Be The Media

Washington Post: Several Factors Contributed to 'lost' voters in Ohio

Michael Powell and Peter Slevin in the Washington Post:

"In Florida, ground zero for 2000's election meltdown, professors and graduate students from the University of California at Berkeley studied this year's voting results, contrasting counties that had electronic voting machines with those that used traditional voting methods. They concluded, based on voting and population trends and other indicators, that irregularities associated with machines in three traditionally Democratic counties in southern Florida may have delivered at least 130,000 excess votes for Bush in a state the president won by about 381,000 votes. The study prompted heated critiques from some polling experts.

Stewart of MIT was skeptical, too. But he ran the numbers and came up with the same result. "You can't break it; I've tried," Stewart said. "There's something funky in the results from the electronic-machine Democratic counties."

Berkeley sociologist Michael Hout, who directed the study, said the problem in Florida probably lies with the technology. (Florida's touch-screen machines lack paper records.) "I've always viewed this as a software problem, not a corruption problem," he said. "We'd never tolerate this level of errors with an ATM. The problem is that we continue to do democracy on the cheap."

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In northeastern Ohio, in the fading industrial city of Youngstown, Jeanne White, a veteran voter and manager at the Buckeye Review, an African American newspaper, stepped into the booth, pushed the button for Kerry -- and watched her vote jump to the Bush column. "I saw what happened; I started screaming: 'They're cheating again and they're starting early!' "

It was not her imagination. Twenty-five machines in Youngstown experienced what election officials called "calibration problems." "It happens every election," said Thomas McCabe, deputy director of elections for Mahoning County, which includes Youngstown. "It's something we have to live with, and we can fix it."

Arnebeck Lawsuit, via DailyKos

Daily Kos has a great summary of the 93-page Arnebeck lawsuit, and summary here. Parts of post:

ELECTION IRREGULARITIES, FRAUD

*    Exit polls fixed to conform to vote totals
*    Screenshots of the CNN exit polls pre-fixing
*    999/10000 chance of Ohio exit poll not based on random sampling or election itself was "dishonest".  Goes on to state that chance of experienced pollster not doing a random sample is "vanishingly small"
*    Cites Freeman article
*    Repeats phrase "clear and convincing evidence of fraud". 
*    "If there were innocent errors involved, one would expect to see shifts in favor of both Bush and Kerry."
*    "the vote fraud in connection with the national vote may also mean that the national exit poll is the most accurate representation of the votes actually cast.  This means that candidate Bush did not actually win a "mandate" of 3.5 million votes, but actually lost the national vote by a significant margin to John Kerry."
*    Plan to steal the election was "designed and/or implemented by Bush, Cheney, and Rove acting though as yet unidentified agents..."
*    Part of the plan was to reduce or eliminate the amount of time the fraudulent results would be subject to serious scrutiny.  Andrew Card came out in the early morning, made a "nervous and shaky" claim about Ohio victory to end inquiry into exit polls.
*    "unconstitutional discrimination served as a smokescreen to distract attention away from vote fraud."
*    Plaintiffs allege that Bush, Cheney, Rove, and those acting on their behalf used various means to change fraudulently the legitimate results of the election....
*    There very various means, Blackwell "perpetrated" or "acquiesced in" through abuse of power and public trust.

Kerry Lawyer Seeks Ohio Ballot Inspection

Kerry finally steps in...AP Story

"Democrat John Kerry (news - web sites) is asking county elections officials to allow his witnesses to inspect the 92,000 ballots cast in Ohio in which no vote for president was recorded, a Kerry lawyer said Sunday night.

The request is one of 11 items that Kerry is asking for as part of the recount that Ohio's 88 county boards of election will begin this week, according to a letter sent to the boards over the weekend."

In addition, Cliff Arnebeck, attorney for Common Cause, will file a lawsuit at 0900am Monday indicating that Kerry actually won Ohio and the national popular vote.

20 Amazing Facts About Voting In The USA

What can you do? Visit www.USVIP.org !

Thanks to Angry Girl at Nightweed.com

Did you know....

