Representative Says His CAFTA Vote Wasn't Recorded Properly

House of Representatives member Charles Taylor (R-NC) says his vote was incorrectly tallied by the electronic voting system employed by the House. North Carolina Democrats say he's lying to cover up his complicity in allowing the bill to pass. Another House member says she wanted to vote "NAY" but couldn't make to the House in time, even though voting was held open for over an hour. If both of these representatives had voted "NAY", the bill wouldn't have passed:

ASHEVILLE — Rep. Charles Taylor says an electronic glitch kept his vote against the controversial Central American Free Trade Agreement from registering, but his explanation hasn’t stopped criticism from some Democrats.

The controversial trade bill narrowly passed the U.S. House early Thursday by a vote of 217-215. With Taylor’s vote, the measure still would have passed, but only by one vote. Another Republican House member said she planned to vote against the measure, but didn’t make it back from her district in time.
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In a statement Thursday, Taylor said, “Due to an error, my ‘no’ vote did not record on the voting machine. The clerk’s computer logs verified that I had attempted to vote, but it did not show my ‘nay.’”

Still, the North Carolina Democratic Party and the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee criticized him.

“I would maintain with 63 minutes to vote and so much attention paid to who had voted, there’s no way it went unnoticed who hadn’t voted,” said Schorr Johnson, with the North Carolina Democratic Party. “If it was a very, very important vote to him, which it should have been, then you look up at the board and make sure your vote registered correctly.”

Asheville Citizen-Times

I think this is chicanery on behalf of these representatives who wanted the bill to pass, but didn't want their constituents to know it.

Complaining about the electronic voting in the House, composed of 435 members, is pretty insane...



[edit on 7/29/2005 by djohnsto77]

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Maybe the Democrats are right. The Republicans are using election manipulations with such great finesse now that they can cover for one of their own with it.
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Well it certainly isn't the first time votes weren't recorded properly in the House. Listen here as Florida Congressman Adam Putnam [R] "misinterprets" a voice vote during the hearings of United Airline's default on their pensioners, leaving the American tax-payers to pick up the bill.

Listen.

Originally posted by CyberianHusky

Listen.

I love that! First time I heard it I was shocked. Unfortunately, these voting fraud stories don't even surprise me anymore.

Taylor says he will re-enter his Nay vote, but it won't make a difference. Heartbreaking!

Bush should be used to these narrow 'victories' by now.

He and she are trying to cover and act like if what should have happened then there would be no CAFTA. Maybe they forgot to read their constiguents' letters.

This reminds me of Family Guy were Peter goes before the senate to propose that the US attack Iraq by stating "Anyone who doesn't want to go to war is gay." Eventually the whole senate breaks out in hysteria of men saying "I'm straight" "I've been saying let's go to war all along" and then of course Dick Cheney's chimes in with "I was the first to say we should go to war."

Originally posted by Frosty
He and she are trying to cover and act like if what should have happened then there would be no CAFTA. Maybe they forgot to read their constiguents' letters.

This reminds me of Family Guy were Peter goes before the senate to propose that the US attack Iraq by stating "Anyone who doesn't want to go to war is gay." Eventually the whole senate breaks out in hysteria of men saying "I'm straight" "I've been saying let's go to war all along" and then of course Dick Cheney's chimes in with "I was the first to say we should go to war."

Ha! I love that! And it's very true... Dick Cheney is a flaaaaaaaming warmonger.