OHIO 2004: 6.15% Kerry-Bush vote-switch found in probability study

[L. Coyote]

Defining the vote outcome probabilities of wrong-precinct voting has revealed, in a sample of 166,953 votes (1/34th of the Ohio vote), the Kerry-Bush margin changes 6.15% when the population is sorted by probable outcomes of wrong-precinct voting.

The Kerry to Bush 6.15% vote-switch differential is seen when the large sample is sorted by probability a Kerry wrong-precinct vote counts for Bush. When the same large voter sample is sorted by the probability Kerry votes count for third-party candidates, Kerry votes are instead equal in both subsets.

Read the revised article with graphs of new findings:

The 2004 Ohio Presidential Election: Cuyahoga County Analysis
How Kerry Votes Were Switched to Bush Votes

http://jqjacobs.net/politics/ohio.html

A small spreadsheet too:

http://jqjacobs.net/politics/xls/cuyahoga_t_tests.xls

[ray of light]

1. I hate math! What does this mean in simple language.

[Ellipsis]

3. Kerry won.

K&R

...caterpillar ballot crawl during intial tabulation at the precinct.

...given incorrect ballots for their precinct.

...vote flipping at 3 the central tabulators, which counted punch card ballots for over 40 counties.

[regnaD kciN]

80. So what...?

Even if these allegations are "proven" now, do we suddenly call a "do-over" and give Kerry the job?

Do we get Roberts and Alito to resign from the SCOTUS, so President Kerry can nominate his own replacements (of course, we'd also have to reconvene the Republican-controlled Senate of 2005-06 to vote on confirming those replacements)?

Do we retroactively withdraw from Iraq? Do the thousands of American troops who died since 1/05 get their lives miraculously restored to them? What about the hundreds of thousands of Iraqi civilians? :eyes:

Here's an idea: instead of trying to prove that a Democrat should have won last time, what about putting that energy into making sure a Democrat wins next time?????

[krispos42]

20. It means it was an inside job

The order of candidates on the ballots rotated depending on the precinct, fairness in placement and all, and there were different numbers of candidates, depending on which 3rd-party candidates managed to get on the ballot in that particular district.

In some precincts the voters were given the ballot for a different precinct with a different order. The voter in A got the ballot from precinct B, but it was counted on a precinct A machine.

In precinct B, Kerry was the 2nd punch on the list and Bush was on the first, so the voter punched the 2nd to pick Kerry. But in precinct A, Kerry was the 3rd on the list, and Bush was 2nd on the list, so the ballot got counted on pricinct A's machine, which was set up to count the 2nd punch as Bush.

Somebody had to know of the cross-voting problem and, when precincts were combined into a single voting location, know which combinations of orders (there were five total) would turn a wrong-precinct vote for Kerry either into a useless 3rd-party candidate vote OR a Bush vote. So, if Precincts A and B are voting in a school, you make sure that the orders of candidates match up so a Kerry vote will sometimes go to Bush, a 3rd party candidate, or to the 'disqualified' vote, which had been Nader until he failed to make the cut.

The fact that Jacobs could re-construct it means that some bright person, like Blackwell with somehelp from Rove, could have constructed it months before the election and quietly set the combinations up in the polling places beforehand. And it is such an obscure topic that most people won't understand and won't believe!

The way it was set up in the multiple-precinct voting places was such that Bush did not lose by such a large percentage as he should have. The cross-ballot system might lose Bush one percentage point but Kerry 6, for a net gain to Bush of 5 percentage points.

The extra votes in precincts that Kerry should have slaughtered Bush in were enough, especially in combination with the voter-surpression, for Bush to pull out a win.

Sonofabitch!!!!!

[LiberalFighter]

25. Ballot order should never be different within a county. PERIOD

Question about different ballot orders.

How did they determine which machines counted the ballots?

Did they have different colored ballots for the machines? Tan colored ballots for machine A and light blue colored ballots for machine B?

[krispos42]

26. Yeah, right

This stack goes to machine A, and this stack goes to Machine B. And don't mix them up! <wink wink> Especially don't put any of Stack B in Stack A! <wink wink> That would be bad! <wink wink>

Color-coded ballots would make far too much sense!

[LiberalFighter]

27. County Election Boards should never be appointed by SOS

That should be left entirely in the hands of the local parties. Members should not be party chairs either.

[L. Coyote]

28. A few comments, "This is just the beginning."

This is complex, and no one can be expected to grasp it right off. The complexity made it difficult to unravel and obfuscated what was going on.

You wrote, "there were different numbers of candidates, depending on which 3rd-party candidates managed to get on the ballot in that particular district...."

All five candidate slots were on every ballot for every precinct.

You wrote, ""In some precincts the voters were given the ballot for a different precinct with a different order...."

I'm not sure. What is in evidence is that voters voted in the wrong precincts. The outcome is different when ballots are swapped before voting, then counted in the correct precinct. Look instead to ballots being moved to different precincts after the voting, which has an effect similar to voting the wrong precinct machine. The current analysis does not distinguish these, in part because the probability is the same pairing still. How will come later.

Now new studies should be taken up by readers here, statistics classes, etc., to see what happens to the down ticket races in the same precincts. What order were the other candidates in? When Kerry-Bush is the cross-vote probability, what happens in the other races?

What about Gore in 2000? How many votes were swapped, none at all, or 6% - 7%?

What changed from 2000 to 2004 in the organization of the Cuyahoga precincts? Who knows something of this?

What about all the other punch card counties in 2004? Who will use cross-vote probability analysis there? Where there skewed probabilities in the other counties?

This is just the beginning. An analytic technique has been demonstrated. Now, it is a matter of hard work defining precinct probabilities to apply it elsewhere. Part of the cover-up is over. Let's focus on the real crime now, and count the vote-switching.

Finally, this must be taken as part of the NEW larger picture: If you did not get scrubbed from the voter rolls, and your health, job, family, etc. permitted standing in long lines in the rain, and you got past the challengers, then, for a Kerry voter, there was still over a 3% chance you would subtract one vote from your candidate and give one to Bush too. That's why you had to wait in line so long!! Get the picture?

[krispos42]

30. Yeah, I misunderstood the order thing

I thought initially that, flicking throught the Powerpoint presentation, that some people had not made it on the ballot in some districts. I realized later that Nader had initially made the ballot but then been removed, and that I had misunderstood.

The exact mechanism of the ballot swapping I am not sure about. I have been lucky enough to never use a punch-card or black-box voting machine. I have used the old lever machines, where you flick a switch to check a candidate and when you open the booth the vote is recorded, and I have used the bubble sheets.

I had assumed that the printed ballots had the candidates on them, and the voter slipped the ballot into a holder of some sort and punched holes with a stylis. If the ballot was manually recounted, you could visually see which name had a punch next to it, but if you ran the ballots through the wrong machine, a machine set up for a different candidate order, you get fraud.

I can also see where just a generic punch card was slipped into a holder and the HOLDER had candiate names on it with arrows pointing to the holes to punch, a lá the 'butterfly ballot' of 2000. If you did that, then barring some sort of identifying precint mark, you would only have the poll worker's word that the piles of ballots were not swapped in secret, and no way to manually recount.

It is obvious that the Republicans attacked the vote in Ohio on multiple fronts, even more than RFKjr did in his Rolling Stone article about the more generalized vote-denying procedures. This fraud is specific to Ohio, taking advantage of peticularities in the Ohio voting laws and procedures. The people that though this honey up (Blackwell) must have been deeply involved in the very nuts and bolts of Ohio election law and procedures, and had the power to make changes to take advantage of this little fact.

We must investigate and prosecute. The integrity of our very republic and the democratic traditions in it depend on it.

[L. Coyote]

31. UNBELIEVABLE, except if the idea is to switch votes.

You wrote: "... a generic punch card was slipped into a holder and the HOLDER had candiate names on it with arrows pointing to the holes to punch..."

Correct, and someone commented here that the ballots do not have precinct identifying marks. UNBELIEVABLE, except if the idea is to switch votes. So, the easiest technique to accomplish vote-switching is to swap cards according to the known precinct punch patterns. A good question then becomes, what do the Bush votes in a swapped ballots count as?

You wrote, "... you would only have the poll worker's word that the piles of ballots were not swapped in secret, and no way to manually recount."

Anyone in the custody chain of the ballots, right up to the minute they are counted!

If we have learned anything in the last two years, it is to expect a variety of tactics. That would also make fraud more difficult to detect. Consider what happens when different ballot order combinations are swapped. There are different scenarios.

[krispos42]

32. third party or disqualified

Apparently, the 'disqualified' vote included the slot formally allocated for Nader, as well as all ballots with problems counting. I.e., if you voted for Nader, the punch was done poorly, or the machine screwed up, it was tallied as 'disqualified'.

So in the ballot-swapping, you had to make sure that the listing orders that were switched benefited Bush. So that a vote for Kerry would either go for Bush or a 3rd party candidate (benefiting Bush hugely) but a vote for Bush would either go to 3rd party candidate or disqualified (not benefitting anybody). By doing this in Kerry-vote-rich precincts, Kerry gets hurt more than Bush does, closing the gap by 5% or so.

It is obvious that this system needs to be fixed, and quickly. The punch-ballot idea may be workable, but the idea of rotating canidate listing order in the same election is ludicris! Either scrap the law (preferred) or make color-coded ballots. Five different colors, and each precinct's color should be prominently display. Furthermore, precincts that vote in the same physical location, where the ballot-swapping occured, should all have the same candidate order on the ballot so that an accidental counting-machine swap screws up the fewest number of races possible!

I personally like the optical-scan ballots, myself. I used them in Minnesota and South Dakota. Easy to hand recount, easy to read, candidates and precinct information printed right on the ballot, and you can only tamper with it by voting marking a second candidate in a race.

[L. Coyote]

35. The only reason Gore isn't our President

Punch card voting has been replaced everywhere, so that is fixed (pun intended).

I like the idea of color coded ballots. That woud be useful in all states with paper ballots.

Having each candidate at the top of the order equally is very important. It makes a 1% difference if you are on the top of any list, basic human behavior. Florida did not do this. Instead they place the governor's party at the top. I heard said this is the only reason Gore isn't our President, because Jeb Bush was Florida's governor, so GW Bush was on top on every ballot.

[caruso]

33. TruthIsAll confirms the analysis

It's confirmation of the Ohio results - and vice-versa.

http://www.geocities.com/electionmodel/TruthIsAllFAQResponse.htm


What was the percentage of Kerry votes cast that were switched to Bush?

The majority of uncounted votes are in heavily Democratic minority
districts. A fair estimate is that 75% were for Kerry.

