Editorial: Stolen votes

No matter how successful George W. Bush proves to be as president, a pall will forever hang over the 2000 election. In national scrutiny of the way Americans cast and count their ballots, many states were found wanting. The chief among them was Florida, where the outcome, with the help of the U.S. Supreme Court, gave Bush his victory over Al Gore.

Reform efforts are under way, but at least one major flaw in the system should be repaired by Congress before another national election is held. A chilling two-page account in the current issue of Harper's magazine by Greg Palast, who investigated the 2000 election for the BBC, illustrates why.

Had thousands of voters not wrongly been turned away from the polls, the outcome in Florida probably would have been different and Gore, not Bush, would be in the White House. Most of the disenfranchised voters were black.

Most states deny prisoners the vote. Only Maine, Massachusetts, Vermont and Utah do not. But only 15 states, including Florida, bar felons who have served their time from voting, according to a 1998 study by the Sentencing Project of the international organization Human Rights Watch.