Was Kerry Cheated out of Almost 100,000 Votes in Cleveland Alone?

[Time for change]

It was well known in the days prior to the 2004 Presidential election that a Bush victory was highly unlikely without Bush carrying both Ohio and Florida. As Election Day unfolded, spirits in the Kerry camp were running high, as it became evident that Ohio’s 20 electoral votes would determine the victor, and Kerry had a comfortable lead in the Ohio exit poll. Even CNN’s right wing hack, Robert Novak, acknowledged that it would be an uphill climb for Bush.

But as the results came in from Ohio, optimism in the Kerry camp began to fade, and by late evening their remaining hope was narrowed down to strongly Democratic Cuyahoga County, and especially Cleveland, where reports of large pre-election increases in new voter registration and exceptionally high voter turnout had circulated. But this remaining hope soon faded, as it became clear that the voter turnout from Cleveland was in fact miserably low, and by noon the next day John Kerry conceded the election.

It now appears plausible or likely, from a variety of accumulated evidence, that Kerry may have been cheated out of close to 100,000 votes in Cuyahoga County, or more. The evidence for this falls into three categories: 1) Deletion of votes from highly Democratic Cleveland precincts, perhaps through electronic manipulation of central tabulators; 2) Vote switching from Kerry to Bush, perhaps through ballot order rotation tricks; and, 3) Massive purges of voter registration. Let’s consider the evidence for each of these:



Evidence for electronic deletion of votes via central tabulators


Strange relationship between voter turnout and machines per voter

In Ohio as a whole, as discussed in Section IV, page 3 of the Democratic National Committee (DNC) report on the Ohio election, there is a discussion about how, in general, voter turnout is strongly related to the ratio of machines per voter. The reason for this correlation is that insufficient numbers of machines per voter can result in reduced voter turnout because of voters leaving the voting lines when they are unable to wait several hours to vote.

However, in Cuyahoga County this normal relationship is inexplicably reversed, so that voting machines per voter is negatively associated with voter turnout. What could this reversal of the normal relationship between turnout and machines per voter mean? One possibility would be that some strongly Democratic precincts that had plenty of machines available for their voters had large numbers of votes electronically, and fraudulently, deleted from the official count by central tabulators. This would have caused the apparent voter turnout from these counties to be low, thereby upsetting the normal relationship between number of machines and voter turnout.


Implausibly low voter turnout in Cleveland
Richard Hayes Phillips, a statistical expert in identifying statistical anomalies, whose findings have been widely publicized, has stated that there are at least 30 precincts in Cleveland with inexplicably low voter turnout, ranging as low as 7.1%. These findings translate into a 51% voter turnout in Cleveland, which is very low compared to the remainder of the county, which experienced a 73% voter turnout.


Evidence for vote switching from Kerry to Bush

Strange relationship between the Kerry vote and other variables in Cuyahoga County
In Section VI of the DNC report, Professor Walter Mebane concludes that there was no widespread fraud in Ohio of a sufficient degree to overturn the results of the Presidential election. This conclusion is based on strong within precinct correlations between Kerry’s percentage of the vote and four other variables, including the Hagan (Dem. candidate for Governor) percent of the vote in 2002, the Fingerhut (Dem. candidate for Senate) percent of the vote in 2004, voting No on Issue 1 (2004 referendum to ban gay marriage), and percent African-Americans.

I see two problems with Mebane’s conclusion of no widespread fraud sufficient to overturn the election. First, the correlations that he describes do not in any way rule out the kind of scenario described above, under the “Evidence for electronic deletion of votes via central tabulators” section, as long as the deleted votes are deleted randomly from those precincts where they’re deleted.

Secondly (and more relevant to this section of my post), the correlations that were so strong in other areas of the state were noticeably weaker in Cuyahoga County. With regard to the Kerry/Hagan correlations, 6 of the 17 outliers (meaning that the correlation was much weaker) in the state were Cuyahoga County precincts. And with regard to the Kerry correlation with the other variables, Mebane states: “Only seven of Ohio's 88 counties deviate significantly from that pattern." One of those seven counties is Cuyahoga, and Cuyahoga is the only county in the state where there is actually a negative correlation between the Kerry vote and “No” on Issue 1.

So the question we should ask is, if the strong correlation between the Kerry vote and the other variables rules out wide-spread “vote switching” type fraud in the rest of the state, then do the deviations from that pattern in Cuyahoga County mean that a certain amount of that type of fraud likely occurred there? And if so, then how many votes might that have accounted for? Answers to those questions are not at all evident in the DNC report.

Here’s what Professor Mebane wrote to me in response to my query on this subject: “I don't know what went on in Cuyahoga County. As I wrote in several places in the DNC report, there were many anomalies in the data from Cuyahoga County that warrant further investigation.”

Switching of votes through ballot order rotation confusion
Dr. Phillips also noted at least 16 precincts where votes intended to be cast for Kerry were apparently shifted to other candidates, likely a result of a phenomenon known as “ballot order rotation”. This is where the candidates are listed in different orders on the ballot in different precincts, so that if a voter votes in the wrong precinct (with a different ballot order) the machine will record the vote for a candidate who was unintended by the voter. Given the large number of voters who voted in the wrong precinct and the fact that this phenomenon occurred largely in highly Democratic precincts, Kerry would lose a lot of net votes because of this. It is difficult to tell how many votes this phenomenon cost Kerry. I can’t make out that Kerry lost more than 1,000 votes through this specific mechanism, but Bill Bored and rosebud57 feel that this may have been a much bigger problem than that. I hope that they contribute to the discussion on this thread, at least with regard to this issue.


Evidence for voter registration fraud

According to a report in the New York Times by Kate Zernike and Ford Fessenden, there were 230,000 new voter registrations in Cuyahoga County in 2004. Yet, according to official Ohio SOS figures, there were only 119,273 new voter registrations in Cuyahoga County between March and November of 2004. If we assume the Zernike/Fessenden article to be accurate, there would have been 110,727 additional registered voters in Cuyahoga County. But let’s suppose that the missing registered voters came from Cleveland rather than from the suburbs of Cuyahoga County – not an unlikely scenario, given the fact that Cleveland is far more Democratic than its suburbs, so that is where fraud would likely have been targeted.

The fraud that is suggested by the above findings could have occurred in one or two ways, or a combination of the two. This could have simply involved purging of legal registered voters from Cuyahoga County. Or, it could have involved electronic deletion of votes via the county’s central tabulator, with fraudulent manipulation of the voter registration figures so that the voter turnout wouldn’t appear implausibly low.


Other evidence – recount fraud

A fair recount of the Cuyahoga County vote would have lain to rest the above claims if the recount had shown the official vote count to be accurate. In order to ensure a fair recount, Ohio’s procedures require when a recount is duly authorized (which it was) that a random 3% sample of the county’s precincts be counted first, and if that count shows any discrepancies with the official vote total, then a full recount of the county must proceed. The reason for the requirement that the initial selected precincts be random is that otherwise state officials – if they were overly partisan and if they knew that fraud had been perpetrated in certain precincts – could abuse the purpose of the recount by selecting precincts for the recount that they knew to be “clean”.

