State Police Conduct Voter Interrogations
And Florida Voting Machine Records Erased

In the aftermath of the 2000 election, most reasonable people probably assume that Gov. Jeb Bush is treading carefully this year in order to assure that Florida does not once again become the flashpoint of an electoral controversy. Yet while such assumptions are logical, it appears they would be wrong, and not just because of irregularities and problems with computer voting that occurred – but were hidden from public view – during the September 2002 gubernatorial primaries and other local elections, but because of police action as well.

Recently its been revealed that armed plainclothes state police officers have been visiting the homes of black voters in the Orlando area, ostensibly to pursue an investigation into possible fraud in the way absentee ballots were handled by staff workers of Mayor Buddy Dyer. Under even casual scrutiny, however, the so-called investigation appears itself to be suspect.

The Florida Division of Elections, FDE, reviewed the matter together with law enforcement officials, and the Florida Department of Law Enforcement, FDLE, declared, months ago, that "it was determined that there was no basis to support the allegations of election fraud concerning these absentee ballots. Since there is no evidence of criminal misconduct involving Mayor Dyer, the Florida Department of Law Enforcement considers this matter closed." *

Now, however, New York Times columnist Bob Herbert discovered that the ‘investigation’ is not over, but in fact has been ongoing in black communities. And since the so-called investigative process has been revealed to the public, spokesmen for Guy Tunnell, Gov. Bush’s handpicked head of the FDLE, have provided an interesting and somewhat selective, if not creative, response to questions.

The letter closing the ‘investigation’ that was sent out in May was "not meant to indicate that the ‘entire’ investigation was closed," ** but only to indicate that the mayor was no longer a suspect, reporters and the public were told.

Yet the net result, as New York Times columnist Herbert points out, is that "the smell of voter suppression coming out of Florida is getting stronger…many longtime Florida observers have said the use of state troopers for this type of investigation is extremely unusual, and it has caused a storm of controversy."

"For elderly African-American voters, who remember the terrible torment inflicted on blacks who tried to vote in the South in the 1950’s and 60’s, the sight of armed police officers coming into their homes to interrogate them about voting is chilling indeed. One woman, who is in her mid-70’s and was visited by two officers in June, said in an affidavit: ‘After entering my house, they asked me if they could take their jackets off, to which I answered, yes. When they removed their jackets, I noticed they were wearing sidearms…and I noticed an ankle holster on one of them when they sat down."

When Herbert, and others, began asking questions, Florida officials quickly declared that the reason the officers went to the homes was exactly the opposite of the conclusion being drawn. The alternative, officials said, was to bring the residents to the FDLE headquarters, which could have been even more intimidating.

But that answer didn’t go far with Eugene Pool, president of the Florida Voters League, who told Herbert, "These guys are using these intimidating methods to try and get these folks to stay away from the polls in the future. And you know what? It’s working. One woman said, ‘My God, they’re going to put us in jail for nothing.’ I said, ‘That’s not true.’"

Ironically, this is not the only voting controversy currently involving Florida. Jeb Bush, using funds provided from his brother’s administration and the GOP congress after the 2000 election, further computerized the voting process in a general manner for the 2002 Florida elections.

However, a computer crash after the mid-term elections erased virtually all the records from Miami-Dade County’s first use of touchscreen voting machines. According to the Associated Press, (AP), crashes occurred after the election - in May and November, 2003 - effectively erasing information and therefore records from the September, 2002 gubernatorial primaries and other local elections.

But the problem was not immediately made known to the Florida voters.

AP reporter Hilary Roxe reports that, "the malfunction was made public after the Miami-Dade Election Reform Coalition, a citizen’s group, requested all data from the 2002 gubernatorial primary between Democratic candidates Janet Reno and Bill McBride."

Since the problem, however, state officials declare that they have been backing up election data daily. Nonetheless, all of these issues illustrate the fact that it would not be surprising if there were problems with voter tallies in Gov. Jeb Bush’s Florida election system this November.

Lida-Rodriguez-Taseff, chairwoman of the Miami-Dade Election Reform Coalition, told the AP’s Roxe that,"This is a disaster waiting to happen; of course it’s worrisome." ***