[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 147 (2001), Part 17]
[House]
[Pages 24105-24106]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]



                        ELECTION IRREGULARITIES

  The SPEAKER pro tempore (Mr. Gutknecht). Under a previous order of 
the House, the gentlewoman from Georgia (Ms. McKinney) is recognized 
for 5 minutes.
  Ms. McKINNEY. Mr. Speaker, I mentioned awhile ago a fact of what 
happened in the elections in Florida, which I would like to take an 
opportunity to revisit, and I am glad that the gentlewoman from Florida 
(Ms. Brown) has agreed to stay here so that she can respond to this 
information.
  An enterprising journalist by the name of Gregory Palast who operates 
out of London and works with BBC-TV has provided some very interesting 
information to me. I have got a list here, and the list is about those 
people who were put on the voter file that said that they could not 
vote because they were convicted felons. I have got the list here.
  For instance, number 354 on the list is Johnny Jackson, Jr., who is a 
black male from Texas, and then, unfortunately, John Fitzgerald 
Jackson. They said that those two people were the same people, so John 
Fitzgerald Jackson in Florida was denied the right to vote because a 
list from Texas that had the name of Johnny Jackson, Jr., on it, said 
that Johnny Jackson, Jr., was not eligible to vote.
  I have got on this list, for example, Thomas Alvin Cooper, who is a 
white male from Ohio. Thomas Cooper is a pretty common name. There is 
more than one Thomas Cooper, I am sure, in all of the people in 
Florida. But Thomas Cooper was denied the right to vote in Florida, and 
Thomas Cooper in Florida, who was denied the right to vote, was a black 
man.
  I have got here Michael Rodriguez from New Jersey, and I am sure 
Michael Rodriguez is a common name. But in Florida, Michael Rodriguez 
was denied the right to vote. In New Jersey it was Michael A. 
Rodriguez.
  What this list shows is that there were about 2,800 people who were 
not allowed the right to vote because the State of Florida said that 
they were convicted felons in other states, and, therefore, they could 
not vote in Florida.
  Mr. Speaker, 57,700 people, innocent people, I might add, were 
targeted for removal. Ninety percent of the people on the list that was 
purged so that these people could not vote in Florida, 90 percent of 
the names were wrong. At least 54 percent were black. 80 percent of 
those who finally were purged were black, and 93 percent of the people 
who were targeted to be purged vote Democratic.
  Ms. BROWN of Florida. If the gentlewoman would yield for one minute, 
let me give you the rest of the story. Florida used $4 million of 
taxpayer money that they gave to a firm, it was not bid out, to a firm 
from Texas. Katherine Harris' office did that to the people of Florida, 
and they came up and purged people. There was no procedure, none 
whatsoever.
  In fact, when I went to the poll on election day, I went downtown and 
there was some young black guys there saying they are not letting them 
vote because they said they were felons, and they had never been 
arrested.
  Ms. McKINNEY. It was a procedure, all right, but the procedure was 
that if

[[Page 24106]]

you were black, then you had your name on this list and you were denied 
the right to vote.
  Ms. BROWN of Florida. There is no question. But I am going back to 
how it came about. There was a bid, a non-solicited bid, where a 
contract was given to a firm, and all this is in the record, and the 
firm told the State of Florida that this system that you are using will 
identify people that are not convicted felons. The State of Florida 
says, oh, that is okay. That is okay.
  Ms. McKINNEY. That is exactly what happened. The name of the firm was 
Database Technologies, which was later absorbed by ChoicePoint, which 
has its headquarters right outside of Atlanta. The gentlewoman is 
absolutely right, that they told Katherine Harris, for whom a 
Congressional District I understand is being specially carved, that the 
information we are going to give you, according to your specifications, 
is wrong. We want you to know that the information that we are going to 
give you, the information that you have requested, is wrong. Do you 
want us to give you wrong information? And Katherine Harris and 
company, said yes, we want the wrong information.

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