Question about OHIO Judicial Races

[Bill Bored]

Well, I just posted about something else, saw it was a dupe, and am changing it to this:

I noticed that the reason why Connolly beat Kerry in some counties is that the judicial races in Ohio were much closer in 2004 and 2000 than in 2002. Is this because turnout was higher, or because of some other more sinister reason?

In 2000 there were counties in which Gore got fewer votes than judicial candidates too. I haven't had time to compare them all, but the usual suspects, Butler, Clermont and Warren counties are examples of this.

But in 2002, the judicial races were all landslides, with margins of 2 or 3 to one in favor of the winners. The losers in these races would probably NOT have outpolled any Presidential or US Senate candidates if there had been any in 2002. This was not the case in 2000 and 2004. Anyone got any theories about this?

[Botany]

1. Ohio Guy here

Connelly had more votes then Kerry in 19 of 88 counties.

All from south or western counties in the state. Nobody in those counties knew
her. She was a liberal black female judge from Cleveland. The repug running
against her got tens of thousands of votes less then * ....... "

[Bill Bored]

2. I know that but...

...in 2000, there were judges that got more votes than Al Gore in some of those counties. So my point is that this isn't that unusual, at least in Ohio.

The question is:

Is it indicative of fraud in 2000 as well as 2004? Or is it indicative of something else?

And why were the judicial races not as close in 2002? They were absolute landslides!

Look at the results here and see what you think, particularly in Butler, Clermont and Warren, which we know are Shrub country:

http://www.sos.state.oh.us/sos/results/index.html

Also, is it true that judges' parties aren't even shown on the ballots? They aren't shown on the SOS's website. What's up with THAT?

[autorank]

3. What a night in ERD!!!! 2002, gee what's different about that & 2000&2004

Well, I've called the "Central Office" and I've been told that 2000 and 2004 were both presidential elections. During those spectacles, people think long and hard about who the judge is going to be and generally forget the top of the ticket. What on earth is this about, seriously? Maybe they're moving votes from presidential to judicial candidates, as in "oops" plausible deni-ability. It makes no sense. Bill, why don't you and TIA collaborate again and do some probabilities on this for Ohio. There's a good track record. This could be the dog that couldn't bark or something but it just screams, particularly in view of 2002.

Here's one you should look at also,
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=203&topic_id=384458&mesg_id=384458
given the vibe this evening.

What strikes me is, if there was foul play in 2000/2004 involving the "judges," why would they be so dumb as to let 2002 pop up in between? (Probably because they think we're so dumb!) There is clearly a record of the issues in judicial races. If there were none for the three years, 2000-2002-2004, then they blew it; as if our stupid press would ever notice.

This information and the mod mom real-world data are much more compelling than the work Methune did in the DNC report on Ohio. His 100 pages of academic wandering about would have been greatly enhanced by noticing anomalies like yours and those of mod mom. But then again, I believe that the Brazile inspired and led DNC team used the "deductive method," as in Soviet science: conclude then retrofit the "facts."

Great post Bill.

[Bill Bored]

4. This is just preliminary.

I'd still like someone who was there to answer my questions, esp:

Do the judicial candidates have their parties shown on the ballots in Ohio? If not, why not?

We can move on from there.

[Boredtodeath]

5. Don't know about Ohio, specifically, but

Many states label judicial races as "Non-Partisan" and don't show party affiliation anywhere.

Perhaps that's the case in Ohio as well?

[riqster]

6. It is, indeed.

[NoBushSpokenHere]

14. No, the party affilation of the judges are NOT shown on Ohio ballot n/t

[Time for change]

7. I may be wrong but

I don't believe that the potential for widespread fraud existed in 2000, compared to 2004. That's why a lot of fruitful information can be gained, IMO, about the fraud in 2004 by making comparisons with 2000.

Of course there was fraud in Florida in 2000, sufficient to give that state to Bush, and with it the Presidency, but that election was so close that it didn't take many votes to throw it into the Bush column, and when the 5 Supreme Scumbuckets stopped the recount, that was all she wrote.

One reason for believing that relatively little fraud occurred in the 2000 election is that there was very little discrepancy between the official vote count and the exit polls.

[autorank]

8. I agree, but only regarding the votes counted. "Spoilage" is fraud.

1-3 Million votes discarded a year because they are spoiled. Where are the votes from, poor and minority districts. And why is this? Well, lousy machines, dirty machines, careless poll workers, understaffed polling sites causing problems.

Year in and year out this happens. It's another form of fraud and the really appalling thing ... the Democrats get screwed on this and year in and year out they DO NOTHING.

I am sufficiently distanced from the campaign to let my true opinions on the party loose -- it's a sad state of affairs. You read the DNC report, 100 or so pages for Methune or whatever his name was from Harvard to tell us that it was not stolen in Ohio. This was 1/2 of the report. I'm not thinking too kindly about Dean either. He knows about vote fraud and he surely knows that the report stunk, or he has a few staffers who know.

So the real fraud is the process that allows so many ballots to be thrown out and the fraud of the party of "the working man," "minorities," and the "disenfranchised" allowing so many of their voters to be "disenfranchised." Thanks for nothing DNC bureaucrats.


