DNC Report Conclusion of “No Widespread Fraud” in Ohio Election Disputed

[Time for change]

In June of this year the Democratic National Committee (DNC) issued a report on the 2004 Presidential election in Ohio, in which their most significant (not to mention controversial) conclusion was “strong evidence against the claim that widespread fraud systematically misallocated votes from Kerry to Bush.

The study that led to this conclusion is presented in Section VI of the report, and the conclusion is stated prominently in the Executive Summary of the report. It is based on strong correlations by precinct between the percentage of voters who voted for Kerry on the one hand, with voters who voted for Eric Fingerhut (Democratic candidate for Senate), “No” on Issue 1 (the ban against gay marriage), and the percent of African Americans in the precinct.

Shortly after this study was released I disputed the main conclusion of the DNC report on several grounds in a letter to Howard Dean. The main problem that I had with the report was that it failed to consider the possibility of central tabulator fraud, whereby votes would be electronically and fraudulently deleted from the final precinct counts in Democratic precincts or added in Republican precincts in the same proportion as the actual votes. Nobody can question that this type of fraud would not have altered the correlations calculated in Section VI of the DNC report. However, one problem with this scenario (at least some people consider it a problem) is that this type of fraud would not have produced within precinct discrepancies between the exit polls and the official election results (referred to as WPE, or within precinct error), and yet Ohio demonstrated large discrepancies of this nature, consistent with the large documented discrepancy between the Ohio exit poll and the official Ohio result, of 6.2%.

With regard to the type of fraud that the DNC report purported to rule out (on a scale large enough to change the election results), most people accepted the DNC conclusion, and yet the report was never very clear about how it was determined that a small amount of vote switching within precincts could not have been sufficient to change the election results and yet maintain the strong correlation between the Kerry vote and the other variables that were analyzed.

This analysis tests the DNC conclusion that strong correlations between the Kerry vote and other variables rule out sufficient fraud via vote switching within precincts to have changed the results of the 2004 election in Ohio.


Correlation between Kerry vote versus Fingerhut, Connally, and Gore 2000 vote, and “No” on Issue 1

First I looked at the correlations by county between the Kerry vote, regressed on the Fingerhut vote, Ellen Connally (Democratic candidate for Chief Justice of the Ohio Supreme Court) vote, the Gore 2000 vote, and “No” on Issue 1. I added the Gore 2000 vote to the DNC analysis because, being that it was a Presidential vote it seemed particularly applicable, and I added the Connally vote because of the controversy surrounding the fact that she outpolled Kerry in several Ohio counties in 2004. I deleted the percent of African Americans as a variable because I did not have that data.

The resulting correlation was indeed very strong. Two measures of the degree of correlation in a multivariate regression analysis are the F value and R squared. The F value was 809, and R squared was 0.97.

The variable that most correlated with the Kerry vote was the Gore 2000 vote. Next was “No” on Issue 1 and the Fingerhut vote, which were about equally correlated with the Kerry vote. And last by far was the Connally vote which, strangely, was negatively correlated with the Kerry vote.


Effect on correlation of uniform switching of votes back to Kerry

Next, I attempted to see what would be the effect on the correlation by switching Bush votes back to Kerry. Since the DNC concluded that the switching of sufficient votes to change the results of the election would result in correlations much weaker than what was demonstrated in their analysis, then certainly switching a large number of votes from Bush to Kerry, starting with the “official” election results (which supposedly were reasonably valid), would greatly weaken the correlations.

That however was not the case. I added 2% to the Kerry vote in each county and subtracted 2% of the Bush vote from each county and re-ran the regression analysis. The end results were almost the same as with the original (i.e., official) vote count. In this case, the F value was 809, R squared was 0.98, and the relative contributions of the regression variables were very similar to the first analysis.

It is also important to note that the above vote switches narrowed the amount of the Bush victory from about 118,000 votes to about 6,000 votes. With more than 107,000 votes (mostly “under-votes”) as yet remaining uncounted, and given the breakdown of previously counted “under-votes”, the counting of these remaining votes would almost certainly give Kerry a victory in Ohio.


Effect on correlation of non-uniform switching of votes back to Kerry

Some might argue that the vote switches that I tested above were unfair because they were unnaturally uniform. Therefore, I decided to do one more test, this time utilizing non-uniform vote switching. In doing this, I decided to test vote switching in those counties where it seemed the most likely that Kerry might have been defrauded of votes. Those were the counties where Kerry did worse than Gore did in 2000, plus Cuyahoga County, where numerous irregularities have been observed and two election workers indicted. For those counties I added 4% to Kerry’s total and subtracted 4% from Bush.