Given:
125.74 million total votes cast (2004 Census)
122.295 million recorded
3.445 million uncounted
59.027 million recorded Kerry votes

Assume:
2.584 million (75%) uncounted votes were for Kerry
95% turnout of Gore and Bush 2000 voters

Solution:

12:22am National Exit Poll
Voted in 2000

DNV: did not vote

.......TIA True Vote Model
......Weight Kerry Bush Other
DNV 21.49% 57% 41% 2%
Gore 38.23% 91% 8% 1%
Bush 37.83% 10% 90% 0%
Other 2.45% 71% 21% 8%

Share 100% 52.56% 46.43% 1.01%
Votes 125.7 66.09 58.38 1.27

Kerry's True Vote (T) = 66.09mm

Kerry True Vote (T) = Recorded (R) + Uncounted (U) + Switched (S)

Solving for S:
S = T - R - U = 66.097 - 59.027 - 2.584 = 4.486
PS = S /(R+U) = 4.486 / 61.611 = 7.28%

Therefore, 4.486mm (7.28%) of the total 61.611mm votes cast for Kerry were switched to Bush.

[caruso]

34. Self-delete

.

[Cha]

52. It means both Gore and Kerry

won the presidency of The United STates of AMerica..and that pretzelhead should have gone back to clearing shit on his pigfarm twice.

[davhill]

2. What needs to happen

Is for someone who was involved to come into the light and reveal how it was done.

[Toucano]

7. That's the only way it will ever be settled.

And America will wake up and be forced to realize how fragile its democracy is (was).

I hope one day it comes true.

[L. Coyote]

51. "we have to get a sense of the magnitude of the problem..."

Is this still the case? "we have to get a sense of the magnitude of the problem we face."

Democracy Imperiled - America’s election problems.
By John Fund - September 13, 2004
http://www.nationalreview.com/comment/fund200409130633.asp

EDITOR'S NOTE: This is the introduction of John Fund's new book, Stealing Elections: How Voter Fraud Threatens Our Democracy, released today ...

The intro concludes as follows...

Political bosses such as Richard Daley or George Wallace may have died, but they have successors. .....

Even after Florida 2000, the media tend to downplay or ignore stories of election incompetence, manipulation or theft. Allowing such abuses to vanish into an informational black hole in effect legitimates them. ...
... accelerates our drift toward banana-republic elections.

In 2002, Miami election officials hired the Center for Democracy, which normally observes voting in places like Guatemala or Albania, to send twenty election monitors to south Florida. In 2004, there will be even more observers on the ground. Scrutinizing our own elections the way we have traditionally scrutinized voting in developing countries is, unfortunately, a step in the right direction. But before we can get the clearer laws and better protections we need to deal with fraud and voter mishaps, we have to get a sense of the magnitude of the problem we face.

[L. Coyote]

39. Were the Democrats in Congress covering up the facts in 2005?

I reread the Conyers Report. They fail to mention Kerry votes counting for Bush,as if they were covering up what happened. Someone needs to investigate this failure.

"Cuyahoga County – Palm Beach County for Pat Buchanan-Redux?
Facts
It has been well documented that a flawed Palm Beach County ballot design in the 2000
Florida Presidential election may well have cost Al Gore thousands of votes, by misrecording
such votes as votes for Pat Buchanan.242 A similar problem may well have occurred in Cleveland
in 2004.
Precincts in Cleveland have reported an incredibly high number of votes for third party
candidates who have historically received only a handful of votes from these urban areas. For
example, precinct 4F in the 4th Ward cast 290 votes for Kerry, 21 for Bush, and 215 for
Constitution Party candidate Michael Peroutka.243 In 2000, the same precinct cast less than 8
voters for all third party candidates combined.244 This pattern is found in at least 10 precincts
throughout Cleveland in 2004, awarding hundreds of unlikely votes to the third party
candidate.245 Notably, these precincts share more than a strong Democratic history; they share
the use of a punch card ballot.246 This problem was created by the combination of polling sites
for multiple precincts, coupled with incorrect information provided by poll workers.
In Cuyahoga County, each precinct rotates candidate ballot position.247 Therefore, each
ballot must go into a machine calibrated for its own precinct in order for the voter’s intent to be
counted.248 In these anomalous precincts, ballots were fed into the wrong machine, switching
Kerry votes into third party votes.249 This was done on the advice of poll workers who told
voters that they could insert their ballots into any open machine–and machines were not clearly
marked indicating that they would work only for their designated precinct.250"

247 Shared Voter Machines in Ohio Caused Problems, Paper Says, ASSOC. PRESS, Dec. 11, 2004.
248Id.
249Id.
250Id.

We see they are relying on the Associated Press for their facts in this 2005 writing. While the Report is not a direct lie, the omission of the fact that Kerry votes are switched to Bush votes while mentioning Kerry votes switching to third-party candidates is, at best, an unintended obfuscation of the reality on the ground, and the facts as they were knwn at the time.

Were the Democrats in Congress covering up the facts in 2005? I still hope not. They too were subject to all the spin and smoke and mirrors the cover-up mounted, and they were pressed for time. Apparently, they were not reading the Web, the DU, and their e-mail, where the facts were presented.

[L. Coyote]

45. Secretary Brunner has publicly announced her willingness to settle ....

The Nation's Interest in Ohio's New Secretary of State

February 13, 2007 - by Edward B. "Ned" Foley
Director, Election Law - Moritz College of Law
http://moritzlaw.osu.edu/electionlaw/comments/articles.php?ID=117

Ohio has a new Secretary of State, and that fact has potential implications for the nation as well as the state......

....

Because of the problems that occurred in Ohio in 2004, the League of Women Voters filed a major lawsuit against her predecessor, claiming that administration of the voting process in the state pervasively violated Equal Protection and asking the federal court to supervise top-to-bottom reform. Citing Bush v. Gore, the trial-level federal judge rejected then-Secretary Blackwell’s motion to dismiss the case. Because of its importance, the case is now pending before the Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals in advance of the scheduled trial of the League’s factual allegations, and any decision reached by Sixth Circuit would set an important legal precedent not just for Ohio and the other states within its jurisdiction (Michigan, Kentucky, and Tennessee) but nationwide, as it would be the first to consider the application of the Equal Protection principle in Bush v. Gore to the overall operation of a state’s voting system.

Secretary Brunner has publicly announced her willingness to settle the case, a fact that in itself is newsworthy and would prevent the Sixth Circuit from creating a nationally important judicial precedent. Moreover, the terms of the settlement she reaches will be nationally significant. Not only will they govern Ohio’s voting procedures in the presidential election next year, but they also will set a kind of litigation-avoidance precedent that may serve as a benchmark for voting administration practices in other states.

MUCH MORE

[L. Coyote]

48. Major Pending Election Law Litigation = Election Law @ Moritz

Discussion @ Topic Forums » Election Reform http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=203x467802
========
Election Law @ Moritz College of Law
A great reference leading to PDFs of filings in all major active cases. Also, an archive of older cases is available.

http://moritzlaw.osu.edu/electionlaw/litigation/index.p...

.... Election Law @ Moritz is nonpartisan and does not endorse, support, or oppose any candidate, campaign, or party. Opinions expressed by individuals associated with Election Law @ Moritz, either on this web site or in connection with conferences or other activities undertaken by the program, represent solely the views of the individuals offering the opinions and not the program itself. Election Law @ Moritz institutionally does not represent any clients or participate in any litigation, but individuals affiliated with the program may from time to time in their own personal capacity engage in pro bono representation of clients other than partisan candidates or organizations.

[Benhurst]

4. Recommended #5

:bounce:

[The Count]

5. Kerry? Edwards? Comments?

[L. Coyote]

44. HONESTY FACTOR missing from OHIO 2006 dialogue. New voting better??

Who can find one media story discussing how the 2006 election results may have favored Dems in Ohio because the improvement in voting technology was more accurate than the old system? Show me even one, if you can.

Here is an example of the discourse:

"Explaining the scale of the Democratic victory, Redfern noted that John Kerry won only 17 Ohio counties and underperformed the Democratic Performance Index ("DPI") in 65. Employing an 88-county strategy, Ted Strickland won 72 counties and Sherrod Brown outperformed the DPI in 64 counties. (Brown won 46 counties outright.) The party also scored the biggest General Assembly pickup by the Democrats in three decades, and won dozens of local races (including county commission and judicial seats) across the state. Redfern attributed this success to having a consistent message, installing good people (including bright young people from out of state) in the coordinated campaign, improving fundraising, and having "swagger" and "the attitude of being right on issues that matter most." He said that the party would be focusing on school board, city council, and mayoral races in 2007, because "if we're active in those races, we'll have better recruitment in 2008." He also said that he learned from Bennett, who built the best Republican state organization in the country, that the key is to make your party's positions on issues attractive to people who are not necessarily members of your party....."

http://ohio2006elections.blogspot.com/2006/11/redfernbennett-road-show-in-beachwood.html

AND, these guys aren't buddies, I hope!

"Wednesday, November 22 - The Redfern/Bennett Road Show in Beachwood - Part One

Last night I attended a panel presentation by Ohio's Democratic and Republican party chairmen, State Rep. Chris Redfern (D-Catawba Island Township) and Cuyahoga County Board of Elections Chairman Bob Bennett (R-Fairview Park) respectively, ..."

[L. Coyote]

46. SEPT 2006: Lawsuit alleges ballot tampering in 2004 election

The multi-dimensional nature of election irregularities is demonstrated by this case:

Group says ballots in Democratic precincts were pre-punched, negating Kerry votes
Friday, September 01, 2006 - Jim Siegel - THE COLUMBUS DISPATCH
http://www.dispatch.com/election/election.php?story=dispatch/2006/09/01/20060901-E3-00.html

A coalition of critics of the 2004 election is insisting it has uncovered new evidence of ballot tampering in Ohio that caused a number of John Kerry’s votes to get tossed out.

Richard Hayes Phillips, a Canton, N.Y., resident working with groups such as the Ohio Honest Elections Campaign, said he has examined thousands of punch-card ballots cast in heavily Democratic inner-city precincts that were tossed out because of over- or under-voting in the presidential race.

Phillips said he found that on more than 1,900 ballots in six urban counties, there was a vote for President Bush or Sen. John Kerry and a second vote for one of the two independent candidates. In such cases, no presidential vote is counted.

The problem was so prevalent and seemingly concentrated in every fifth precinct that he concluded the ballots in the urban areas were pre-punched.

Someone, he said, punched the slot for an independent candidate beforehand, so a vote for Bush or Kerry was invalid. The problem, he said, impacted Kerry far more.

"I find it difficult to believe that in every fifth precinct, voters are really stupid and are more prone to make this kind of error," he said.

============

HERE ARE THE LAWSUIT FILINGS:
http://moritzlaw.osu.edu/electionlaw/litigation/klbna.php

King Lincoln Bronzeville Neighborhood Association v. Blackwell

U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Ohio
Case No. 2:06-cv-00745-ALM-TPK

Individual voters and three voters' rights groups sued Ohio Secretary of State Kenneth Blackwell alleging that Blackwell allocated election resources in a racially discriminatory manner and instituted racially discriminatory procedures for provisional voting, purging voters from the statewide voter registration database, and maintaining the chain of custody of ballots. The complaint alleged that these actions led to the dilution and/or cancellation of plaintiffs' vote due to ballot cancellation and tampering, long poll lines, mechanical difficulties with voting machines, and unclear precinct boundaries. The complaint claims that plaintiffs reasonably fear these problems will recur in the November, 2006, election, and asks the court to appoint a special master to perform Blackwell's election administration duties in that election.

