Professor R. H. Phillips FINALLY gives us those NUMBERS

[m.standridge]

In a new article at his Lyric Poetry website, and posted at freepress.org's website now, he's finally started to ADD UP all the discrepancies in Ohio.
Right now, with 73 counties still to go, he's already determined that Bush's 118,000 vote lead is inflated by AT LEAST 101,000 votes. Again, that's not factoring in yet the other 73 counties and also doesn't include number data from some counties he cited at the end of the article, that show an additional 7,900 votes "migrated" from Kerry to Bush in that county. In other words, still processing, but already, Bush's lead seems to be down to 100 votes.
100 votes, folks. With 73 counties to go.
Wish we could have had this a little earlier, these kinds of numbers to point to. This is impressive. This has political power. Finally, this has political power.

[Old Mouse]

1. Please post a direct link to the article

or substantial quote

[m.standridge]

3. OOPs sorry it's--

http://www.freepress.org/departments/display/19/2005/1071
titled "Estimated Vote Count in Ohio"

[greenmutha]

2. Link? n/t

[papau]

4. link below

http://web.northnet.org/minstrel/

actual document in pdf
http://www.freepress.org/images/departments/Vote_Count_Ohio.pdf



http://web.northnet.org/minstrel/uncounted.htm
<a href="uncounted.htm"> JOHN KERRY CONCEDED TOO SOON <a/><br>
<a href="cleveland.htm"> STEALING VOTES IN CLEVELAND <a/><br>
<a href="columbus.htm"> STEALING VOTES IN COLUMBUS <a/><br>
<a href="suburbs.htm"> FAVORITISM IN THE SUBURBS <a/><br>
<a href="warren.htm"> VOTER TURNOUT IN WARREN COUNTY <a/><br>
<a href="southwest.htm"> ELECTION RESULTS IN SOUTHWESTERN OHIO <a/><br>
<a href="dayton.htm"> UNCOUNTED VOTES IN MONTGOMERY COUNTY <a/><br>
<a href="cincinnati.htm"> UNCOUNTED VOTES IN HAMILTON COUNTY <a/><br>
<a href="miami.htm"> HACKING THE VOTE IN MIAMI COUNTY <a/><br>
<a href="toledo.htm"> RIGGING THE VOTE IN LUCAS COUNTY <a/><br>
<a href="supreme.htm"> AFFIDAVIT TO STATE SUPREME COURT <a/><br>
<a href="trumbull.htm"> STUFFING THE BALLOT BOX IN TRUMBULL COUNTY <a/><br>
<a href="canton.htm"> UNCOUNTED VOTES IN STARK COUNTY <a/><br>
<a href="cuyahoga.htm"> UNCOUNTED VOTES IN CUYAHOGA COUNTY <a/><br>
<a href="akron.htm"> UNCOUNTED VOTES IN SUMMIT COUNTY <a/><br>
<a href="delaware.htm"> ANOMALOUS PRECINCTS IN DELAWARE CITY <a/><br>
<a href="provisional.htm"> PROVISIONAL BALLOTS IN CUYAHOGA COUNTY <a/><br>
<a href="certifiable.htm"> CERTIFIABLE ELECTION RESULTS <a/><br>
<a href="lorain.htm"> GETTING OUT THE VOTE IN LORAIN COUNTY <a/><br>
<a href="youngstown.htm"> DEFAULT SETTINGS IN MAHONING COUNTY <a/><br>
<a href="hamilton.htm"> PURGING THE VOTER ROLLS IN HAMILTON COUNTY <a/><br>
<a href="burglary.htm"> ANOTHER THIRD RATE BURGLARY <a/><br>

<

[m.standridge]

5. Yes, there, too. It's .PDF

[bluestateguy]

6. What discipline is he?

If he's a mathematician, I've heard enough. Mathematicians have no business doing political science.

[papau]

7. political science undergrad n/t

n/t

[newscott]

8. Thanks for the info! n/t

[Freddie Stubbs]

14. So he's not a professor?

:shrug:

[EFerrari]

19. Dr. Phillips is not an undergrad! lol n/t

[papau]

43. On the way to a PHD he took a poli-Sci undergrad degree

:-)

[rdmccur]

13. ??

Einstein had insights into civil affairs that were profound!

[k8conant]

50. How many computer programmers have degrees in Poli. Sci?

Adding up votes is mathematical last I knew.

[Wilms]

9. Well this confirms it.

* is now * *

:grr:

[m.standridge]

10. this, against the backdrop of the Toledo burglary

in late October of the Democratic offices with nothing taken except computer data, even though money was present;
the fake "terrorist alert" that allowed Warren County elections officials to delay the entry of Democratic and objective observers into the elections building on the excuse of "checking i.d.";
computer techs pulling innards out of computers going into the recounts in at least three counties.

In other words, this is mostly not computer-related, this is ballots, actual balloting data, data pertaining to recording of ballots.
The only thing indicated by the computer data, would be that there was an even more bogus quality to Bush's lead in Ohio.

