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What really happened in Florida? 16/2/01
Washington, the marine band plays
'Hail to the Chief' for George W Bush,
43rd President of the United States.
But in Florida, some are singing
'Hail to the Thief'.
After hundreds of lies
We are coming into Tallahassee. We
want to know whether George W Bush
won the election or did brother Jeb
steal it for him? Our investigation
suggest the answer lies in this shuttered
building and in a very expensive contract
between Governor Jeb's division of
elections and a private company
named DBT, which accidentally wiped
off the voter rolls thousands of Democratic
voters. 18th floor division of elections,
we have come to ask Mr Clayton Roberts,
the director, a few questions. Roberts
agreed to talk, but became a bit
uncomfortable when he learned that
we had obtained the secret DBT
contract, and asked him if he knew
what DBT were up to.
Florida Director of Elections
No, I didn't ask DBT. They do what
we contract them to do. We have
a statute that says we have to have
a private company to do this. We
put it out for bid, we put it out for
bid, and I think I'm done with this
Let me just show you the contract if I
could Mr Roberts. It says here in the
contract that the verification is
supposed to be done by DBT. That
you paid them $4 million. It could
look to others don't you think that
you paid $4 million to purchase
this election for the Republican
party. 95% wrong on the felon list.
Mr Roberts, could you answer the
question regarding the contract...
Instead, Mr Roberts called out
State troopers. It's interesting here?
Oh, man! Never a dull moment.
I don't know why he had to call the
police. We hadn't gotten to our
difficult questions yet! The difficult
Did Governor Jeb Bush, his
Secretary of State Katherine Harris,
and her Director of Elections,
Clayton Roberts, know they had
wrongly barred 22,000 black,
Democrat voters before the
elections? After the elections did they
use their powers to prevent the count
of 20,000 votes for the Democrats?
The Democrats say the answers to
both questions are yes.
In any other country in the world, if
this had occurred, there probably
would have been riots or military
troops throughout the streets.
Al Gore won the election. He won
the popular vote and he won
the vote in Florida. I think that
that's pretty clear.
It wasn't done fairly. They shouldn't
allow you to contest an election then
give you no way to contest it.
Jeb Bush promised his brother he was
going to deliver Florida. I believe the
Republicans strategy was at all
costs we deliver Florida.
Were people taken out of polls and
stopped from voting? Yes, I think
that was not right. I smell a rat!
This is Database Technologies. This is
the company that the state of Florida
hired to remove the names of people
who committed serious crimes from
the voter lists. I have obtained a
document marked "confidential and
trade secret". It says the company
was paid millions of dollars to make
telephone calls to verify they got the
right names - but they didn't. There
is nothing in the state of Florida files
that says they made these telephone
calls. So the question remains, why
did the Republican leaders of this
state pay millions for a list that
stopped thousands of innocent
Democrats from voting? The first
list from DBT included 8,000 names
from Texas supplied by George
Bush's state officials. They said
they were all felons, serious
criminals barred from voting. As it
turns out, almost none were. Local
officials raised a ruckus and DBT
issued a new list naming 58,000
felons. But the one county which went
through the whole expensive process
of checking the new list name by name
found it was still 95% wrong. Reverend
Willie Whiting was one of those removed
from voter roles after DBT wrongly labelled
him a serious criminal.
REVEREND WILLIE WHITING:
I have never spent a night in jail.
Were you ever busted?
No. I had a speeding ticket probably 25-30
years ago, I guess, but that's about it.
Do you think you should be allowed to vote
if you had a speeding ticket?
The Florida legislature likes to see
young prisoners paraded in front of
the capital in old cavalry uniforms.
Me and superman had a fight
Me and superman had a fight
I hit him in the head with some Kryptonite
I hit him in the head with some Kryptonite
More often than not in America, the
prisoner's colour is black. Because of
the way DBT generated the list, every
genuine black felon in the United States
could knock out every black voter
in Florida with the same surname
and similar date of birth. That's
why the NAACP is suing Florida for
violating voters' civil rights.
Lawyer for NAACP
Governor Bush, the Secretary of State
Katherine Harris, Clayton Roberts, the head
of elections, all knew or should have
known in advance that certain
election policies and practices
would disproportionately impact
low-income areas, and in particular
black citizens and other minority
citizens, and that this would
Democratic voters, based on
historical voting trends.
Thank you, Florida!
Altogether, it looks like this cost
the Democrats about 22,000 votes in
Florida, which George Bush won by
only 537 votes. The US civil rights
commission is also on the trail. They
called in Bush, Harris and Roberts. Bush
did not convince his critics.
