Ballot Shuffle in Ohio

[jmknapp]

There's a great diary on kos (http://www.dailykos.com/story/2004/12/2/44647/2043) where the author, jfern, notes patterns of excessive votes for third-party candidates Badnarik and Peroutka and puts forth a thesis that it is caused by mixing up ballots at multiple-precinct polling places.

That is, Ohio law states that the ballot order of candidates be randomized across precincts, so if a card is run through a counting machine for another precinct, the candidate totals will be shuffled.

jfern notes the case of Cleveland precincts 4F and 4N, sharing the same polling location ar Benedictine High School:

precinct badnarik bush kerry peroutka

Cleveland-4F 0 20 299 215
Cleveland-4N 164 12 334 10

So Peroutka registered 215 votes in 4F, and Badnarik 164 votes in 4N.

Take a look at the diary for jfern's analysis.

What I want to add here is the smoking gun which proves his thesis that ballots were mixed up at such polling places.

There is another pair of precincts sharing the same pattern as the kos diarist, jfern, observed in ward 4:

precinct kerry bush badnarik peroutka

CLEVELAND-8G 232 20 51 1
CLEVELAND-8I 251 8 0 28

So Badnarik got an inordinate number of votes in 8G and Peroutka likewise in 8I.

The polling location in this case was Cory United Methodist Church, 1117 E. 105th St.

Now looking at the voteprotect.org EIRS case reports, there is an entry for Cory United Methodist:

"People from the H line were dropping ballots into the G Box because poll workers were moving people to a different line. Voter noticed mistake and alerted election inspector. Don't know what was done to correct it." (EIRS case #047393)

Note that the figures above are the results CERTIFIED by Blackwell.

I can't believe that the punchcards aren't coded to prevent being run through the wrong machine! Most of the counties that Bush won were punchcard ballot counties. It appears that all one has to do to jigger the results is to move ballots from one pile/box to another!

Note that if the ballot order between the two precincts just happened to reverse Bush and Kerry, then moving ballots from one to the other counting only would affect those totals! No red flags! Rubber-stamped with a smile by Blackwell!

Looking at the special case where high Badnarik/Peroutka totals occurred in precinct pairs at one polling place in Cuyahoga County yields the following:

precinct polling_place kerry bush badnarik peroutka
CLEVELAND 8G CORY UNITED METHODIST CH 225 19 51 1
CLEVELAND 8I CORY UNITED METHODIST CH 245 8 0 27
EUCLID 3-A GATEWAY MANOR 37 21 8 4
EUCLID 3-C GATEWAY MANOR 205 97 1 88

(note that in this case, EUCLID 3-A registered a 25% turnout. I.e., something like 88 of its votes were shifted to 3-C)

CLEVELAND 11M HOLY REDEEMER SCHOOL 428 45 30 5
CLEVELAND 11O HOLY REDEEMER SCHOOL 312 40 1 10

CLEVELAND 13Q LAKEVIEW TOWERS APARTMENTS 56 32 9 8
CLEVELAND 13X LAKEVIEW TOWERS APARTMENTS 312 8 1 37
CLEVELAND 13Z LAKEVIEW TOWERS APARTMENTS 14 7 0 0

(similarly 13Z above registered only a 39% turnout, meaning a lot of its ballots were run through the wrong machines)

CLEVELAND 14H LINCOLN WEST HIGH SCHOOL 283 102 4 1
CLEVELAND 14O LINCOLN WEST HIGH SCHOOL 221 52 0 11

CLEVELAND 3B MT HAVEN BAPTIST CHURCH 456 17 41 1
CLEVELAND 3I MT HAVEN BAPTIST CHURCH 464 13 1 70

EAST CLEVELAND 4-A NEW CHAMBERS SCHOOL 370 11 5 1
EAST CLEVELAND 4-F NEW CHAMBERS SCHOOL 386 11 34 3

NORTH ROYALTON 3-A ROYAL REDEEMER LUTHERAN CH 187 240 4 37
NORTH ROYALTON 5-E ROYAL REDEEMER LUTHERAN CH 246 272 8 1

ORANGE A TOWN HALL 298 119 0 18
ORANGE D TOWN HALL 180 86 12 9

CLEVELAND 5B WILLOW ELEMENTARY SCHOOL 74 12 0 16
CLEVELAND 5O WILLOW ELEMENTARY SCHOOL 98 21 4 2

CLEVELAND 15H Y. M. C. A. 206 80 15 7
CLEVELAND 15I Y. M. C. A. 181 83 4 2

These cases are the tip of the iceberg, because they are only those which result in Badnark/Peroutka counts, which stand out since those guys got very few legit votes. Bush/Kerry reciprocal switches would not be so noticable.

We need a hand recount. Now.