When I then re-ran the regression analysis, the correlation was even stronger than before: The F value was 1218, and R squared was 0.98. Again, the relative contributions of the four variables were similar to the above analyses.

With this intervention, Bush’s victory margin in Ohio was reduced from 118,000 votes to less than 9,000 votes, and again, the counting of the currently uncounted votes would almost certainly result in a Kerry victory.


Conclusions and significance

If strong correlations between Kerry’s vote count and other relevant variables is an indication of absence of widespread fraud, as noted in the DNC report (and that is almost certainly the case, depending upon how strong those correlations are), then the finding in this analysis that switching votes back to Kerry from the current official figures results in even stronger correlations, would seem to suggest that the situation resulting from those vote switches (i.e., a virtually even election) is more plausible (in a fair election) than the current official count. Perhaps I should see what happens if I switch even more votes from Kerry to Bush.

[Helga Scow Stern]

1. Any response from Dean?

I heard him say back in March that the only way to change voting standards would be to do it through ballot initiatives. This hardly makes sense, for obvious reasons.

[Time for change]

4. I never did receive a response from Dean

I, along with numerous other people, were very upset by the report that he sponsored and embraced.

[DemInDistress]

2. I dont believe you....

Gahanna Ohio,1 pct. in Gahanna cast 638 votes..238 for Kerry and
4,230 for shithead.How'd they do that? How many other places did they do that? Read Brad's Blog lately?Let's not forget the 7 hour lines just to cast a vote.Countless more voting horror stories.I just dont believe there wasn't massive election fraud...

[Time for change]

5. I don't understand what it is that you don't believe

I'm well aware of the 4,230 votes added to Bush's count in Gahanna, and I don't doubt that similar things were done in many other places. In fact I've discussed that sort of thing in other threads.

[mgr]

20. I think you may misunderstand the intent of the analysis

TFC tested the assertion that a strong correlation existed between these variables, in the DNC report; determined that with vote switching there was no essential change in the strength of the correlations.

I've been stalled in assessing the claim that suppression was insufficient to have altered the outcome, but had similar questions regarding this assertion, so bravo.

Mike

[ck4829]

3. I thought the DNC said there was in fact strange stuff going on

One of the problems included a disproportionate amount of African Americans having problems voting.

[Time for change]

7. The DNC report did have some good parts to it

But there were also some very bad parts, especially their conclusion, as I noted above, which was that there was not sufficient fraud to change the results of the election.

And yes, the report did note that a disproportionate number of African Americans had problems. And yet, they also said that of those who left the voting lines because of long waits, these voters were equally split between Democrats and Republicans (See Section 3, page 2 of the DNC report: http://a9.g.akamai.net/7/9/8082/v001/www.democrats.org/pdfs/ohvrireport/section03.pdf). That is outrageous. Anyone who has studied this election to any significant extent knows that the long lines affected Democrats, especially African Americans much more than they affected Republicans.

[DemInDistress]

8. Then there was the issue of a lockdown in

Warren Cty. I believe,workers there stated there was a red alert and
then closed down the public inspection of the vote count,remember that
Also there was a report of a technician who worked for Deibold changing a bettery for one tabulator.Why change a battery when you can
add an adapter and plug in to an outlet if need be. Massive fraud or
just enough fraud to win?
I read your posts before and I like your efforts and often good reading material but in OHIO the stench is overwhelming,sorry if I
disagree with this new post.....Friends?

[Time for change]

11. Sure, but I think you misunderstand what I'm saying

Where do I imply in this thread that there is not overwhelming evidence of fraud in Ohio? I didn't mean to imply that, so please tell me where you got that idea, so that I can clarify it.

[gulfcoastliberal]

6. What is their deal? They getting kickbacks from Diebold?

Freakin unreal - what about the Berkeley (I think) report on how there was massive election fraud.

[Time for change]

10. I believe that there is lots of evidence for significant election fraud

See this post of mine where I discuss ten issues pointing to election fraud: http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=132&topic_id=2052179

So a lot of us were very disappointed in the DNC report, especially with regard to their main conclusion.

[kansasblue]

9. God bless them Greens who fought hard in Ohio

[Bill Bored]

12. At the end, you said:

"Perhaps I should see what happens if I switch even more votes from Kerry to Bush."