1.  80% of all votes in America are counted by only two companies:  Diebold and ES&S.

http://www.onlinejournal.com/evoting/042804Landes/042804landes.html

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diebold

2.  There is no federal agency with regulatory authority or oversight of the U.S. voting machine industry.

http://www.commondreams.org/views02/0916-04.htm

http://www.onlinejournal.com/evoting/042804Landes/042804landes.html

3.  The vice-president of Diebold and the president of ES&S are brothers.

http://www.americanfreepress.net/html/private_company.html

http://www.onlinejournal.com/evoting/042804Landes/042804landes.html

4.  The chairman and CEO of Diebold is a major Bush campaign organizer and donor who wrote in 2003 that he was "committed to helping Ohio deliver its electoral votes to the president next year."

http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2004/07/28/sunday/main632436.shtml

http://www.wishtv.com/Global/story.asp?S=1647886

5.  Republican Senator Chuck Hagel used to be chairman of ES&S.  He became Senator based on votes counted by ES&S machines.

http://www.motherjones.com/commentary/columns/2004/03/03_200.html

http://www.onlinejournal.com/evoting/031004Fitrakis/031004fitrakis.html

6.  Republican Senator Chuck Hagel, long-connected with the Bush family, was recently caught lying about his ownership of ES&S by the Senate Ethics Committee.

http://www.blackboxvoting.com/modules.php?name=News&file=article&sid=26

http://www.hillnews.com/news/012903/hagel.aspx

http://www.onlisareinsradar.com/archives/000896.php

7.  Senator Chuck Hagel was on a short list of George W. Bush's vice-presidential candidates.

http://www.businessweek.com/2000/00_28/b3689130.htm

http://theindependent.com/stories/052700/new_hagel27.html

8.  ES&S is the largest voting machine manufacturer in the U.S. and counts almost 60% of all U.S. votes.

http://www.essvote.com/HTML/about/about.html

http://www.onlinejournal.com/evoting/042804Landes/042804landes.html

9.  Diebold's new touch screen voting machines have no paper trail of any votes.  In other words, there is no way to verify that the data coming out of the machine is the same as what was legitimately put in by voters.

http://www.commondreams.org/views04/0225-05.htm

http://www.itworld.com/Tech/2987/041020evotestates/pfindex.html

10.  Diebold also makes ATMs, checkout scanners, and ticket machines, all of which log each transaction and can generate a paper trail.

http://www.commondreams.org/views04/0225-05.htm

http://www.diebold.com/solutions/default.htm

11.  Diebold is based in Ohio.

http://www.diebold.com/aboutus/ataglance/default.htm

12.  Diebold employed 5 convicted felons as senior managers and developers to help write the central compiler computer code that counted 50% of the votes in 30 states.

http://www.wired.com/news/evote/0,2645,61640,00.html

http://portland.indymedia.org/en/2004/10/301469.shtml

13.  Jeff Dean, Diebold's Senior Vice-President and senior programmer on Diebold's central compiler code, was convicted of 23 counts of felony theft in the first degree.

http://www.chuckherrin.com/HackthevoteFAQ.htm#how

http://www.blackboxvoting.org/bbv_chapter-8.pdf

14.  Diebold Senior Vice-President Jeff Dean was convicted of planting back doors in his software and using a "high degree of sophistication" to evade detection over a period of 2 years.

http://www.chuckherrin.com/HackthevoteFAQ.htm#how

http://www.blackboxvoting.org/bbv_chapter-8.pdf

15.  None of the international election observers were allowed in the polls in Ohio.

http://www.globalexchange.org/update/press/2638.html

http://www.enquirer.com/editions/2004/10/26/loc_elexoh.html

16.  California banned the use of Diebold machines because the security was so bad.  Despite Diebold's claims that the audit logs could not be hacked, a chimp was able to do it!  (See the movie here <http://blackboxvoting.org/baxter/baxterVPR.mov>.)

http://wired.com/news/evote/0,2645,63298,00.html

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/4874190

17.  30% of all U.S. votes are carried out on unverifiable touch screen voting machines with no paper trail.

http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2004/07/28/sunday/main632436.shtml

18.  All -- not some -- but all the voting machine errors detected and reported in Florida went in favor of Bush or Republican candidates.