Like the guy who gets executed ANYWAY in Texas, even though they now know he's guilty but the system won't let anything stop it--
here we are. We've got the NUMBERS now.

THEY CAN NO LONGER SAY "While this wouldn't have turned the election around." Or, they can, but that would reveal--once again, like that federal deficit--their mathematical deficiencies.

[Amaryllis]

26. Almost all Dem leaders are math challenged. I have been saying this for 2

months. I don't understand how they can keep parroting "not enough to change the election."

[read the law first]

16. Now that's a good post!

It took a few seconds to figure it out, but that's a great post.

[Wilms]

23. Much appreciated...

but I'll never catch up with yours.

In fact, you could post blanks and, because of your "handle" alone, they'd be the most intelligent ones on a given thread, Read The Law First!

[Botany]

11. Now you tell us ......

....... ow! I live in Ohio. Hurt.

[m.standridge]

12. You know, this was dated 1/8/05

but I SWEAR I didn't see it yesterday. (1/10).
Anyway, what can we do now? Is it too late? Did Conyers have this already? Anyone know?
If he didn't, he'd need it.
Maybe he had something to this effect.
But I think it's not really that, it's the fact this is finally out here, where the general public can get it.
Can we get this into the MSM, now that the election challenge has finally brought 2004 election fraud onto TV?
It seems to me, that at least a couple of very worthwhile things have happened this past few days:

1. The Senator stood up, and the TV cameras caught it.
2. The challenge protest got international attention, people were there in DC from all over the earth.
3. These numbers show Kerry probably carried Ohio. Our system requires that the person who won the Electoral College, wins the White House.

How much should we tolerate, in the way obsfuscation, at this point, on these number issues?

[EFerrari]

20. Dr. Phillips was working for Cliff. I'm sure this information is

available to John Conyers.

[EFerrari]

21. Yep. But we don't let up, Botany. Hang in with us. n/t

[Botany]

32. I will but it hard.

I feel like I am trapped in a very bad movie with a simple plot.

You see a murder
You know it took place
Nobody believes you
The body is hidden
But every day you see more proof of the crime
the proof is not hard to find
and the bad guys are bragging

just like tomorrow ken blackwell will be speaking 3 miles from my house
at a country club on ethics.

[EFerrari]

38. That's right. All true. Hang in anyway. nt

[read the law first]

15. This is better, but I wonder.....

This is at least starting to attack the margin, so it's a dramatic improvement in focus.

The question that we need to be prepared for, among others, is "If you're the in house musician at a restaurant somewhere in New York, what credentials do you have to say that an Ohio voter should have, could have, would have voted in a particular way?" There's a whole bunch of "it is expected, it is assumed, it is anticipated that voters would cast votes this way or that way, etc.

What studies, other than this admittedly monumental undertaking, have YOU personally conducted of Ohio voters' attitudes or voting patterns other than your analysis of the 2004 Theft?"

But I applaud the effort and recognize that he's at least starting to attack the margin. At least he's finally shooting at the right target, so I applaud the effort and look forward to seeing the final results. I'm feeling much, much better about the focus now that it's finally addressing itself to the margin.

[m.standridge]

25. Fortunately, too, Phillips has some very solid academic credentials

for precisely this kind of work. I forget the phrase, but it is a highly-specialized area, involving the examination of "anomalies in statistical data."
The fact he can get it this close, also, helps strengthen the idea that the variances in the nature of the data he cites--the "disenfranchisement" issue versus the "non counting and mis-counting" issues--can be tackled separately, with both a long-run and a shorter-run approach. The shorter-run, is the illustration that there were enough "uncounted and miscounted" ballots that were actually cast, to turn the state around. The longer-term, is ensuring that all the instances of disenfranchisements are reported and reacted to appropriately, with whatever is required in the way of legislation.
Where I become more pessimistic, is that longer term area. If we can't get this shorter-term data across, we don't have enough clout to get any action, of any kind.
Why I am more hopeful, is that these numbers that represent the hope for that short run approach, are out in the public domain now.
One final note: this kind of thing is very slow going. It's not his fault, that he can't post this before now. You have to do this right, and it trickles in. It's almost maddening, because everyone is in such a HURRY. You have all these deadlines. That's why this is frustrating, even though the numbers are there.

[Joe Chi Minh]

57. Ecstatic, I'll bet.

[Fly by night]

17. Just a couple of comments and questions about the two pages posted

First, it appears that Phillips has done a great job of documenting and enumerating the serious problems with the Ohio vote, and I am among the thousands of people who are grateful for his work. My main question has to do with his methodology. I presume he will be writing up a longer paper soon that tells the reader how he came up with the numbers and estimates he arrives at. As a social scientist myself, that is my main question and I look forward to learning more about his research methods.