Do you mean more votes from Bush back to Kerry (i.e., >2% uniform or >4% non-uniform), or do you mean the reverse, to see if the correlation weakens?

Actually, it should be possible to optimize the correlation and see what the vote switching would look like in the most highly correlated state, right?

[Time for change]

14. Good point -- perhaps I should have been more clear about that

I thought it was very interesting that when I switched votes back to Kerry (I use the term "back to Kerry" to imply that I believe that votes were originally switched from Kerry to Bush originally, and that that's at least part of the reason that Bush "won" the election) the correlation actually became stronger.

The implication of the DNC analysis and conclusion was that any switching of votes from Kerry to Bush (or vice versa) would have weakened the correlations (I agree that it does make sense that switching of votes in that manner should weaken the correlation). Since the existing correlations are so strong, they concluded that switching of votes from from Kerry to Bush on a massive scale could not have occurred, otherwise the correlations would not be so strong.

However, we see here that vote switching of a magnitude sufficient to change the results of the election could indeed have occurred without weakening the correlations. The fact that the correlations actually improve suggests to me that the vote switching that I postulated in my final analysis (non-uniform switching) are closer to the actual vote count than the official count.

Keep in mind that the non-uniform vote switching that I postulated in my analysis was specifically designed to target counties where I felt that election fraud (vote switching from Kerry to Bush) most likely occurred. These included Cuyahoga county, due to the numerous anomalies that have been documented in many other threads; and, those counties where Kerry did worse than Gore did in 2000. Remember that overall Kerry did quite a bit better than Gore did in Ohio in 2000. So I suspect that those counties where he did worse were the counties where the fraud was most likely to have occurred.

And I think that it is also significant that two counties near the top of the list with regard to Kerry falling behind Gore's 2000 performance are Miami and Warren counties, where a great deal of suspician has been cast due to some very strange happenings (The Warren County "lockdown" and the Miami County addition of 19,000 votes after 100% of precincts had reported). Other big counties near the top of the list in this regard are Clermont and Butler.

[Time for change]

15. Oh, and I forgot to add:

So, if I were to see what happens when even more votes are switched from Bush to Kerry in those counties, and if that showed the correlations improving even further, that would strengthen further the hypothesis that Kerry won the election.

[freedomfries]

16. kick

great work Tfc

[Time for change]

17. Thank you freeomfries -- I'm afraid that some of this may be unclear

Some people seem to think that I am arguing against election fraud as a major factor in Ohio.

This is a rather difficult issue to explain, and I'm afraid that people who do not have some statistical background may have a very hard time following it.

[Bill Bored]

27. Yes, yes, but you should also see what happens if votes are

switched in the other direction just to confirm this. The correlation should weaken, right?

Also, is any of this statistically significant? Are there p-values?

[Time for change]

29. Good point Bill

I should check to see what would happen if they were switched in the other direction as well.

I'm not quite sure what p values you are referring to. If it is the correlations themselves, the p values are all off the charts. Are you talking about the difference between one correlation and another?

[Bill Bored]

39. Perhaps p-values do not apply?

I'm talking about FDIST in Excel which would provide p-values the way TDIST does with T-scores. However, since your r's are so high, p's will be very small and not necessary to report. Is that what you're saying?

[Time for change]

41. One thing I would say is that the total F values are so high for all of

these correlations that the p values are off the charts.

And that makes sense, right? Any regression equation that has Kerry vote percent as the dependent variable and Gore vote percent as one of the independent variables would have to be. I don't doubt that the p value would be far less than a trillion to one, if the charts went that low. I mean, is there any question whatsoever that the Kerry and Gore vote would be correlated?

[Bill Bored]

45. TIA would cite p-values of a trillion to one in a heartbeat!

But I get your drift.

[Time for change]

46. A more important question would whether the CHANGE in the strength of the

correlations were statistically significant.

I can tell you with almost certainty that the changes due to the uniform shifts were not statistically significant, whereas the changes due to the non-uniform shifts (i.e. the improvements in the correlations) that I postulated in this analysis were highly statistically significant. But I don't know how to calculate those p values. Febble knows how to do that though.

[Time for change]

35. Additional analyses

I did a uniform switch in the opposite direction and obtained virtually no difference. Apparently, if the switching is uniform it hardly changes the correlations at all.

Then I increased the amount of the uniform switch a little, and both the F value and R squared increased a little bit more. This switch would have Kerry winning by a few tens of thousands of votes.

Then I tried, instead of increasing the Kerry vote in those counties that I specified as most likely fraudulent, I decreased the Kerry vote in the other counties. That maneuvre resulted in values that were virtually identical to the current official vote.