[sabra]

1. And these numbers are "certified"...

A hand recount is essential! Thanks for posting.

[bj2110]

2. Great find. This is very telling and needs to be broken down...

to analyze Bush / Kerry mix-ups. I've had a pretty dim outlook on what the Ohio recount would actually accomplish, but this gets my hopes up for something to come out of it.

[truehawk]

30. The ballots could have been pre-shuffled.

Does the punchcard have a large, obvioius precinct Number emblazoned on it?

If there is some kind of machine readable control code showing which precinct they they are supposed to be counted in, the damage could have been done in advance by shuffleing say 20% of the ballots in Democratic districts before they were cast so that they would be CAST in the wrong precinct.

[StephanieMarie]

3. Has anyone sent this to Kerry?

I just sent it, along with the judiciary letter, to Olbermann.

[flyarm]

21. i sent judiciary letter to olbermann last night!! n/t

[Carolab]

28. SEND THIS TO CLIFF ARNEBECK

[e-mail]

[nashuaadvocate]

4. The Nashua Advocate

I had originally decided to limit myself to posting this notice in only three threads, but the site below has received such interest in the last 48 hours (almost 500 unique hits!) that I thought I'd post our news outlet's web address again in those DU threads which are covering stories we are also covering. So -- that address for The Nashua Advocate is, again,

http://www.nashuaadvocate.blogspot.com

Because The Advocate has only recently moved to this web address, Google.com does not yet list us. Please make sure to bookmark (and/or link) to the site when you first visit in order to readily access the site again in the future.

Keep up the good work, all of you!

News Editor, The Nashua Advocate

[jhgatiss]

5. This is more great work!

I've never voted on a punch card. Are the candidates names printed directly on the card so you would be able to tell if there had been a mixup in a hand recount?

[AllegroRondo]

9. In a word, NO

My county votes with punch cards (Missouri), and the card itself has only numbers on it. All the candidate info is on the ballot overlay in the booth.
I guess this allows them to use the same ballots for every election, and buy them in bulk.

[jmknapp]

12. A unique serial number for each

If so the numbers might have a trail backto what precinct they were issued for?

[AllegroRondo]

13. I think you are correct

I know when I signed in I was given number 100 (the 100th voter that morning), and that corresponded to ballot 100.

[jmknapp]

17. That's weird though

I'm trying to figure how that squares with it being a secret ballot.

[AllegroRondo]

19. They dont actually know WHO got ballot one hundred.

Its like this:

you get to the front of they line, the guy takes your ID card and looks you up in the list. You sign, he signs, then the guy next to him says "OK, you're number 100", crosses number 100 off his list, and hands you a ballot. So theres no actual way to know who signed in what order, just that you did sign and how many total people went through.
Also, I would have been 100 for only the "M-R" table, we had 4 tables going for different last names.

[jmknapp]

10. I have no idea

And the punchcard system in Ohio is as, to use the term below, asinine as it seems, there may not even be an identifying precinct code on the cards.

But I surely hope so.

Think of it. A hand recount will recover all these errors, which could easily add up to the margin of victory (and make no mistake, I want Chimp to lose).

There's a further bit of suspiciousness in the certified totals. "Disqualified" doesn't have any votes in the certified results in any precinct. But "Disqualified" (i.e., Nadir) had a spot on the ballot even though one couldn't punch it.

But if ballots are mixed up, then Disqualified should register counts here and there. The fact that they're all zeroes in the Cuyahoga results tell me that their counting software simply doesn't regiser Disqualified votes, punched or not.

Their software should be changed to count Disqualified votes. That would be an *excellent* indicator of ballot mixups, because any count at all for Disqualified will be prima facie evidence of ballot mixup.

Thus, Disqualified votes across the state could be used to flag precincts to look into.

[LisaL]

32. Punchcards don't have any names, only numbers.

[Straight Shooter]

6. This is one of the most asinine features of counting votes I've ever heard

Who thought of this ridiculous procedure? How in the name of everything that's sacred did it ever get passed to begin with? I find it difficult to believe that this was initially implemented as a stopgap measure against fraud.

:wtf:

[On the Road]

7. Is There Any Way to Separate the Ballots Now?

Or are they stacks of identical punch cards?

There's always a new wrinkle. And always a new way to take advantage of it.

[SharonRB]

15. I was just wondering the same thing

If the order of the names is different in each precinct and cards got switched from one precinct to another, causing some of the problems, will they be able to sort them out properly so they will be counted correctly in the recount? This is getting very confusing.

[mulethree]

41. The sample ballots have the precinct printed on them

If the real ballots do to, then a hand recount could fix this.

I agree its ridiculous that theres no machine readable precinct so
that a count could reject a 'wrong precinct' vote.