NEW LEADERS FOR A NEW DEMOCRATIC PARTY

[Time for change]

9. Spoilage is bad but

It can't compare with the ability to electronically change millions of votes for the potential to change the results of an election.

[Bill Bored]

16. But spoilage is a documented fact. The hacking stuff less so.

Sure it's easier to switch votes electronically, but in Ohio, it was mostly punch cards and this is why the Glibs wanted that recount.

The 93,000 undervoted ballots, which were never examined, could have brought Kerry's margin close enough for an automatic statewide recount without the help of the Glibs. And then Kerry would have had to participate!

The more I think about Ohio, the more disappointed I am in Kerry. I cut him a lot of slack last year, but not anymore. Not when those 93,000 votes were never counted and the final margin was only 118,601.

[kster]

11. I agree 100% We need to

send fair warning to our Dem and honest Repug leaders, NO MONEY if they don't work toward banning the electronic voting machines NOW ! There is far to much evidence documented and online about these machines. The voting machines steal votes. Plain and simple !

I'm hoping the Mckinney report is the start of something and or lights a fire under their asses, but unless I see these politicians working toward banning the machines (forget about reform) my money stays in the bank.

If they want me to donate,only to have my vote counted in secret,they got another thing coming. If the e-voting is not banned,I'll show up on election day, I'll even dress up as a voter and I'll go along with their charade, all because I know it didn't cost me nothing. But instead of going home and watching vote returns on make believe TV,
I'll go fishing.

[mgr]

10. Numbers and data would be nice.

What you offer is qualitative not quantitative, so it's hard to get the brain wrapped around it.

1. The first question to pose is who are the incumbents and who are the challengers? Anti-incumbency where the judiciary is viewed as liberal or activist could explain some of the patterns.

2. In 2002 you had a senate race and gubanatorial race that may have turned out voters in numbers similar to 2000, or not? If less, than you might expect only the informed voters participated--this would suggest they may better know the partisan alignment behind the judicial candidates.

3. What were the spin doctors focusing on during 2002? I would assume that if campaign money is available, and not being spent on the uppermost ticket, more media time can be bought to inform voters about downticket candidates and races.

Mike

[Bill Bored]

12. I have some numbers but haven't had a lot of time lately.

In general, it seems that when the judicial races have a margin of 20% or less, i.e., 60-40, the LOSING judicial candidates get MORE votes than the LOSING POTUS candidate in many counties. This is what happened with Connolly "vs." Kerry in 2004. Connolly lost 53-47 (only a 6% margin), and got more votes than Kerry in 16 counties. But this is not unique to her race, or to 2004.

Since I can't tell what party the other judges belong to at the moment, I can't be sure if this is a partisan phenom or something else.

It could be that votes were somehow switched from the losing POTUS candidate to the losing judges, but this would show up as undervotes for POTUS and that's another thing to look for. We know there were 93,000 undervotes in 2004, so, in counties where the judges got more votes than Gore or Kerry, were there also more undervotes for POTUS? Connolly outpolled Kerry by < 30,000 votes in the 16 counties, so these could represent undervotes for POTUS included in the 93,000, but a county by county analysis is needed.

Also, is this something that happens in other states where the judges are not party-identified or is it just an Ohio thing?

In 2002, there was a Gov. race, but no Senate or POTUS race. I still need to check the judicial races in '02 by county, but there were no landslides, i.e., the margins were < 20%. So one might expect that the losing judges would outpoll the losing Gov. in many counties if the pattern were consistent. If not...

As far as conditions to allow fraud in 2000....I'd say they were just about identical to 2004. Blackwell was the SOS for one thing; what more would it take? Punch cards were the primary means of vote counting in 2000, as in 2004, and I'd assume the same private contractors such as Triad were running things. So why would it be different than 2000? In 2000, FL got all the attention; in 2004, it was Ohio. But Shrub won both states in both elections with no way to verify the vote in a timely manner or at all for various reasons -- and either state would have decided the Electoral College in either election, so there was the same motivation to steal it in both states.

So I don't agree with TFC that OH was any less prone to fraud in 2000 than in 2004. But again, I'd like to hear from the locals because they know best!

[riqster]

13. I spent some time on this,

and the reason she outpolled Kerry would seem to be related to the large number of "no presidential choice selected' ballots. Also, Kerry's votes had been flipped in some areas.

Look at the DNC and Conyers reports and do the math.

[Bill Bored]

15. Thanks for your help.

There are so many issues dividing my time at the moment that I haven't been able to finish working on this. What you are saying is certainly one of my theories. I'll look into it but if you'd like to post your numbers, please do!

The exact number of Connolly votes exceeding Kerry's in the 12 counties where she outpolled him was 19,621. There were 93,000 undervotes for President in Ohio, 19,621 of which could have easily been associated with Connolly votes on the same ballots in these 12 counties -- unless those counties had fewer than 19,621 undervotes.

If you're saying there's a definite correlation between undervote by county and the Connolly-Kerry margin, then I think we may have something. But this would probably also have to apply to 2000 when there were losing judges who outpolled Gore in about 40 counties! Got anything on that?

[riqster]

17. No, I'm afraid not

but if you find something on it, let me know!