You screwed up this state. You sealed
Commissioner Edley and his colleagues
will be in Miami tomorrow to hear
from voters wrongly disqualified.
DR CHRISTOPHER EDLEY:
US Civil Rights Commissioner
If you are going to do it, by all means
as a matter of due process and fairness,
it's got to be done with excruciating care.
It's a democracy, the vote counts. There
is a lot of public concern that the
contractor selected is a firm that
seems to have ties to the Republican party.
They will be putting our evidence to Database
Technologies. Their vice-president told
us that "manual verification by telephone
calls" does not mean ringing people up to
check they have got the right person. So
were they paid to produce a list which
they knew would name thousands of
innocent black people? In fact DBT told
Newsnight that Clayton Roberts and the State
"... wanted there to be more names than were
actually verified as being a convicted felon."
So did they use their powers to prevent the
count of 20,000 votes for the Democrats? You
don't have to be black. In Palm Beach, America's
privileged nurse their tans and their anger.
I thought I voted for Al Gore but unfortunately I
voted for Pat Buchanan, and I wasn't happy
about that, because I am a Jewish voter
and he would have been the last person
in the world I would have voted for.
Whacky butterfly ballots caused thousands in
this Democrat town to accidentally mess up
and they were refused replacement ballots
promised them by state law.
From the time the elections started until that
awful decision that the Supreme Court made,
I came across hundreds of people who made a
mistake and I saw over 13,000 complaints
filed by people who live in Palm Beach county.
In all, Palm Beach voting machines misread
27,000 ballots. Jeb Bush's Secretary of State,
Katharine Harris, stopped them counting these
votes by hand. She did the same to Gadstone,
one of Florida's blackest, poorest and most
Democrat counties, where machines failed
to count one in eight ballots. Again Harris
stopped the hand count. This alone cost
Gore another 700 votes, in an election in
which Harris declared George Bush winner by
only 537 votes.
In accordance with the laws of the State of
Florida, I hereby declare Governor George W
Bush the winner of Florida's 25 electoral
votes for the President of the United States.
Harris was a busy woman. In charge of Florida's
vote count and co-chair of Bush's presidential
Had she really been unbiased? Wouldn't the
appropriate actions for her to be to say -
let's really get to the bottom of this election
and let's make sure every vote is counted.
Lois Frankel represents Palm Beach, in the
State legislature where she leads the
She wanted George Bush to win. She interpreted
every rule, every law in a way to help George Bush.
We are driving down to Miami to witness an American
ritual. In Britain, you count the votes, then announce
the winner. In Florida they declare the winner first and
here we are, still counting the votes.
She is showing the ballot in front of the light. They
can see the light through where the chads have
been punched through. Then she holds it in front
because sometimes you can see things in different
light. They have a whole column.
Normally these are machine-read, right?
They are carefully going through the 179,855
uncounted ballots that Harris did not want
tallied. They'll know the winner next month.
Sources tell Newsnight that Gore's ahead by
20,000 votes. The Biltmore, grandest hotel
in Miami. Democrats are upstairs eating with
their richest friends charging $5,000 a plate.
Let's see if we can get in. Not far away from
the millionaires on the balcony a voter had
taken hostages at gun point protesting
against the election fraud. But here it is
back to champagne politics as usual. One
Democrat whispered they would have done the
same as Katharine Harris if they
had the chance. But another, party
chairman, Bob Poe remains bitter
Chairman, Florida Democrats
Jeb Bush, Katharine Harris, Clay Roberts
did everything they could to stop every
legitimate count of the vote. And that's
what did us in.
All fingers point to the Jeb Bush crew in
Tallahassee. Investigators want to breakthrough
the iron shutters.
I have to say that thus far we have been
disappointed by the explanations,
or perhaps I should say the lack of
explanation provided by the state
officials. When we spoke with the
Governor and the Secretary of State
and even with the Director of the
Bureau of Elections underneath the
Secretary of State, they were
pointing fingers at everybody else,
saying "look it wasn't our responsibility",
they were in charge, which is a disheartening
disquieting thing for us to hear - who
should be held accountable for what
clearly was a system that broke down.
State officials point the finger at the
counties and say it is their responsibility
to check if the names on the list are real
felons before disqualifying them. Clayton
Roberts says his job is just to pass on the
list. Roberts now admits he didn't bother to
check with DBT, if innocent people were
Please turn off that camera.
Off camera he said:
We did not call and say did you check the list
again... the whole tenor of this is like OK you
screwed up you didn't check with DBT and if
you want to hang this on me that's fine.
It is certainly fine for George W Bush.
Even if investigators conclude that Jeb
Bush and the Republicans conspired to steal
this election, the man in that house for
the next four years will be George W Bush.