[fliesincircles]

8. Control numbers on ballots?

Not familiar with Cuyahoga procedure, but in Stark(Canton) there is a control number on the ballot "stub" that is written in the poll book by the voters name when they sign-in. Not sure if it appears on the actual part that goes through the machine count. If it is there, a hand count would definitely clear up any question of the ballots precinct origin. These are errors that should have been corrected in the first count. No excuses.

[jmknapp]

11. Here is a photo of the stub

I think:

Ballot for Cleveland 4N:
http://boe.cuyahogacounty.us/boe/ballots/PDF/CLEVE04N.pdf

What role does that stub play at the top of the ballot?

Joe

[fliesincircles]

14. Can't see if the number is on the "ballot"

Yes, that's the stub. The part that holds the card in the voting machine. After voting it goes in the ballot box connected to the "punchcard". There is a perferation between the stub and the punchcard. I don't know if the stub goes through the "counting" maching. My terminology might be bad. When I went to the Stark BOE after 11/2, I wanted to see my precinct book to make sure someone hadn't voted using my name(I had voted absentee). Each name of the people who voted on 11/2 had "stub" numbers written by their names. If that number is also on the "punchcard" then the precinct origin is obvious.

[truehawk]

29. Surely the ballots are marked as to what precinct they are for?

[jhein]

16. This is it. . . .

It clearly justifies a recount and it does not necessarily involve "fraud" which is difficult to prove and is judicially distasteful.

[newyawker99]

25. Hi jhein!!

Welcome to DU!! :toast:

[mapman2]

38. Welcome jhein

I agree, this is it! No fraud, just mistakes.

Guess who?

[Dolphyn]

18. kick n/t

[trudyco]

20. This is good - but investigation should include why mixup n/t

[november3rd]

22. What this really means

Click to find out just what this means.

[Alizaryn]

23. Send this to

[e-mail]

He said he wanted info.

[Straight Shooter]

24. I sent him an email

Condensed a bit of the info and also directed him to this thread for additional comments by people more familiar with this ballot process.

:thumbsup:

[bj2110]

37. Also send to Conyers

[e-mail]

[Lil]

26. candidates be randomized across precincts. . .totals will be shuffled

Good catch!!

[trudyco]

27. Kind of mind boggling

You'd think somebody would squeal on that. If this was done on purpose at least one person per combined precinct (is there a person in charge?) was in the know. Either that or the State elections officer gave false information to precinct workers and they could help trace this to that person.

Wow, so blatant.

trudyco

[floridadem30]

31. kick

[LisaL]

33. It's disgusting. Several precincts voting in the same polling place,

with different numbers on identical punch cards, and ballots are then mixed?
It's absolutely freaking disgusting.
:nuke: :nuke: :nuke: :nuke: :nuke: :nuke:

[Lil]

34. kick

[Lil]

35. Discussion of this topic also on thread linked below

<http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=203x111276>

[jfern]

36. It caused other problems too

Not just increased numbers of 3rd party votes.

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2004/12/4/55521/1331

[OmmmSweetOmmm]

39. It seems that they gave out ballots with

Different candidate orders on some voting cards. I just heard that while watching Democracy Now from yesterday.



http://www.democracynow.org/article.pl?sid=04/12/03/164231

[Lil]

40. Yep! Big problem with that it looks like.

[glitch]

47. Thanks for the link - good show Friday. nt

:dem:

[Lil]

42. kick for freedom! Go OH!!

[Lil]

43. back to the top for OH researchers

[Lil]

44. Valuable inf. for OH researchers

[momzno1]

45. Arnebeck just mentioned this on kpft during interview

[truehawk]

46. kick

[bj2110]

48. kick

[truehawk]

49. kick

[mulethree]

50. Did you see this post?

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=172x4800#4834

Need at least to hand-sort those ballots into single-precinct stacks and re-scan them.

Hmm a cleveland issue for 'tax chapter S corp profits' passed by 1000 votes, bet theres some businessmen who might like a re-count.

An east cleveland firemen tax failed by 60 votes

lots of single-precinct booze-on-sunday ordinances

Be nice to find a race or issue that flips from this.

[jmknapp]

52. Hand sorting and recount of these ballots, yes!

Assuming they have a way to figure out what machine/precinct they were punched on.

[Lil]

53. What a nightmare! Thanks for all your work, jmknapp

[k8conant]

51. Soupy Shuffle

You said:
That is, Ohio law states that the ballot order of candidates be randomized across precincts, so if a card is run through a counting machine for another precinct, the candidate totals will be shuffled.

Actually I found them not randomized but revolving:

For example:

CLEVELAND 8A bBKdp
CLEVELAND 8B BKdpb
CLEVELAND 8C KdpbB
CLEVELAND 8D dpbBK

Precincts sharing a polling place may or may not have the same ballots. Some polls have as many as six precincts also.

[Lil]

54. kick to the top