Unfortunately, a random recount never occurred in Cuyahoga County (as was the case in numerous other Ohio counties), as precincts were selected non-randomly by state officials, thus throwing into question the validity of the recount. Consequently, two Cuyahoga County Board of Elections workers have recently been indicted, on six felony counts each, for this act. And don’t be fooled by the statement in the article that says that this crime for which the two workers were indicted would not have changed the results of the election. Nobody can know whether that is a true statement or not, since a valid recount of the vote has not yet been performed. In fact, the above noted considerations would suggest that a recount may very well have changed the results of the election. And what reason would the Cuyahoga County Board of Elections workers have had to risk being indicted for election fraud if there was no good reason for them to believe that the actions they took might be necessary in order to prevent an overturning of the election results?


Let’s make some reasonable assumptions and add up the net votes that were plausibly or likely stolen from the Kerry/Edwards ticket

Assumption 1 – voter turnout in Cleveland was equal to voter turnout in the remainder of Cuyahoga County
According to current official figures, voter turnout in Cleveland was 51.23%, and voter turnout in the remainder of Cuyahoga County was 73.21%. So, why is it plausible to believe that voter turnout in Cleveland was equal to that in the remainder of the county? First, there was the massive new voter registration drives, coupled by the fact that according to the DNC report, precincts with greater new voter registration were generally characterized by higher voter turnout. We know from the Fessenden/Zernike reports that the Democrats accomplished massive new voter registration in Cuyahoga County. Though the breakdown wasn’t mentioned in the article, where do you think that these voter registration efforts by the Democrats were targeted: Cleveland, where Kerry won 83% of the vote, or the remainder of the county, where he won 53% of the vote? I think it’s reasonable to assume that most of it was done in Cleveland.

Secondly, there is the evidence noted above of fraud designed to decrease voter turnout in Cleveland. And thirdly, several anecdotal reports that I’ve heard testify to the fact that voter turnout in Cleveland was off the charts.

So, let’s suppose that voter turnout in Cleveland was 73.21 %, rather than 51.23%. That would mean a net of 21.98%. Multiply that by 165,578, and you get 36,394 additional votes.

Assumption 2 – The NY Times reporters were correct about new voter registration in Cuyahoga County, and Blackwell’s official figures are wrong
It seems to me that this is a no-brainer. Did the NY Times reporters have any reason to lie about voter registration efforts in Ohio? Did Blackwell?

So, we have, as noted above, 110,727 additional registered voters in Cuyahoga County. It seems to me that the vast majority of these additional votes would have come from Cleveland. Again, why would Democrats target a part of the county where Democrats had gathered 53% of the votes, rather than 83%, as they did in Cleveland, unless they targeted those precincts in the remainder of Cuyahoga County that were heavily Democratic? So, with 110,727 additional voters and a 73.21% turnout, we get 81,063 additional voters for Cleveland. Given that Kerry won 83.27% of the vote in Cleveland, compared to Bush’s 15.88%, that gives Kerry a net margin of 67.39%. Multiply that by 81,063 votes, and you get 54,628 addition net Kerry votes.

Assumption 3 – No within precinct vote switching in Cuyahoga County, other than the approximately 800 votes that we know about
This assumption hurts Kerry’s chances, but I don’t know how to calculate how many votes Kerry lost due to vote switching due to “ballot order rotation”, so I’ll just leave that blank for now.

Additional net votes for Kerry as a results of the three above assumptions
We have 36,394 additional votes for Kerry as a result of assumption 1 and 54,628 as a result of assumption 2. Adding those together, along with a few hundred votes from assumption 3 gives Kerry a net of about 92,000 votes in Cleveland alone.


Where do the remainder of the votes needed for a Kerry victory come from?
The above assumptions leave Kerry about 26,000 votes shy of victory. Where would the additional needed votes have come from:

Uncounted ballots in Ohio
There are at this time more than 106,000 ballots in Ohio that remain uncounted.

Addition of votes to Republican Counties
Evidence that votes were electronically added to Republican counties after the polls closed include the additional of 19,000 votes to Miami County’s total after 100% of precincts had reported (resulting in a net gain for Bush of 6,000 votes) and the illegal “lockdown” in Warren County, rationalized on the basis of a transparently false “national security” basis.

Vote switching in Mahoning County
This involved touch screen machines that registered votes for Bush when voters attempted to vote for Kerry, and indicated in this EIRS analysis and this Washington post report of 25 machines that demonstrated this behavior.

Voter suppression by insufficient allocation of voting machines in Franklin County
As demonstrated by Elizabeth Liddle (Febble) and others, this probably resulted in a net loss for Kerry of 17,000 votes. This phenomenon also occurred in many other areas of the state, but was only thoroughly quantified in Franklin County.

More voter registration fraud
Voter registration fraud was not limited to Cuyahoga County. According to Ford Fessenden’s report, new Democratic registration exceeded Republican registration by large amounts throughout the state. Yet, this is contrary to official figures released by the Ohio Secretary of State’s Office.

Fraudulent recount throughout Ohio
Samples for the recount were chosen in a non-random manner, contrary to established state procedure, and every effort appears to have been made to ensure that results of the 3% sample recount would match election day results, so as to prevent the occurrence of county-wide hand recounts. Perhaps the most flagrant example of this was Sherole Eaton’s testimony that a Triad technician in Hocking County modified a vote tabulator prior to the recount and advised election officials on how to manipulate voting machinery to ensure that a hand recount would match the machine recount. Ms. Eaton was fired from her job as a result of this transgression. How many others witnessed similar events but did not possess enough courage to risk their livelihood in order to make their observations public, as Ms. Eaton did?

Furthermore, Mr. Blackwell has steadfastly refused to testify under oath with regard to the numerous “irregularities” associated with the Ohio election, and has made every effort to bar the public from access to essential documents that might shed some light on what happened on election day.


What can be done to better document all this?

First and foremost a full and fair recount needs to be accomplished
Legal suits are still pending on this.

Matching of Central tabulator count with precinct counts in Cuyahoga County
This action could definitely tell us if central tabulator fraud occurred in Cuyahoga County, and to what extent.

Documentation of voter registration fraud
This may require getting documentation from the NY Times reporters who documented and wrote the story on the massive voter registration efforts in Ohio, especially in Cuyahoga County. I have tried to contact them, unsuccessfully.

Documentation of voter turnout in Cleveland
The major part of this analysis depends on this. If anyone is aware of information that would verify that voter turnout in Cleveland was indeed much higher than what the official figures show, please let us have that information.

Vote switching in Cleveland due to ballot order rotations
In my analysis I assumed no additional votes for Kerry due to this issue because I didn’t know how to quantify it. If anyone can help do that, please let us know.

[FloridaPat]

1. We knew that.

[Time for change]

9. What part are you specifically referring to? n/t

[bj2110]

2. I don't even have to read all that to know the answer is yes. I've seen

all of it before, I'm sure.

Check out this interesting tidbit coming up next Friday:
Be sure to tell CNN to cover it.


Here is a url for the Freeman debate with Mitofsky.

http://releases.usnewswire.com/GetRelease.asp?id=54651

The two will square off in lectures and discussion on Friday, October
14, 1 p.m. to 3 p.m. at the University of Pennsylvania Terrace Room,
Logan Hall, 249 South 36th Street in Philadelphia. They will be part of
ASAP's fall meeting, which includes a third talk on the use of two
remarkably powerful statistical methods to make the best use of
clinical
trial data.


