WTF? Blackwell had a mandate? Indeed.......

[kuozzman]

I think I hate Blackwell more than anyone else on earth.....

Akron Deacon Journal-if you want to see the whole article:
http://www.ohio.com/mld/beaconjournal/news/local/states/ohio/counties/stark_county/10393379.htm
[e-mail]
Password: deedee1
--SNIP--
Four years ago, Summit County had an average of 568 registered voters per precinct. Today, the countywide average is 777. In Akron, the average ballooned higher -- to 855 voters per precinct.

``That's way too high,'' Jones said. ``I did not want to go over 600 because of the lines that it would cause.''

The two Democrats on the four-member county board of elections say it was a mistake to cut so many precincts.

``I think that caused us a lot of problems in this election,'' said Russell M. Pry, who also is chairman of the Summit County Democratic Party. ``I think the precincts are too large.''

Wayne Jones, the board's other Democrat, agreed: ``Common sense would tell you it's a factor: If you have more people shopping at your store, the checkout lines will be longer.''

The loss of so many precincts certainly meant that many more registered voters are in the county's remaining 475 precincts.

State mandate?

But both Jones and Pry said they understood that the county had no choice but to reduce precincts. ``We were under a mandate from the secretary of state to consolidate,'' Pry said.

Tell me I'm not the only one that gets fired up after reading that?

But that's not true, said Carlo LoParo, spokesman for Ohio Secretary of State J. Kenneth Blackwell. ``There's no requirement for reductions.''

Actually! I take back what I said earlier, I think that son of a bitch LoParo pisses me off more than Blackwell!

[unpossibles]

1. wait

are they consolidating multiple precincts into fewer (thus making fewer but larger precincts) or trying to create more, smaller precincts? It sounds like both, but the coffee hasn't really kicked in yet ...:crazy:

[kuozzman]

3. It's not statewide either! This is some of the most compelling evidence

I've seen! They had a "mandate" to reduce the number of precincts, in Democratic counties and as you'll see, even pretty specifically.

Since the 2000 presidential election, the Summit County Board of Elections has eliminated 149 of its precincts -- more than any other Ohio county.

Several election watchdog groups reported longer delays -- as long as three hours -- in Akron, especially in the city's predominantly African-American wards. The reduction in precincts hit Akron harder than the rest of the county, with the city losing 81 of 234 precincts -- more than a third.

Four years ago, Summit County had an average of 568 registered voters per precinct. Today, the countywide average is 777. In Akron, the average ballooned higher -- to 855 voters per precinct.

Summit County
Kerry 95,338 51%
Bush 92,211 49%

``That's way too high,'' Jones said. ``I did not want to go over 600 because of the lines that it would cause.''

But both Jones and Pry said they understood that the county had no choice but to reduce precincts. ``We were under a mandate from the secretary of state to consolidate,'' Pry said.

The average number of ballots cast per precinct increased 89 percent compared with four years ago. In four of the city's 10 wards -- 2, 3, 5 and 9 -- the number of voters per precinct more than doubled.

John Kerry won Summit County by 38,000 votes, according to official returns. Take Akron's votes out of the totals, and President Bush would have won the county by 423 votes.

Last year, a second round of cuts reduced the number of precincts to 475, after the elections board raised the bar for the number of registered voters per precinct from 650 to 800.

Forty-five of the city's 153 precincts have more than 900 registered voters, and 10 top 1,000.

Thirty-three other precincts in the county also top 900.

Wagner said the plan to eliminate precincts assumed that the increased number of voters at the remaining polls could be handled by the new generation of electronic voting machines that would speed the voting process.

The new machines were expected to be installed in time for this year's presidential election after Congress passed the Help America Vote Act in 2002.

But hopes to replace Summit's machines were derailed earlier this year amid complaints that the electronic machines were vulnerable to undetectable vote fraud because they produced no paper record. In response, the Ohio legislature mandated that all electronic voting machines in use in the state beginning in 2006 provide a paper record that could be verified by the voter before leaving the polls.

But they don't care about the electronic counting machines?? Well, I suppose they are 100% accurate, as the recount showed....WTF?

[No Exit]

2. It all starts to make sense now

Blackwell has a man date. Junior has a man date. Hmmm...

[Wilms]

4. Kick n/t

:grr:

[KaliTracy]

5. Over 900 precincts were "lost" in/around 1999. (Blackwell took office in

1998. There is no precinct data for 1999 (see below for url to state site) In 1996 there was 67% voter turnout (from 1980 until then it was in the low 70s). In 2000 it was 63%!

This year, with all of the long lines and such, it was only 71%

But this year -- the excuse for losing over 700 precincts since 2000(merging or deleting entirely) was because they were going to go to e-voting machines (which would take "less time") and then after they merged the precincts, decided not to.

What happened to the 900 precincts prior to 2000? My suspicion is the reason for the extremely low voter turnout was not necessarily people not going to the polls, but people seeing that there were huge lines, and leaving -- but that it got overshadowed with Florida's problems. What do you think?

Look on the Ohio website http://www.sos.state.oh.us/sos/results/11-02-04.htm (I had these broken out in another thread -- Old archive... locked now, I can post again later of the breakdown if you don't have time to look though the years).

I think this is significant and important to look back through the history since 1980 or so... we've gained over 800,000 new voters since 1996, and have lost over 1,500 precincts.

[KaliTracy]

6. is there precinct data for the last 12 years or so available in a specific

website? Or is it hit and miss per District and/or County?

[New Earth]

7. how i love seeing the words

"Blackwell" and "WTF?" in the same sentence.......it seems neither can be said without the other.....