Now a couple of comments: Phillips says that the 15 counties he has studied so far account for 62% of Ohio's population, so if we extrapolate from what he has found so far, the vote shift might be around 150,000 from Bush to Kerry once the entire state is studied. It might be even better if the Busies tampered with the rural vote more than the urban vote. (For example, I would like to know where the Triad tabulators were clustered.)

My second comment is that many of Phillips' findings do suggest manipulation of the vote count, impossible absentee vote counts vs. absentee voters, impossible turnouts (low and high) in some precincts, etc. All of these are important and the evidence he has uncovered that would lead to the reversal of these problems would directly affect the vote count. However, two problems he mentions have to do with depressing the vote, which is a different order of problem. Here are those examples, from Phillips' paper:
------------
Columbus -- Stealing Votes in Columbus -- Discriminatory allocation of voting machines led directly to favoritism in the Suburbs higher voter turnout in Bush precincts (60%) than in Kerry precincts (50%), costing Kerry 17,000 votes.

Toledo -- Rigging the Vote in Lucas County -- Systematic voter suppression activities, perhaps facilitated by the another third rate burglary at Lucas County Democratic Party headquarters, led directly to lower vote counts (estimate -- 7,000) in Democratic precincts in Toledo.
-----------
What he is describing here is voter suppression activity (he uses those words in the Toledo example), not "stealing" votes or "rigging the vote", as I would understand those terms. Plus, doing thing to suppress the vote (which Ohio Busies obviously did everywhere two or more Democrats were gathered together) would keep these votes from being cast and would leave nothing to be retrieved in a legitimate recount effort. Short of a revote, those votes would not be retrievable in any manner.

I would like him to perhaps tone down the language in these two sections and avoid creating the impression that there are misallocated or miscounted votes in those two examples that could be moved to Kerry's column (or at least subtracted from Bush's) with an above-board investigation. These two examples are of uncast votes, which (short of a revote) are not available to be retrieved and reallocated. In fact, my guess is that the "uncast vote for Kerry" totals might approach 100,000 (or more) by themselves, if everyone in Ohio who wanted to vote had been encouraged to do so and no impediments had been placed in their way of voting.

My point is it might be good to keep the documentation of examples of misallocated, uncounted and artifically inflated vote totals separate from the estimates of the "uncast" votes. Either way, if Phillips' research methodologies pass muster and his findings of wrongdoing continue to appear in the unstudied-so-far counties (where one-third of Ohio's population lives), he should be able to show pretty definitively that Ohio is and was a blue state that elected John Kerry as our President.

Thanks for sharing his two page summary and my compliments to Dr. Phillips and his colleagues. I look forward to the full paper, with methodology, that assesses the entire state (soon, I hope).

[read the law first]

18. What he said. n/t

[EFerrari]

22. Fly, you might direct your comments to him. His link is up

early in the thread.

I know that when I work on elaborate projects, most of the time I'm grateful for other eyes to run over my work.

My understanding, from reading the Nashua Advocate's article, is that Dr. Phillips had a team of people working with him.

[Philly Buster]

44. I only skimmed Dr Phillips findings

When he used the word "stealing" I stopped. That's tin foil stuff for right now.

Also, it seems he's doing more studying than counting. I could have misread something though.

Further, not all votes will be counted in any election. Not all votes are valid. Ballots do get spoiled and it's usually the voter who spoils the ballot(as an election judge I know that for a fact). Provisional ballots are given to voters who do not appear on the rolls. By nature they are problem ballots. What surprised me about the percentage of provisional ballots that were validated in Ohio is that the number was higher than I expected. That tells me the BOE offices need to address their poor registration data. But since BOE offices in Ohio are bipartisan by law, that doesn't mean fraud occurred, just gross incompetence.

[Fly by night]

45. When Blackwell appoints the county election board members ...,

they may not be as bipartisan as they seem. There is no litmus test for registering for either party, so anyone could register in the Democratic Party and be appointed by Blackwell -- regardless of their true political leanings or motives. I know, since I registered Republican in Wyoming because that state's primaries are closed. As a result, the only way to have an influence on local politics is to vote in the Republican primary. There were some local (Wyoming) Republican County Commissioner candidates who were worth supporting, so I registered Repug. But if someone had appointed me to any position as a result, they would have appointed a Democrat in Repug/wolf's clothing.

In all the investigations that are underway, I would want to know more about the "Democratic" appointees to the county election boards that Blackwell made in key counties. They may not all be what they seem also.

[Pacifist Patriot]

46. You make very very good points...

both with respect to Phillips' methodology/language concerns and party registration. I too register Republican when I will have more influence in their primaries.

[anamandujano]

48. glad you pointed that out

I thought I remembered reading that Blackwell appointed all the BOE people but didn't save the article.

And then of course, he claimed that for fraud to take place the dems would have to be involved. Well, if he appointed them, they are suspect dems by nature and in his pocket at least.