-------------snip----------

PHILADELPHIA, Oct. 6 /U.S. Newswire/ -- Two experts face-off in lively
lectures and discussion about the utility of exit polls when compared
to
official counts, the potential for election fraud and the role of
statistics in adjudicating critical issues of public importance. The
University of Pennsylvania's departments of Center for Organizational
Dynamics and Political Science and the Philadelphia Chapter of the
American Statistical Association (ASAP) will host the debate.

Like most politically savvy Americans, Steve Freeman Ph.D., was glued
to
the television on election night, 2004. As he poured over exit polling
data on CNN's website, he was fairly confident John Kerry was in the
lead by a projected 5 million votes. But after all the votes were
tallied, especially in the battleground states such as Ohio, the final
tally swung well beyond the exit poll's margin of error to favor the
President.

But unlike most Americans, Freeman holds a Ph.D. in Organizational
Studies, and is a Visiting Scholar at Penn's Center for Organizational
Dynamics where he teaches research methods, including polling. His
natural curiosity and academic diligence led him to research the issue
in as much detail as possible, and the results appear in his
forthcoming
book on the matter titled, Was the 2004 Presidential Election Stolen?
to
be published next month by Seven Stories Press.
lling.

---------------

[Kukesa]

14. Kick from a Buckeye. n/t

[Time for change]

15. Do you have specific information on the Cleveland issues

that you could discuss?

[bj2110]

18. Sure. To me, the most telling sign was always the relationship

between democratic inclined precincts and # of voters per machine allocated. The more democratic a precint, the fewer machines per person it got. And, that one's 100% proveable.

[R.I.Publicanism]

64. let this be a lesson

never let this happen again

[tallahasseedem]

Its too hard to read this....

it makes me absolutely sick to my stomach. Sometimes I cant even believe that this is America. Our forefathers must be spinning in their graves.

[GreenPartyVoter]

6. I am in the same boat as you

[Time for change]

19. When we were young we were taught that America is the land of Democracy

That was true to a large extent.

But probably IMO what we needed more education in was the fact that Democracies turn into tyrannies when the citizenry becomes apathetic and believes that their Democracy is a given. We need to avoid falling into that trap and work hard to preserve our Democracy.

[Cocoa]

3. 5 votes for "greatest page" already

BBVers have lightning-fast reflexes. :eyes:

[Stand and Fight]

8. Sheesh... What's wrong with you?

Just curious. I don't normally venture into this forum, but there is a hell of a lot of detectable malice in your post.

[havocmom]

16. ? Hoping that is sarcasm

[Stand and Fight]

44. Who's post are you referring to?

I was NOT at all being sarcastic in my question.

[Laurab]

92. What post did you read?

I didn't detect any malice? Just research, apparently backed up quite well....:shrug:

[Time for change]

94. I think he was responding to cocoa

But I didn't detect malice in Cocoa's post either. I think he was just expressing his skepticism about election fraud talk.

[Time for change]

17. There are a lot of us

But seriously, are you putting all people who believe that the 2004 election was marred by large amounts of fraud into a category that you refer to as BBVers? Those who believe that are certainly not a homogeneous group, as we have many different reasons for believing that, and many of us disagree on many issues amongst ourselves.

And notice too that I said nothing to the effect that nothing else matters.

[OnTheOtherHand]

54. whoa there, brother

Tfc's post is pretty darn substantive, no? and a lot of it has nothing to do with BBV.

We could sit around speculating about the intellectual depth of the people who kicked it (and no doubt they will return the favor), but that does seem pretty snarky in a response to the OP. If you do have substantive responses to the OP, Tfc will actually take them seriously.

[Time for change]

59. Thank you OTOH

I appreciate the support.

[Bill Bored]

67. BBVers? The Cuyhoga precincts in question used PUNCH CARDS!

And there's a lot more info about it on ER&D or whatever the new name of that forum is supposed to be. But TFC posted here to get more input and that's fine.

I think the people who've been studying this for months now are the ones who need to be consulted though. They are: minvis, skids, iceburg (who's disappeared), blue22 and kiwi_expat.

And I doubt that the ballot order rotation problem is limited to Cuyahoga. It's a state election law to run the precincts that way and there's no good reason for it in a general election other than to hide vote switching between major candidates. (Switches to 3rd parties may be the tip of the iceberg.)

On edit, I forgot to mention AirAmFan, who I see has discovered this thread and posted, and of course L. Coyote!

(I wish you guys would read the Election Results Forum as I've been trying to tell some of the newcomers and those who've missed this stuff about all the work that's been done on it already!)

[meganmonkey]

4. Wonderful collection of info and analysis

:kick: and rec'd

[mattclearing]

5. Thanks for this excellent and well-researched post. n/t

[Touchdown]

7. I believe Kerry was cheated out of at least 4 million votes

...across the country, and the ec votes for Florida, Iowa, Nevada, New Mexico, and possibly (considering all else that passed on the same election day, including a Dem takeover in both state houses) Colorado. There is no way that a Prez with a 47% approval rating could get 51% of the votes. Statistically, scientifically, logically, and spiritually impossible.

[oasis]

12. There is no doubt in my mind that the system has been infiltrated and

rigged by right wing zealots.

[Time for change]

20. I believe that he may very well have been cheated out of that many votes

-- or more

But it is a great challenge to try to prove that, and thankfully many people are working on this on different fronts.

I believe strongly that he was cheated out of Ohio, probably NM, maybe FL and NV. I think that IA and CO are rather doubtful, but I don't know enough about it to have a good opinion on that.

[texpatriot2004]

80. I agree 100% n/t

[Amaryllis]

116. I believe that also!

[mod mom]

10. Add another 20,000 in columbus due to the 5 hour waits (post election

canvass) and then throw in Lucas County (such massive problems that Blackwell was forced to investigate and came out with a scathing report, PM me if you want the details), and Rosebud's excellent hypothesis about Warren County (on ER &D), not to mention all the other counties and we have:

PRESIDENT KERRY!

The House Judiciary Dem legal staff knows this and when all the stuff comes out on the bu$h administration, this election fraud will finally come out. It took 5 years for Pres Carter to announce Al Gore won in 2000, this time we won't have to wait as long. Can't wait till this house of cards collapses!

[Time for change]

22. I would love additional details if you have them. I will pm you later.

Thank you.

[Doctor_J]

11. Sadly, no one cares

at least no one that can do anything about it. And with the media being 100% GOP at this point, it won't get any better. I look for a GOP filibuster-proof majority in the Senate in Jan 07. Gonna take a civil war to recitfy the situation at this point, I fear.

[halobeam]

21. You said it, but try to even imagine this:

if THIS isn't bad enough for people to rise up, just try to collect your brain around what would be the catapult? Scares me to no end.

Most people don't want to get out of their "comfy" zone, and raise hell "proactively" as they call it. You see, it's only pro active to them, because they haven't been hit hard enough yet. So maybe it's not really happening yet, is their reasoning? Asking, cause I don't really get them. It is slowly happening to them, but not enough for them to get the smack in the head (so to speak), wake up and rise up.

