling prophecy.

<snip>

The book kicks off with an explosive anecdote. Fox, the first network to call Florida and the election for George Bush, had a decision team headed by Bush's first cousin, John Ellis. For years, Ellis has maintained that he made the call by looking at the numbers and making back-of-the-envelope calculations.

But Moore has a different account, from the statistician who sat next to Ellis that night. Cynthia Talkov didn't see Ellis making any calculations, Moore writes, but she did hear what he said after he got off the phone with George Bush and his brother, Florida Gov. Jeb Bush.

"Jebbie says we got it! Jebbie says we got it!" Ellis shouted to the Fox decision team, according to Moore's book.

http://www.concordmonitor.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20060928/REPOSITORY/609280383/1043/NEWS01

[lovuian]

1. It goes down as one of the most evil moments in America

It was a infamous moment in time...

[grasswire]

2. this paragraph in the article is misleading:

"For the record, Bush officially won Florida in 2000 by 537 votes. A media consortium that conducted a manual recount of contested ballots found that the recount Gore sought - limited to a few counties - would have kept Bush the winner, but by a margin of only 225 votes. A full statewide recount conducted under a uniform standard would likely have handed the election to Gore by just about 100 votes, the consortium found."

[peacetalksforall]

5. The consortium was a farce. Required to appease and

legitamize. A joke. They twisted and tickled it until they got an iffy. We know where the media lies down.

[Toucano]

3. Jebbie? LOL!

That's a new one for me.

[cheesloaf]

9. New for me too

Hadn't heard that one. Jebster yes.

[madmax]

4. Correct me if I'm wrong

but, wasn't Florida called for Gore and then 'too close to call' and then called for bush? That's how I remeber that night.

[MisoWeaver]

6. I remember going to bed with Gore being called the Winner

That was about 2am Central

[Yupster]

7. You're right

That's how I remember it too.

[keopeli]

8. I recall vividly that CNN called it for Gore and retracted. But, that was

early, even a few minutes before some Florida polls in the Western panhandle region were closed. So, though they called Florida for Gore, they did not predict he would win.

Less than an hour later, they retracted the prediction of Florida (other agencies did the same thing, but CNN was first).

After this fubar, the media was timid about calling the election, even though all the exit polls said it was a Gore win. Then, out of the blue, Fox called it for Bush with no apparent reason (the numbers were still excessively close).

Eager to correct a major fubar and not look bad to a winning Bush, everyone else jumped on board, but this time it wasn't just calling Florida, it was calling the whole election. They languished in this nebulous state of confusion with Bush called as the winner for no good reason. The retraction of this second fubar was much slower than the first, presumably because the second fubar was so embarrassing that no one wanted to admit their mistake.

The media should never have called the election. They should have published the Exit Results poll (which Gore won handsomely) and said that recounts prevented calling a winner.

Footnote: The 2000 election embarrassed the media so badly that they wouldn't even report exit result polls in the 04 election, which predicted a clear Kerry victory. However, this time they had no trouble digesting the irony of calling Bush the winner with a mountain of evidence to the contrary.

The solution to this media fiasco and manipulation is obvious, but no one ever says it. The media should cover "the election" itself, not the tabulation. Conceding that the numbers will play out however they may and polls are not trusted anymore, the media should cover election place events and strange occurrences that deserve notice. Then, when the numbers are released, the media can ask about whatever discrepancies they found and what was done to address them.

[Toots]

10. Exit polls were overwhelmingly for Gore

But somehow that year in Florida for one of the first times ever Exit polls were "somehow " wrong...Then along comes the Extreme court and says stop counting votes..."Stop counting votes" :wtf: "Stop counting Votes"

[DoYouEverWonder]

11. Katherine Harris opened the FL Dept of State

on a Sunday afternoon so that the cut off time for the recount would be stickily enforced at 5:00 PM. Despite the fact that the FL Supreme Court ruled that she could wait until 9:00 AM the next business day. It was at the discretion of Katherine Harris that the vote counting was stopped.

[Fluffdaddy]

12. I still remember the pain of that night like it was yesterday

[truthisfreedom]

13. people need to go to prison for the rest of their lives for this.

and we've got to find a way to get that done.

[Bridget Burke]

14. Hunter S Thompson got it right....

Gore was Doomed in Florida, and he knew it about halfway through Election Night. The TV wizards had already given the state & its 25 precious Electoral Votes to Gore, which gave him an early lead & caused wild rejoicing in Democratic headquarters all over the country.

My own immediate reaction was bafflement & surprise, and I think I almost believed it....But not really. The more I brooded on it, the more I was troubled by waves of Queasiness & shudders of gnawing doubt. I felt nervous & vaguely confused, as if I had just heard a dog speak perfect English for 30 or 40 seconds. That will get your attention, for sure....Some people get permanently destabilized by it: Nothing they see with their own eyes will ever look quite the same to them again. As in "I know that the object I'm looking at is an Egg -- but I also know that if it talks to me like a person, it is not an Egg."