[Patsy Stone]

49. Here's a .pdf of a case from findlaw.com

where it states he appoints the BoEs. This was the provisional ballot suit, I think.

http://news.findlaw.com/hdocs/docs/election2004/scheringblack110204cmp.pdf

Also, from the Ohio SoS
website:
http://www.sos.state.oh.us/sos/blackwell/duties.htm

"As Ohio's chief election officer, Secretary of State J. Kenneth Blackwell oversees the elections process and appoints the members of boards of elections in each of Ohio's 88 counties."

What Are They Hiding? :)

[Philly Buster]

51. It would be difficult for Blackwell to appoint very many R s as stealth

Democrats. A few maybe but not enough to be consequential. It would be too obvious and the locals would know who's who in reality.

[Fly by night]

53. It wouldn't be that hard, if this plan has been in the works for years

as Karl Rove says it has. Here in Tennessee, we have more than enough people who have assumed positions of authority in our state and local Democratic Party apparatus who did all the wrong things in the last election (first and foremost, giving the Kerry campaign no support whatsoever) and who impress me as DINOs (Democrats In Name Only). Plus, you can find too many "get along and go along" Democrats everywhere (including a few on DU), so finding some long-time Dem hangers-on to appoint who would be passive or low energy or dense in any serious debate over election policy would also not be hard.

Again, I would want to know who was appointed in Ohio as the Dem reps in critical counties, what their credentials are and whether they were too passive or too tired to do anything but just "go along" when the fit hit the shan. These ain't amateurs we're dealing with, folks. Slimeballs maybe, but devious (and long-range planning) ones to be sure.

This sounds like a good story line for the freepress folks. How about it, guys? (Readers, please PM the freepress folks with this idea -- I'm having email problems today, as are many others.)

[Patsy Stone]

55. I know

But someone asked where this was posted.

I don't trust Kathy as far as I can throw him. My one and only New Year's Resolution (since the re-selection of * has caused me to lose any weight I would have thought needed to be lost) is to find out what the heck is up with that man. He stinks.

If we can't get non-partisan SoS positions, or make campaigning for a candidate while holding that office a conflict of interest before the midterm elections, we will have failed in a major objective of moving towards free and fair elections.

There should not be even the slightest whiff of impropriety involved in the elections process. It is a fundamental building block of our democracy and it must be carried out in as pure and transparent a method as possible.

[m.standridge]

59. Fitrakis has mentioned this at freepress.org. And the Warren County

incident, for one, has been grossly misrepresented by the later media stories as still allowing "bipartisan and objective" observers into the building during the counting, after the terror alert.

In fact, a key incident was mentioned by the Kerry/Edwards lawyer right at the start, in the first media stories: that the independent observers were DELAYED in getting back into the building, with only GOP personnel in the building for those few minutes.

It's that delay, in the Warren County incident, that may be the pivotal matter there. That was obsfuscated by later media coverage.

[Joe Chi Minh]

56. "Provisional ballots

are given to voters who do not appear on the rolls. By nature they are problem ballots".

Were there not many people in traditionally Dem-leaning minority districts, who wanted to vote in the conventional manner, but were told to make provisional votes?

If so, the above is very woolly thinking on your part. Are you a confrere of Messrs Read the law only if you have to and Wilms?

[Philly Buster]

64. If someone name is in the voter registration book they are to vote

the conventional way for that precinct. There is no reason to give them a provisional ballot. In fact, there are reasons why poll workers wouldn't give them a provisional ballot. Number 1 it would be illegal. Number 2 it's a pain in the ass and takes time and effort away from the regular voting process. On a busy election day you would have to be crazy. Number 3 it's more work after the polls close on a long day in which you're tired, aggravated, and just want to get home.

Now if someone comes in and their name isn't in the book then you try to find out why. First you ask them are you sure you're registered. They always say yes. Then you ask them where they live to find out if they are in the correct precinct for voting. A lot of times they're in the wrong place and so you send them to their correct polling place. If they say they're registered, and if they live in the precinct, then they get a provisional ballot. Then it is up to the BOE in the days following the election, not the poll worker, to determine the legitimacy of the voter. If there was a clerical error or if the person just recently moved everything is fine and the vote gets counted.

So in a nutshell if someone's name is in the book they are going to vote conventionally. That's why I say that provisional ballots indicate there is a problem. But they sometimes solve a problem; e.g., a clerical error.

[m.standridge]

66. well, and I've been a little uncomfortable previously

with some of the county or precinct-level data when it indicated "more votes than registered voters" in some of the Democratic-oriented areas of Ohio, in the Phillips data, because this could have the potential to actually "backfire" on the Democrats.
It didn't seem to involve a whole lot of votes, but it was possible that some elections clerks, had gone ahead and let people cast Provisional ballots in some precincts that weren't actually their home precincts, as required by the "new" Blackwell rule (he was enforcing a rule that was technically in place but had been "bent" a few times).
This had kept me from backing all of Phillips' data until I saw something to indicate there was enough data out there, clearly pro-Kerry data, that could still give Kerry a lead, even if these particular stats backfired on the Dems. Now, with this set of added-up numbers, Phillips's data is showing the potential to overcome any such backfire effect.