[Time for change]

36. Correction to the above

When I did the uniform switch in the opposite direction there was virtually no difference, as specified above.

Then I increased the amount of the non-uniform switch, and this resulted in an increase in both F value and R squared, and Kerry winning by a few tens of thousands of votes.

But when I decreased the Kerry vote in the other counties I also obtained an increase in both F value and R squared.

In other words, uniform switches result in little difference in the correlations, whereas non-uniform switches in either direction improve the correlations as long as the counties that are switched are in the direction of what would be expected from the 2000 results -- which makes sense.

[Bill Bored]

40. But there must be a point where a uniform switch will weaken

the correlation. It would be interesting to know what that is, even if it's a vote swing of 50%!

If nothing else, we'll be able to say that this scatter plot stuff is waste of time, not unlike the exit polls, when it comes to detecting election fraud.

In fact, dare I say, the exit polls might even be better evidence than the scatter plots, and that's SCARY!

[Time for change]

42. Yes, but with uniform changes, there really isn't much of a change

in the F values.

There are slight increased with increases in the Kerry vote, which peak at a 7% increase. There are also slight increases with decreases in the Kerry vote, which peak at a 4% decrease.

I don't think I'd read much into these specifics however.

I think that the main thing (and perhaps only thing) that this analysis shows is that there are a variety of ways in which very significant vote switching could have occurred (plenty enough to change the results of the election), not only without decreasing the correlations, but accompanied by increases in them.

[Bill Bored]

44. Right. Now what's the downside of using counties instead of precincts? nt

[Time for change]

47. Doing it by precincts would give you a more specific picture of the

possibilities of what could have been done.

But the fact that scenarios of vote switching can be devised that will give the election to Kerry without weakening the county correlations certainly means that similar scenarios could be devised with regard to the precinct data.

[Name removed]

13. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[Time for change]

18. The Ellen Connally anomaly

I didn't say too much about this in my original post to this thread because it was a little bit off subject (possibly), and I thought the post was long enough as it was.

However, the finding that the correllation of Kerry's vote with Connally's vote was significantly NEGATIVE (when controlled for the other variables) has to be considered to be quite an anomaly IMO. The finding that the correlation with Connally's vote was weaker than the correllation with the Fingerhut vote is to be expected, in view of the fact that voting for Bush and Connally would not have required ticket splitting. But a NEGATIVE correlation? That is really odd.

Perhaps that's why the original DNC analysis did not include the Connally vote as one of the variables that they analyzed.

Anyhow, I don't know exactly what this means, but it certainly raises a red flag IMO.

[bleever]

19. Thank you for doing this, Tfc. Good work.

:thumbsup:

[Name removed]

21. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[Time for change]

24. I don't know what you mean

Are you implying that history is a worthless subject?

The purpose of learning history is so that we understand the mistakes of the past, so that we can prevent repeating them in the future. In that sense history is very future oriented, and I believe that it is a very important subject.

Many of us believe that the 2004 election was stolen, and if we don't identify and expose how that was done, and figure out how to prevent it from re-occurring, our Democracy is gone.

[Nothing Without Hope]

22. YES!!!! Recommended! Why hasn't there been louder protest against this

POS whitewash job?

So very glad to see this!!!! :applause:

[Time for change]

26. Thank you hope -- I wish I could answer your question

I really can't, but I'll give it a try:

1. Our corporate media doesn't want to promote lack of confidence in our country.

2. Our corporate media is intimidated by the Bush Administration.

3. Our Democratic candidate for President and our DNC chair have been rather quiet about this (I still have a lot of respect for both of them, due to their past actions, but I really don't understand their passivity on this issue).

4. Some people that are too dangerous to this Administrations have "suicided".

None of these answers is really sufficient, and some of them may be only partially correct, but I just don't know what else to say.

[Nothing Without Hope]

37. Thanks, TFC. I agree with what you say. But whatever the reason for

their passivity, it cannot be allowed to stand unrebutted. Right now, and indeed since the 2000 election, we DO NOT HAVE A DEMOCRACY. That will not change without exposure and a continuing fight for the truth.

[Time for change]

38. I certainly agree with that Hope

Like you, I am very disappointed that our Democratic leadership has chosen not to make this a major, high profile issue, and that the DNC issued the report that they did, especially with regard to their main conclusion.

And it is certainly true that, whether or not we can prove that Kerry won the 2004 election, as long as our votes are counted by secret machines and we are not allowed a thorough recount in Ohio, we do not have a democracy.

