More inconvenient facts about Florida 2000
WSJ’s OpinionJournal takes on the assertions by Jimmy Carter and others that black voters were denied their right to vote by various means in Florida.
In June 2001, following a six-month investigation that included subpoenas of Florida state officials from Governor Jeb Bush on down, the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights issued a report that found no evidence of voter intimidation, no evidence of voter harassment, and no evidence of intentional or systematic disenfranchisement of black voters.
Headed by a fiercely partisan Democrat, Mary Frances Berry, the Commission was very critical of Florida election officials (many of whom were Democrats). For example, “Potential voters confronted inexperienced poll workers, antiquated machinery, inaccessible polling locations, and other barriers to being able to exercise their right to vote.” But the report found no basis for the contention that officials conspired to disenfranchise voters. “Moreover,” it said, “even if it was foreseeable that certain actions by officials led to voter disenfranchisement, this alone does not mean that intentional discrimination occurred,” let alone racial discrimination.
The Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division conducted a separate investigation of these charges and also came up empty. In a May 2002 letter to Democratic Senator Pat Leahy of Vermont, who at the time headed the Judiciary Committee, Assistant Attorney General Ralph Boyd wrote, “The Civil Rights Division found no credible evidence in our investigations that Floridians were intentionally denied their right to vote during the November 2000 election.
The thing that has always bothered me most about these claims is that the Democrat party continues to perpetuate an image of black voters as helpless, downtrodden victims. I don’t believe that to be the case. Nor do I believe that the black community will for much longer tolerate the institutionalized racism inherent in the platform and demagoguery of the Democrat party.