[m.standridge]

58. What I think is most impressive

about this new file of Dr. Phillips, is that he is fianlly starting to add up all the various discrepancies, and coming to some totals.
It's more the overall potential political impact it will have, once this process is completed and he can give some exact numbers as to what Kerry's possible lead was, in Ohio, that will have the most impact.

I can respect that you're an election judge. What I am referring to, is the political impact of exact numbers, added up numbers, on the political climate. No one has ever added these up like this, before. Phillips has had his hands full, just putting this data together.

There's just a lot too much of this, that always ended up favoring Bush, to believe it's all just due to incompetence. Some, maybe, but even that ends up adding to the pro-Kerry totals.

What's exciting, is that we finally have numbers showing that, once this is completed, we'll have a specific number to cite as the amount of Kerry's lead in Ohio. That has a real, concrete quality to it.

[AirAmFan]

52. For an example of a methodology that pinpoints specific precincts where

actual physical evidence of miscounted ballots is likely to be found, see post #13 at http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=172&topic_id=5139 . Both miscounts penalizing Kerry and miscounts penalizing Bush had equal chances to be revealed by this methodology, which focuses on polling places where incredibly high proportions of votes went to Badnarik and Peroutka. But according to my calculations, because high vote proportions for minor candidates were concentrated where Kerry took overwhelming proportions of the major-party vote, miscounting due to "ballot rotation" trimmed Kerry's margin compared to Bush by a net of more than 1000 votes in Cuyahoga alone. See also post #47 below.

I agree with you that it is VITAL to distinguish between lost votes that could only be regained through a re-vote, and lost votes that would be regained through a recount.

[Straight Shooter]

24. My friends were sooooo hoping I would calm down for a while

Not with this kind of news I won't :evilgrin:

[jdog]

28. Same here. lol

So where would this take us, if this information holds? Would this be a new lawsuit filed?

[Bill Bored]

27. The biggest one is at the top of Page 2

I have been posting about this since my first day on DU.
These 3 counties should have had a full hand recount.
Altogether, there are 12 like this, and 4 in which the reverse is true, i.e., that Judge Moyer got more votes in his race than Bush did.

But in the aggregate, Bush got 150,000 more votes than Kerry in these 16 counties, and as the good Dr. says, in these three, Butler, Clermont and Warren, Bush got more than his entire statewide margin of victory over Kerry.

Now why hasn't anybody, after all this haranguing, just recounted these three lousy counties by hand?

[m.standridge]

30. but, see, you have to do THE WHOLE DAMN STATE. It's SLOW GOING

--or the GOP and the media--and the courts, apparently--say you're "cherry picking".
So, that's why this takes so damn long, because it takes awhile for just a few individuals to put all this together, with no help at all from the state gov't, and probably a little delay, resistance, here and there.

Then, when you finally get enough numbers to start to have some clout--bong--time's up!
You lose.

[Bill Bored]

31. So cherry pick, WTF?

Blackwell did it. 3% of precincts, not randomly selected. Illegal.

Are you saying that Ohio law says you have to recount the whole state? No picking of counties? If you do some counties where you're most likely to have been ripped off, you can decide based on the results where to go next.

The way it was actually done was meaningless.

I realize the recount was actually the Glibs' effort, not Arnebeck's, and not Kerry's but if you want to affect that margin, you have to go where the count is most likely to be off.

As far as the clock running out, what statute of limitations is there on something like this? If we find that Kerry won Ohio, unequivocally, not by 3 out of 5 counting methods, etc. and not the day after a major terrorist attack, why can't anything be done? I'm not saying Congress would agree, but the case could be made and the court of public opinion is always in session!

[m.standridge]

33. God, I hope you're right--because that is what's

about to happen. Phillips' numbers are already showing us this. So you don't think there's a deadline?
What about the MSM, and the "Bush v. Gore" thing about recounting the whole state by a "statewide standard"?
Anyway, my point is, Phillips's work is meeting that standard, it's just slower going than the time-frame allows for.
Hopefully within a few hours, we'll have Phillips' complete data, and have a definitive statement: Kerry carried Ohio. He's really saying that, here.

[Bill Bored]

42. Well, I'd have to defer to the lawyers of course but

the truth is the truth. I think they may want more proof than just his stats though, even though stats are part of the proof. We'll see. There's a good thread about ballot order in some Ohio counties that's starting to point to Clermont too.

[dogindia]

29. off top of head...we need a good prosecutor

got to take this into criminal land. Just a thought

good work.

[berniew1]

34. There is also documentation of vote machine fraud, other fraud, dirty tric

dirty tricks that affected large numbers of votes. Systematic fraud and dirty tricks that affect large numbers of votes should not be allowed, irregardless of whether the number affected was 50,000 or 150,000. It should be investigated, documented, and prosecuted. Winners who used fraud and systematic dirty tricks should not be allowed to benefit from corrupt and illegal practices.

