Chuck Noe, NewsMax.com
Saturday, Nov. 2, 2002

Reno, acting as a plaintiff and represented by Al Gore's 2000 election lawyer Kendall Coffey, sought and received an emergency injunction to prevent The Emergency Committee to Stop Bill McBride from sending independent poll watchers to precincts in Miami-Dade.

A "liberal Democrat" judge sided with Reno and banned the organization's poll watchers from trying to curb Florida's notorious election fraud.

Miami-Dade Judge Eleanor Schockett decreed Friday that The Emergency Committee to Stop Bill McBride may not supply 456 poll watchers in Miami-Dade County.

Her reason? Merely because Democrats claimed the group might disrupt the election.

[Editor's Note: The Emergency Committee to Stop Bill McBride has an urgent letter to you. Please read it – Click Here.]

'Blindsided'

"We were blindsided by this. We were never even served officially," said Mark Goodrich, political coordinator of The Emergency Committee to Stop Bill McBride.

In an exclusive interview, Goodrich told NewsMax.com that he received a voice mail at 7:30 p.m. Thursday telling him to be in court at 10:30 a.m. Friday.

Without being given reason to believe he needed legal representation, Goodrich had no attorney present and was sandbagged.

"Janet Reno's the plaintiff, Kendall Coffey – Al Gore's lawyer – is the lead lawyer, and there was little old me, getting thrown out of her [Schockett's] office," Goodrich said.

"This is a liberal Democrat judge who's retiring, who said as soon as she sat down at the bench, 'I don't know anything about election law; you're going to have to bear with me.' She's a bankruptcy judge who wrote a new law for herself today," Goodrich fumed.

According to a 1986 ruling by the state board of elections, poll watchers could include political action committees, Goodrich said. "She totally disregarded it."

His group plans to appeal the judge's decision Monday.

[Editor's Note: The Emergency Committee to Stop Bill McBride has an urgent letter to you. Please read it – Click Here.]

Reno and Rep. Carrie Meek, D-Fla., "had said in their complaint that GOP officials unfairly benefited from new rules the Democrats did not learn of until it was too late to submit forms," the Associated Press reported Friday.

Goodrich believes Reno is acting partly on McBride's behalf, "because she knows we are a serious organization, and partly because it's payback for us opposing her in the primary."

Previously, The Emergency Committee was called "Americans for [Jeb] Bush" and led a massive effort to defeat Reno in the Democrat primary.

The Stop McBride committee has no affiliation with the campaign of Republican Gov. Jeb Bush, he said. Still, the organization, which "has over 2,000 volunteers on Election Day to guard our rights," draws from Republicans and conservatives who would like to see Bush re-elected.

Friday's ruling has energized the volunteers, Goodrich told NewsMax.com. He said his organization has been flooded with calls from media and supporters.

[Editor's Note: The Emergency Committee to Stop Bill McBride has an urgent letter to you. Please read it – Click Here.]

Unintended Result

"This is motivating more people." Some volunteers plan protests at campaign appearances Saturday by Bill Clinton and Monday by Gore, he said.

Goodrich said his organization was still moving ahead with a massive get-out-the-vote effort, with phone banks and door-to-door canvassing. He still plans to field poll watchers.

"If the judge overrules them, we go to work Tuesday," he said.

No Repeat of 2000

Stop McBride hopes to prevent the sort of abuses that marred the 2000 election. In Democrat-ruled Miami-Dade, government employees made "efforts to suppress the vote in Republican precincts," he said. Examples he cited:

• "They were telling people in line at 7 o'clock [p.m.] they had to leave," but people already in line are allowed by law to vote.

• People who had no voter registration card were turned away, but the law calls for a provisional vote to be cast.

• People who didn't know how to use the machines were not allowed to have someone help them, which the law permits.

• "People voted two and three times."

• The Democrats shipped in voters from outside the county.

• He recalled news accounts of Democrats ordering frightened, confused Haitian immigrants to vote for Gore and other Democrats.

"They were cooking the books. As to what extent, it's undefinable."

Goodrich had one final remark for Reno, Gore, Coffey, Meek, McBride and company:

"What are they afraid of? What is it they don't want us to see?"

[Editor's Note: The Emergency Committee to Stop Bill McBride has an urgent letter to you. Please read it – Click Here.]