BLACK PRESIDENT, Chapter 48. How a purposedly botched printing job on a political ballot can help win an election (and probably did!)

Try to vote with THIS ballot. Watergate never ended! <https://www.amazon.com/BLACK-PRESIDENT-Story-JFKs-Secret/dp/1715980646/ref=tmm_pap_swatch_0?_encoding=UTF8&qid=&sr=>.

CHAPTER FORTY-EIGHT

OCTOBER 2, 2000

When he entered the restaurant, Frank Darwin was relieved to see that no heads turned in his direction. Yes, he thought, dressing down – loose shirt, baseball hat – had done the trick. The moored shrimp boats outside filled every available part of the dock, but their motors were idling and it wouldn’t be long before they launched off again in pursuit of the day’s catch. Sonny Fasio arrived a few minutes after 10am, and the two men exchanged pleasantries.

‘Sonny . . . how are yuh?’ Darwin exclaimed, as he stood up to meet the overweight Cuban-American, also dressed casually to suit the location. Darwin was proud of his racketball physique, and had done well to maintain it through college and into his late thirties, through his CIA stint, and recent years as a strategic consultant for the Republican Party in Florida.

‘Great . . . thanks for asking,’ said Fasio softly. ‘Good to meet you.’ The small restaurant was deserted except for the chef working in the kitchen, as evidenced by the clamor of pots and pans emanating from the rear of the building. Friendly greetings dispensed with, the two men got down to business.

‘Do you have the forms?’ asked Darwin. He had been told by his Republican advisors that Fasio could be counted on for his loyalty. After all, his father had been a member of the original Bay of Pigs brigade. He was guaranteed to be as anti-Democrat as they come.

Fasio reached into his valise and removed a long voting ballot. The names George W. Bush and Al Gore were printed in bold type at the top, flanked by the name Pat Buchanan in a second column to the right. Darwin stared at it as Fasio explained.

‘You can see this form doesn’t show the punch holes yet,’ said Fasio. ‘We’re set to have this published in the Palm Beach Gazette about a week before the election, around October 29th – just like this. No punch holes. That way we’re covered later.’

‘OK,’ said Darwin, waiting to see the ‘screwed-up holes’ he had been briefed about. Fasio handed him a second voting form, identical in every way except that the holes were pre-cut into the paper, small circles ready to be punched out when a citizen voted for their candidate.

‘Try to vote for Gore,’ said Fasio, holding his smirk in check. Just then a young woman emerged from the kitchen with a full pot of coffee and two mugs dangling from her fingers. Out of reflex, Darwin withdrew the white from view, laying them on the bench by his side in one swift movement. As he stowed the forms, he had thought to himself, I’m just a businessman, someone who’s afraid to get certain very important papers wet with coffee. I’ll just carefully remove them from the tabletop as a precaution. That’s all. If the waitress was questioned later about ‘the two men’, he didn’t want to see her on national TV saying, ‘Yes, one of the men had voting ballots in his hand, and he suspiciously removed them from sight when I approached.’

He knew that if he could make his mind think ‘normal’, then his body language wouldn’t betray his real intentions. Sometimes just a thought was the difference between living and dying. Mind control worked.

‘Coffee, gentlemen?’ With two affirmatives, the waitress poured it. ‘And are yuh going for a breakfast as well?’

‘No, thank you. This’ll do it,’ said Darwin, answering quickly for both of them. After the girl disappeared into the kitchen, Fasio contin- ued. ‘When you vote for Gore it’s really going to be Buchanan,’ he said, his face radiating pure delight. ‘Because we have the holes cut in, off center, all those Palm Beach niggers ain’t getting shit . . .’

A grin started to spread on Darwin’s face as he began to appreciate the confusion that would result from the inaccurate hole-punching. Hell, he couldn’t make heads nor tails out of the names and holes, couldn’t have figured out in a million years who he was voting for, and he knew he was smarter than most Floridians. He smiled back at Fasio. ‘Believe I’ll get a breakfast after all,’ he said, feeling his body relax with the certainty that Florida was going to be a slam-dunk.

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2019/nov/19/bad-ballot-design-2020-democracy-america

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