Dishonesty and Disenfranchise

[El_Jibaro]

ELECTION STUDY CONDUCTED BY GORE ASSOCIATE

By Bill Sammon
THE WASHINGTON TIMES June 21, 2001

To obtain the raw data from this study, the commission´s two Republican appointees said they have been reduced to submitting Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requests to their own commission.

They said the group´s Democratic majority has been slow to provide this and other information they need in order to write their dissenting opinion before Senate Democrats begin hearings next week.

The study, which Democrats on the commission leaked to The Washington Post and the New York Times, was conducted by American University history professor Alan Lichtman, who is listed on the school´s Web site as "consultant to Vice President Albert Gore Jr."

"He´s obviously very pro-Gore," said Russell Redenbaugh, one of two conservatives on the eight-member commission. "The Lichtman statistics are arcane and controversial. The statistical methodology used is not at all mainstream and not universally accepted."

Mr. Lichtman yesterday emphasized that he also has done consulting work for Republicans, including Lee Atwater and New York Mayor Rudolph W. Giuliani, although he has never worked for President Bush.

"I haven´t been a consultant for Gore for six years," he said. "So it´s really unfair of them to be attacking me personally."

Republican Commissioner Abigail Thernstrom said Mr. Lichtman´s attempts to portray himself as bipartisan were "hilarious."

"The fact is he´s a hired gun for minority plaintiffs in voting rights cases," she said. "He´s very driven by his commitment to finding disenfranchisement and finding violations of the Voting Rights Act. I mean, it´s just blatant in all his work."

Les Gin, staff director for the Democrat-controlled commission, said the staff did not know when they retained Mr. Lichtman that he had been a consultant to Mr. Gore.

"If we had known, would it have made any difference?" he asked rhetorically. "The truth is, it probably would not have."

Mr. Gin said Mr. Lichtman was hired partly because the staff liked his testimony during the commission´s hearings in January in Tallahassee, Fla.

"I think he did a very nice job of presenting as a witness down in Tallahassee," he said. "At that point, I think there was a feeling that Dr. Lichtman was a very good person to finish this project."

But the commission´s Republican appointees cited Mr. Lichtman´s January testimony as proof that his conclusions about black disenfranchisement were a foregone conclusion.

"While I´ve done no study of my own, I´ve handed out to you a New York Times article from Nov. 29, which does show that in fact there are disparate election systems used in the state of Florida," Mr. Lichtman testified at the time.

"Minorities perhaps can go to the polls unimpeded, but their votes are less likely to count because of the disparate technology than are the votes of whites," he added.

After the commission appointed him, Mr. Lichtman conducted a statistical analysis that claimed to confirm that thesis. But Republicans said the study should have been conducted by a statistician, not a historian, and certainly not by someone who once worked for Mr. Gore.

Moreover, the GOP appointees complained that Mr. Lichtman´s study was sprung on them just two days before the commission´s June 8 hearing. Mr. Redenbaugh, who is blind, did not have enough time to arrange for someone to read him the report.

"It´s an [Americans with Disabilities Act] violation, even though he won´t say anything because he hates being in the category of disabled and making a fuss about it," said Mrs. Thernstrom.

"I mean, we´re discussing a report page by page that a commissioner who is blind has not had an opportunity to read," she added. "He had no access to that report, in effect. They treated him as not a commissioner who was entitled to read this document."

Mr. Redenbaugh downplayed his lack of timely access to the report.

He said the important point is that Democratic members of the commission have refused to provide the raw data on which the study is based.

Both Mr. Redenbaugh and Mrs. Thernstrom have filed FOIA requests to obtain this and other information they say is crucial for their dissenting opinion, which is due next week.

"It´s appalling that we have had to submit a FOIA request," Mrs. Thernstrom said. "But we can´t get the data. We´ve got some paper, but we can´t enter all these numbers and make them machine readable. I want his disks because the taxpayers paid for them."

But Mr. Lichtman said he has no computer disks containing statistical databases or models. Besides, he said, he provided paper copies of the raw numbers and listed the Web sites for his source materials.

"It´s all on the Web," he said. "In my report, I point out all the Web sites. I mean, this data has been available for months. There´s no secret data and they got a hard copy of all the data as well. So this is nonsense."

Mr. Gin agreed.

"I´m a little surprised by the fact that they´ve filed FOIA requests, because that´s not the way we do business with commissioners," he said. "Dr. Lichtman does not have that data on a disk; he doesn´t have it in one place. He just took the information off the Internet."

Republicans rejected the idea that they should re-create Mr. Lichtman´s study by trying to duplicate from scratch his collection methods and analysis of data from numerous sources.

They accused the Democrats of deliberately stonewalling so that the dissenting report will not be published before Wednesday, when Sen. Christopher J. Dodd, Connecticut Democrat, convenes hearings on the election.

The first two witnesses at the hearing will be Mrs. Thernstrom and the commission´s liberal chairman, Mary Frances Berry. Miss Berry, who has given $19,000 to Democrats since 1992, did not return phone calls for this story.

[MinFaluMuhammad]

The Democrats have been the biggest deceivers in the past 12 years than any political party that I have researched on in regards to governments that are set up as Republics like the United States. It sickened me to see how full fledgedly the African American population jumped with both feet on board the Democratic party last year. Yet, there was no real push by top party leaders to place African American candidates in pivotal seats. For instance, here in Louisville, there was an African American woman running for a congressional seat on the Democratic ticket. Her opponent, incumbent, Anne Northup was losing in the polls. Of course, the gay community jumped on board with the Democrats pushing a lot of votes in the primaries. Yet, Kentucky has a Democratic governor, and Louisville has a Democratic mayor. They gave a lack luster effort to campaign on her behalf. In the last few weeks of the election, Sen. Mitch McConnell pitched an extra $250,000 towards the Republican incumbents campaign with proved to be pivotal in her gaining the seat again. The Democrats are very deceiving. I attended the American Family Conference in Washington D.C. which was hosted by the Washington Times. I met all the heavy hitters in the Republican party, to include Sen. Ashcroft, who is now the Atty. General. The faith based initiative, and other Bush initiatives gives a more realistic answer to the problems that face the African American communities in America. It forces them to have to work progressively to change. Clinton had his race initiative that did nothing but host race conferences and give non-effective African American leaders a chance to appear effective. With their 'I sat down with the President.' We, as Latinos, who are of African descent, need to be careful of the deception that the Democratic party places forth. I read your other post where you stated that Bush is cleaning up Clinton's mess. That is true. That is why the Republicans had to place some of Bush, Sr.s top aides around him. He needed that expertise to overcome the awesome task of keeping America from falling into another recession. I think it may be a little too late. I can talk on this forever, but I just wanted to thank you for bringing us Puerto Ricans into the light that we need to be in.