Dear people,

I have heard several times rumours stating that in the first eletions won by Bush (son!) a lot of people have been not given the right to vote. I would like to know (no matter if it happened or not) if and how something like that could happen. In fact, in the italian (in my country) voting system, it would be not possible, everyone (over 18) has the right to vote, and the state helps him/her to reach the voting booth in case he/she has economical or other kinds of difficulties (maybe it is not always true, but it is supposed to be so).
So what I was wondering is, why didn't they just go to vote? ...I mean the persons who say to have not been given the right to vote...
Perhaps the american voting system is different? How does it work?
Thanks

By: Devvy

January 5, 2006

NewsWithViews.com

Did you know ABC News posted "....results and predictions...” [their words] on their website in the early evening of Nov. 2, 1998 - 12 hours before any polls opened in the United States? They did--and do you know how accurate they were?

How come, with no votes counted, only precincts “reporting,” the media can call the results of more than 165,000 precincts nationwide within minutes, and with such uncanny accuracy?

Was Florida an anomaly or was something else going on behind the scenes during the November 2000 “elections?”

Did you know that voting machine manufacturers admit the failure rates of electronic machines range from 16 to 28 percent?

Why the drive to force all Americans into voting with electronic touch-screen machines that have no paper trail and no accountability? Why the push to eliminate all paper ballots?

Important questions. Most Americans know something is wrong, most still think, “We'll remember in November” and voting out corrupt politicians is an option. The late Ezra Taft Benson was Secretary of Agriculture during the ‘60s. Mr. Benson was a great American who wrote a remarkable book in 1969 titled, An Enemy Hath Done This. In his book, Benson said America will be destroyed from within by Americans for two reasons: (1) apathy and (2) The American public's refusal to hold its elected public servants accountable because of party loyalty.

Sadly, we can all see the sickening apathy in America and the absolute lack of concern regarding our rights, our freedom and our sovereignty. The only time too many Americans react to anything is if the TV Guide comes wrinkled in the mail, a 12-pack of beer goes up a quarter or their favorite sports team lost. In the meantime, the globalists continue with their quest for a one world totalitarian government.

you can read the entire article here: [www.newswithviews.com]

mkcerusky, you are joking right? Not happen in Italy!!! Your govt. is the mafia. Berlusconi just got let off a corruption charge because, and I like this one, it´s pretty clever, his govt., after they came to power, changed the law he was being charged under so that what he did is no longer a crime. Politics the world over is open to corruption, it takes many forms and there are many different ways of passing that wad of cash under the table. People who seek power / ego / money don´t care how they get it. Politicians are dirt, filling their pockets with cash and telling you they are doing it =for= you.

Spot on, zxz.....but there's a kind of innocence about mkcerusky, isn't there?

"Most Americans are well aware that in 2000, the presidential election was decided by 537 votes. From hanging chads to the hourly updates of the manual recount, this story was obsessively covered by the mainstream press. However, what wasn't covered was what journalist Greg Palast discovered that thousands of primarily minority voters were scrubbed ("cleaned" from the voter registry in Florida and prevented from potentially changing the course of Americans turbulent last four years."

NEW YORK TIMES REPORTS ILLEGAL FLORIDA VOTE PURGE ... THREE YEARS AFTER KILLING STORY
--- [gregpalast.com]

THE GREAT FLORIDA EX-CON GAME
How the 'felon' voter-purge was itself felonious
--- [gregpalast.com]

Florida's 'Disappeared Voters': Disfranchised by the GOP
--- [gregpalast.com]

1. I am perfectly conscious about Berlusconi and the problems of italian politics, and I know that the "right to vote" is NOT a problem in Italy, and I gave it only as an example to try to clarify my question, but it is evident that I failed.
2. I am not criticizing anything about America and its politics
3. Mine is just a technical question which was evidently expressed badly because non of you even tried to answer it, thus I'll try to reformulate it using the following question:
a) who can vote in USA?
b) does everyone have the right to vote? Or are there persons who don't?
c) is the right to vote something "automatic" or do people have to follow some burocratic procedures to be allowed to vote?
d) is it possible that a person at a certain point of his/her life loses his/her right to vote?

In order to make it clearer for you to understande the meanings of the questions, I'll comment them giving the italian examples, so you can at least tell me if in USA is the same as in Italy or if it is different, and remember I am not talking about moral judgments, but only of the technical functionning of the whole issue. Thus, in Italy:
a) In Italy every Italian citizens over 18 can vote (over 24 for the senate)
b) If you are over 18 you may be temporarely banned from vote if you have committed some specific crimes and if there is a sentence stating that you cannot vote. Note that not all the prisoners are banned from vote, and they can vote inside the prison.
c) The right to vote is automatic, you don't have to follow any procedure, as soon as you are 18 (24 for the senate) the state (automatically) sends you the certificate you have to presentin order to vote.
d) only people who have been banned by a specific sentence, and I think (not suure 100%) that the banning lasts only a limited time, indicated by the sentence. However in the past there was another case, one could in fact a person that didn't vote for a certain number of times did lose (temporarely I think) the right to vote, but this is no more the case, I don't know how many years ago this was changed, surely before I began to vote.

Can you answer these questions for USA? I am not commenting or criticising, I just would like to know how the right to vote is managed in USA.

For zxz555 the problem in Italy is not the fact that people has been not given the right to vote, on the contrary the problem is that they voted and they voted for Berlusconi....one could investigate "why" this happened, expecially in relation to the fact that the B***ard own most of TV channel, news papers and other communication media, but this is acompletely different issue

I had a look at the links given by john_stone, I couldn't go too much in detail because of a matter of time, but I had the feeling that the crucial node is no how people is deprived and re-given the right to vote with respect to penal sentences or something like that, is that right? (please consider I lack of english technical language for this kind of issues)

So? What happened? As soon as you realized that I was not even thinking of offending, judging or attacking you, but I was simply asking a technical question, you decided it was not worth to answer?