Squire v. Geer in Ohio

[eridani]

http://www.truthout.org/docs_2006/030707H.shtml

The Squire v. Geer case is more than just a mere election challenge lawsuit; the reliability of electronic voting was on trial last week in a small courtroom in Franklin County, Ohio. Voting rights activists see the issues before the court as going to the heart of democracy itself and whether or not election results obtained through the computerized voting machines can be trusted.

Former Franklin County Judge Carol Squire is contesting the victory of her opponent, Chris Geer in a challenge that has shed new light on the problems with e-voting machines.

Franklin County Board of Election's Chief Elections Officer Karen Cotton told the court that in an audit of the Squire/Geer race she was unable to balance the audit books, and could not state why. She said multiple staffers of both parties spent the previous Saturday, a full two months after the initial audit, conducting a hand recount of some books that were called into question in the Squire challenge. Cotton conceded that critics claim"our elections are all whacked up," referring to accusations about election irregularities. Percy Squire, representing his wife, Judge Squire, noted that the public count does not balance even after last Saturday's new audit.

In a December 2006, an independent audit conducted by voting rights activists trained in signature count audits, found that 86% of 206 Franklin County precincts would not balance with certified results. Most of these were off by significant margins when comparing poll book data and signatures to machine totals.

The Franklin County Board of Elections (BOE) has no plausible explanation for these discrepancies other than to say that their error rate is better than most counties in Ohio. In earlier testimony, Squire questioned the Republican Director of the Franklin County Board of Elections, Matt Damshroder, who stated that the BOE has no written policy to protect the poll books and has nothing in writing that he can show the court. Damshroder further testified that the BOE, in preparation for this litigation, did go through the books again and claimed they matched his earlier totals. This seems to contradict Cotton's later statements made under oath. The county prosecutor objected to Squire's request that Damshroder count poll books before the court.

Damshroder said he would comply with the court ruling that he count poll books.

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