There was also systematic voter suppression in Ohio along with the dirty tricks(mostly in minority precincts)
http://www.flcv.com/cuyahovs.html
http://www.flcv.com/cuyahoga.html
http://northnet.org/minstel/alpage.htm Columbus & Cleveland
http://www.flcv.com/cuyahopb.html

There were similar in Florida and other states-
Florida dirty tricks http://www.flcv.com/dirtytrf.html
Suppression and Malfeasance http://www.flcv.com/EIRSFla2.html
Pennsylvania V M F http://www.flcv.com/mercerco.html
Texas V M F http://www.flcv.com/texas.html
Lousiana V S http://www.flcv.com/neworlea.html
Washington VMF http://www.flcv.com/snohomis.html
Calif. VMF http://www.flcv.com/orangets.html
etc.

[m.standridge]

35. absolutely! But in the real world, it takes CLOUT

--some political and, thereby, legal, clout, to take on the Republican party on the issue of election fraud.
I mean, this would be tough, if it were the Democratic Party we were taking on, on this issue.
But, we're taking on the REPUBLICAN PARTY.
Money. Lots and lots and lots of MONEY.
So you have to have some short-term clout going in. That's all. I don't disagree with a word you've said. It's a matter of methodology. You get these numbers that show you've carried the state in the short run, that get people's attention.
In the future, I hope we can get it to where, we won't have to have the short-run data, necessarily. Because, in principle, disenfranchisement and computer rigging without a paper trail, is also illegal, as you say, and must be stopped for a democracy to really be safe.
But right now, we have to have the short term data to get politicians emboldened to take these very, very rich and very, very powerful people on.

[berniew1]

36. There should be followup affidavits of the thousands affected and file

ethics complaints, documentation to proper authorities and prosecutors, Conyers committee, etc. If this is done by large numbers as it should be, it would get attention. Flagrant widespread fraud and illegal dirty tricks and suppression/malfeasance should not be allowed to go unpunished.

[m.standridge]

37. OK--go ahead

[emlev]

39. Additional info and clarifications about RH Phillips's work

First I want to say that I started another thread on this article, "Estimated Vote Count in Ohio," as soon as the article was posted. Link:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=203&topic_id=269850

I have been coordinating this project for Richard Hayes Phillips on a volunteer basis for the last six weeks. I am in regular contact with him and know his work and his team well. What I have to say here comes from that perspective.

First, for those of you who appreciate his work but may not read to the end of this post, I'll say this: he is working on a volunteer basis, very long days, seven days a week. He could really use some financial support. Donations to him can be tax deductible if made through The Free Press and earmarked for Richard Hayes Phillips, Ph.D.
Make checks out to CICJ:
"Columbus Institute for Contemporary Journalism"
and send to:
The Free Press
1240 Bryden Road
Columbus, Ohio 43205
Thank you.

Richard Hayes Phillips's deposition in Moss v. Bush can be read here:
http://freepress.org/images/departments/Dep_Phillips.pdf

It includes a lengthy explanation of his background that will help you understand why he is qualified to do this sort of data analysis. His expertise is in finding anomalous data, which is exactly what he has been doing here.

Dr. Phillips has been acting as the lead statistician in Moss v. Bush. So yes, Cliff Arnebeck has his information. Bob Fitrakis of Free Press entered Dr. Phillips's reports into the Congressional record at Rep. Conyers's first forum (that we're not allowed to call a hearing) in D.C. Richard has of late also been working directly with Rev. Jesse Jackson. We do not know if his work has been viewed by John or Cam Kerry.

It will be far more than "a few hours" before analysis of the other 73 counties can be completed. While Richard has a team of analysts and others working with him, it is his professional reputation on the line and he must go over all the data carefully himself, a process that cannot be speeded up beyond a certain point. All of his studies to date are posted on his website, linked in the first post in this thread.

I'm confused about how m. standridge got the 100 vote figure in the first post. The numbers don't add up that way to me.

I appreciate all the comments here and will forward them to Richard.

One thing that's important to note is that he has been able to find all of these votes that should have been Kerry's without benefit of much of the evidence that exists, because he does not have standing to obtain it. If someone were to be able to obtain evidence such as actual ballots and ballot images, this work could move a lot more quickly and reveal even more.

Whether or not Dr. Phillilps's work proves that Kerry actually won Ohio, it absolutely calls into question the veracity of the claims that Bush did.

If you want to help with Dr. Phillips's work in ways other than financial contribution, please publicize his work (not your interpretation of it, but his actual work) and/or offer other resources you may have (you can PM me). If you live in Ohio and would be willing to go to BOE offices in the counties that have not yet supplied us with data, that would be very helpful.

Thank you for your enthusiastic support of our work.

[AirAmFan]

47. emlev: Is Phillips's work coordinated with Arnebeck's legal demands

for priority manual recounts?

