Warren County: most successful voter drive ever, or stuffing ballot box

[berniew1]

Warren County, a traditional Republican stronghold northeast of Cincinnati, came to national attention on election night. While the nation awaited returns from Ohio, the state that would decide the election, county officials locked down the administrative building and prohibited all independent observers from watching the vote count.

An analyst who has all the vote data for 2000 and 2004 by precinct in several Ohio counties did a detailed analysis by precinct of the huge increase in Bush votes and margin in Warren county. This county first did a lockdown to count the votes, then apparently did another lockdown to recount the votes later- resulting in an even bigger Bush margin and very unusual new patterns.

Several very unusual patterns were evident in the history and the vote totals by precinct. The analyst concludes:

"George W. Bush’’s big win in Warren County was due to one of two things –– one of the most successful voter registration drives in American political history, or stuffing the ballot box. If the vote was legitimate, the records will show it. There will be a signature in a different handwriting for every one of the 16,803 newly registered voters, and for every one of the 95,512 ballots cast. If the vote was not legitimate, there will be a shortage of punch cards in the ballot box, or duplicate handwriting on the voter rolls, or fewer registered voters than reported."

Richard Hayes Phillips, Ph.D. 4 Fisher Street Canton, NY 13617 [phone] http://web.northnet.org/minstrel/warren.htm


Other counties and likely Kerry win in recount with fair rules: http://web.northnet.org/minstrel/alpage.htm

[For PaisAn]

1. This is why our hope lies in Ohio,

punch card ballots, no EVM's. There's something to audit and recount at least.

Edited to say Welcome to DU
:hi:

[lizzieforkerry]

2. They did it through double votes with absentee ballots.

[thjay]

5. are there other reports of absentee ballot abuse?

I was copied on a letter written by an acquaintance who volunteered to work the polls in Ohio. Most of the report mentions all the commonly reported problems like voters not registered when they were sure they should have been, polling places with too few voter booths etc. This paragraph caught my eye because it mentioned absentee ballots. Did anyone else hear about similar stories?

"One morning before preparing to go into the shaker Square office the
week before the election, I received a phone call from one of my aunt's
friends and since my aunt was unavailable I chatted with her friend and
told her I was in town to work for Kerry.  She informed me I was
misguided and made it clear she was voting for Bush.  Later in the
conversation she stated that an odd thing had happened to her; she
received an absentee ballot, she voted and sent the ballot to the BOE.
She then received another absentee ballot!  She called the BOE who told
her they had not received the first ballot and to go ahead and send the
second one in.  The woman indicated she felt uncomfortable doing so and
said she made sure to get the person's name who was instructing her to
do so and wrote the person's name in big letters on the envelope that
she mailed to the BOE."

[renate]

7. it's really cool that Kerry did as well as he did

if stuff like this was going on.
Can you imagine what the numbers would have been in a fair election?

[ccarter84]

10. now that is intriguing

is it a fluke, or a possible sign of a wider grouping of 'flukes'

any other instances?

[lizzieforkerry]

11. Yeah, and I bet she didn't even ask for the ballot to begin with

And if she had gone to the polls that day, there wouldn't have been a stamp next to her name indicating that she received absentee ballots. I've talked to a lot of Rep that had this happen. They didn't ask for them, they got them, and then they were still able to go to the polls. Some got the ballots with different counties as the return address- very difficult to catch.

[ccarter84]

12. kick

[truehawk]

13. kick

[ccarter84]

14. cough cough

:kick: it was getting slow in here

[truehawk]

3. kick

[Patsy Stone]

4. This one said 18K in Warren Co. credits Turd Blossom

http://www.theledger.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20041113/NEWS/411130314/1021

"According to surveys of voters leaving the polls, Bush won 79 percent of the 26.5 million evangelical votes and 52 percent of the 31 million Catholic votes. Turnout soared in conservative areas such as Ohio's Warren County, where Bush picked up 18,000 more votes than in 2000, and local activists said churches were the reason."

Evangelicals...Praise the Lord. Spin it baby!

[renate]

6. how much were voter registrations up nationwide?

Because an increase from 78.7K registered voters to 95.5K in a registration drive is very roughly a 20% increase, I think. (Anybody got a calculator? 16.7K is about a fifth of 78.7K--I can't do this in my head.) That seems really high to me, although if the population of Warren County grew a lot in the past four years, maybe it's not that staggering.
The sucky thing is that the "different handwriting" thing is going to be impossible to track down or to prove. But other mistakes may have been made, if many of those new registrations were fake.

[truehawk]

8. The Different Handwriting will be possible to prove

Handwriting analysis is widely accepted in court.

[RaulVB]

9. "Unusual patterns..."

I like that part.

I call it "Rovian miracles."

Oh, Bush should be called "the Texan prophet...", I think that goes well with the "man."

[RaulVB]

15. Kick

[pointsoflight]

16. kick

[geo]

17. very cool post.... kick

kick :) -G

[skids]

18. Anyone mailed this to KO?

The Warren Lockdown is one of Keith's favorite sub-issues. Does he know Bush's totals went up?

[shaggy briard]

19. Old Fashioned Way

If, as is reported in Cleveland Plain Dealer, the voter lists were not purged prior to election.
And, if, as is the case in Warren County, the county is growing rapidly.
Then, there will be many inactive, moved, dead, and otherwise invalid names on the voter lists.
If you look at the total voter registration count and you compare to census estimates of adult population in Warren Co. in 2003 -- you come up with more than a 90% registration rate.
To see such a high registration rate coupled with such a high turnout and no change whatsovever in the vote proportions for B* from 2000 is not credible.
The only way that these numbers could have been achieved is using good old fashioned voter fraud -- having someone vote (absentee or in person) for people who are no longer valid on the voter registration files.
As you note, comparison of signatures on poll books or comparison of names and addresses with postal move records can confirm this.
This worked for years and years in Louisiana and Chicago to keep machines in place and was later adapted by Repugs in Nassau Co. in NY.