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There are many ways of looking at this data. We
can say that the average % Blacks for all the targeted zips was 28%
(=216,081/769,828). The
Projected Blacks Targeted for each zip comes from multiplying the % of
Blacks in that zip by the number of names on the list for that zip. This
generously assumes names were originally chosen in a race neutral fashion.
If we then take the total number of such Projected Blacks Targeted over all
zip codes and calculate what percent of the total list they are
(749.1/1821), we get 41% as Total % Blacks Targeted. This is considerably
higher than the average % Blacks for all the zips, 28%. We can also say that the average % Black in the zips where
there were more than 50 people on the Caging List was 33% vs 19% in those
zips with <50 people selected. Jacksonville Zips not on the Cage List at
all have a much smaller % of Blacks. References This Caging List has given rise
to a certain controversy, some of which is on http://www.mydd.com/story/2004/10/26/193313/49
where we learn that Mindy Tucker Fletcher, a spokeswoman for the Florida
Republicans, claims that the this was "a listing of returned mail that
came from a mailing that the Republican National Committee sent to new
registrants in Duval County in Florida, encouraging newly registered
Republicans, Democrats and Independents to vote Republican." To
our knowledge, no one has mapped out the data as we have. Salon's
War Room has an update:
"UPDATE: A few readers have pointed out that even if the Republicans
are telling the truth that the list is only a compilation of bad addresses
returned from a direct-marketing mail, its purpose could have been less than
innocent -- to challenge voters on residency grounds (since the GOP would
have some reason to believe their addresses didn't qualify). This is
plausible; it's worth noting, and we should have noted earlier, that the RNC
has in fact been accused of these actions before, and in 1987, in response
to a civil rights suit, it signed a consent decree pledging not to do this.
But Republicans told War Room that this was not the purpose of this list,
and, so far, we have no way of proving them wrong." Voter Suppression Becomes Biggest Election ‘Issue’
New Standard, 10/31/04
"News surfaced Tuesday evening that the Bush
campaign’s Florida office has a list of the names and addresses of 1,886
voters in and around Jacksonville, Florida, a predominately black city
inside Duval County, where official voter registration figures show
Democrats have a nearly 50,000 person edge over Republicans.
In an October 26 broadcast of the BBC’s Newsnight,
investigative journalist Greg Palast reported that Florida Bush/Cheney
campaign officials are keeping a spreadsheet they call a "caging
list.". The broadcast included portions of an interview with Ion Sancho,
the Leon County election supervisor who headed up statewide recount efforts
on the orders of the Florida Supreme Court back in 2000. Sancho has raised
the possibility that the "caging list" will be used to challenge
the eligibility of voters at the polls, an action permitted by an arcane law
passed in 1895."
Secret
Document Suggests GOP Preparing to Challenge Black Vote in Florida 10/29/2004 Democracy
Now: "GREG PALAST: Yeah. That's why I’m grateful
that you have run the report today. Because the Republican National
Committee is threatening BBC, as they have done before with my reports,
saying that if Greg Palast is on the air there will be no interviews for the
network. From the Republican National Committee, which is, of course,
cutting off the air supply of the news organization, and you can immediately
see why American news organizations won't touch the story. That's basically
that the Republican Party has a hit list of black people they're going to
try to wipe out on Election Day, stop them from voting, and in particular,
this has the effect of not only of intimidating the voters, eliminating
voters, but in places like Jacksonville where three and four-hour waits are
expected, this could entirely sabotage the voting operation. Understand,
this is illegal if they're targeting black folk. It is against federal
law." ...GREG PALAST: What you saw was a guy, Ion Sancho, who is
probably considered the most experienced and respected of election
supervisors in Florida. Unfortunately, my one mistake was to identify him as
a Democrat, because the Republicans told me he was a Democrat. He's very
independent, not affiliated with any party. He has also asked the parties
not to challenge voters on Election Day. The supervisors have said it's
really never been done in Florida history. This basically is an attempt to
stop the entire voting process, bring it to a halt. As for registrations,
what happened was that students, mostly Democrats, students filled out
petition forms for medical use of marijuana, and it turns out they were
signing the back of registration forms without knowing it, reregistering
themselves as republicans. This was definitely tied to a republican-paid
operation, and at least 4,000 of the forged registrations, which is a felony
to forge registration, have been found, and Jeb Bush's department of law
enforcement says that they don't have time for the next few weeks to get
around to arresting the forgers. It's just -- this is just the beginning of
the game."
New Florida vote scandal feared 10/26/2004 BBC: by
Greg Paslast - "Two e-mails, prepared for the executive
director of the Bush campaign in Florida and the campaign's national
research director in Washington DC, contain a 15-page so-called "caging
list". It lists 1,886 names and addresses of voters in predominantly
black and traditionally Democrat areas of Jacksonville, Florida. An
elections supervisor in Tallahassee, when shown the list, told Newsnight:
"The only possible reason why they would keep such a thing is to
challenge voters on election day." "
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