District Court Documents

* Complaint pdf file (filed 8/31/06)
o Civil Cover Sheet pdf file
* Declaration of Richard Hayes Phillips filed by Richard Hayes Phillips pdf file (filed 9/1/06)

.........

[L. Coyote]

47. 19.44% of voters purged from the voter rolls in Cuyahoga County ...

http://www.waynemadsenreport.com/VotefraudOhio.php

DECLARATION OF RICHARD HAYES PHILLIPS

......

43. Pre-punching of ballots in Cuyahoga County is consistent with an established pattern of voter disenfranchisement in heavily Democratic inner-city precincts. On behalf of Rolling Stone magazine, and with the assistance of Troy Seman, I found that 168,169 voters, or 19.44% of the electorate, were purged from the voter rolls in Cuyahoga County on July 6, 2001 and January 5, 2002. In Cleveland alone, 63,721 voters were purged, or 24.93% of the electorate. Kerry won Cleveland with 83.36% of the vote. His margin of victory was 113,145 votes. For every six persons unable to vote for having been purged from the rolls, four votes were shaved from Kerry’s margin of victory. The percent of voters purged should correlate inversely with the percent turnout in preceding elections. The best indicator is the presidential election, because it always draws the highest turnout. Our statistical analysis indicates that the purge ratio in Cleveland was unrelated to the percent turnout in 2000, but was strongly related to the percent of the vote won by Al Gore in the 2000 election.

......

[Ellipsis]

6. second link not working

Not Found

The requested URL /politics/xls/cuyahhoga_t_tests.xls was not found on this serve

[L. Coyote]

8. FIXED. Thanks. N/T

[Ellipsis]

9. No prob., You might want to cross post this in the election forum as well. n/t

[indepat]

10. Didn't the Diebold CEO guarantee Ohio for Bush in 2004?

[L. Coyote]

37. Punch Cards are a distinct issue

And the vast majority of Ohio voters used punch cards.

From the perspective of knowing about vote-switching, a lot of the e-voting discussion in Ohio seemed like a diversion and distraction from the real problem in plain sight. It is interesting to go back and read the DU archives on this issue from Fall 2004, esp. knowing now what was happening, and what needed to be covered up. Hindsight clears a lot of smoke and mirrors.

[Peace Patriot]

11. This is a very, very important study. The intro helps a lot in getting the

point of it. Unfortunately, the OP (above) omits punctuation, making a difficult technical quotation harder to follow. But the actual article is quite clear:

----------

The 2004 Ohio Presidential Election: Cuyahoga County Analysis
How Kerry Votes Were Switched to Bush Votes
© 2007 by James Q. Jacobs. All Rights Reserved.

Preface

"Simply put, Ohio votes were NOT counted as cast. Many votes were miscounted, and Kerry votes were counted for Bush. Numerous questions have been raised about the fairness of the 2004 Presidential election in the United States of America (US). In this article I focus on one election issue, punch card cross-voting—how votes cast one way were counted other than as intended, as a vote for a different candidate or option. Punch card voting has been replaced and, with so many election issues, this most egregious of flaws—counting votes wrong—has seemingly been overshadowed by e-voting concerns. I also focus on a particular region with one-tenth of the Ohio vote, Cuyahoga County.

(snip)

"Miscounted votes in Ohio came to my attention via press coverage. An incident came to light due to very high returns for third-party candidates in two Cuyahoga County precincts:

"'Cleveland Paper Cites Voter Problems, Votes Assigned to Wrong Candidates,' AP, 12/11/04, 'approximately 1,000 voters in the two precincts cast ballots just steps away at machines meant for the other precinct.'

"I was astounded to discover that an election could be so flawed in design.  I wondered, 'Why would two ballot orders be used in one location if votes could be switched?' and then, more importantly, 'How many votes were switched, and to whose advantage?'

I mistakenly thought 'How many votes were switched?' would be an easy number to define. Wrong-precinct voting occurred at a surprisingly high rate. Instead of immediate clear answers, trying to tally the miscounting led down a long path with many more questions, taxed my knowledge of statistics and quantitative methods, and produced unexpected findings of unfairness in the election process—all providing a political education my political science classes never even considered. The evidence raises suspicions about intentional manipulation of the election process directed at changing the outcome in favor of Bush. I eventually wondered, 'Were voters given the wrong ballots?'

"Many votes were counted for the wrong candidate or ballot option, and a significant portion of the cross-voting resulted in Kerry votes tallied as Bush votes. The 2004 Presidential election hinged on the Ohio results. According to exit polls, Kerry won Ohio. Instead, with a -3.35 percent differential in Kerry's tally, the results gave the victory and the presidency to Bush. With these circumstances, evidence of miscounted voting and Kerry-to-Bush vote switching have particular importance in determining the actual intent of Ohio voters, the reasons for the exit poll discrepancy, and the validity of the 2004 US Presidential election result."

http://jqjacobs.net/politics/ohio.html

-----------------------

The graphs are also very helpful.

[Peace Patriot]

13. Here is a paragraph, from down in the article, that helps:

Note: He's talking about punchcards, and how you might punch the card for Kerry, but if your card is tallied in a different precinct, where the order of the names is switched (which it must be by law), your vote would record for Bush or for somenone else (lost vote for Kerry). In some locations in Ohio, precincts were combined in one location, and some people voted in the wrong precinct.

The text above Table 6: Benedictine High School Voting Results (9 boxes down the page)

"The cases following illustrate the variable impact of wrong-precinct voting. Table 6 displays the most egregious cross-voting location, Benedictine High School, where major candidates were not collocated. Up to 215 people in precinct 1806 cross-voted for Kerry in precinct 1814, punching the third position using the precinct 1814 voting machines. Those 215 Kerry votes counted for Peroutka (K-p) using precinct 1806's ballot order. Also, up to 164 Kerry voters from (precinct) 1814 punched the first position, Kerry in precinct 1806. Those 164 ballots counted as Badnarik votes, the first position in precinct 1814. Meanwhile, Bush lost (only) 10 votes to Peroutka in precinct 1814."

--------

Also useful, from his Conclusions:

"In 2004, the Ohio Presidential voting results do not accurately reflect voter intentions. In Cuyahoga County, the election was flawed and the design appears to have been manipulated. At locations with several ballot orders in use, many votes were cast by voters crossing precincts, then counted other than as intended. At precincts with the highest Kerry support, the percentage of uncounted votes is inexplicably high. The obvious inference—intentional manipulation produced concentrated undercounting, cross-voting and vote-switching in areas of highest Kerry support—cannot be ignored in the face of the evidence and statistics."


-------

http://jqjacobs.net/politics/ohio.html

--------

Note: This study is incomplete, and the calculation of lost Kerry votes is still unknown, from what I gathered, at a glance. But the pattern of intentional switches from Bush to Kerry, or from Kerry to other candidates, seems clear. The author is dismayed at the lack of official investigation. Caveat: I don't want to see this study used to push electronic voting, which is even more manipulable--and faster and more undetectable. Also, from what I've gathered so far, legal investigation and prosecution is warranted. There was a quite intentional loss of Kerry votes, and gain of Bush votes, in the biggest Democratic region of the state. They did it by swtiching the punchcards, and tabulating them on a different machine, where Kerry's name appeared in a different place on the ballot.

[LiberalFighter]

24. There needs to be an analyzer devised to compute the probability

of voting irregularities.

If 3rd party candidates receive more votes than expected. Then precincts involved would be recounted.

If Democrat or Republican receive more or less votes than would normally be expected. Precincts would be recounted.

It should be an automatic recount when certain thresholds are exceeded.

If there is any prohibited specific activity by pollworkers at a precinct there should be an automatic recount.

[galloglas]

12. The Cosmic Cat keeps unraveling this !!

Ragged Cloak of Electoral Deception.


How much longer until the little children cry out,


"LOOK!! The Emporer has Has NO Clothes!

(and neither does that mean-looking, bald-headed SOB with him!)" ??

[ray of light]

14. thanks everyone. That's exactly what I thought it meant, but my heart

sunk to my feet.

[karynnj]

15. Actually - this unfortunately explains

the exit poll descrepancy in Ohio.

1) Some percent of people used the machines for the wrong precincts. Those votes got tallied as the 3rd party who was in that position. The voter came out assuming he/she voted for Kerry.

2) They told the exit poll people they voted Kerry. So, in the exit polls they are counted as Kerry. In reality, unfortunately they were counted as third party.

This was described as something that happened a few months after the election, but was not quantified to estimate how many votes were lost. This was something that RFKjr also spoke of - though I don't think he estimated it.

This was caused by the use of different orders of candidates. The problem though is that it was the fault of the people who worked at the polls and/or the voters. (In my voting place, there is no way I could possibly vote on a wrong machine - it can't happen.)

So, this was a problem that can only be blamed on incompetence of the Ohio Democratic party. (It can also be blamed on Blackwell, switching the order is something you would expect to lead to these problems - one question I have is was this new? or was it designed to cause chaos.)

What it does say is that like in Florida - with its intentionally confusing ballot - Kerry did bring enough people out to win in Ohio - by a very solid margin. (Especially when you add in the suppression.) Unfortunately, unlike FL, where there were enough legally cast votes for Gore in a state wide election, these votes were legally cast for the third party candidate. What is sick is that the bipartisan election county commissions allowed this to happen and also ignored the reports that showed the alocation of machines - giving inner cities fewer than they had in the primaries. This suggests Kerry was dead on when he said they cheated leagally.

So, Me thinks that Terry McAuliffe who had some jurisdiction over the DNC owes the Senator an apology. Both for causing Kerry to loss an election that Kerry as the candidate won and for all his comments in his book. So, McAuliffe was the head of the Democratic party when 2 Presidential elections were stolen - no wonder he has been scapegoating Kerry, who won an election the Clintons avoided because they thought Bush a sure winner.

[L. Coyote]

16. Steal from me, it's my fault ?? NOT

Have you considered what the results would look like if someone switched 4% of the ballots between precincts? Maybe John Kerry did it!

Seriously, if this does explain the exit poll discrepancy, what are the implications elsewhere?

RFK focused on other election issues. This adds to his excellent work, and was not published then.

[karynnj]

17. RFK mentioned the problem

but there was no study quantifying it then - so all that could be done was to mention it.

John Kerry did it?????? This was explained in articles a long time ago. Consider a voting place with precincts number 1, 2, and 3. If your ballot was for 1 and you used a punch machine for 3, you voted for the wrong candidate. (I do not live in Ohio, don't know how this was allowed. I am just going by what I read here and a small amount in the mainstream press.)

There is no way this is Kerry's fault.

The implications - are that there was a concerted effort in many states to cause votes to be lost in strong Democratic areas. (NM, with a Democratic governor had some weird lack of voting for President in Native Americans.)

