Secret Document Suggests GOP Preparing to Challenge Black Vote in Florida

Concerns continue to mount across the country over the fairness of next Tuesday's election. Already problems have emerged in many states. In one county in Ohio, more than 900 registered voters have been told they must appear in court on Saturday to defend their voter eligibility or risk losing their right to vote. In Wisconsin, scores of students report that their local elections board says it has no record of their voter registration. In Nevada, fallout continues after the it emerged that a group registering voters had destroyed possible hundreds of ballots of voters who identified themselves as Democrats. But nowhere is concern greater than in the state of Florida, the epicenter of the theft of the election in 2000.

Yesterday, the deputy election supervisor in one of Florida's most populous counties admitted that some 60,000 absentee ballots had gone missing. Broward county election official Gisela Salas said the matter is under investigation by law enforcement agencies. In 2000, it was Broward county that gave Al Gore his strongest support in the state of Florida. The US Postal Service says it has investigators trying to find the missing ballots, which constitute 5 percent of Broward County's electorate.

This comes as investigative reporter Greg Palast obtained a secret document from inside Bush campaign headquarters in Florida. The document suggests a plan-possibly in violation of the law-to disrupt voting in the state"s African-American voting districts.

Two e-mails, prepared for the executive director of the Bush campaign in Florida and the campaign's national research director in Washington DC, contain a 15-page so-called "caging list". It lists more than 1,800 names and addresses of voters in predominantly Black and traditionally Democratic areas of Jacksonville, Florida. Palast broke the story on BBC's Newsnight program. Today, we broadcast the story in its entirety for the first time on US television and radio. Here is Greg Palast's report.

Listen Online
http://www.democracynow.org/article.pl?sid=04/10/28/141211