Thank you for your continuing work on this effort.

[emcguffie]

23. What ever happened to the rebuttal by Ohio Honest Elections?

They said it was coming out any day many weeks ago, and since then I haven't heard anything about it.

Do you know anything?

[Time for change]

25. Sorry, I don't know anything about this

I wish I did.

[Kurovski]

28. "No widespread fraud"? So there WAS fraud?

Oh, just not "widespread".

A "little fraud" is like being "a little pregnant".

It subverts the will of the people. Zero tolerance for fraud and voter suppression. ZERO tolerance.

[Time for change]

30. I think that very few would argue that there was NO fraud

But I also think that there was fraud sufficient to change the results of the election. Most people are much more concerned about a large degree of fraud that changes the results of an election than they are about small amounts that don't change the results.

Although you never know until the election is over -- and even then it's very difficult to tell.

[Kurovski]

31. Yes, and the years of saying "Well, there's always fraud"

has inoculated folks against outrage about their own vote, and has even resulted in folks not voting at all. The report seems to imply that it is not a big deal unless it actually affects the outcome.

And that is absurd. as you point out it is a near impossibility to figure out if it tipped the vote or not. (But like you, the evidence I've seen leads me to believe it did keep Kerry from the WH.)

I don't see a sufficient amount of outrage in this report, and it is insulting to myself as a voter. It shows little respect for the seriousness of the process.

[Time for change]

32. I 'm trying to present a scientific argument

Do you see sufficient outrage in this report?
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=132&topic_id=2052179

Or this one?
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=132x2020121

Or this one?
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=132&topic_id=1974460

If one tries to present a scientific argument and the argument is colored with outrage, then the report loses credibility.

[Kurovski]

33. I wasn't clear and do apologize, I'm referring to the June DNC report.

Although your argument can also be applied to my reaction to the DNC report as well. I stand chastised.

My real beef is with the cavalier way much of the Democratic leadership has approached the whole topic. For some reason they feel compelled to step away from it whenever possible.

Though dispassionate, your reports do a fine enough job of eliciting outrage.

[Time for change]

34. I certainly agree with your argument with the DNC leadership

Which is why I wrote this letter to Howard Dean:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=203&topic_id=380878&mesg_id=380878

[Time for change]

43. No need to apologize -- I see what you're saying now

I was just trying to defend myself because I misunderstood what you were trying to say and I felt attacked.

But I appreciate where you're coming from. We are on the same page there. I do feel outraged about what I feel is a stolen election, or at the very least a big attempt to steal an election.

But my main problem with the DNC report is not the fact that it doesn't show enough outrage, but rather the fact that they come to a conclusion that I feel is hurtful to our cause and at the same time is not even justified.

[Kurovski]

48. That is a fine letter to Mr. Dean, and thank you for your efforts

to organize the information in such a professional and cogent manner.

At times I feel as though I'm imagining things, given the Democratic response to all the indicators of fraud. But the facts are difficult--if not impossible--to discount.

When I become frustrated with the Democratic response, my conclusion oftentimes is "something is rotten in Denmark". What do the Dems have to hide? I'm not being unreasonable in seeing that elections of late are not trustworthy. I take great umbrage at suggestions (such as those offered by paid prognosticators} that my outrage is based on "partisanship". The fact is, I want to hear about what the Democrats have done to sully our elections as well.

It's as simple as that. The onus is not on citizens to prove wrongdoing or crimes. This is not a murder trial. It is our government's job to make certain that there are few questions about the process and they must prove themselves with each and every election. No American should accept any less than that.

Many of us have spent hours, weeks, and months reading and thinking about what has happened in the past three elections. It is far more time than a citizen in a Democracy should have to invest in watching over its own election process. We should be assured of transparent and verifiable elections.

John Conyers and the Congressional Black Caucus are doing about as fine a job protecting our rights in this matter as we could hope for. The DNC and Howard Dean would dom best to align themselves with those efforts.

The DLC however, should just go take a flying leap at the Moon and be done with it. (In other words, go join the RNC.)

Again, thank you for your work. I'm extremely grateful that you have put your obvious talent into service for this effort.

The reasons for the initial misunderstanding were due to my own lack of clarity. I understood your reaction completely. :-)

[Time for change]

49. Thank you very much -- It's interesting that the main ideas you express

in this post were expressed in a thread started just last night, which I helped to produce:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=203&topic_id=395401&mesg_id=395401