In fact - in a discussion over in the JK group, this was what I thought might have been the real reason for the exit pol discrepancy. (note date)

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=273&topic_id=120713&mesg_id=120721

[Vidar]

21. Glad it's coming out. Recommended.

[L. Coyote]

29. Lots more to follow. But, hey, everyone jump in ...

and do some analysis if you can. There are down ticket races to compare, other elections, all the other counties. Who has what spreadsheets? Where? URL? If one person has to do it all..... expect the change in a decade.

[Ouabache]

18. In a Small rural county the Bush vote declined 6-7% from 00-04

Morrow County. Small. rural. Not enough total votes to bother fixing it.

In 2000 it voted 67% for Bush, in 2004 only 60% voted for Bush. If he lost that many votes THERE, he lost way MORE in other places. I have always said this was an indicator of fraud in other places. Has to be. Can be no other explanation, and now this study says a 6.15% switch in populous counties? Matches the 6-7% decline in an honestly counted Morrow County.

I rest my case.

[L. Coyote]

36. "an indicator of fraud in other places"

You wrote,

"Morrow County. Small. rural. Not enough total votes to bother fixing it.
In 2000 it voted 67% for Bush, in 2004 only 60% voted for Bush.....
I have always said this was an indicator of fraud in other places...."

This is a good point, and well worth exploring state-wide. If Cuyahoga is a useful indicator, it should be very easy to define where to look first for significant vote-switching. Just look for the punch card areas with the highest Kerry support.

Another good indicator could be the Dem shift from 2004 to 2006. Will the shift be the same for punch card counties changing to e-voting as in counties that already used e-voting in 2004? There are many directions for the analysis to proceed in. I hope many people will take this up. I'm expecting an interesting semester in some stats classes.

[wisteria]

19. This needs to come out! Senator Kerry has taken enough bashing

because of his campaign and the supposed outcome.
Now, on a personal level, this just breaks my heart.

[ginnyinWI]

22. it's sad and infuriating at the same time! n/t

[ginnyinWI]

23. kick!

[L. Coyote]

38. kick n/t

[L. Coyote]

57. kick w/news an Ohio official is investigating (private communication) n/t

[L. Coyote]

49. Dec. 2005 Fitrakis: "Fake voting rights activists ... linked to White House..."

Fake voting rights activists and groups linked to White House
By Bob Fitrakis - Online Journal Guest Writer - Dec 31, 2005
http://www.onlinejournal.com/artman/publish/article_376.shtml

"Top level Republican operatives with ties to the White House, Senate Majority Leader William Frist and the Republican National Committee (RNC) not only engaged in the suppression of poor and minority voters in the 2004 Ohio presidential election, but they spun the election irregularities into a story linking blacks to cocaine and voter fraud. ....."

.....

In March 2005, Congressman Bob Ney held a U.S. House Administrative hearing at the Ohio Statehouse where a general counsel for the brand new voting rights group, the American Center for Voting Rights (ACVR)..... ACVR's general counsel, Mark F. "Thor" Hearne, turned out to be the former national general counsel for Bush-Cheney '04, Inc.,..."

.....

"While Vogel fights to keep secret the amount of money that Frist's 96 World of Hope donors gave to the "charity," his top-level political connections are emerging in the media. Vogel co-founded a lobbying firm with Bruce Mehlman, the brother of Republican National Committee Chair Ken Mehlman. Vogel and Mehlman's lobbying firm has close ties with the U.S. Chamber of Commerce.

Arnebeck recently won a ruling against the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, which he claims gave $14 million secretly to Ohio Republican candidates in the 2002 and 2004 election cycle, allowing the GOP to dominate Ohio's Supreme Court..."

Keywords: Other Players Tied to Bush-Cheney.

Jim Dyke, William E. Franke of the Swift Boat Veterans and Vietnam POWs for Truth, Steve Hertzberg, Ken Mehlman, Bob Ney, Kevin Coughlin, William E. Franke, Steve Hertzberg.

[L. Coyote]

40. One Vote Makes a Difference

February 23, 2005
CUYAHOGA COUNTY BOARD OF ELECTIONS
Robert T. Bennett, Chairman Sally D. Florkiewicz L. Michael Vu, Director
Edward C. Coaxum, Jr. Loree K. Soggs Gwendolyn Dillingham, Deputy

ONE VOTE MAKES A DIFFERENCE

DIRECTOR L. MICHAEL VU
CUYAHOGA COUNTY BOARD OF ELECTIONS

UNITED STATES ELECTION ASSISTANCE COMMISSION
PROVISIONAL VOTING TESTIMONY

OHIO STATE UNIVERSITY - MORITZ SCHOOL OF LAW

INTRODUCTION
Madame Chair Hillman, Commissioner DeGregorio, Commissioner Martinez, and
Commissioner Soaries welcome to the Buckeye State. Thank you for the opportunity to
participate in the first on-the-road public hearing since the 2004 Presidential Election and
allowing me to be part of a distinguished panel to discuss the topic and importance of
provisional voting, specifically from a local election official’s vantage point.
Having conducted elections in another state, I have realized and learned that Ohio’s
local election officials have a long standing tradition of conducting well-run, well-planned
and professional elections. This is true of the 2004 Presidential Election.
Provisional voting for Ohio election officials is not new. In fact, Ohio had instituted a
form of provisional voting in 1992, which was known as “237’s”, named after the title of the
state bill. In this form of provisional voting, unlisted voters were directed to the Board of
Elections office to cast their ballot. In 1995, the State implemented the provisional
balloting laws as we see today.
In 2004 many election jurisdictions across the nation were implementing provisional
voting laws for the first time. Ohio was ahead of the learning curve in this aspect. So why
did states who had pre-HAVA provisional voting laws, like Ohio, have such a difficult time
handling provisional ballots in the 2004 Presidential Election? To answer this question we
need to explore the chain of events that transpired prior to the election.
As the Director of Cuyahoga County many of our processes, including the absentee
ballot process, the registration process and the provisional voting process were again
tested during the 2004 Election. Although the various election processes had been tested
from previous elections prior to 2004, the 2004 Election, where Ohio was considered “The
Key Battleground State”, presented a whole new set of scrutiny and challenges that had
Page 2
never been seen before which came from citizen activists, political parties, interested
organizations and election officials. This was true of the provisional voting process.
THE CUYAHOGA COUNTY EXPERIENCE
To give you a brief background, Cuyahoga County is the 15th largest election
jurisdiction in the country with over 1,011,000 registered voters, Cleveland being the city
more commonly known throughout the country. We have 1,436 voting precincts and 584
polling locations.
In Cuyahoga County 25,309 provisional ballots were cast of which 16,757 were
deemed valid and 8,552 were considered invalid. A 66.3% acceptance rate. In
comparison to the 2000 Presidential Election the number of voters going to the polls in
2004 increased by nearly 100,000 voters, yet the percentage of individuals having to cast
a provisional ballot proportionately decreased.
Before discussing the contributing factors that led to the decrease in the percentage
of voters having to cast a provisional ballot, there were a number of factors that could
easily have contributed to its increase.
Coming into the 2004 Election, Cuyahoga County knew the November Election was
the first presidential election since reapportionment. We knew that there would be a
massive effort to register people to vote from local and national voter registration
organizations. We also knew and anticipated that this would be the largest turnout the
county would realize. Finally, we knew that there would be external variables that would
impact the way the Board of Elections would handle the election.
All four points that I listed were factors in which we took proactive and preemptive
steps to decrease the number of provisional ballots that would be issued and thus
increasing the number of regular ballots that were offered. We sent an Official Voter
Information Guide, which listed each voter’s specific voting location and voting precinct, to
all active registered voters. We developed, a year in advance, an interactive polling
location finder so voters would go to the correct voting location. We worked with local
colleges, went to senior citizen centers, and had a public forum called the “Roadmap to
Election 2004” to address election issues that may arise, including provisional ballots.
Although we had anticipated as many external factors as possible, we were
surprised by a number of directives that were issued. This ultimately created confusion
throughout the State on how provisional ballots were to be issued at the voting locations.
On September 16, 2004 all Ohio Boards of Elections received Secretary of State
Directive 2004-33. Believing that the Directive was in the normal course of conducting the
election, it became apparent that one paragraph seemed contrary to the way provisional
ballots were issued in the past. This paragraph read:
Only after the precinct pollworkers have confirmed that the person is eligible
to vote in that precinct shall the pollworkers issue a provisional ballot to that
person. Under no circumstances shall precinct pollworkers issue a
Page 3
provisional ballot to a person whose address is not located in the precinct, or
portion of the precinct, in which the person desires to vote. However, no
provisional ballot will be disallowed because of pollworker error in a split
precinct.
This generated a number of questions and concerns from interested organizations, political
parties, citizen activists and local election officials, including Cuyahoga County.
Cuyahoga County believed that the Directive was contrary to the way provisional
ballots were issued in the past. We believed in the same practice of issuing provisional
ballots as was implemented in previous elections including the 2004 March Presidential
Primary Election. So it came as a surprise that issuing provisional ballots had changed
and pollworkers were directed not to issue any provisional ballot even though there may
have been administrative oversight or that the pollworkers inadvertently did not find the
voter’s name.
In short, this was ultimately decided in Third District Court which was then reversed
by the Appellate Court. In summary, the Appellate Court ruled and gave an opinion which
was in line with what the Cuyahoga County Board of Elections had originally believed -
voters who believed and insisted that they live within the precinct should be offered a
provisional ballot. However, a new Home Balloting Affirmation Statement was now in
place, which affected the administrative handling of the provisional ballot and created
additional and unnecessary confusion at the polls. In the end, pollworkers were instructed
that there were three categories of voting a provisional ballot and one of three affirmations
that was to be filled out. Confusion.
LOST OPPORTUNITY
State and local election officials across the nation had the opportunity to address
potential issues relative to the provisional voting laws. This was an opportunity for states
that did not have existing provisional voting laws to enact such laws. Other states, like
Ohio, had the opportunity to review and set out a reasonable course of action that would
cure and unify the differences between state law and the Help America Vote Act.
The provisional balloting law in Ohio, although tested and mature, in comparison to
other states, was equally untested and crude in light of the passage of the Help America
Vote Act. Ohio’s provisional voting laws did not parallel the requirements of the Help
America Vote Act. Since 2002, states, like Ohio, should have reviewed and conformed
their provisional balloting laws to meet HAVA’s requirements and pass state legislation.
This did not occur and it was our lost opportunity to implement provisional ballots more
effectively. Instead we were engrossed with the “big ticket” items – creating a statewide
voter registration database and converting the state to a different voting system. A grand
picture was painted, however, like any local election official knows in conducting elections,
“the devil is in the details” and Ohio missed those details.
While there was an enormous amount of time and energy spent on the statewide
voter registration database and voting system conversion, an equal amount of time and
energy was not focused on the other important aspects of HAVA. No one was leading the
Page 4
charge on how HAVA would impact Ohio law and vice-versa - case in point the issuance of
provisional ballots in the state. This was simply not done and as a result, a number of
decisions and mandates were made in an untimely fashion.
CLOSING REMARKS
Without taking anything away from a good election, the 2004 Ohio provisional voting
experience was not the model for election agencies across the nation to follow. There
were too many issues that were not resolved within statute and left to interpretation.
Let me provide several practical solutions and issues that all states should address
when considering their respective provisional voting laws and items that the Election
Assistance Commission should contemplate before issuing recommendations.
First, there should be a comparison between state law and the Help America Vote
Act. Do they parallel one another?
Second, there must be clear and concise guidelines on issuing and verifying
provisional ballots.
Third, there is a concern of the uniformity between federal and non-federal election
years and how to handle provisional ballots.
Fourth, there must be consistent and continuous open communication and dialogue
between local and state elections officials, so that we curb the voting issues that potentially
hurt our citizens on election day.
Finally, we need to memorialize what is a valid provisional ballot. Similar to the
Help America Vote Act’s provision on creating uniform standards for what constitutes a
vote, states should memorialize what constitutes a valid or invalid provisional ballot.
Although we did not anticipate the number of provisional ballot issues for the
election, to Ohio’s credit, legislation is currently being proposed to address these issues.

