Kendrick Meek: “I am here to express the outrage and exasperation of my constituents in Miami, Florida, over the failure of our…”

“I am here to express the outrage and exasperation of my constituents in Miami, Florida, over the failure of our government and our electoral system in the 2000 Presidential election; 20,000 votes or more were not counted in Miami, Dade County, Florida. We are outraged because African American voters in Florida did everything they were supposed to do, studied the issues. We did our civic duty. We lined up at the polls and we voted; and yet massive numbers of our votes were not counted. We cannot be silent, even though we would like to. First, the importance of this election is important throughout the country. We exercised what we thought was our legal right, only to have it nullified by faulty and defective voting machines distributed discriminatorily, targeted in our neighborhoods, nullified by purge of voting lists, and on and on. Mr. Speaker, I want America to understand that African Americans were not given process in this election.”