We have been through so many horrors these past four years, and it still isn't enough. The fall of the dollar? Yep that would do it. A natural disaster that personally effects them? Yep that would do it. A family member joining the military and losing their life? Yep, that MAY do it. It seems it has to effect people directly in order for them to ACT. There seems to be an epidemic of apathy, empathy, sympathy, giving two flying shits about anyone other than themselves. Could you imagine living next to these people when they run out of food? Holy crappers. I hate guns, but I'm giving them a second consideration.

[Time for change]

25. I think that one other thing that would shake peoples' apathy is

solid evidence that the election was stolen.

True, the MSM is against us on this. But if we can recruit enough grass roots people through accumulation and documentation of good evidence, maybe we can make headway on this.

[understandinglife]

28. Kick and recommend. Many of us know that if we had anything other ...

.... than a corporate media committed to Bush neoconster propaganda that by early December 2004 more than enough evidence existed to have justified massive investigative journalism and the type of reporting we all witnessed re: the Ukrainian national election.

Didn't happen. Won't happen until enough folk with big bucks who actually care about the Republic purchase at least one major broadcast TV/cable enterprise, and turn it's full force on showing Bush and the neoconsters for treasonous criminals they are, including extensive retrospective programming on the stolen 2000 and 2004 National elections.


Peace.

[Time for change]

34. Well said UL-- I agree absolutely

And we at the grassroots level and help this process along IMO.

[LuckyTheDog]

120. A whistle blower

What we really need to get people to buy this is a very, very credible, high-ranking whistle blower with real proof. People who could fulfill that role no doubt exist. The only question is whether they would ever come forward.

[Time for change]

123. I'm afraid that their life would be in danger n/t

[femrap]

102. Sure there is some apathy....but maybe people are mostly.....

scared. That is what rove used to get * elected. Fear and greed are mightly strong motivators. The campaign used Fear on the women and a combination of macho, greedy, patriotic bullcrap on the men.....and it worked to an extent. The race was close so the neocons figured they could get away with the fraud. And they have....but the Truth has a very funny way of coming out. Wait until these lawsuits and trials begin.

Yeah, I am giving the gun issue some consideration as well.

When the stock market collapses, that will affect people directly. I see so many of these Pugs buying these McMansions....and both mom and dad have to work to support that mortgage. If one of them loses his/her job...they are just a few months away from foreclosure. And of course they are in debt up to their eyeballs from trying to keep up with the Joneses...it's a pathetic consumer lifestyle....and when it comes crashing down, I can't say I will feel particularly sorry for them.

I feel sorry for the working poor...and the people who have tried to live within their means and come upon a medical emergency or the death of a breadwinner.

I think New Orleans woke up a lot of people....look at *'s poll numbers....down and down. They are beginning to see what meanness these neocons are capable of....Lots of people I know are coming around to seeing that * stole these past 2 elections. There will always be people who insist upon keeping their heads up their asses....but thankfully they eventually asphixiate themselves! lol!

[Amaryllis]

117. See Bob Koehler's latest column, Ballot and Soul, about the Portland

Summit to Save Our Elections last weekend.
http://www.commonwonders.com/

[texpatriot2004]

112. You care and I care and many people who responded to this

thread care and lots of people at DU care (and that's almost 80,000 people)...

together "we the people" will do something about this.

[ComerPerro]

130. Suppose we can prove, beyond a shadow of a doubt, that Bush cheated

and committed fraud.

He's the president now. And he has congress. Soon, he will have the Supreme Court by an even wider margin.

I guarantee, nothing will happen. Not even an investigation.

And, the Bush Loyalists?

They will either dismiss the charges as lies, will write it off "Who cares, the whole system is corrupt", or they will even go as far as to completely excuse it, "Yeah, he cheated there, but he is good for our country".

[Time for change]

131. I think that the more we investigate, proove and expose fraud, the better

off we will be.

We need election reform desperately. Congress may not care, but the more the people know about this the more they will care, and then they can put pressure on Congress to do something about this.

[ComerPerro]

132. True, it would help guide standards for reform

didn't consider that.

Lets just hope we still have elections.

[helderheid]

13. kick for clean elections

[goclark]

27. Please hurry ith the clean electgions kick-

[mod mom]

33. Clean elections need devoted election reformers. Join up with your state

groups and get active. With the make up of congress, the work has to be put through at the state level. I'm in Ohio and even with Repuke control, we have 4 voter initiatives on the ballot this Nov.

[kster]

23. kick-n- recomended.nt

[roseBudd]

24. OH punch card precincts are printed on the ballot not punched.

Not only could right ballot wrong precinct result in mistabulation, in Ohio the precinct codes are printed on the ballot rather than punched. A ballot with a punched precinct code can not be mistabulated, but a ballot that requires a header card for the tabulator to know what precinct it is tabulating introduces the chance for human error or malfeasance at the tabulation point.

Why does the state of Indiana have precinct codes punched and in Ohio the precinct code is printed? Were the precinct codes punched during Sherrod Brown's tenure as SoS?

How was Dayton Legal Blank chosen to be the sole vendor of Ohio punch cards? Does Dayton Legal Blank sell punch cards to other states where the precinct codes are punched? Do Triad or ES&S have contracts with states other than Ohio that used punched precinct code punch cards?

Did anyone involved with the GOP in 2004 rent or purchase a legacy card punch from Cardamation?
http://www.cardamation.com/

APERTURE CARD PRINTING READER-PUNCH
Reads-Prints-Punches Aperture Cards Safely

STREAMLINED CONVENIENCE
Prints and punches cards in one pass

[Time for change]

26. That's very important information rosebud

Do you have any ideas on how to document the extent to which this has happened? I haven't been able to think of any.

[roseBudd]

32. Best bet for spotting anomalies would be a DUer from Cuyahoga...

I am as far from Cleveland as you can get and still be in Ohio.

If someone can call Sherrod Brown to find out if Ohio punch cards used to have precinct codes punched that would shed some light on how wrong precinct tabulation may have been planned for by Blackwell.

If someone could find out if Cardmation sold or rented legacy card punch equipment last year, that would be interesting to know.

[mod mom]

36. RB, Have you contacted Ohio Vigilance? They have a web site and

are based in Cleveland. Let me know if you need help in contacting them. I am on a list serv w one of their lead people.

[roseBudd]

98. Yes please relay my concerns and suspicions...

I think it is really really strange that the existing technology, ie. a punch in a certain hole on an IBM punch card means something was not used in Ohio to identify the precinct a particular ballot is identified with.

[mod mom]

35. DUers, read rosebud's excellent hypothesis on ER& D. Thanks RB!

[texpatriot2004]

86. Good post Rosebud I have questions, what does that mean

exactly that the OH punch cards are printed on the ballot not punched? This means no chads right? Or maybe I am wrong. What's the benefit of printing v punching? How were these counted? With a scanner?

Also, regarding this:

How was Dayton Legal Blank chosen to be the sole vendor of Ohio punch cards? Does Dayton Legal Blank sell punch cards to other states where the precinct codes are punched? Do Triad or ES&S have contracts with states other than Ohio that used punched precinct code punch cards?

Where can we begin to find the anwers?

Thanks so much for your post.