[L. Coyote]

41. Cuyahoga Co. Elections Director Vu Ousted by BOE, finally ....

Discuss at: http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=102&topic_id=2719564&mesg_id=2719564

OhioChick, Tue Feb-06-07 12:17 PM

Cuyahoga Co. Elections Director Resigns (OH)
POSTED: 11:37 am EST February 6, 2007
UPDATED: 1:30 pm EST February 6, 2007

CLEVELAND -- NewsChannel5 has confirmed that embattled elections chief in Cuyahoga County has resigned.

Executive director Michael Vu's ouster marks the end of a tense term that thrust Cuyahoga County and its voters in the national spotlight. Under Vu, the county weathered a botched primary election and convictions of two workers who mishandled the 2004 presidential recount.

Bob Bennett, chairman of the county Elections Board and head of the state Republican Party, said the board negotiated the departure with Vu. ......

Bennett would not say why the deal was being crafted or whose idea it was for Vu to leave.

[L. Coyote]

42. Editorial: VU "presided over two consecutive debacles .. county a laughingstock.

New faces needed for Cuyahoga elections - 02/09/2007
http://www.zwire.com/site/index.cfm?newsid=17830858&brd=1698&pag=461&dept_id=21846

" When it comes to Michael Vu, the task ahead of the Cuyahoga County Elections Board seemed so obvious.
The man brought in to resurrect what for years has been a troubled elections operation instead has presided over two consecutive debacles that made the county a laughingstock...."

"Cuyahoga County's oversight of elections has consistently humiliated Ohio. These problems are now so chronic it's bewildering that the county's voters aren't screaming about this shoddy leadership from the four board members."

"His predecessor was mired in underachievement, as evidenced by absentee ballots invalidated because they were counted twice; ballot shortages; misplaced ballots; votes cast by unregistered voters and voters who were not told of a change to their polling place...."

MORE

[L. Coyote]

43. Rep. Tubbs Jones = House Committee hires Cuyahoga prosecutor

U.S. House Ethics Counsel Hired: Former Cleveland Prosecutor

CLEVELAND (TDB) -- A former assistant prosecutor in Cuyahoga County has been hired as chief counsel for the House Committee on Standards of Official Conduct, the ethics panel which is chaired by Cleveland Democratic Stephanie Tubbs Jones. Dawn Kelley Mobley is a graduate of North Carolina Central School of Law and is licensed to practice in North Carolina and Ohio.

She was a trial lawyer in the Cuyahoga County prosecutor's office and handled rape, homicide and drug cases. She also worked as a supervisor in the felony and juvenile justice sections. Tubbs Jones was the was the county prosecutor in Cleveland before her election to the OH-11 seat.

Mobley has been working for the U.S. Attorney's in Washington. Her new role could make her fairly high-profile if there is any kind of congressional scandal. Democrats has promised an emphasis on ethics. .....

http://thebellwetherdaily.blogspot.com/2007/02/us-house-ethics-counsel-hired-former.html

[L. Coyote]

50. Pre-election “Mighty Texas Strike Force” pay phones to make intimidating calls

Green candidate for Ohio Governor, with some articles about RFK, Jr., voting irregularities in Ohio.
They Stole It Blind by Bob Fitrakis
http://www.cincinnatibeacon.com/index.php/weblog/comments/recent_writing_by_bob_fitrakis/

IN PART:

Here’s what Tokaji could have written: “Kennedy describes a group of Republican operatives known as the “Mighty Texas Strike Force” which allegedly “us pay phones to make intimidating calls to likely voters. Kennedy’s source for this allegation is a report produced Democrats on the House Judiciary Committee in January 2005, entitled “Preserving Democracy: What Went Wrong in Ohio,” also known as the Conyers Report. The Report is also backed up by a 911 report on file with the Columbus, Ohio police and an affidavit prepared by Jim Branscome, the night clerk at the Columbus Holiday Inn who witnessed the activities of the Mighty Texas Strike Force. .....

Franklin County ... Branscome described himself as a “conservative” and said that the Mighty Texas Strike Force was using lists of names to make phone calls from pay phones.

“Look, I know you got out of prison about’…X amount of months ago…" ... he said, "It’s illegal for you to vote in this state, and if you show up tomorrow at the polls, we’re going to have the FBI there waiting for you, and we’re going to haul your ass right back into the slammer" ...
–From a videotaped interview with Robert Fitrakis and Linda Byrket.

The night auditor at the hotel showed the Free Press records confirming that the Strike Force rooms had been paid for by the Ohio Republican Party.

The Mighty Texas Strike Force was contacted ... no wrong-doing was admitted, they did concede they were in Columbus, Ohio two weeks prior to the election and that their actions were directed by Karl Rove at the White House....

MORE

[L. Coyote]

53. Deja Vu - 2004 Cuyahoga DU Posts are now a unique retrospective

When and where the study started. Perspectives on this issue have changed dramatically, yet some thoughts were right on then, others not.

========

jmknapp Dec-02-04 http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=203x106743#117088
Certified Cuyahoga Results spreadsheet (Excel)

Here's a spreadsheet which includes .... just-certified official result ....
http://copperas.com/cuyahoga/cuyahogaofficial.zip ...
Included are polling places and location (lat/lon) of the precincts.

========

AirAmFan Dec-12-04 http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=printer_friendly&forum=203&topic_id=147718
Ohio's 'CATERPILLAR BALLOT': As bad as Florida's Butterfly?
Here on the eve of the scheduled meeting of Ohio's Presidential Electors, I'm amazed that a very curious feature of voting in Ohio has gotten so little publicity. ..."

========
Iceburg Dec-16-04
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=printer_friendly&forum=203&topic_id=166913
Chaos in Cuyahoga? 49,000 Votes Disappear into the Ether ...then found?

Intro - In Cuyahoga, the ballot order was rotated ...

========

L. Coyote on Sun Dec-26-04
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=printer_friendly&forum=203&topic_id=196518
"Uncounted Votes in Cuyahoga County" by R. H. Phillips. How many??

"There are some difficult to analyze aspects to the non-vote issue. I hope this summary is useful...."

"The recount won't undo the cross-voting, Kerry votes counted for Bush." L. Coyote

167715, Cross-precinct voting switched votes to wrong candidate by L. Coyote ..
Cleveland Paper Cites Voter Problems, Votes Assigned to Wrong Candidates, AP, 12/11/04,
"approximately 1,000 voters in the two precincts cast ballots just steps away at machines meant for the other precinct."

This incident was detected. How much went unnoticed? Can this be manipulated to switch votes purposefully?

========

If you know of other pertinent threads , please add them.

[refjohn]

54. so W stole TWO elections?

wow, not bad for a 'dummass frat boy'

[karlrschneider]

55. You're an amusing little prick.

...

[L. Coyote]

56. NEW PowerPoint Posted = All the Graphs from the Article.

The 2004 Ohio Presidential Election: Cuyahoga County Analysis
How Kerry Votes Were Switched to Bush Votes

Now has two PowerPoints. All the figures from the article are in a new one = http://jqjacobs.net/politics/ohio_figures.ppt



How Kerry Votes Were Switched to Bush Votes, the article summary = http://jqjacobs.net/politics/vote_switching.ppt

[L. Coyote]

58. FLAWED election board security = keys to ballots not secured

Now comes this, the keys to the Cuyahoga vote counting room were not secured.

So we know,
A.) Ohio ballots did not have precinct marks, and
B.) the ballots were not secure. Yes, that's FLAWED!

Plus analysis reveals that ballots ended up in, or were cast in, the wrong precincts.

From the AP article:
========
Outside monitor criticizes election board's security

http://www.newarkadvocate.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID ...
Wednesday, February 28, 2007 - CLEVELAND (AP)

The elections board in Ohio's most populous county failed to provide adequate security for the November election in terms of equipment, staffing and electronic voting, an outside monitor said.

The Cuyahoga County elections board failed to secure keys to vote-counting rooms, did not comply with state laws governing bipartisan staffing, left computer users unaccountable by allowing a shared password and experienced an unexplained cable connection to vote-counting computers, according to the critique by Cleveland State University's Center for Election Integrity.

County commissioners hired the center to review the work of the election board after a botched primary in May .........

[Karenina]

59. Two words: Election Theft.

[L. Coyote]

60. House Judiciary Committee to Investigate Deceptive Election Practices

And, the hearing begin:

House Judiciary Committee to Investigate Deceptive Election Practices
http://judiciary.house.gov/newscenter.aspx?A=773

For Immediate Release - March 06, 2007

Today, House Judiciary Committee Chairman John Conyers, Jr. (D-M I) announced that the Judiciary Committee will hold a hearing, entitled, "Protecting the Right to Vote: Election Deception and Irregularities in recent Federal Elections." The hearing will be held TOMORROW, March 7, 2007 at 3 pm in 2141 Rayburn House Office Building.

"Election intimidation and deception have become an unfortuante aspect of recent federal elections, threatening to undermine Americans' confidence in a democratic government," Conyers said. "This hearing will expose some of the problems that voters have experienced, the causes of those problems, and offer leadership in developing meaningful solutions. Our goal is to protect every citizen's constitutional right to vote, and to thwart any future attempts to disenfranchise eligible voters through fraud, deception and intimidation."

.......

[L. Coyote]

61. NEW: Printer Friendly Word Version = LINK

http://jqjacobs.net/politics/ohio_times.doc

[L. Coyote]

62. New Ohio SoS seeks resignations of Cuyahoga BOE, includes GOP chairman.

The Ohio 2004 investigation seems to be having it's first major impact. Check this news:

kster .... Tue Mar-20-07 11:38 AM

Forced resignations and stiff prison sentences intensify the escalating blowback from Ohio's 2004
.....
DU Discussion: http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=203x469386

In a bold move "to restore trust to elections in Ohio," Ohio's newly-elected Secretary of State, Jennifer Brunner, has requested the resignation of all four members of the Cuyahoga County Board of Elections. The two Democrats and two Republicans were formally asked to resign by the close of business on March 21.

