| WASHINGTON
- February 26 - Democrats.com today exposed the deliberate distortion of the Miami-Dade
recount story by the Miami Herald, USA Today, and the national news media.
In addition, Democrats.com published an investigative report documenting
the failure of election officials in eight counties to count "write-in
overvotes", as required by Florida law.
Democrats.com co-founder Bob Fertik published an article entitled, "Bush
Propaganda Machine Distorts Miami-Dade Recount Story," which described the
media's distortion as a continuation of a propaganda campaign by the Bush
campaign that began on Election Day, when George W. Bush unexpectedly
found himself trailing in Florida. Fertik's article is available here:
http://democrats.com/view.cfm?id=1604
"Today's misleading headlines by the Miami Herald and USA Today are just
another attempt to legitimize Bush's stolen presidency," said Bob Fertik,
co-founder of Democrats.com.
Following a recount of undervotes in Miami-Dade County, the Miami Herald
and USA Today reported a net gain of 49 votes for Al Gore. This finding
was interpreted to mean that Al Gore would not have gained enough votes to
defeat George Bush during the initial recount that ended with Katherine
Harris' certification of a 537-vote victory for George W. Bush on November
27, 2000.
The Herald's headline read:
DADE UNDERVOTES SUPPORT BUSH WIN
Review of ballots by Herald suggests Gore recount effort would have failed
USA Today's headline read:
Study: Gore would not have won on recount
Unfortunately, these reports missed two key facts:
1. The Palm Beach Post completed a manual recount of undervotes in Palm
Beach County on January 27, 2001 and reported a net gain of 682 votes for
Al Gore. Along with the 49 votes found in Miami-Dade, Bush's 537-vote
victory turns into a 194-vote defeat.
2. The 4-county recount requested by Al Gore was rejected by the Florida
Supreme Court's ruling on December 8, 2000, which ordered a state-wide
recount of 43,432 "undervotes."
Democrats.com has been tracking the progress of the state-wide recounts by
various news organizations at a special web site,
http://gorewonflorida.org. With the addition of 49 votes in Miami-Dade, Al
Gore's lead in Florida now stands at 1,017.
Democrats.com also published an exclusive investigative report documenting
the failure of election officials in eight counties to count "write-in
overvotes", as required by Florida law. The article reveals for the first
time that hundreds - possibly thousands - of Florida votes for Al Gore and
George W. Bush were never counted because marks in the "write-in" section
of the ballot caused these ballots to be incorrectly treated as
"overvotes," even though Florida law is crystal-clear that such votes
should be counted.
Florida Secretary of State Katherine Harris certified more than 28,000
overvotes from counties that violated Florida law by ignoring such votes.
A recount of such votes in Lake County by the Orland Sentinel in December
added 130 votes to Gore's total. Had these votes been properly counted in
the eight counties identified, Al Gore may well have been declared the
winner in Florida. The complete article by Paul Lukasiak is available
here:
http://democrats.com/view.cfm?id=1609
When the state-wide media recount is completed, Democrats.com expects Al
Gore to be declared the winner. At that point, the 51 million voters who
voted for Al Gore will know that George W. Bush stole the Presidency with
the help of the U.S. Supreme Court, which issued a narrow partisan ruling
to stop the Florida recount in order to install Bush as President.
"We will not rest until the truth is known - and until the thieves who
stole the Presidency are removed from office and brought to justice for
their crimes," Fertik concluded.
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