[Congressional Record Volume 147, Number 4 (Saturday, January 6, 2001)]
[House]
[Page H30]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




 EXPRESSING OUTRAGE AND EXASPERATION OF CONSTITUENTS IN MIAMI, FLORIDA

  (Mrs. MEEK of Florida asked and was given permission to address the 
House for 1 minute.)
  Mrs. MEEK of Florida. Mr. Speaker, I am a born and raised resident of 
the State of Florida. I do not stand today before this Congress with 
great pride, because I must object to the way the votes were handled in 
the State of Florida.
  Mr. Speaker, I am here to express the outrage and exasperation of my 
constituents in Miami, Florida, over the failure of our government and 
our electoral system in the 2000 Presidential election; 20,000 votes or 
more were not counted in Miami, Dade County, Florida.
  I am standing so that history will show and record my words so that 
people might better understand what has happened to us in Miami.
  We are outraged because African American voters in Florida did 
everything they were supposed to do, studied the issues. We did our 
civic duty. We lined up at the polls and we voted; and yet massive 
numbers of our votes were not counted. We cannot be silent, even though 
we would like to. First, the importance of this election is important 
throughout the country. We exercised what we thought was our legal 
right, only to have it nullified by faulty and defective voting 
machines distributed discriminatorily, targeted in our neighborhoods, 
nullified by purge of voting lists, and on and on.
  Mr. Speaker, I want America to understand that African Americans were 
not given process in this election.

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