[L. Coyote]

63. Complaint against the remaining Cuyahoga County Board of Election officials

The complaint includes 2004. This is big news!!!!!


Columbus Dispatch - http://www.wkyc.com/news/news_article.aspx?storyid=64827

Read the complaint against the remaining Cuyahoga County Board of Election officials

Thursday, Secretary of State Jennifer Brunner issued a detailed complaint .....

... accuses Bennett and Florkiewicz of numerous instances of misfeasance, nonfeasance and violations of state election law in five distinct areas:


* Failure to adopt adequate procedures for election recounts resulting in the felony convictions of two board employees.

* Failure to manage competently the board's financial affairs.

* Failure to ensure the efficient administration of elections in 2004 through 2006 .........

[L. Coyote]

64. Brunner made right move in Cuyahoga

Brunner made right move in Cuyahoga
03/23/2007 - http://www.zwire.com/site/news.cfm?newsid=18117653&BRD=1698&PAG=461&dept_id=21846&rfi=6


When something's broken, you fix it. That adage especially applies to a public entity with an obligation to run efficient elections.
Give Secretary of State Jennifer Brunner credit for being a quick study. Upon taking office, she couldn't ignore the incompetence demonstrated by the Cuyahoga County Board of Elections.

[L. Coyote]

65. 2nd Election Official Quits in Ohio

2nd Election Official Quits in Ohio

Friday March 23, 2007 2:16 AM

By M.R. KROPKO
Associated Press Writer
http://www.guardian.co.uk/worldlatest/story/0,,-6501371,00.html

CLEVELAND (AP) - A second elections board member in Ohio's most populous county quit Thursday, and a state official filed a complaint to remove the two remaining members because of persistent voting problems.

A day after saying he wouldn't step down, Democratic board member Loree K. Soggs resigned, Cuyahoga County elections board spokesman Alan Melamed said.

......

[L. Coyote]

66. "Secretary of State tightens screws on Elections Board" in the MSM

Secretary of State tightens screws on Elections Board
Friday, March 23, 2007
Joan Mazzolini - Plain Dealer Reporter
http://www.cleveland.com/news/plaindealer/index.ssf?/base/cuyahoga/1174639719208580.xml&coll=2

Ohio Secretary of State Jennifer Brunner on Thursday accused two holdouts on the Cuyahoga County Elections Board of violating state election law as part of her move to oust them.

Brunner filed a complaint that also accuses board Chairman Bob Bennett and board member Sally Florkiewicz, both Republicans, of misfeasance and nonfeasance. The 18-page document specifically charges the pair with failing to:

Adopt adequate procedures for election recounts, resulting in the felony convictions of two board employees on charges of rigging a recount.

[L. Coyote]

67. DUer eomer: Ohio SoS pulls plug on Cuyahoga BOE Chairman Bennett

eomer Wed Apr-04-07 10:20 AM
Ohio Secretary of State pulls plug on Cuyahoga County BOE Chairman Bennett
Discuss at: http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=203x470182


Secretary of state pulls plug on Bennett
Election board chief violated policy, according to Brunner
Wednesday, April 04, 2007 - http://www.cleveland.com/news/plaindealer/index.ssf?/base/cuyahoga/1175675420302590.xml&coll=2
Mark Naymik - Plain Dealer Politics Writer

Secretary of State Jennifer Brunner suspended Cuyahoga County Board of Elections Chairman Bob Bennett on Tuesday, saying that he violated board policy recently by requesting that the board extend a contract with public-relations executive David Hopcraft. ....

.....

[L. Coyote]

75. freepress: Bye bye to Cleveland GOP Election Chair Bob "Ballots for Bush" Bennett

babsbunny Wed Apr-18-07 06:29 PM
Bye bye to Cleveland GOP Election Chair Bob "Ballots for Bush" Bennett

DU Discussion: http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=132x3223379

===================
Bye bye to Cleveland GOP Election Chair Bob "Ballots for Bush" Bennett
by Bob Fitrakis & Harvey Wasserman
April 16, 2007 - http://www.freepress.org/departments/display/19/2007/2542


Ohio's Bob "Ballots for Bush" Bennett, an essential player in putting George W. Bush back in the White House in 2004, is no long chair of the Cuyahoga County Board of Elections. His milestone resignation leaves a legacy of scandal, recrimination, massive voter purges, felony convictions and a pivotal role in a stolen presidential election.

Bennett has quit in a signature cloud of graceless accusations and cheap shots at Jennifer Brunner, Ohio's newly elected Secretary of State, who asked him to resign along with the rest of the Cleveland election authority. His forced departure marks the biggest landmark yet in the unraveling theft of the presidential elections in Ohio 2004.

.....................

[L. Coyote]

69. Bennett hearing delayed at Bennett's request. April 16, 9 a.m.

Bennett hearing delayed at Bennett's request. April 16, 9 a.m. Euclid City Hall.

Removal hearing for Cuyahoga elections chariman delayed one week
Associated Press - http://www.ohio.com/mld/ohio/news/17038596.htm

CLEVELAND - The removal hearing for Cuyahoga County board of elections chairman Bob Bennett has been delayed one week at the request of his attorney.

.... The hearing will take place at 9 a.m. April 16 at Euclid City Hall, Brunner's spokesman Jeff Ortega said....

......

Bennett has argued that Brunner's actions are political harassment and that she is trying the help her party in the 2008 presidential election. The state clinched re-election for President Bush in 2004.

[L. Coyote]

68. HUGE: Ohio SoS to take possession of the 2004 ballots and other key documents

Two big victories boost Ohio's election protection movement
by Bob Fitrakis & Harvey Wasserman
April 5, 2007

Preservation of the ballots is a HUGE step. Another important development is State Attorney General Marc Dann representing Brunner in these matters.
From the FREER PRESS:

As the new Secretary of State, Brunner has now agreed to a joint motion as defendant in the King-Lincoln suit. The motion effectively transfers the custody of "…all ballots from the 2004 presidential election, on paper or in any other format, including electronic data,…" from the counties to Ohio Secretary of State's office.

Ohio Attorney General Marc Dann's office is representing Brunner.

In a Memorandum in Support of the Joint Motion, the parties state: "To lessen the burden on the respective boards of elections and to provide a central repository for records, the parties are jointly requesting that an order be entered in this matter requiring the 88 county boards of elections to transfer to the custody of the Secretary of State all ballots from the 2004 presidential election…."

......

In a victory for election protection activists, Ohio's powerful GOP Chair Bob Bennett will be forced to face a public hearing on his removal as Chair of the Cuyahoga (Cleveland) Board of Elections. And in a second triumph, Ohio Secretary of State Jennifer Brunner has agreed, as part of a legal settlement, to take possession of the ballots and other key documents from the disputed 2004 election that gave George W. Bush a second term in the White House.

==================

Excellent coverage of recent events. MUST READ. - http://www.freepress.org/departments/display/19/2007/2525

[L. Coyote]

70. Joint Motions Regarding Disposition of all Ballots & to Stay all Proceedings until June 8, 2007

Joint MOTION for Order Regarding Disposition of all Ballots from 2004 Presidential Election pdf file (filed 4/3/07)
http://moritzlaw.osu.edu/electionlaw/litigation/documents/klbna-jointmotionredispositionofballots.pdf

JOINT MOTION REGARDING DISPOSITION OF ALL BALLOTS FROM 2004 PRESIDENTIAL ELECTION

The Plaintiffs and Defendant Ohio Secretary of State Jennifer Brunner jointly move this Court for an Order that the boards of elections for the 88 counties of the State of Ohio transfer to the custody of Jennifer Brunner, Ohio Secretary of State, all ballots from the 2004 presidential election, on paper or in any other format, including electronic data, previously preserved in accordance with the Court’s September 11, 2006 Opinion and Order, for the reasons set forth in the accompanying memorandum.

Clifford O. Arnebeck, Jr./ DWS

MEMORANDUM IN SUPPORT

This matter is presently stayed. The parties agree that the stay in this matter shall be lifted for the sole purpose of entering the requested order, and thereafter reimposed by agreement of the parties and the order issued by this Court pursuant to this motion.
On September 11, 2006, this Court ordered the “Boards of Election for each of the 88 Counties for the State of Ohio forthwith to preserve all ballots from the 2004 Presidential election, on paper or in any other format, including electronic data, unless and until such time otherwise instructed by this Court.” It has come to the attention of the secretary of state that some boards of elections are concerned about the ongoing expense and space limitations of continuing to maintain the 2004 presidential election ballots in accordance with this Court’s order. To lessen the burden on the respective boards of elections and to provide a central repository for records, the parties are jointly requesting that an Order be entered in this matter requiring the 88 county boards of elections to transfer to the custody of the secretary of state all ballots from the 2004 presidential election, on paper or in any other format, including electronic data, previously preserved in accordance with the Court’s September 11, 2006 Opinion and Order. It is the intention of the parties that the Court’s Order shall require that the records be maintained by the secretary of state in a secure location pending the final resolution of this case, and an Agreed Order has been submitted for the Court’s review and approval.

=========

Joint MOTION to Stay all Proceedings until June 8, 2007 pdf file (filed 4/3/07)
http://moritzlaw.osu.edu/electionlaw/litigation/documents/klbna-jointmotiontostayproceedings.pdf


The Plaintiffs and Defendant Ohio Secretary of State Jennifer Brunner jointly move this Court for an order further staying all proceedings until June 8, 2007. Secretary Brunner has a desire to attempt to resolve this litigation. The parties hope that an extension of the stay will allow them to explore settlement options and continue settlement discussions in good faith. Such discussions are also in the public interest and may mean that the parties will be able to save the expense of litigation. This motion is not meant for purposes of delay.

[L. Coyote]

71. Is The Long Awaited Overhaul of Cuyahoga Board of Elections Around the Corner?

It would be great to know more about the "rumors of unauthorized people being in places on election night where they had no business being..."

Were they switching ballots to the wrong precincts?

================

Gloria Ferris > Blog Archive
Is The Long Awaited Overhaul of Cuyahoga Board of Elections Around the Corner?
http://www.gloriaferris.net/2007/04/is-the-long-awaited-overhaul-of-cuyahoga-board-of-elections-around-the-corner/

........

The problems at the Board of Elections have been there longer than touch-screen voting machines and Michael Vu. Anyone who has lived in Cuyahoga County for any length of time has heard the rumors of unauthorized people being in places on election night where they had no business being, the faulty statistical samplings of votes used instead of counting each and every vote-supposedly put into place durng the Bob Hughes years, the number of employees placed at the BOE for patronage purposes, and the list goes on and on. These problems reach systemic proportions and are going to take herculean efforts to change.

Personally, I have felt for years that these rumors and suppositions have been the real cause of the deterioration of voting in Cuyahoga County. True or not, if the preception is that your vote may not be counted, why vote? When Meet.The.Bloggers interviewed Jennifer Brunner we talked extensively about the integrity of voting and how credibility needed to be restored to the voting procedures in the state and specifically, here in Cuyahoga County. Secretary of State Brunner and her staff are working diligently to do just that.

