Friday, March 29, 2024

Truth hidden by faulty opinions

There’s a word some people need to learn: responsibility. In your article (“Election flaws discovered,” SN 6/6), Nikki O’Brien, coordinator for African American Student Affairs at MSU, along with the editorial board of The State News, acted irresponsibly.

Voicing opinions based upon lies and misconceptions is irresponsible. The U.S. Commission on Civil Rights did not release a report. Only part of that commission did. All of the Republicans on the commission were excluded from seeing the report and knew nothing of its release. It is now believed a number of their claims were grossly misrepresented and many statistics were erroneous.

I don’t have so much of a problem with what the editorial said, but rather with what it left out. You say, “According to the report, 180,000 ballots were thrown out while George W. Bush took the state by only 537 votes.” You lead people to believe all 180,000 votes would have gone to Gore. How many Bush votes were among those? Also, what about other places Bush had votes that weren’t counted? He had 10,000 votes not counted when the state was called and polls were still open. Thousands of military votes were also thrown out. You say, “U.S. citizens shouldn’t leave the polls wondering whether they got a fair count.” You’re right! Don’t leave until you know you’ve voted correctly. Black voters had a 50 percent higher turnout than in previous years. Couldn’t most of the voter errors be accounted for by the large number of first-time voters not knowing exactly what they were doing? The only person to be blamed for not voting correctly is the voter.

I know the liberally biased State News wants to put anything and everything out there that may make either President Bush or Florida Gov. Jeb Bush look bad, but perhaps The State News, O’Brien and the Florida voters should pull out a dictionary and look up the word Democrats love to hate: responsibility.

Cory Davenport
psychology senior

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