Cleveland Plain Dealer glossing over voter fraud

[Nightwing]

Cuyahoga board deflates vote suspicions

A confusing counting method employed by Cuyahoga County elections officials appears to inflate the vote totals in some suburbs, further fueling suspicion on the Internet about the integrity of Ohio's unofficial election results.

<snip>

The problem stems from an election canvassing report posted on the county's Web site, where the number of "ballots cast" in several suburbs exceeds the number of registered voters.

For example, the documents suggest that 13,939 ballots were cast in Beachwood, though only 9,943 voters are registered there.

But county officials say that's not how the data should be read. The "ballots cast" is not a reflection of the votes within a city's borders; the numbers also include votes in the congressional and legislative districts that overlap with the cities.

Link: http://www.cleveland.com/election/plaindealer/index.ssf?/base/cuyahoga/1100082911218052.xml

[bobthedrummer]

1. Where's Dennis Kucinich?

Isn't he from around Cleveland?

[Nightwing]

3. Yep, from Cleveland

And I for one cannot understand his not blowing the lid off this. Strangely quiet indeed.

[JNelson6563]

4. It's almost as though they're complicit

reminds me of the primaries....

[wtmusic]

2. This smells bad

Ballots cast are "within a city's borders", yet the "registered voters" overlaps with..what?

http://boe.cuyahogacounty.us/BOE/results/currentresults1.htm#Ballots

The legislative districts that "overlap the cities" are already represented in the count, so according to their report some votes are counted twice.

WTF?

[gennifer6]

5. Recount the state

I found the actual election law in ohio that states a group of 5 electors (citizens) of the county can go into its board of elections across the state and apply to have any/all precincts in that county recounted. It costs $10 per precinct.....one of these voting fraud groups needs to get on it with the money issue...it would be very easy to get 5 representatives from every county, there's enough unemployed people in Ohio, they can sit around all day and watch hand counts......



<http://moritzlaw.osu.edu/electionlaw/procedures_recount_os.html>

[Moderator]

6. Nightwing--

LBN Rules
6. When posting articles, please use the published title of the article as the title of the discussion thread.

[BayStateBoy]

7. Here's My E-Mail to the Idiot Reporter

The history of elections in America is the history of recounts and rigged elections. Why should 2004 be any different?

Bush/Rove gave the news media a new word, "evangelical," which they are babbling like babie at a day care. While the religious vote was important, too many "irregularites" are surfacing to be ignored.

Recounts should definitely be undertaken. The purpose is not to necessarily overturn the election results but to validate the machinery. In fact a good argument can be made that it is our Christian and Constitutional duty to audit the results.

The secondary reason for recounts is to focus the national spotlight on BBV with its paperless trail. If that isn't a felony on Democracy I don't know what is and they should be eradicated from the landscape. Bills in Congress to that purpose have languished. Recounts could change that.

The third reason for recounts is to fulfill the promise given by John Kerry to 55 million Americans. Never mind the fact that the integrity of democracy is dependent upon a nation having confidence in the voting results. Slowly but surely 1/2 the country are having suspicions that need to be put to rest. Those suspicions will not die but likely grow.

The soul of Democracy is the truth. Years ago, that used to be the objective of the media. Now the news media have become nothing more than apologists for the status quo. Shameful.

[lebkuchen]

8. If Ohio had seriously hoped to avoid an election controversy

it has not succeeded, and now looks more hapless than FL did four years ago.

[pleiku52cab]

9. Glad to see the spin doctors are still gainfully employed

[krkaufman]

10. Is Rumsfeld-speak now required of all government officials

"Is it a concern because we don't want it to get out of control? Yes," said Jane Platten, an administrator at the elections board.

