Media Matters for America details Lott's latest bizarre claim about the 2000 election in Florida---on CNN Lott claimed:
I think a lot of the discussion about disenfranchising African-American voters, in particular I think it's been fairly sad, because I think there have been a lot of myths in Florida, for example. I mean, you have the Commission on Civil Rights did an extensive set of hearings, they weren't able to identify even one person.
Media Matters for America has the links to the Commission on Civil Rights report that puts the lie to Lott's claim.
A previous bizarre Lott claim about Florida 2000 is dissected here.
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Lott has responded to Media Matters criticism of his comments on Florida 2000. Lott writes:
Media matters makes it look like I was talking about "voter disenfranchisement" (which I assume includes the non-voted ballot issue) by adding into what I said the broader statement "[on voter…
As well as his work on guns, John Lott has produced some bizarre claims about the Florida 2000 election. For example:
African-American Republicans who voted were 54 to 66 times more likely than the average African American to cast a non-voted ballot (either by not marking that race or voting for…
Allan Lichtman posts on spoiled ballots in Florida 2000. (Hat tip: Ralph Luker). He rightfully refers to Lott's claims about ballot spoiling as "bizarre". Lott claims:
African-American Republicans who voted were 54 to 66 times more likely than the average African American to…
One of the tools that people interested in framing use is the focus group. I've always been wary of them because I think researchers and the participants can strongly bias your results. Joe Klein described a focus group involving Colorado independents. Klein describes the group:
There was some…
Many Black voters were disenfranchised by the algore operation for the crime of being in the US militry.
"In other words, an African American's chance of having his or her vote rejected as a spoiled ballot was significantly greater than a white voter's." There is no evidence to suggest why. It could be as easily correlated to IQ as civil rights abuse.
Oh right. African Americans were disenfranchised because they are more likely to be TOO STUPID to vote.
I thought the racists these days were TOO SMART to actually say that stuff.
To support your argument, DJ, you could just as easily have used shoe size. There is no evidence that it is not correlated to shoe size. But you chose the IQ connection.. and I wonder why.
Voting in the US is administered at the county level. This is why different counties in the same state use different voting methods. While there is some Federal funding for voting machines (and this has increased significantly since 2000), poorer counties tend to have smaller budgets and to use older and less reliable voting machines. This would appear to explain why African-Americans, who on average are poorer than other Americans, were more likely ot be disenfranchised.
I think the capitals give it away.
Why the kneejerk desire to censor the discussion of human biodiversity? According to Steve Sailer US military studies do show a difference in intelligence between Blacks and Whites.
"In 1995, the average black enlistee scored at the 59th percentile on the AFTQ (the test used in the Bell Curve), compared to the 14th percentile for non-military black youths. The average white enlistee score at about the 81st percentile, compared to the 61st percentile for the average white young person." It is also reflected in the elite services, "The Navy has only 31 blacks among its 2,299 Sea-Air-Land, or SEAL, commandos, less than 2 percent of the force. African-Americans constitute nearly 17 percent of the male personnel within the Navy."
Conversely, the NFL also tests intelligence with Blacks scoring lower than Whites yet Blacks dominate that sport in disproportion to their numbers in the general populace partly because of an advantage in 'real time' responsiveness. Thomas Sowell has pointed out: "To be an outstanding basketball player means to out-think opponents consistently in these split-second decisions under stress."
The greatest spoilage fell in Duval County which used the most confusing, according to many reports, two page ballot, followed by Palm Beach with the butterfly ballot. Miami-Dade, Broward, Hillsborough, Pinellas, Pasco all used straight-forward, single-page ballots, and there were no reports of voter confusion. "The overvote was not confined to under-privileged, first-time-at-the-polls black voters. In the 120 Jewish seniors precincts of Palm Beach, one out of every 13 ballots was double-punched." Yet in Miami-Dade, the more straight forward ballot saw African-Americans produce a higher spoilage rate of approximately 1-10 (Apparently 183,000 registerd AA voters with a reported 88% turnout and a spoilage rate of 9.8%). Higher than Whites but much lower than the spoilage rate in Duval.
Possibly it is foot size afterall.
" Why the kneejerk desire to censor the discussion of human biodiversity?"
Because it is racist and unscientific? Let me give you a hint, the scientific problems with The Bell Curve are well documented.