http://www.wired.com/news/evote/0,2645,65757,00.html

http://www.yuricareport.com/ElectionAftermath04/ThreeResearchStudiesBushIsOut.htm

http://www.rise4news.net/extravotes.html

http://www.ilcaonline.org/modules.php?op=modload&name=News&file=article&sid=950

http://www.scoop.co.nz/mason/stories/HL0411/S00227.htm

19.  The governor of the state of Florida, Jeb Bush, is the President's brother.

http://www.tallahassee.com/mld/tallahassee/news/local/7628725.htm

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A10544-2004Oct29.html

20.  Serious voting anomalies in Florida -- again always favoring Bush -- have been mathematically demonstrated and experts are recommending further investigation.

http://www.yuricareport.com/ElectionAftermath04/ThreeResearchStudiesBushIsOut.htm

http://www.computerworld.com/governmenttopics/government/policy/story/0,10801,97614,00.html

http://www.americanfreepress.net/html/tens_of_thousands.html

http://www.commondreams.org/headlines04/1106-30.htm

http://www.consortiumnews.com/2004/110904.html

http://uscountvotes.org/


What can you do? Visit www.USVIP.org !

Floodtide of evidence of questionable practices in 2004 election in Ohio

As they said in the movie DINER - "Ever feel like there's something going on that you don't know about?"

Thanks to Dr Don Goldmacher for this scathing video clip on voter suppression techniques in Cleveland.

Thanks to BradBlog for this FreePress link about questionable practices in Ohio:

"A floodtide of evidence of questionable practices in the 2004 election is mounting fast against Ohio Republican Secretary of State J. Kenneth Blackwell and Republican Franklin County Board of Elections (BOE) Director Matt Damschroder. New transcriptions of sworn voter testimony, presented below for the first time, confirm growing suspicions of widespread use of rigged machines. Voters experienced hostility from poll workers, refusal of Republican election officials to follow the law, and discriminatory manipulation of voting machine placement, driving significant numbers of Democrats away from the polls.

The Columbus Dispatch, central Ohio's dominant conservative daily newspaper, which endorsed Bush for the presidency, says Damschroder “has faced criticism locally and across the country from groups that contend an already short supply of voting machines were shifted from Democratic precincts in Columbus to Republican areas outside the city.”

Ohio Recount Status

This was such a great comment, I thought I would make it a seperate post - thanks to Ted!

I am a Californian registered with votecobb.org as a volunteer observer for the Ohio vote recount. There had been some problems with two-way email communication, which prompted me to call the Volunteer Coordinator, Holly Hart. We spoke on Wednesday November 24, at 6 p.m. PST.

I had a number of questions regarding the recount process, for which Holly had all the answers. The Cobb/Badnarik recount effort believes that they may end up with enough volunteers from within Ohio itself. At this point, they have about 1,000 volunteers (need 2,000). Holly said that MoveOn was working to find folks in Ohio to help with the recount. I believe she indicated that Common Cause was as well.

We discussed the uncertainties of when exactly the recount will begin. Based on what has been reported via articles on this website and other sources, it looks like the election results will be certified on December 6, with the recount to begin on December 7. Holly indicated that the recount will likely begin between Dec 7 and 13. They expect the recount to take between 5 and 10 days, with the limit being 10 days by law.

Thought has been given to the reality that volunteers will drop out of their commitment entirely; some will also come and go before the recount is complete. All volunteers will be trained before they begin the recount process.

Holly indicated that there will be 2-3 tables at each county recount site. The Greens/Libertarians will sit at one table, the Democrats at another, and the Republicans at a third. I have no idea/understanding what that means.

We also discussed the calendar in relationship to the Electoral College Convention on December 13th. Holly indicated that it would be best if the recount was done by the 12th, perhaps the process could continue on for longer, maybe as late as January 4th. We all know that are those who are doing their best to stall as long as possible, forcing the recount up against the remaining time available.

I conveyed to Holly some of the difficulties that we had with contacting votecobb (returned emails) as part of the registration confirmation process. She acknowledged a server problem and said that everyone would be contacted soon via email with more concrete details of what, when and where.

From what I have read, the likelihood that the recount will change the results in Kerry's favor is slim at this point. What the recount may garner are inconsistencies between numbers of registered voters and vote totals, wild swings in favor of one candidate, and the such. Though those who supported Kerry wish for a change in the results, the real goal of the recount is to document irregularities in vote counts.

To those already registered and to those considering volunteering, I suggest a patient and flexible attitude. I cannot imagine that if you are already committed to going to Ohio that you will be refused. If you are waiting for more concrete dates and final confirmation, be prepared to get to Ohio on short notice.