[roseBudd]

135. In November 04 I started researching everything I could find on

punch cards. There is not a lot of information out there on what is essentailly a preinternet legacy system.

I found a web page of a citizen election monitor from Indiana extolling the punch card system over DREs. I then coresponded with him to find out how Warren County might have committed punch card fraud (extremely easily, would require only 1 programmer) and also what it would take to cover the tracks in case of a hand count. In other words how could the punch card paper trail be counterfeited to match the tabulation results. He stated that that part would be harder but not impossible because the precinct codes are punched and taht would have to be duplicated with the replacement ballots.

Apparently in Indiana the ballots have the precinct punched, a certain punch or series of punchs equals a certain precinct and the tabulation program automatically know what precinct it is tabulating. This is really important because of ballot rotation.

In Ohio the precinct is not punched (I only found this out many months after the election) rather it is printed on the card and a person must insert a correct header card ahead of any change of precincts for the tabulator program to interpret the punchs correctly. This introduces the possibilty of error or fraud at the county tabulator level.

Now this seems really suspicous to me, because the technology of the punch card is not being used. Why would header cards to identify a precinct be preferable when it obviously makes tabulation harder? A really interesting question would be were precinct codes punched when Sherrod brown was SoS? Is this part of Blackwell's Plan B when he didn't get DREs in time for '04?

[jmowreader]

148. The difference between printing and punching

A punch card used to be called a Hollerith card, after the man who invented the technology. How they work is very simple: you punch holes in them in certain exact places. The punch card reader is equipped with a row of electric eyes, a light source and a mechanism that tells the machine what row on the card is being read. When coupled with a computer, the machine knows that if it's been told that row 1 is a vote for Bush and row 2 is a vote for Kerry, if there's a hole in row 2 the person voted for Kerry and not Bush.

Where the printed/punched precinct information really comes into play is if you're dealing with a state like Ohio where they move around the positions of the candidates on the cards. If the precinct information is punched into the card, the machine has no choice but to look at the card, think "this is from a precinct where row 1 is for Bush and row 2 for Kerry" and count all the cards with holes in row 1 for Bush. In this case, you can also just put cards into the input bin on the card reader without regard for precinct, push Run, and the machine will run through and count votes properly.

But if the precinct information is printed on the cards, when the cards are run the first card in the pile has to be punched with the name of the precinct. The machine will then assume that all of the cards it sees are from that precinct.

How to game this? You need a card counter--go to a bank and look at the automatic money counter to see what one looks like. You need four tables. Label them "Democratic precincts, Kerry on row 1," "Democratic precincts, Kerry on row 2," "Republican precincts, Bush on row 1," "Republican precincts, Bush on row 2." You need a list of how many registered voters there are in each precinct. And you need a really good lock on the door. Now let's say you know you want Bush to win the election. Start by counting all of the cards. Put a note on each precinct's cards. You know that if there are 10,000 voters in a precinct, you can't have more than 10,000 votes in that precinct. And you probably shouldn't go over 70 percent turnout because then it looks like you rigged the thing. Well...here's a Republican with Bush on row 1 10,000-vote precinct that only has 60 percent turnout, and a Democrat with Kerry on row 1 precinct with 85 percent turnout. No one in that Democrat precinct is gonna miss a thousand votes, are they? Just grab a handful of cards and move 'em. For extra effect, do a quickie sort to be sure you didn't grab the thousand cards that had Bush votes (which would turn into Kerry votes on the new precinct).

Could you get away with it? If the entire staff of your county's elections office are Republicans, certainly.

[theboz]

29. Kerry surrendered, so this is all pointless

Kerry's people claimed to be getting ready to fight a big legal battle if any stuff like this were to come up, and solicited donations from all of us (which myself and many others donated to) in advance. In the day after the election, many of us on progressive websites were looking into reports of various possible fraud and problems with the votes in Ohio and elsewhere. I was in Columbus, Ohio and heard all sorts of reports of problems. Everyone expected Kerry's people to look into it and possibly demand a legal fight, especially when dealing with Diebold fraud.

Unfortunately for us, Kerry screwed the country over by surrendering to Bush, and keeping all the money we gave him for whatever future campaigns he wants to run. He conceded to Bush like a chump and sucked up to him saying that it was better for the country to not have any controversy than it would be to have a long drawn out legal battle.

I'll never vote for Kerry again, nor any other Democrat that is unwilling to stand up to the Republicans when it's most crucial to do so. We may have had tons of fraud, but Kerry gave up without a fight, so he alone made that final choice to make Bush the winner.

[nashville_brook]

30. i disagree b/c the election doesn't belong to kerry or bush,

it belongs us -- the people.

but i totally agree -- i'll never vote for kerry again. he abandoned every principle of leadership and democracy by scurrying back into his delusions of a 2008 run.

[theboz]

31. You should be correct

The election should belong to us, but I fear it never has. The whole idea of a "representative republic" is one which apparently lets the rich continue to rule over us because "democracy" puts too much power in the hands of individuals.

[Time for change]

38. I think that what I say in post # 19 addresses this

[theboz]

40. You should be correct

The election should belong to us, but I fear it never has. The whole idea of a "representative republic" is one which apparently lets the rich continue to rule over us because "democracy" puts too much power in the hands of individuals.

[nashville_brook]

55. we're on the same wavelength -- i need to flesh this out more

:)

to me the fact that Kerry slinked off without a fight proved that the VOTE is ours -- no one else has the stake we do. their dog might be in the race, but we ARE the dogs.

this fact is the FOUNDATION of our republic. whether or not this has ever been the case is highly debatable. but the fact remains that when everything is said and done, it isn't a "candidate's election" -- elections belong to the voters.

for the HERE AND NOW we have this FOUNDATION. we can build on it or not. i think it's a solid rock to build on.

the alternative is what we got in 2000, 2002, and 2004.

(i haven't fleshed this out as much as i want to -- but it's creeping up my TO-DO list. alienation can be fought with words and action, something we have plenty of here at DU.)

:)

[Time for change]

37. Well, that's one reason why I changed my avatar

I don't want to judge Kerry. I disagree with his course of action on this, but still I have to give him credit for the things he's done.

Though his failing to fight this makes our challenge substantially greater, that is not a reason to give up. Our Dem. leaders must be operating under severe political restraints these days, that we probably don't fully understand.

But Democracy has always required the participation of the many, not just the leadership of the few. That's where we come in.

[WildEyedLiberal]

66. See my above post

I don't understand how anyone can blame Kerry for this. I want to know what on earth he was supposed to do. Everyone KNOWS that crying "fraud" on November 3rd would've got us NOWHERE. With no proof, no hard evidence, Kerry crying "they stole it from meeee" just makes him look like a whiny crackpot.

I completely agree that the election was stolen, and that we need to get this stuff into the light. Kerry's still involved in lawsuits in Ohio - I'm sure he'd be tickled to death if someone could hand him hard proof of Diebold fraud. We need to pound this issue to death, but this "blame Kerry first" mentality (the other poster exhibited, not you) gets fucking old fucking fast.

[Time for change]

73. Please see my post below -- # 72

I agree with you as far as your saying that we should not blame Kerry. But that doesn't mean that we can't disagree with him.

