Moore's cameras coming to monitor Florida elections

By BRIAN E. CROWLEY
Cox News Service
Wednesday, July 28, 2004

 

BOSTON — Filmmaker Michael Moore is bringing his cameras to Florida in November to make sure there is a "huge spotlight" on state election officials when voters go to the polls.

The director of "Fahrenheit 9/11" also said he plans to help pay for an "army of lawyers" who will be in target precincts ready to go to court if they spot any voting problems.

"We're here this morning to put the Bush administration, both the one in Tallahassee and the one in Washington, D.C., on notice," Moore said while addressing the Florida delegate breakfast Wednesday. "We are not going to dishonor those who gave their lives in the civil rights struggle by allowing them to steal a second election."

Many blacks complained they were disenfranchised in the 2000 election. Moore also noted that older voters in Palm Beach County said the ballot was confusing and that counties using punch-card systems found them nearly impossible to count accurately.

"I am going to be in Florida," Moore said as dozens of delegates snapped his picture. "Together, we will guarantee to every Floridian that their vote will be counted this year. I will have my cameras there. We will put a huge spotlight on them. They will not get away with it this time."

At a news conference after the breakfast, Moore said he was realistic about his chances of gathering "visual evidence" of voter problems.

"When I say I'm bringing my cameras, I mean three cameras, and it's a large state," Moore said.

He encouraged other independent filmmakers to join him in Florida.

"They got away with an election fix last time because there was no visual evidence," he said.

Reed Dickens, a spokesman for President Bush's re-election campaign, called Moore "a guy who's spent his entire career capitalizing on other people's tragedies."

Moore has come under fire for his box-office hit, "Fahrenheit 9/11." Many Republicans, as well as some movie critics and political analysts, say the film about the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks and the war in Iraq manipulates information in an attempt to portray Bush in the worst possible light.

"He has never been confined by accuracy or the facts," Dickens said.

Moore claims he is simply doing the job the mainstream press failed to do by presenting the truth.

Lance Block, a Tallahassee attorney who helped lead the legal challenges over Palm Beach County's disputed ballots in 2000, said lawyers are volunteering statewide to help keep an eye on the Nov. 2 election.

"The first thing we will be doing is watching the deputy supervisors of election, who tend to be poorly trained and don't know election laws but are the enforcers at the polls," Block said. "We are going to make sure they do not become overzealous and that they don't suppress the vote."

Block said the legal teams will be at "targeted precincts" throughout the state. In addition, poll watchers will count voters entering a precinct, then match that number with the official count. If there is a significant discrepancy, the legal teams will go to court.

Poll watchers also will talk to voters outside the polls to determine whether they had problems, either with the machines or with precinct workers.

"If there is a scent of an irregularity at a precinct, we will file for a court injunction right there and then on election day," Block said.

Sharing the spotlight with Moore on Wednesday was Rep. Peter Deutsch, who is running for the U.S. Senate seat being vacated by retiring Bob Graham. In Moore's film, Deutsch is shown on the floor of the House on Jan. 6, 2001, challenging the validity of the presidential election and Florida's electoral votes. The U.S. Supreme Court had just ended a 37-day recount battle, giving Bush the election by 537 votes.

Moore said he would not endorse Deutsch in the Senate race but called him "a man of courage who's on the ballot and is going to stand up for all the people of Florida."

Asked whether that was an endorsement, Moore said, "I think my words speak loud and clear."