Rep. Corrine Brown: “first of all let me thank the gentleman from Georgia (Mr. Lewis), the gentleman from Alabama (Mr. Hilliard) and the…”

“first of all let me thank the gentleman from Georgia (Mr. Lewis), the gentleman from Alabama (Mr. Hilliard) and the gentlewoman from Texas (Ms. Jackson-Lee) for their discussion tonight over the fight to get the right to vote. I want to take that a step forward to discuss the fight to make sure every vote counts. Before I begin, I want to talk a bit about the coup d'etat. I know those are strong words, Mr. Speaker, but that is what happened in Florida, on November 7, because, without a doubt, more people, not just in the United States, went to the polls and voted for Al Gore, more people in the State of Florida went to the polls and voted for Al Gore. In fact, I represent Duval County, the Third Congressional District of Florida, where 27,000 votes were thrown out, 16,000 of them African Americans, 22,000 overvotes, 6,000 undervotes, that have never been counted. I was particularly disturbed last week when the Miami Herald, and I have got to give credit, if you read the article, they did not say that Al Gore lost Florida, but the media went in and talked about the election and indicated that in four counties, four counties, if the recount was done, that Bush would have won. But I knew for a fact they were not talking about Duval, because we just started counting the votes, the undervotes in Duval Monday. We have been in court. And so we are still counting the undervotes in Florida, over 100,000 votes that were not counted, not one time.”