12/08/00 9:50 a.m.
Seminole Wrong
How they get away with making the case.

By James A. Cooley, reporter for The Lone Star Report

have been struggling with a way to express the fundamental wrong being advocated in a courtroom in Seminole County. Watching the smug plaintiff's attorneys, I wondered why all Americans couldn't see the travesty being so calmly discussed.

Win or lose, their actions were clearly establishing a dangerous precedent that put the voting rights of all Americans at risk. Yet, to succeed, this plan depended upon doing to all at once what couldn't be done one at a time.

A paradox? Let me explain.

Suppose that, instead of the Republican party, it had been the NAACP that had performed the flawed Seminole County absentee ballot drive? Would there be a lawyer in the world willing to argue in public that absentee ballots submitted by thousands of black Americans should be thrown out?

Not a very likely prospect, is it? This is apt to be the case even if the help to the voter was rendered in an inadvertent violation of statute.

Or. what if the Seminole ballots belonged to Hispanic-Americans recruited through MALDEF? Older Americans located by the AARP? Veterans assisted by the American Legion? Gay Americans targeted by Act-Up? Disabled people being aided by ADAPT?

Simply substitute any other recognized minority group in American for the Republican party in this case and see how everything changes. Just imagine the firestorm of protest if political-activist attorneys tried to claim these ballots from any so-called protected class of Americans were tainted and could be trashed. The media would, of course, be positively outraged.

The U.S. Justice Department would also likely be waiting in the wings to defend the rights of these oppressed individuals.

Yet, in these 15,000 absentee votes in Seminole County, there are apt to be presidential votes cast from every minority group mentioned above. All of them.

So, if it is unthinkable to think of disenfranchising the members of separate groups individually, why is it just fine to think about doing the same to all of them — and everyone else — in one fell swoop?

I guess the key to getting away with such an act of oppression is to disenfranchise everyone all at once.

Then, while on the topic of illegal ballots, we have another glaring example that few seem willing to look at.

Remember the little matter of the convicted felons who voted illegally? Media estimates of the total ex-con vote in Florida have run as high as 2,000. The same news stories revealed party affiliations that ran about 75 percent Democrat.

To be consistent with the goals espoused by the Democrat Seminole County vote-snatchers, the only fair answer is to deduct these 2,000 or so illegal votes from the statewide total. Given the party affiliation ratios, three-fourths of the votes stripped should obviously come from Al Gore's column.

Surely, Mr. Gore would not want to remain the beneficiary of at least 1,500 votes that he — and everyone else — knows with a clear certainty were illegally cast. When should we look for Al to demand these tainted ballots be scrapped?

Hint: Look for Satan in snowshoes first.