Did the Hackett race have ballot rotation?

[yourout]

Any chance they stole this one with a ballot rotation scam?

[roseBudd]

1. Ballot rotation is mandated in Ohio. precincts are identified for ...

tabulation in punchcard counties with a header card, wrong header card wrong tabulation results. In a race with only 1 race and two choices that would be an excellent way to cheat but you would have to flip the tabulation in a precinct where you knew the opponent would poll better. The best place to do that would be African American precincts. The only wards that fall into that category were in Cincinnati. Madisonville, Kennedy Heights & Silverton. DUer LiamLaddie knows what precincts these are.

[yourout]

2. Why is there not a text identifier on the ballot?

Rotate the name but make sure the ballot has the canidates name on it
next to the punch and is visible during the punch process not underneth an overlay.

[roseBudd]

3. Dr Doug Jones of the Iniv. of Iowas wrote in an email...

Also Doug Jones said in an email to another DUer:
>
> With all physical ballot systems (punched card, for
> > example), one
> > possible rigging is to tamper with the ballots.
> >
> > With Votomatics, installing the wrong ballot label
> > for the precinct
> > can make trouble. On the Votomatic, the ballot
> > label puts names by
> > holes in the card. If you tabulate hole one as a
> > Bush hole, but your
> > ballot label says hole one is a Kerry hole, of
> > course, you'll switch
> > votes. So, recounters should demand to see the
> > actual ballot labels
> > used on the votomatics in that precinct and check
> > the holes against
> > the tabulation.
> >
> > Similar switches are possible in the printing of
> > mark-sense ballots,
> > but during a recount, they will be easy to check
> > because the names
> > are on the ballot instead of the ballot itself just
> > having numbered
> > holes.
> >
> > I have written it all up, in boring detail, on my
> > web pages. See the
> > tutorials section in
> > http://www.cs.uiowa.edu/~jones/voting/

[Bill Bored]

5. Yes, it really is next to impossible to tell if these things were switched

Chain of custody with witnesses would seem to be the only way.
Maybe this is why Kerry didn't push for a recount?
Or is there a way to tell?

[roseBudd]

6. I think you would have to know exactly which precinct each Votamatic

was assigned to. Serial numbers I guess and shipping invoices. And then you would have to examine each ballot label. If someone did cheat they could pretend it was a mix up. The only deterrent I can think of is how bad you might mess up down ticket races.

For Hackett there was no down ticket.

Shortly after the election I corresponded with a punch card preelection tabulation tester citizen volunteer from Indiana. Because of his info on how IN punch cards work I assumed that the punch card ballots in Ohio had prepunched precinct codes, so that when the ballots are fed into the card reader the program automatically knows how to tabulate that ballot. Not in Ohio, at least not now under SoS Blackwell. In Ohio a stack of ballots from a particular precinct is preceded by a header card that tells the reader which precinct ballot order to tabulate under. Wrong precinct header card = wrong tabulation results.

Knowing what punch cards are capable of and why punches are how they transmit info, I became immediately suspicious. Why not use the technology of punches to transmit precinct number? Was this a Blackwell change or has it always been so.

One of my last communiques with Andy was about whether with his semi-celebrity status he could contact Sherrod Brown former OH SoS and see if it was like that under his tenure. I never heard one way or the other. Any DUer in Brown's district?

[Bill Bored]

9. Please see the new Matt Tiabbi Article.

Maybe you could email him and ask him to ask Brown.

http://www.nypress.com/18/31/news&columns/taibbi.cfm

I also wonder if it was necessary to have so many Bush-Kerry ballot order rotations that could be swapped with each other.

If you really wanted to deter and detect fraud, you'd make it so Bush and Kerry would be swapped with only third party candidates. This would show that there was a problem because you'd have so many third party votes.

Personally, I think it's totally unnecessary to rotate ballot order, except in primaries where you don't want to give one candidate in the same party as the others an edge.

One more thing, in case you haven't seen it, I've found that the Connolly anomaly isn't unique to 2004. There were other judges who lost their races and got more votes than Al Gore in 2000 in a number of counties. So as the LWV is suggesting, there may be long standing problems in Ohio. I'll post some numbers when I get a chance.

[liam_laddie]

8. A-A precincts, Ham Cty, etc.

First, all nine of the Cincinnati wards in CD-2 (107 precincts) went Hackett by a 63.2% vote: 8498-4947. Hackett won (96) precincts, "her" - (11.) Compares to Kerry's 66% win in the city as a whole. My guess is that about 1/3 of the city is in CD-2.

I have a quote from someone who talked to a retired Ohio state senator who said, after the post-census 2000-01 CD-2 gerrymander..."we drew that district so that a Democrat couldn't win in a hundred years..."

Ward 2 (24 precincts, my home!) encompasses most of rosebud's mentioned neighborhoods and went Hackett 1585-808. Ward 1 (24 precincts also) is mostly Mt. Washington, Mt. Lookout and some other eastern in-city areas also went Hackett 1745-1441.

The eastern suburbs in Hamilton County, (18) wards, those abutting Clermont mostly, went "her" - but I haven't done the sub-sums. Hackett won (5) of them.** These areas are mostly up-scale post-WWII neighborhoods, full of McMansions and other signs of affluence. And there are probably a LOT of one-issue voters there, anti-abortion. There're a few big McSturches growing in these zones. To be blunt, to me it's evidence of economic class...if not warfare...heavy skirmishing.
"she" won Hamilton Cty by 25048-23657, 2.86%.

I think there must be an audit of at least 20 Clermont precincts. See some of "Truth is All's" posts. HTH, liam_laddie

** if it helps anyone, I will post the names and results of these
tomorow morning.

[adolfo]

4. Clermont Snapshots

If you look at these snapshots for Clermont you will notice that Hackett's name was listed first. Could be evidence of ballot rotation or just sorting of candidate with highest totals.

http://www.recountflorida.com/modules.php?op=modload&name=Downloads&file=index&req=viewsdownload&sid=4

[roseBudd]

7. I believe the rotation starts with alphabetical order. If a voter goes

to the wrong precinct Votamatic, in a multiprecinct polling place but puts their voted punch card in the right precinct box for collection that punch card is tabulated incorrectly.