I'm sure he's in a terribly difficult situation. What I didn't mention in my post below is that it's entirely likely that he would have been crucified by the MSM had he taken the suggestions in my post to be much more aggressive about this. John Kerry is no novice at taking risks. As far as I can tell he was THE leading voice of protest against the Viet Nam war, and probably caused it to be ended sooner than it would have been, perhaps substantially so. But still, I think that he is making a mistake here.

[WildEyedLiberal]

65. What crap

The OP is very enlightening; however, how the hell is Kerry supposed to prove this to people who don't believe? I mean, votes that were deleted or switched - tell me, please, exactly how you propose he prove that he actually won.

Your post is full of ad hominem attacks and utterly devoid of any reasoning whatsoever. Please, tell me what Kerry should have done, in very specific terms. "He should've fought" and "he promised to count the votes" don't count - they are vague platitudes that mean nothing unless you explain, in detail, what he should've done to prove electronic election theft and overturn the election. So please, since you're so quick to judge him - what should he have done?

[Time for change]

72. I'd like to offer my opinion on this

First of all, I don't judge Kerry for his decisions on this matter. He has done a great deal to serve our country, and I don't know what his reasons were for how he handled this.

However, I do disagree with the way he handled this. There are three things that I believe he could have done that may very well have helped significantly in this matter. He could have refused to concede until much more investigation was done, and he could have taken the lead in the legal suits (as it was, the lead in the legal suits was taken by 3rd party candidates, and if they hadn't done so, apparently there would have been no suits -- some still hold out hope that those suits may yet lead to important disclosures, if not overturn the election).

But the main thing he could have done is be much more vocal about this whole thing. By refusing to concede and by aggressively pursuing legal avenues the news media would have been forced to devote much more attention to this issue. There may therefore have been more investigation, and certainly many more people in this country would have been aware of the problems.

Why do I think that this is so important? The future of our Democracy, I believe, depends on whether or not we get meaningful election reform in our country before so many right wing conservatives are "elected" that all hope of election reform is gone. Our current Congress has little interest in meaningful election reform. The only thing that will get them to pass meaningful election reform IMO is massive grassroots pressure (from us) to do so.

That's why I believe that Kerry should have pursued this more aggressively than he did.

[WildEyedLiberal]

104. Thanks for your valid points

He is really between a rock and a hard place on this. I don't think he's done dealing with the aftermath of election 2004, personally. I think the reason he didn't react the way you described is because he's a prosecutor, and it is his nature to fully assemble his case before pressing charges. I don't think he's finished with looking into 2004; I think he just wants to get all his ducks in a row before anything can be done. And he might not even attempt to be on center stage about it anyway - I don't have any inside dirt, but knowing John Kerry, I simply do not believe he just shrugged his shoulders and thought "well, that's it." I can understand your point of view, though I do feel like it is more prudent to assemble a foolproof case, even if it is a year or more after the fact, and drive the stake through their heart, than to have raised a fuss initially and run the risk of getting derailed from the start.

But as much as I still believe in Kerry, this is as much about us as about him; more us about us, really. Yes, he was robbed, but we were robbed too. I think he is doing what he can, but that's why I love seeing posts like yours - the more people working on this issue to put the puzzle pieces together, the better.

[Time for change]

105. Thank you -- and I hope you're right about this n/t

[roseBudd]

140. I believe Kerry knows he can't get the evidence, because the physical

evidence, the ballots, the poll books and the voting machines are in 87 counties and no judge in Ohio is going to give the go ahead for a seizure. In addition the time frame has given perps an awful long time to get rid of damning evidence. Who is to say that all the punch cards haven't been replaced with machine punched cards that produce the same result as the tabulation. If they were, they surely would have few fingerprints.

I don't think we can prove anything with statistical analysis BUT that analysis might influence a whistleblower to step forward.

We either need private detectives or enterprising DUers to seek out, cultivate and interview people who may know something. That would include BoE employees in all 87 counties, but especially Butler, Warren, Hamilton, Clermont, Franklin, Lake, Greene, Cuyahoga, Hocking, etc.

[AirAmFan]

39. Re: "Switching of votes through ballot order rotation": The 1000 votes you

mention matches my very conservative estimate, detailed in an Ohio Forum thread nine months ago, at http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=172&topic_id=5139&mesg_id=5139 .

'Caterpillar Ballot' cost Kerry more than 1000 Cuyahoga votes

In Cuyahoga alone, over a thousand voters waited for their turn to vote, punched out the chad next to Kerry's name, but had their vote counted for George Bush or for one of the minor candidates! Across Ohio, this same phenomenon may have robbed Kerry of many additional thousands of votes....

A generation ago, political science research established that having one's name listed first on a ballot gives a candidate an advantage of up to several percentage points, especially in minor contests where few voters recognize any of the candidates' names. A 1976 addition to the Ohio Constitution ordains that"The general assembly shall provide by law the means by which ballots shall give each candidate's name reasonably equal position by rotation or other comparable methods to the extent practical and appropriate to the voting procedure used."... But this directive has been carried far past the point of sanity.

There are 1436 precincts in Cuyahoga, but only 584 polling places. At 447 of these polling places, from 2 to 10 different precincts vote together.

"Ballot rotation" at the PRECINCT LEVEL, not the POLLING PLACE level, sets a trap for unwary voters when the location is crowded and chaotic. I call this trap the "Caterpillar Ballot", because, at the same polling place, a valid vote for John Kerry (or any other candidate) might have to go in ANY OF FIVE DIFFERENT LINES ON THE BALLOT. Kerry's name crawls from ballot line to ballot line, just like a caterpillar crawling from twig to twig on a tree. ...

[AirAmFan]

57. The "dirty dozen": Polling-place-level results for miscount analysis

In the thread linked just above, I present a methodology that
identifies Cuyahoga voting locations where miscounts are
highly likely to have occurred, based on improbably large
votes for minor candidates.  Twelve of those locations get
into double-digits for estimated miscounts.  The last column
in each line is the estimated number of net votes Kerry lost
in each of the dirty dozen, after givng Bush the mmiscounts
estimated to have been lost to the Republicans.

If the punchcards from these precincts have not been
destroyed, and still are maintained in stacks just as they
went into the counting machines, these are estimates of the
number of cards that will have the WRONG precinct number
stamped on them.