[On the Road]

11. I Did a Recount of Cuyahoga County Last Night

starting with individual polling station numbers and comparing them with officially reported votes. it's the canvassing report that looks like this:

  Vote for  1				
   01 = MICHAEL BADNARIK/RICHARD V. CAMPAGNA       1,828     .28
   02 = GEORGE W. BUSH/DICK CHENEY (REP)         215,624   33.05     04 = CANDIDATE DISQUALIFIED                   0	
   03 = JOHN F. KERRY/JOHN EDWARDS (DEM)         433,262   66.41     05 = MICHAEL A. PEROUTKA/CHUCK BALDWIN1,667     .26 
                                   ----------------------------------------				
                                         01      02      03      04      05				
                                   ----------------------------------------				
0111 BAY VILLAGE 1-A                      0     237     191       0       0				
0112 BAY VILLAGE 1-B                      0     221     224       0       0				
0113 BAY VILLAGE 1-C                      0     203     210       0       1				
0114 BAY VILLAGE 1-D                      1     244     201       0       1				
0115 BAY VILLAGE 1-E                      1     235     238       0       0				
                BAY VILLAGE WARD 1        2    1140    1064       0       2	

Although the presidential vote is over 2300 lines, most of the data can be imported into Excel.

What the County is saying is correct: if you add up the total of the individual polling locations (eg, "0111 BAY VILLAGE 1-A"), the total matches the reported votes. Using the subtotals (eg, "WARD 1") gives an inflated number. I assume the reason they give is correct. It doesn't really matter since those numbers weren't used.

Just thought I'd share that to defuse any remaining suspicions. If anyone wants the spreadsheet, just PM me and I can send it. There are plenty of irregularities to focus on -- this isn't one of them.

[Iceburg]

13. I concur with your findings ... but I am curious about the voter turnout

in many of the Cleveland and other large precincts. According to my calculations the average voter turnout for all of Cuyahoga was about 65% ... what do you think?

------------------------------------------------
Cuyahoga Wards with Voter Turnout Under 52%

PrecinctGrp Ward Registered VotesCast Turnout
------------------------------------------------
GLENWILLOW 1 217 65 0.300
HIGHLAND HILLS 760 261 0.343
CLEVELAND 14 14174 5413 0.382
CLEVELAND 13 19541 7580 0.388
CLEVELAND 17 13143 5501 0.419
CLEVELAND 5 15762 6652 0.422
NORTH RANDALL 896 384 0.429
CLEVELAND 7 16705 7233 0.433
CLEVELAND 12 12537 5505 0.439
CLEVELAND 6 16117 7284 0.452
EAST CLEVELAND 2 5791 2715 0.469
GLENWILLOW 3 87 41 0.471
EAST CLEVELAND 4 6667 3218 0.483
WESTLAKE 3 4628 2259 0.488
EAST CLEVELAND 3 5786 2838 0.490
CLEVELAND 8 15602 7672 0.492
CLEVELAND 10 15641 7705 0.493
CLEVELAND 18 14651 7280 0.497
OAKWOOD 3 414 209 0.505
OAKWOOD 5 551 281 0.510
BROADVIEW HTS 4 2589 1322 0.511
CLEVELAND 4 15218 7858 0.516
LAKEWOOD 4 11086 5744 0.518
CLEVELAND 9 15192 7885 0.519

[On the Road]

14. I Agree the Low Turnout Should be Investigated

First up should be comparing the ballots counted against other measures of turnout. If discrepancies emerge, a full recount should be sought.

It looks like a variety of measures may have been used, including losing ballots from democratic polling places and adding votes in Republican polling places, among other things. Everything needs investigation.

[Laughing Mirror]

12. Just like today's Boston Globe's cheap dismissal

Their words will come back to haunt them when the reports are published by all the people analyzing whatever figures are available to analyze.

They want this to die, the corporate media and our corporate owners want this to die. But we believe that everybody has the right to have their vote counted and we won't let our votes be stolen from us without making a big stink and putting up a fight. Corporate media better get used to it, because the people who had their votes stolen are in the majority
in this country and that's a lot of power.