There was an exact moment, in fact, when I knew Al Gore would Never be President of the United States, no matter what the TV networks said -- and that moment was when the whole Bush family suddenly appeared on TV and openly scoffed at the idea of Gore's winning Florida. It was Nonsense, said the Candidate, Utter nonsense....Anybody who believed he'd lost Florida was a Fool. The Media, all of them, were Liars & Dunces or treacherous whores trying to sabotage his victory. They were strong words and people said he was Bluffing. But I knew better. Of course Bush would win Florida. Losing was out of the question. Here was the whole bloody Family laughing & hooting & sneering at the dumbness of the whole world on National TV.

The old man was the real tip-off. The leer on his face was almost frightening. It was like looking into the eyes of a tall hyena with a living sheep in its mouth. The sheep's fate was sealed, and so was Al Gore's....Everything since then has been political flotsam & gibberish.

From his ESPN column--only subscribers can get into the archives now. But the columns have been published as a book:

www.amazon.com/Hey-Rube-Doctrine-Downward-Dumbness/dp/0684873206/sr=8-1/qid=1159540142/ref=pd_bbs_1/002-7491726-8567240?ie=UTF8&s=books

[MagickMuffin]

15. I always knew great minds think alike ;-P

Because I too realized on that fateful night after seeing the Bush Cartel huddle in their room that the fix was in.

I became obsessed with the court proceedings. I watched everyone of them that was televised on c-span. During the court proceedings Charles Kane, FBI/CIA man took the witness stand and testified that he "Got the CALL" when he was on the golf course. The article below does not mention this however:shrug:

Charles Kane is a personal friend of Poppy. He was one of "Many Fixers"

I also downloaded articles. Below is one of them. Please consider the historical purpose of my posting the article. Since this is on my hard drive, and I can't provide a link.

Thursday December 7, 2000 415 AM ET
Florida Official Admits Helping GOP
By VICKIE CHACHERE, Associated Press Writer

TALLAHASSEE, Fla. (AP) - One attorney charged there was a ``sinister'' conspiracy to aide George W. Bush. A former CIA agent said he was just trying to help GOP voters. A county elections official said she let Republican operatives correct absentee ballot applications. Two trials that could affect tens of thousands of presidential votes played out just blocks from where Florida's highest court was set to hear legal arguments Thursday in the contested presidential election. In Leon County Circuit Court, attorneys representing voters who alleged Republicans tampered with absentee ballot application forms asked judges to throw out as many as 25,000 absentee ballots from Seminole and Martin counties. At issue in both cases is whether mistakes on absentee ballot request forms sent out by the Florida Republican Party in the waning days of the election were illegally corrected by state GOP officials when the mistakes were discovered. ``It was a sinister underground conspiracy'' to help Bush, said Edward Stafman, attorney for the Martin County challengers. But Republican activists testified they did nothing wrong, saying they just were trying to correct mistakes their party made on the forms. Attorneys for the counties and the Republicans are pleading with the judges to not throw out absentee votes. They argue that voters had no control over what was done and shouldn't be disenfranchised. In the Seminole County case, Leon County Circuit Judge Nikki Clark was to hear closing arguments Thursday afternoon. In Martin County, Judge Terry Lewis took nearly four hours of testimony Wednesday before recessing and asking attorneys to resume the trial at 8 a.m. Thursday. The Seminole and Martin county trials were held back-to-back in the same courtroom. Testimony in the Seminole case finished after 13 hours Wednesday, then the Martin case began. Bush won the absentee balloting by 4,797 votes in Seminole and by 2,815 votes in Martin, so throwing them out could place his 537-vote certified statewide lead in jeopardy. Voter ID numbers were left off many applications through computer errors in Seminole County and incorrect numbers were placed on the forms in Martin County. Florida law says ballot applications may not be mailed out without the correct identification numbers. In the Seminole County case, elections supervisor Sandra Goard admitted she allowed Republican officials to fill in the numbers and said it was the first time she had done so. Democrats did not ask for the same accommodation, she said. Goard also testified that Florida law did not give her the authority to allow party officials to fill in the numbers. But she said she allowed GOP official Michael Leach and a second man she has been unable to identify to fill in the numbers at the party's request. Democratic Party state chairman Bob Poe later called to protest her actions, but Poe did not request the same opportunity to correct applications for Democrats, she said. Goard did not appear in court Wednesday. Her previous deposition testimony was read aloud instead.

In the Martin County case, county GOP official Tom Hauck was asked on the stand whether he would acknowledge ``walking out of the office'' of Republican elections supervisor Peggy Robbins ``with a stack of applications for absentee ballots.'' ``On one occasion, that's right,'' Hauck replied, adding that he took the ballots to county Republican headquarters to fill in the numbers. Charles Kane, who testified he worked for the FBI and retired from the CIA in 1975, said nothing secretive nor sinister occurred. ``We had an obligation to them,'' he said of Republicans who had received the inaccurate ballot document. ``We had filled out their forms. We did not see this as altering. All we saw this as was correcting a problem caused by the Republican Party of Florida.''

Todd Schnick, the state Republican party's political director, testified that he did not remember key elements of the ballot form glitches, which occurred in the last weeks of the presidential campaign. In the Seminole County case, Democratic activist Harry Jacobs filed the challenge. Defense attorneys said Jacobs had raised $50,000 for Democrat Al Gore (news - web sites)'s campaign and provided other assistance. Gore is not a party in either lawsuit.

[zonkers]

16. R.I..P. HUNTER. Kick.