Today, the Plain Dealer Metro headline ”Brunner issues Ohio voter ID rules” says it all. She is doing her job and she is doing it well.

........more....

[L. Coyote]

72. The Ohio election story is going to come back. By Matt Taibbi

HIGHLY IRREGULAR
The Ohio election story is going to come back. By Matt Taibbi
http://www.nypress.com/18/30/news&columns/taibbi.cfm

I was in Washington last week, covering a story in Congress, when a friend invited me to a panel discussion in the basement of the Capitol building. I agreed before he told me what the subject was. Boy was I bummed when I saw the title on the e-circular:

What went wrong in Ohio? A Harper's Magazine Forum on Voting Irregularities in the 2004 Election.

Oh, Christ, not that, I thought. .....

......

There are dozens more such glitches, which taken together suggest that the exit polls in Ohio, showing Kerry the victor, were probably accurate. But this is just a primer. More facts next week, plus an interview with Sherrod Brown—and a guide to what to do next.

[L. Coyote]

73. MUST READ: US Attorney scandal and Ohio in '04 = NOE, et.al.

This is an impressive and lenghty piece of investigative jopurnalism by Mark Crispin Miller.

=================

US Attorney scandal and Ohio in '04
http://markcrispinmiller.blogspot.com/2007/03/us-attorney-scandal-and-ohio-in-04.html

In light of the recent developments regarding the politicalization of US Attorney positions including issues of elections, I started looking into any connection with the OH US Attorney and the '04 Ohio election. Many of you will remember, that I have long thought that LUCAS COUNTY was an important key to the theft, partially due to the connection of Tom Noe and his wife Bernadette (Chair of the Lucas County BOE in 2004).




Seems like Rep Conyers and Rep Kaptur had concerns about Ohio US Attorney. In a letter in August of 2005 (link at bottom) to AG Gonzales, they write this regarding the Noe investigation:

OF SPECIAL INTEREST NOTE THESE PARAGRAPHS:

"As a matter of fact, the numerous delays in the investigation have already raised the specter of political favoritism. >From documents that have been made public, we know that the U.S. Attorney for the Northern District of Ohio, Gregory White, who is leading the federal investigation, had prior knowledge of the losses before the 2004 presidential election, as did the Governor of Ohio and other officials.16 At the same time, no investigation was initiated on these matters until spring of this year.17

The fact pattern present in this case, particularly with the new disclosure that the lead federal prosecutor may well have gotten his job as a result of a political appeal by Governor Taft's office to Karl Rove, make it abundantly clear that a special counsel is necessitated. We urge you to make such a designation immediately to help restore public trust in this very important investigation. "

That letter came after a early July 2005 letter from Rep Conyers to OH US Attorney Gregory White:

Dear Mr. White,

I write to you because of my very serious concerns regarding the manner in which your office has handled the investigation into alleged federal campaign finance violations involving the 2004 Bush-Cheney campaign and other Republican candidates. In particular, I am concerned that your office delayed investigating this very serious matter until after the 2004 presidential election and as a result prejudiced the government's ability to pursue justice in the case.

It is my understanding that on October 13, 2004, the U.S. Attorney's Office for the Northern District of Ohio was provided evidence from Lucas County grand jury proceedings suggesting extensive federal campaign finance violations took place involving Tom Noe, the leading Bush-Cheney campaign official in the region for the 2004 campaign. On the same day, it was reported that your office shared this information with the Justice Department's Public Integrity Section, and that later that day, the Section e-mailed to the U.S. Attorney's Office authorization to investigate the matter. Two days later, on October 15, it was reported that the local prosecutor's office gave their evidence to the FBI.

It has been further reported by the Toledo Blade that you began your investigation into the case around early March 2005. Subsequent news reports stated that federal grand jury proceedings occurred on June 1, 2005, well after the presidential election and approximately seven-and-one half months after the Department was notified of the potential violations.

If this series of events is accurate, the delay may have violated federal guidelines as well as bar rules of professional conduct requiring impartiality and promptness in criminal investigations.

...........

Comments: Anonymous said…

Send these people evidence of election irregularities, and they do not even reply. That includes, so far, Blackwell, the FBI, and the USAG.

[L. Coyote]

74. Explosive new documentary presents evidence of fraud in 2004 election

"Commander 'N Thief"- Explosive new documentary presents evidence of fraud in 2004 election
http://www.opednews.com/articles/genera_press_re_070408__22commander__n_thief_22.htm


Explosive New Documentary Presents Evidence of Fraud in 2004 Ohio Presidential Election

Investigative journalist Greg Palast, author of the current best-selling Armed Madhouse and of The Best Democracy Money Can Buy, introduces the documentary and also provides staggering information in the body of the film about the RNC's purposeful and targeted strategies for disenfranchising millions of minority voters across the United States, including African-American soldiers serving in Iraq.

.............

...in Ohio, forensic evidence has been uncovered of ballot switching in selected rural precincts and of double punched ballots used to invalidate legitimate votes in specific urban precincts; and there is strong statistical evidence that as many as five million votes nationally were shifted, subtracting five million votes from Kerry and adding five million votes to Bush to produce a swing of up to ten million votes in the officially reported result.

............

[L. Coyote]

76. Has anyone seen this yet? n/t

[L. Coyote]

77. opednews.com: They Got The Wrong Guy by Jayne Lyn Stahl

What is particularly galling about stories like this and the DOJ focus on "voter fraud" cases to impune Democrats is the fact that when they are sent evidence, as presented in "How Kerry Votes Were Switched to Bush Votes," the same players do not even respond to the evidence. Not the FBI, not Blackwell, not the US Attys, not the White House.

If you have any evidence of election irregularities, test this for yourself. Inform the proper federal Department of Justice authorities. You will not hear one peep from them, I can assure you from experience. Run your own sting!

============================================
They Got The Wrong Guy by Jayne Lyn Stahl
http://www.opednews.com/articles/opedne_jayne_ly_070420_they_got_the_wrong_g.htm


No, it's not Alberto Gonzales, not Karl Rove, but a widely respected, and highly principled community leader, in a small town in western Michigan, the Reverend Edward Pinkney who was recently tried, and convicted of election "irregularities," or voter fraud, and who now finds himself under house arrest, facing up to twenty years in prison when he is sentenced on May 14th.

Pinkney, an African-American preacher, was acquitted in his first trial, but forced to stand trial again, last month, as those who prosecuted him contend that he got off because there were too many blacks on the jury, two. They prevailed, and Rev. Pinkney stood trial a second time, only this time all the jurors were white, and he was convicted.

..................

They got the wrong guy. If anyone should face sentencing for voter fraud, it's Karl Rove and his boss. But, in this land of the free, home of the brave, we're not going to see Rove, Gonzales, Bush, Cheney, or any other empire rogue rat, stand trial for election "irregularities." ......

Forcing Rev. Pinkney to serve even five minutes behind bars would not merely be an insult to those who founded this great nation, it would be an unparalleled act of cowardice, and proof that class, not character, race not reason has won the day.

[L. Coyote]

78. GET REAL: Steven Rosenfeld and Bob Fitrakis as "coincidence theorists"

Network Hosting Attorney Scandal E-Mails Also Hosted Ohio's 2004 Election Results
By Steven Rosenfeld and Bob Fitrakis, Free Press. Posted April 23, 2007.
http://www.alternet.org/story/50941?page=1

CAREFUL is certainly an appropriate warning before reading this one.

FIRST, before going into all the falsehoods promulgated by the article, here is where the authors ought to focus, where there is direct evidence of vote-switching. Why did these authers distract from that evidence in 2004, with the recount focus, and why do they continue to both ignore this evidence and focus attention elsewhere. They were wrong then, and they are wrong now. Here, this thread's focus, is the evidence they should focus on:

The 2004 Ohio Presidential Election: Cuyahoga County Analysis
How Kerry Votes Were Switched to Bush Votes
http://jqjacobs.net/politics/ohio.html

======================

Their article posts a question and does not even answer in the affirmative. Why, because the are WRONG!

"Did the most powerful Republicans in America have the computer capacity, software skills and electronic infrastructure in place on Election Night 2004 to tamper with the Ohio results to ensure George W. Bush's re-election?"

"The answer appears to be yes."

SO WHAT? Appearances mean nothing. These authors are making a career of ignoring real evidence in favor of distracting from it.

Let's discus the FACTS instead.

"... on Election Night 2004, Ohio's "official" Secretary of State website -- which gave the world the presidential election results -- was redirected from an Ohio government server to a group of servers that contain scores of Republican web sites,

on Election Night 2004, Ohio's "official" Secretary of State website -- which gave the world the presidential election results -- was redirected from an Ohio government server to a group of servers that contain scores of Republican web sites, ...."

WRONG: The Ohio SoS utilized a hosting service for their election night posting of results. It is not a coincidence that the GOP uses the same "hosting" service, but it is WRONG to infer that the State of Ohio was not directing the election results site w/o evidence beyond a coincidence.

WRONG: "On Election Night 2004, the Republican Party not only controlled the vote-counting process in Ohio, ..."

The vote counting/reporting was controlled by government entities at a county level as usual. The SoS only reports what is reported to that Ohio government office. In no way, shape, or form does the SoS count votes.

WRONG: "... the Republican Party ... also controlled the technology."

The vote counting technology was controlled by the State of Ohio and the counties.

WRONG: "...Privatizing elections and allowing known partisans to run a key presidential vote count ..."

The election was conducted by the county BOEs, not private, and counted by these government organizations. This rhetoric is both false and inflammatory. Why?

WRONG: "there is abundant evidence that Republicans could have used this computing network to delay announcing the winner of Ohio's 2004 election while tinkering with the results."

Now we also have "could have theorists" too!! How does that move anything forward except confusion?

WRONG: "On Election Night 2004, many of the totals reported by the Secretary of State were based on local precinct results that were impossible...."

The election night results gave Bush a substantial margin. Citing several precincts, a la Reagan's anecdotal logic, is now a tired old verse, discredited soon after the election, and proves nothing of substance even when true. A good analogy is Republicans using "voter fraud" to advance a different agenda.

WRONG: "... the facts are not in, but enough is known to warrant a serious congressional inquiry."

Not on this issue. The serious congressional inquiries underway since 2004 do not need to be misdirected by "coincidence theorists." The have real evidence to persue.

WRONG: "... for roughly 90 minutes the Ohio election results reported on the Secretary of State's website were frozen .... vote totals from these last-to-report counties ... were highly improbable and suggested vote count fraud to pad Bush's numbers."

"Improbable." "Suggested." Don't attorneys know how valueless such "proofs" are? Vote counts are always frozen on web sites, then a new result total is posted and they change. Bush was winning Florida in 2000, and the results moved Gore forward to a tie, for all practical purposes. The same fallacious logic would indicate Gore stole the last reporting counties in Florida.

WRONG: "... The most eyebrow-raising example to emerge from parsing precinct results was finding 10,500 people in three Ohio's 'Bible Belt' counties who voted to re-elect Bush and voted in favor of gay marriage, if the official results are true ... in Warren, Butler and Clermont Counties. The most plausible explanation for this anomaly ... was Kerry votes were flipped to Bush while the rest of the ballot was left alone. While we have some theories about how that might have been done by hand in a police-guarded warehouse, could full Republican control of the vote-counting software and servers also have played a role?"