Statistical work could pinpoint the location of PHYSICAL EVIDENCE of vote miscounting, depending on how ballots are stored after an election, and for how long they are kept intact!

For example, manual inspection of ballots counted for precincts with incredibly high proportions for Badnarik and Peroutka could lead to physical evidence of what I've called "Ohio Caterpillar Ballot crawl".

Where multiple precincts with different ballot orders had long lines and chaotic conditions, thousands of Ohioans evidently waited hours to vote, punched out the chad next to Kerry's name, but added to Bush's "margin of victory" because their votes were miscounted for other candidates, not for John Kerry.

In post #13 at http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=172&topic_id=5139 I list 33 specific suspect Cuyahoga polling places together comprising 79 precincts. This work, and work that other people are doing with publicly-available data for other Ohio counties, identifies SPECIFIC PRECINCTS where significant numbers of ballots are highly likely to have been miscounted.

If it still is possible physically to inspect all the ballots that were used to generate each line of the precinct-by-precinct "Canvass Report" online at http://boe.cuyahogacounty.us/boe/results , then a hand recount of those specific precincts could include inspection of the BACK of all ballots. Certainly for Benedictine High's precincts Cleveland 4F (#1806) and Cleveland 4N (#1814) (see post #5 in my thread), and very likely for all of the precincts identified there, such inspection would be very fruitful.

It would very likely find more than a thousand Cuyahoga ballots that were counted for one precinct, but stamped on the back in blue with the name of another precinct. And less conservative definitions of excessive votes for minor party candidates than I used, plus recovery of precinct tallies for "Disqualified Candidate", would lead to recovery of hundreds or thousands of additional votes in Cuyahoga alone. (See the notes at the end of post #6 in that same thread.)

County-by-county application of the methodology developed in that thread, or similar methodologies, could lead to recovery of thousands to tens of thousands of miscounted votes if the ballots used to generate Ohio precinct tallies still are intact and stored together.

Does any of Phillips's work similarly pinpoint precincts that should be given high priority for recount?

[emlev]

54. Yes, and he knows of your work

but it certainly wouldn't hurt for you to send it directly to Arnebeck.

[AirAmFan]

62. How quickly info gets disseminated on the 'net, and to the right people!

I just posted that thread yesterday, at http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=172&topic_id=5139 . I'd appreciate your comments if you can spare any time at all to glance at it.

I'm wondering in particular how many of the 33 suspect polling places listed in post #13 have notations of "long lines" or other chaotic conditions in your EIRS reports. All Cuyahoga polling places had equal chances to make that list, regardless how solidly they went for Kerry. I suspect that 30 out of 33 of the suspect polling places went for Kerry because the chaotic conditions necessary for significant "Caterpiillar Ballot crawl" were concentrated in resource-poor pro Kerry precincts on Election Day.

[emlev]

65. EIRS data on Cuyahoga

Good questions.
In general, there are more complaints in the EIRS from precincts where the Election Protection Coalition had teams at the polls. Voters were much more likely to report problems to someone standing right there asking them how it went when they voted than to call in to the hotline. I'm not sure which Cuyahoga precincts had EPC teams; certainly not all of them.

A volunteer on our team went over the Cuyahoga EIRS data and correlated complaints with precinct numbers/polling place locations when that info was available. I want to be clear that this is not something that Dr. Phillips has reviewed, but the volunteer is known to me personally and I trust his work. If you would like a copy of that so you can check into this question further, please PM me with your email address.

Of course, you can look at the EIRS data yourself, but why not take advantage of the many hours of work someone has already put in to pulling it all together?

[m.standridge]

60. thanks for clarifying and it's good to know Conyers has these

latest additions.
Sorry it's going to take longer than a few hours.
As for the 100 votes, that was an estimate based on Phillips's statement that his current 101,020 Bush margin loss--which would bring hin to a 16,000 vote lead--was "conservative" and that "the truth might be somewhere in between", and given that 20,000 to 50,000 votes may have changed hands in addition to what he was factoring in, in a conservative analysis.

The purpose of my post is to encourage people that the statistics are starting to look more concrete. And the power of simple addition in a political climate such as this, is TREMENDOUS.

Once you can start getting a Kerry lead figure out there, to the general public, the size of Kerry's lead, based on EVERYTHING in the statistics in Ohio, starts to take on a certain political power. When it's finally revealed--you say, not in hours, but maybe in weeks--that Kerry probably has a lead in Ohio, this will change the picture for numerous situations the Democrats are grappling with right now, such as the ability to influence the GOP in negotiationa about election reform legislation.

And, while I appreciate that the details are still to come in, the data Professor Phillips has now posted, are trending strongly enough to Kerry to make the likelihood of his having a lead in Ohio--again, based on ALL the data, not just data that would come from a recount--to make the posting seem justified. This is the first time we've had specific, added up numbers for the whole state tha show Kerry with the very real potential for a lead. And what's left, is small enough, to be taken care of, in terms of whether there's a Kerry lead or not, within a few more hours, even though the exact and full extent of the lead would, indeed, take longer.