[mikelewis]

8. The registration numbers for these counties are screwed up too.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=203&topic_id=65226&mesg_id=65226

There's a lot of info here too. Seems Blackwell lost all of his ineligible registration data because of a "Glitch". They decided it would cost too much to reconstitute the list and decided to let the voters fall off who had not voted in the past 2 elections. This results in a 93.5% voter registration percentage for the state of Ohio.

[newscott]

9. Why are these precints so small in the first place?

My town has two voting precincts for 10,000 registered voters.

My precinct uses paper ballots that you mark and then put into a scanner (at least that's what it looks like) and there's only one machine for the entire precinct.

We had lines for this election, but it only took me about 15-20 minutes to vote.

What's this talk of only 500 voters per precinct? Seems like such a small number.

[KaliTracy]

10. 500 voters per precinct with only 2 or 3 machines....

yeild at an average of 3 minutes per person

20 people an hour

****

at an average of 5 minutes per person

12 people an hour

*****

so lets say 4 minutes per person just for kicks.

15 people an hour

polls open from 6:30 to 7:30 13 hours (Not saying they are, just they are for this purpose -- I think it's what they allowed, though)

= 195 people per machine

so to cover 500 people you would need at least 3 machines. But we already know that some places had only 2 for over 500 people... (and at that college, there were over 1,000 people with 2 machines, and one was broken part of the day).

[KaliTracy]

11. hmmm... that's interesting. another glitch? But -- did the voters in 2000

not vote because of apathy, or because they went away if they saw long lines.... I am only asking questions ...

Blackwell and the BOEs say that they were basing machine dispersion on the "past" elections -- but -- until 2000 the average turnout was in the early 70% range -- and even if they were only looking at 2 cycles they still would have been in the 65% expected turnout range (guessing here...)

I do not know -- but if for 20 years the percentage was in the 70s -- and they are "using" turnout numbers as reasons why they didn't have enough machines this year... and there was *such* a jump from percentages....

1980
Percent of Votes Cast........73.88%

1984
Percent of Votes Cast........73.66%

1988
Percent of Votes Cast........71.79%

1992
Percent of Votes Cast........77.14

1996
Percent of Votes Cast........67.83%

2000
Percent of Votes Cast........63.6%

2004
Percent of Votes Cast........71.75%
***

1980
Precincts Reporting.......... 100%
# of Precincts............... 13,332
# of Registered Voters.......5,962,864
Total Votes Cast.............4,378,937
Percent of Votes Cast........73.88%

Actual Voters/Precincts...... 328 (This would be the number if voters to precincts were evenly distributed -- in this case would be 328 voters per precinct -- not the real number per precinct, but just for reference -- you'll see why as you get further down.)


1884
Precincts Reporting.......... 100%
# of Precincts............... 13,296
# of Registered Voters.......6,332,454
Total Votes Cast.............4,664,223
Percent of Votes Cast........73.66%

Actual Voters/Precincts...... 351


1888
Precincts Reporting.......... 100%
# of Precincts............... 13581
# of Registered Voters.......6,275,638
Total Votes Cast.............4,505,284
Percent of Votes Cast........71.79%

Actual Voters/Precincts...... 331

1992
Precincts Reporting.......... 100%
# of Precincts............... 13,738
# of Registered Voters.......6,536,936
Total Votes Cast.............5,043,094
Percent of Votes Cast........77.14%

Actual Voters/Precincts...... 367

1996
Precincts Reporting.......... 100%
# of Precincts............... 13,136
# of Registered Voters.......6,837,421
Total Votes Cast.............4,638,108
Percent of Votes Cast........67.83%
Actual Voters/Precincts...... 353


Non-Presidential Election 1997
Precincts Reporting……………………99.98%
# of Precincts ………………………… 13124 (Precincts reporting 13100??)
# of Registered Voters………………6,943,831
Total Votes Cast ………………………. 3,163,091
Percent of Vote Cast………………………………45.46%
Actual Voters/Precincts…………………………241


Non-Presidential Election 1998
# of Precincts............... 13,079
# of Registered Voters.......7,096,423
Total Votes Cast.............3,534,782
Percent of Votes Cast …..49.81%
Actual Voters/Precincts…………270
(Lost 57 precincts from 1998)

Non-Presidential Election 1999
No precinct data
# of Registered Voters.......7,146,895
Total Votes Cast.............2,467,736


2000
Precincts Reporting.......... 100%
# of Precincts............... 12,151
# of Registered Voters.......7,535,188
Total Votes Cast.............4,795,989
Percent of Votes Cast........63.6%
Actual Voters/Precincts...... 394
(Lost 926 precincts since 1998 (no precinct data 1999))


Non-Presidential Election 2001
# of Precincts............... 11,844
# of Registered Voters.......7,153,796
Total Votes Cast.............2,574,915
Percent of Votes Cast........35.99%
Actual Voters/Precincts...... 217
(Lost 307 precincts from following year)

Non-Presidential Election 2002
# of Precincts............... 11,756
# of Registered Voters.......7,113,826
Total Votes Cast.............3,356,285
Percent of Votes Cast........47.17%
Actual Voters/Precincts...... 285
(Lost 88 precincts from following year)


Non-Presidential Election 2003
# of Precincts............... 11,488
# of Registered Voters.......7,138,493
Total Votes Cast.............2,649,482
Percent of Votes Cast........37.11%
Actual Voters/Precincts...... 230
(Lost 268 precincts from following year)



2004
Precincts Reporting.......... 100%
# of Precincts............... 11,366
# of Registered Voters.......7,974,670
Total Votes Cast.............5,722,211
Percent of Votes Cast........71.75%

Actual Voters/Precincts...... 530
(Lost 122 precincts from following year, 786 since 2000)