This is easy to explain. These authors know of a plausible explanation and ignore it, as if part of the cover-up themselves. What happens when punch card ballots are switched between precincts with different ballot orders. Kerry votes can be switched to Bush votes while a distinct outcome may or may not result for other, down-ticket races with a different number of options. Warren and Butler Counties used punch cards, and Clermont used optical scanning, so all the ballots are still preserved.

WRONG: "Baiman compared the number of voters who signed in with the total number of votes attributed to precincts. He found hundreds of "phantom" votes, where the number of voter signatures was less than the reported vote total. That discrepancy also suggests vote count fraud."

This is a common problem when voters do not sign in, a well known problem with a well known cause. It does not suggest fraud in and of itself. This is iase argumentation.

WRONG: "... the highest ranks of the Republican Party's political wing, including White House counselor Karl Rove, a handful of the party's most tech-savvy computer gurus and the former Republican Ohio Secretary of State, created, owned and operated the vote-counting system that reported George W. Bush's re-election to the presidency."

This is just beyond ridiculous. Only those with no critical reasoning will not see the lie in this statement.

Laws of the State of Ohio created the system, the People of Ohio own it, and Boards of Election operated it. GET REAL!!

[L. Coyote]

79. Speculation Theorists on a rampage. Is it a new phase of the FRAUD COVER-UP.

Why the recent barrage on DU and elsewhere with wild conjectures about fixing the election in Ohio.

Is word leaking out about the recent official Ohio investigations? Is this a re-energized cover-up strategy?

Here is an example of the falsehoods being promulgated on DU:

=============================
kpete Sun Apr-29-07 05:37 PM
Pivotal Ohio 2004 Vote-Kerry Was Ahead-Then Server Went Down for 90 Minutes-Result-Bush Had Lead!
=============================

This is simply a falsehood. The server did not go down at all. It was simply static for a period of time. And, it was static between all the times it was refreshed with new data. That is how the system is intended to work. It was the responsibility of the Ohio SoS to post election results. They did so at intervals, and the timing of those intervals does not constitute evidence of fixing the Ohio election.

There is evidence of election fixing, and these authors and the DU posters pushing them make no mention of the real evidence. Draw your own conclusions.

=================================
The Pivotal Ohio vote in 2004: Who did the counting?
by Josh Mitteldorf Page 1 of 1 page(s)
http://www.opednews.com
.....
This week, in a series of articles by Bob Firakis, Steven Rosenfeld and Harvey Wasserman, a fact has come to light that suggests the answer: On the night of 2-3 November, 2004, the computer designated to count Ohio votes was cut out of the loop. Its web address was diverted to a private company in Chattanooga, TN, named SMARTech.
=================================

This has been rehashed numerous times on DU, but some posters continue to repost it as if it has never been discussed. This is also A FALSEHOOD:

"the computer designated to count Ohio votes was cut out of the loop. Its web address was diverted to a private company..."

The FACT is that the State of Ohio utilized a hosting company with greater capacity than the Ohio system on election night, to be able to handle the global traffic seeking the election results. The "computer designed to count the Ohio votes," if that is a proper designation of said system, did so. The voting was reported on a web server, as intended, and hosted by a private company, as contracted. All this means absolutely nothing in terms of election fraud until proven otherwise.

It is, of course, a very useful distraction from the REAL EVIDENCE of election fraud. Is that why it is being repeated ad nauseum on DU, in post after post, with a new post each time it is criticized?

WHAT THE **** is going on???
Here is the REAL EVIDENCE of how Kerry votes were switched to Bush votes before thee ballots were counted:

OHIO 2004: 6.15% Kerry-Bush vote-switch found in probability study

Defining the vote outcome probabilities of wrong-precinct voting has revealed, in a sample of 166,953 votes (1/34th of the Ohio vote), the Kerry-Bush margin changes 6.15% when the population is sorted by probable outcomes of wrong-precinct voting.

The Kerry to Bush 6.15% vote-switch differential is seen when the large sample is sorted by probability a Kerry wrong-precinct vote counts for Bush. When the same large voter sample is sorted by the probability Kerry votes count for third-party candidates, Kerry votes are instead equal in both subsets.

Read the revised article with graphs of new findings:

The 2004 Ohio Presidential Election: Cuyahoga County Analysis
How Kerry Votes Were Switched to Bush Votes

http://jqjacobs.net/politics/ohio.html

DU Discussion: http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=203x471730

[yurbud]

86. some of that critique is playing with definition. there is an element of coincidence but

how many coincidences does it take to add up to a pattern?

And what about when you throw in the statements of one of the fired US attorneys who thought the work on voting he was asked to do would violate the Civil Rights Act?

[L. Coyote]

81. The True Goal of Gonzo-Gate: Tamping Down the Black Vote

The issue and evidence raised in this thread fits perfectly into the overall pattern in "Gonzo-gate" under investigation by the Senate Judiciary Committee. Inner-city Cleveland is where the highest rates of vote-switching took place. The article illustrates how the highest Kerry support areas were targeted.

The True Goal of Gonzo-Gate: Tamping Down the Black Vote
by F. Vyan Walton
http://www.opednews.com/articles/opedne_f__vyan__070424_the_true_goal_of_gon.htm

From Democracy Now.

Another scandal is brewing inside Alberto Gonzales's Justice Department. Former Justice Department attorneys have publicly accused the Bush administration of politicizing the department's Civil Rights Division which was formed 50 years ago to protect the voting rights of African-Americans. According to a recent report by the McClatchy newspapers, the Bush administration has pursued an aggressive legal effort to restrict voter turnout in key battleground states in ways that favor Republican political candidates.

And since black and minority voters tend to favor Democrats by over 10 to 1 - they have become the perfect targets to help Republicans over the hump in marginal races.

..............

Leading up to the 2004 vote, Bennett oversaw the quiet purge of some 168,000 registered voters from the Cuyahoga rolls, including 24.93% of the entire city of Cleveland, which voted 83% for Kerry. In one inner city majority African American ward, 51% of the voters were purged. Centered on precincts that voted more than 80% for John Kerry, this purge may well have meant a net loss to the Democrats of tens of thousands of votes in an election that was officially decided statewide by less than 119,000.

.....more....

========================

[L. Coyote]

82. Changes at troubled elections board in Cuyahoga County to get first test

Changes at troubled elections board in Cuyahoga County to get first test
By THOMAS J. SHEERAN - AP
http://zanesvilletimesrecorder.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20070504/NEWS01/705040342/1002 (Added on edit)


CLEVELAND - The elections board in the state's most populous county, heading into next week's primary with rookie members and a troubled image, has put new procedures in place that officials say will improve elections and restore public confidence.

"There is significant importance to this election and how we conduct this election," Jane Platten, interim director of the Cuyahoga County Board of Elections, said Thursday at a media briefing on the more than six weeks of preparation done for the primary.

.............

Candice Hoke, director of Cleveland State University's Center for Election Integrity, ..... said two clues to the performance of election workers will be if polling places open on time Tuesday and if vote-memory cards are returned promptly that night for tabulation at board offices in Cleveland.

.......................

[L. Coyote]

83. Petition to Congress requesting an investigation into the Presidential Election

A Petition to Congress requesting an investigation into the Presidential Election of 2004
http://www.petitiononline.com/uselect/petition.html

To: United States Congress

TO: All members of the Congress of the United States of America; all Senators and Members of the House of Representatives

A Petition to immediately and without delay open a joint investigation into potential wrongdoing in the Presidential Election of 2004, specifically to investigate the potential of voting machine manipulation or purposeful malfunction, especially electronic voting machines manufactured and supplied by Diebold, Inc.; Electronic Systems & Software (ES & S); Sequoia Voting Systems, and others, and also to identify and investigate all allegations of improper conduct by election officials, workers, observers, challengers and operatives and employees of both major parties concerning the voting process including intimidation, dissemination of improper information, manipulation of registration records, improper handling of actual voting ballots and, in general, any and all potential improprieties which could have led to improper or inaccurate election results.

Such inquiries should not be limited to any particular state, precinct or district but strive to examine the voting process in any and all areas in which there is even the slightest indication of impropriety, but especially in the states of Florida, Ohio, Georgia, North Carolina, South Carolina, Virginia, West Virginia, Nevada, New Mexico, Iowa, Arkansas, Missouri, Pennsylvania, Michigan, Minnesota, Texas and New Hampshire, and not limit such investigation, and expand such investigations to cover Senatorial races as well, especially those in Kentucky, Florida and South Dakota.

We, the undersigned, request that our elected representatives act in accordance with the Constitution of the United States of America in a legal, impartial and expedient manner for an open hearing before the people of the United States and if such wrongdoing, illegal practices, manipulation of voting records or processes is of such a nature to indicate egregious or extensive tampering, alteration or misappropriation of the voting process that the violators be brought to justice and remedies, potentially including a nationwide audit, recall, recount or new election be imposed by your bodies.

We feel it is our patriotic duty to request such action from you, our elected officials, and your duty to respond in a responsible manner.

Sincerely,

The Undersigned

[yurbud]

84. kick

[yurbud]

85. great. can we get a candidate who doesn't concede before people figure this stuff out next time?

Edwards would have at least kept fighting.

[L. Coyote]

87. The cross-vote probability method was not developed until 2005

as a product of this study of the Cuyahoga results.

A vexing aspect of vote-switching and ballot swapping was the fact that once the counting was done, there is little or nothing the candidate can do.

If Ohio Dems had been on top of the situation before the election, Kerry would not have been put into that position. This probably had gone on for many elections. How did it impact Gore, for example? I'd like to see more studies of other counties and other elections, now that a method exists.

Even the recount was futile!

[L. Coyote]

89. NEW graphic highlighting the vote-switching proof

Here is a thumbnail of a deskpicture-size screen capture illustrating the evidence.
The article introduces the notation. Full-sized image URL: jqjacobs.net/politics/images/cuyahoga_precincts_subsets.jpg



Download the Excel spreadsheet: http://jqjacobs.net/politics/xls/cuyahoga_precincts_subsets.xls

[L. Coyote]

88. X-Post: OHIO 2004: Did vote-switching occur in Cuyahoga County?

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=132x3261876

"I define "vote-switching" as major candidate cross-voting. One major candidate cross-vote changes the election margin by two votes; as one major candidate loses a vote the other gains the cross-vote. .... Vote-switching results when the two major candidates are collocated in the same ballot order position, either from ballot switching between such precincts or voters cross-voting at such locations."

The obvious second question, by which means did vote-switching occur, inadvertently or by purposeful manipulation?

[L. Coyote]

90. NEW PowerPoint highlighting the Election Fraud evidence

How Kerry Votes Were Switched to Bush Votes

Inadvertent Wrong-Precinct Voting or Vote-Switching Fraud
http://jqjacobs.net/politics/precinct_switching.ppt