From
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=172&topic_id=5139&mesg_id=5157
:

           Config-   Cluster
Total      ura-      ----------------------
Miscount c tion Page Sequence Name         KNET

393.47   2 BK     11 120 BENEDICTINE_HIGH_ 355.60
202.40   3 WKD    16 171 CORY_UNITED_METHO 226.04
133.77   2 KP     28 311 GATEWAY_MANOR____  46.53
107.30   2 KP     12 124 MT_HAVEN_BAPTIST_ 100.44
 79.79   3 WKD    19 204 HOLY_REDEEMER_SCH  85.71
 76.61   3 WKP    21 231 LAKEVIEW_TOWERS_A  71.00
 64.13   2 BP     18 191 Y._M._C._A.______  40.41
 48.64   4 BKDP   41 453 TOWN_HALL________  19.58
 48.18   6 BBKDPP 40 436 ROYAL_REDEEMER_LU  -2.64
 47.64   3 BBK    27 296 NEW_CHAMBERS_SCHO  29.99
 22.08   2 BK     24 262 WILLOW_ELEMENTARY  14.93
 19.12   2 BP     19 210 BROOKLAWN_ELEMENT  12.83

  5.57   2 WP     22 241 MARION_STERLING_E   5.08
  4.16   2 WP     23 254 ROBERT_FULTON_ELE   3.94
  4.13   3 KDP    48 529 SOLON_CENTER_FOR_   0.88
  3.66   3 BDP    25 271 EMILE_E._DESAUZE_   4.48
  3.36   2 WD     21 230 PILGRIM_CONGREGAT   2.07
  3.32   2 WP     25 277 DOUGLAS_MACARTHUR   0.77
  3.16   2 BD     15 164 WADE_PARK_APARTME   2.97
  3.08   2 WD     13 136 ROBERT_H._JAMISON   2.88
  2.56   2 WD     21 235 ERNEST_BOHN_TOWER   2.27
  2.01   3 WDP    11 115 HARVEY_RICE_ELEME   2.20
  1.80   2 KP     52 567 CHRISTIAN_REF_CH_   1.61
  1.66   2 KP     52 568 WARRENSVILLE_HTS.   1.44
  1.57   2 KP      4  43 LAWRENCE_SCHOOL__  -0.13
  1.01   2 WD     13 143 UNION_ELEMENTARY_   0.76
  0.46   2 BD     24 263 ALEXIA_MANOR_____   0.34
  0.32   2 BP     31 337 GARFIELD_HTS_MIDD   0.14
  0.30   2 BK     21 226 RIVERVIEW_COMMUNI   0.24
  0.27   2 BD     39 426 NORTH_OLMSTED_BRA  -0.03
  0.17   2 BK     24 266 JOHN_F._KENNEDY_H   0.15
  0.13   2 BP     34 373 GRANT_SCHOOL_____   0.07
  0.09   2 BK     21 232 WALTON_ELEMENTARY   0.04

Notes:  'Page' refers to the BOE PDF listing polling places at
http://boe.cuyahogacounty.us/boe/PDF/votinglocations.pdf .

"Sequence" is the sequential position of the polling
place in this same document, running from 1 on page 1 to 583
on page 53.  The other columns are explained in the totals for
these results, provided in post #6 at

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=172x5139

Jan 11 2005
Author: AirAmFan

[Time for change]

63. Thanks a lot for this information

So, do you think that this could have cost Kerry much more than 1,000 votes in Cleveland?

[AirAmFan]

95. I'd sure like to see the precinct distribution of votes for 'Disqualified'

before I tried to answer that question. But jmknapp posted a letter from the head Cuyahoga vote counter confessing that those votes never were tallied (see http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=203&topic_id=166913&mesg_id=172727 ). Strangely, it was more work for programmers NOT to tally that ballot line than to tally it!

The resulting unanswered question is, Were votes for "Disqualified" concentrated disproportionately in polling places where wrong-machine votes for Kerry would go to "Disqualified"?

If so, the conservative 1,000 estimate could be far too small.

In Cuyahoga, if I've added up the total vote for all valid President lines correctly at http://serform2.sos.state.oh.us/sos/results/2004/gen/pres.htm , 673,777 valid votes were cast. But the number of votes cast overall in Cuyahoga, according to http://serform2.sos.state.oh.us/sos/results/2004/gen/voterTurn.htm , was 687,255. This leaves a difference of 13,478, part of which must consist of votes for "Disqualified". Miscounts estimated from disproportionate "Disqualified" tallies could be a MULTIPLE of votes for "Disqualified".

And the dozens of other 2004 punch-card counties in Ohio could have had similar or even worse problems with ballot order rotation than did Cuyahoga.

[Time for change]

97. If "disqualified" votes were concentrated in polling place where these

votes would have come from Kerry, as you say: Then, what do you think would explain that? Could that be explained by random chance, or is it plausible that this could have been arranged to be like that?

[AirAmFan]

103. There were TWO decisions boards of election had to make in 2004 that

would have had a big effect on the nature and direction of the effect on the election of ballot rotation problems:

(1) Should Nader's name be REMOVED from the ballot, so that only four lines for President would remain?

(2) If Nader's slot remained just below Kerry's as "Disqualified", should votes on that line be tallied as usual?

It seems quite odd that the Secretary of State and/or Cuyahoga BOE would answer, "NO!" to both those questions. Taken together, those decisions created a "black hole" into which votes could disappear. And disparities between predominantly Republican and predominantly Democratic areas in election staff and voting machine adequacy and maintenance apparently made "caterpillar crawl" a significant source of lost net votes for Kerry.

But I'm doubtful any large group of election decisionmakers could have foreseen all these complexities in detail and have made them happen on purpose.

On the other hand, the prerequisite for ballot order confusion to steal votes from Kerry was severe overcrowding at predominantly Democratic locations. Without chaotic conditions, without tens of thousands of inexperienced voters left to their own devices in long lines, neither ballot-order confusion nor other possible mechanisms for suppressing Kerry's vote could have been effective.

I think the overcrowding of polls in pro-Kerry areas was engineered deliberately. And IMO the more complex mechanisms by which the overcrowding would suppress Kerry's vote were not thought out completely in advance. The simplest way overcrowded polls could have suppressed Kerry's vote was by deterring tens or hundreds of thousands of people from turning out. All day long on TV, they would have seen long lines of people standing in the rain for hours, waiting to vote. As a result, many of them would not even have bothered to try to vote.

IMO ballot-order confusion for some of those who finally got in to the polls would have been considerably less important than deliberate suppression of the numbers of pro-Kerry voters.

But I'd still like to see the numbers that were suspiciously withheld--the precinct distribution of "Disqualified".

[OnTheOtherHand]

128. I have another question...

which you've probably already answered somewhere, but I'm trying to do too many things at once.

You've analyzed the 2004 general election extensively. How long has this basic system (multiple ballot orders at multi-precinct polling places) been in place? If we looked back at 2000, might we expect to see the same phenomenon in (possibly) different places (partly because the precincts may have changed! but mostly because the ballot orders would presumably be different in each election)? The examples might not be as stark in 2000 as in 2004 b/c Nader and other candidates pulled something like 23,000 votes in Cuyahoga in 2000, while all third-party candidates received under 4,000 votes in 2004 -- but something like the 4F-4N discrepancy (where a minor candidate gets 30% or 40% of the vote) would still be a sore thumb.

Oh, right, it's coming back to me now.... Fingerhut/Voinovich was randomized also, it looks like (they happen to be in the same order in 4F and 4N, not to get hung up on that one egregious example). Have you worked that in to get further leverage in your analysis?

There don't seem to be many outliers for independent in the 2002 governor's race anywhere in the state (except for Miami Twp in Greene County). Obviously turnout was a lot lighter in 2002. Are there other reasons?

[AirAmFan]

142. Ohio has had ballot rotation since the 1970s--it stems from a 1976 change

in the State Constitution, according to a link Duer Niche supplied (see the OP at http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=172&topic_id=5139&mesg_id=5139 ).