I recognize that Professor Phillips isn't interested in larger implications like that, but the political climate is such, that this is much of the real impact. It will very likely also be the historical impact, as well.

I greatly appreciate his hard work, and yours. As I've painstakingly said over and over in this thread, THIS IS SLOW GOING--and Dr. Phillips has to, and wants to, do this right. But by finally arriving at some stats indicating the very real likelihood of a Kerry lead in Ohio, given all the data, he has given very real impetus--post "deadline"--to the idea that Bush didn't win the election of 2004.

There are major differences between a legally-impactng recount, a revote, an adjudication of the Ohio results, and a non-legally-binding recount done for (in actuality) political purposes. All of these have arguements for them. Dr. Phillips's data, combined, shows what a powerful argument can be raised for each of them.
Thank you again.

[emlev]

61. I agree, except with this part

"I recognize that Professor Phillips isn't interested in larger implications like that."

Whatever gave you that idea?

[m.standridge]

63. Good point. He's interested!

I just didn't want to open him to an accusation of some agenda or something.
He's a reputable academic. He will let the facts speak for themselves.
What I'm excited about, is what the facts are saying.
What I get a little impatient about this, with the academic material (there was some material about Florida which got into a situation similar to this, as you may recall), is that the general public doesn't, early on, get a real, lay interpretation of it that shows how it impacts on their lives.
In this case, the fact Phillips' people finally did this addition, was very heartening. If I'm accused of excessive optimism or spinning, that's ok. As long as it's clear that the very real implication of the data, is that it's looking more all the time like Bush didn't carry Ohio, and that this means he didn't really win the 2004 Presidential election.
This website/forum is frequented by people who aren't always highly-academic people. The power of people like that, is information and numbers. For the general public, the publication at a general public-accessible Site, (i.e., Freepress.org), of added-up numbers of the Ohio ballots that show it likely Kerry had a lead in Ohio, and revealing the data's eventual potential to tell us the numerical figure of that lead, is exciting and has real, political potential.

We're cutting new ground here, and we don't really know what time-frames we have to work with in terms of any action we take. We know we have an intimidated, and seemingly indifferent-to-hostile mainstream media and a GOP-controlled federal government (all three branches). I just want ordinary people to know about these numbers and how they add up. They're the best weapon we've got.
It was time to let them know.

[grasswire]

67. set up a paypal account...

...if you want to maximize donations. That's the way to spur contributions from netizens. I'm ready to donate, as soon as a paypal user name for this is provided.

[icehenge]

40. Full hand recount - Definition

To have a full hand recount would that mean all
records are recounted or voters return to polls
to cast their ballots again?

[emlev]

41. recount vs. revote

Recount means the ballots that were cast would be recounted. It's a bit of a misnomer, since so many of them haven't been counted once! I don't know if it would include revisiting the disqualification of specific provisional ballots.

Revote would mean people return to the polls and vote again--if they got to vote the first time.

Wouldn't it be cool if a "full hand" recount meant Blackwell et al had to show what they're holding in their "full hands" that seem to be forever behind their backs?

What are they hiding?

[icehenge]

68. Thanks

The voting tech terms are a bit misleading, yes.
Thanks for clearing that up.

Any chance Ohio could get a revote on paper ballots.
That'd be interesting.... :party:

[DearAbby]

69. Healthy Kick

:kick:

[Eye_on_prize]

70. Wow-send this to Arnebeck quick.. oh... "case dropped" well never mind

who cares? The train's already left the station...headed for Bush's Inaugeration...the timing of this release is interesting to say the least, and downright suspicious.

[m.standridge]

71. well, I wish it could have been added up earlier

I kept seeing these numerous pages of data, but no one had added everything up, to see how far we were from a Kerry lead or how small Bush's lead had gotten down to.
I think the adding up of it all, was the biggest plus to this posting.

I'm trying not to be suspicious as to the date. It was dated as January 8, 2005, at the Freepress.org posting. That would mean that it was after January 6, 2005 challenge.

Had this been out and about, all over the internet and maybe on the mainstream media, as this added-up data, I think more people would have been more impressed, earlier.

But I've been told in no uncertain terms that this took this long for a very good reason. I don't doubt that it's hard work, and there's still a ways to go. But the hopeful thing is, the numbers are lining up for Kerry and, with them, the Electoral College (in terms of demonstrable numbers).

[Eye_on_prize]

72. I know I'm sounding like one of those "political paranoids" Frist wants to

get on meds in my post. Thanks for posting these numbers and also for your sensible reply. Let me say it is indeed heartening to see these numbers added up in this way, because it shows that Dems were being -- if anything --- exceedingly generous during their Jan6 challenge by saying that "we're not contesting the outcome".

[KatieB]

74. But Arnebeck will continue using other venues...send it

[KatieB]

73. kick

[KatieB]

75. Also send to Conyers who is still pursuing all leads