UPDATE: Bev Harris of Black Box Voting

This is a must-read from Bev Harris of Black Box Voting on Break For News dated November 24, 2004. Some highlights:

"The audit data we obtained in Volusia County (Florida) is another matter. Here, we have established plenty of evidence sufficient to take an election into contest. Volusia County, by itself, may have put some 30,000 presidential votes in question.

A citizen group is now working on Holmes County, Florida, and of course Volusia is in full swing. (I'm about to do another post on the lawsuit filed yesterday requesting that the Volusia County election be set aside).

Stay tuned for an upcoming national conference which will be put on by Black Box Voting, called "Help America Audit," in which we will teach citizens groups, political parties, candidates, and private citizens how to conduct citizen audits of elections on a county by county basis, the only method available to us, really.

Stay tuned, also, for an action we'll be taking soon to beef up compliance with the public records requests needed for election auditing."

Lawsuit filed to set aside 2004 election in Volusia County, Florida

Tuesday November 23, 2004

Black Box Voting : Citizens take action to clean up elections!

Summary of irregularities in Volusia here

Volusia County resident Susan Pynchon, with the help of Volusia County attorney Daniel R. Vaughen, P.A., filed a lawsuit on Tuesday, Nov. 23, seeking to set aside the Nov. 2, 2004 Volusia County election due to irregularities.

Full text of lawsuit here

As usual, Brad Friedman of BradBlog with editorial: "As well, Harris posted a scathing indictment on Democratic Underground today about the failures of John Kerry and the Dems to take her many warnings seriously back when they could have made a difference in all of this. As well, she promises further upcoming actions.

A BradBlog reader (Winter Patriot) responded with the following comment:

"Even among the many very troubling items Bev has posted on DU recently, the following paragraph stands out in horrifying relief [at least to me]:

"The Kerry attorney in Volusia, by the way, came by but asked not a single question, never asked to look at any evidence, and told one of the producers of Votergate that he thought Black Box Voting was just here to "stir up trouble.""

Is anybody else wondering what's going on here? All through the campaign I had the nagging suspicion that the Democrats didn't really want to win. Did anybody else get that impression too?

Kerry failed to take a stand against the war, failed to challenge Bush on any of his other most vulnerable areas, conceded when the result was far from clear, and has kept a very low profile ever since. There may have been 'tactical thinking' behind all these moves, but to me they sure looked like part of a pattern.

Bev Harris has a much more 'inside' point of view than I do, of course, but during the past three weeks she has mentioned a lot of different things that the Democrats have done, or have failed to do, all of which seem to fit that same pattern.

And now ... well, there's no gentle way to put it, is there? if Kerry's lawyer isn't in Volusia looking for incriminating evidence, then why is he there at all?

Is this all a show? Are the Democratic Party's legal team and war chest being used simply to create an ILLUSION?

I've been wondering if the reason why Americans aren't out in the streets contesting this fraudulent election, like the Ukranians are, is because in America the opposition candidate doesn't seem to want the job.

If you think I've got this wrong: Can you please tell me what I'm overlooking?

And if you think I've got it right: What does this mean for America?"

GAO to investigate election complaints

From CNN.com:

"The investigation comes in response to two letters written by lawmakers to the GAO which address numerous media reports of irregularities in the 2004 vote and call for those to be reviewed.

A spokeswoman for one of the lawmakers requesting an investigation, Rep. John Conyers Jr. of Michigan, said the goal is not to overturn the election results, but rather to improve the mechanics of the voting process."

Presidential candidates for the Green and Libertarian parties filed suit against Ohio Secretary of State Ken Blackwell

Diane Suchetka wrote for Cleveland.com:

"Presidential candidates for the Green and Libertarian parties filed suit against Ohio Secretary of State Ken Blackwell on Monday, asking a judge to order every county in the state to recount votes for president by hand no later than Dec. 6.

The next day, Dec. 7, is the "safe harbor" date -- the day Ohio determines who will represent voters in the Electoral College. The college officially chooses America's president six days later, on Dec. 13. "

Neither Libertarian candidate Michael Badnarik nor the Green Party's David Cobb expects the outcome of the presidential election to change.

"The purpose of this recount is to determine what, if any, improprieties happened during this election process and to bring that information to the light of the American voter and ultimately change the way we do business in America," Badnarik said in a teleconference Monday.