I haven't applied my formulas to pre-2004 data or to any county beyond Cuyahoga. What drew me to the problem of "caterpillar crawl" was its intellectual challenge and the fairly complete availability of online data for Cuyahoga, much of which STILL appears to be online. But, as the next election approaches, apparently the Cuyahoga BOE will rotate in newer data. What happens to the older data I don't know. Michael Vu probably knows--see the link in post #95 for his precise title.

[OnTheOtherHand]

143. thanks (yes, Michael Vu has crossed my radar screen before)

I'm an ex-Buckeye, Franklin not Cuyahoga.

I guess the next stops would be Hamilton, Montgomery, and Summit -- three more large counties (of course not as large) with punch cards, or at least I think they used punch for 2004. Montgomery seems to be changing over. (And I'll think about the historical aspect.)

Thanks for the information!

[Ellipsis]

41. Meanwhile back at the ranch...

...the writing is still on the wall.

Thanks for the compilation Time For Change ...It must ta bin hardwerk.

Act II Scene 3

[Time for change]

45. Yeah, but it's very interesting work n/t

[progressivebydesign]

42. In light of the Court appointments, I still wish Kerry had fought this.

I can't believe he folded his tent so fast.. it still burns me. Our Country and our World is being trashed by a nothing-to-lose second termer, and Kerry just walked away from all this. Wish we would have nominated more of a firebrand type...

[bleever]

43. Great analysis. Nominated.

Thanks for this. It's really good work.

:thumbsup:

[Time for change]

46. Thank you bleever -- I hope it bears fruit

[AirAmFan]

47. OMITTED: "NOT ALL THE WAY DOWN" could have taken tens of thousands

of votes from Kerry statewide. Did the sources you surveyed for your EXCELLENT summary mention the problem of poorly-aligned and chad-choked voting machines that made it difficult to push punchcards "ALL THE WAY DOWN"? A UC-Irvine researcher found that this mechanism could have cost Al Gore 15 percent of the undervote in Miami-Dade in 2000 (see http://www.commondreams.org/headlines01/0106-01.htm ).

In Ohio in 2004, The total number of votes cast for president was 5,627,908, if I've added up the totals correctly at http://serform2.sos.state.oh.us/sos/results/2004/gen/pres.htm . But the number of votes cast overall was 5,722,443, according to http://serform2.sos.state.oh.us/sos/results/2004/gen/voterTurn.htm This leaves a difference of 94,535, again, if my arithmentic is correct (please check it).

What happened to the votes for President of more than 94,000 Ohio voters? Here's one plausible explanation:

From http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=203x176358 :

At least in Cleveland, misaligned votes intended for Kerry would have tended to be cast for "Disqualified", a ballot line punchcard-counting machines were programmed NOT TO TALLY!

The basic Presidential ballot order was

Badnarik
Bush
Kerry
Disqualified
Peroutka

You see that the name immediately underneath Bush is Kerry, and the name immediately underneath Kerry is Disqualified. This list was in alphabetical order before Nader's name was taken off the ballot. At that point, for some reason the list of Presidential candidates was not shortened to four. Instead, a 'hole' was left and counting machines were programmed to provide NO TALLIES of punches for DISQUALIFIED. They are mixed in with dimpled pregnant and hanging chads etc.

Misaligned votes intended for Bush would show up as unexpectedly high tallies for Kerry at a precinct. But pro-Bush areas tended to be less crowded, have newer and better equipment, and to have staff that inserted the ballot into the machine for each voter. In pro-Kerry, poorer areas, voters more often were on their own in lines hours long to use the worst-maintained equipment.

The fact that, at least in Cuyahoga and perhaps many other places statewide, misaligned votes for Kerry went into a "black hole", not even tallied, is quite suspicious and worthy of investigation.

[Time for change]

50. That's a very good point.

Note under the last section of my report titled "Where do the remainder of the votes needed for a Kerry victory come from", subsection "uncounted ballots in Ohio": I note 106,000 uncounted ballots. Most of those involve the problem that you mention, and almost certainly a good proportion of them are due to the problem that you mention.

I didn't discuss this in detail in my report because many of those were probably from Cleveland, so there would be some overlap with my other calculations -- but that is a very important issue to consider.

[Febble]

48. One note of caution -

though I completely agree this needs looking into - the correlation between turnout and voters per machine is not necessarily uni-directional. In Franklin County, machines were clearly allocated on the basis of past turnout (which may be illegal and I still think there's a case for prosecution in there - the result was gross underprovision in Democratic, largely African American precincts) - and of course, turnout in one year will be correlated with turnout the next year.

Getting at the underlying causality is virtually impossible, as rationing machines on the basis of past turnout will tend to be a self-fulfilling prophesy, so Franklin stinks whichever way you look at it, and on my own calcs, even after controlling for turnout in 2000, turnout was significantly depressed where voter-per-machine was high, supporting the intuitive deduction (and anecdotal evidence) that shortage of machines caused people to leave the lines without voting.

http://uscountvotes.org/ucvAnalysis/OH/FranklinCountyReport_v2.pdf

But it does mean you have to be a bit cautious in invoking a direct causal link between voters-per-machine and turnout.

However, having said that, Cuyahoga and Franklin both stink, and if the election was stolen in Ohio, those two counties are the crime scene IMO.

Take a look at these pieces by Jim Knapp if you haven't seen them already:

http://www.dailykos.com/search?offset=30&old_count=30&type=diary_by&topic=§ion=&string=jmknapp&search=Search&search_archive=yes&count=30&orderby=date

especially this one:

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2004/12/15/143151/76

[Time for change]

52. Thank you Febble

And thank you for your excellent research on insufficient machine allocation in Franklin County and its likely affect on depressing the Democratic vote.

I believe that the formula of allocating machines on the basis of past elections was a particularly egregious one (and I believe purposely so) for this election. From everything I've read and everything I understand about this election, the Democrats were motivated like they haven't been in decades. So to allocate machines based on their poor turnout is past elections is simply unconscionable, and I'm sure cost them tens of thousands of votes.

Anyhow, it looks like you and I are together on pointing to Cuyahoga and Franklin County as the major (but certainly not the only) culprits in this election.

[farmbo]

49. Great work TFC...See DU research thread on Triad (Central Tabulator)

This is from November 2004... Before Brazille and the Democrats decided to whitewash Ohio:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=104&topic_id=2768979


Triad had the capability of "counting" 42 Ohio counties and Kenneth Blackwell could "back door" the machines. The DNC report failed to mention Triad, let alone the Diebold back door.

http://fairnessbybeckerman.blogspot.com/2005/09/diebold-software-had-back-door.html

It is becoming increasingly clear that the only "conspiracy theorists" surrounding this issue are those who hypothesize that Rove, faced with losing Ohio in the exit polls, sat on his hands in Washington instead of initiating covert vote switching through Blackwell's office. Warren county went into its fake "Terror Alert" lock down, the Tabulators were entered--basically a one man job at that point-- and votes were "found" in the SW Ohio counties (where pesky recounts could be controlled) and "lost" in Cuyahoga. It is now abundantly clear that he had the means, opportunity and motive.

That the DNC gave Rove a free pass on this issue with their specious, poorly researched report, is an eternal mystery. It looks like it will be up to those of us on the internets to save our Democracy.

:grr:

[Time for change]

51. Interesting information on the Triad issue

I did some analysis myself that pointed to Triad in December:http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=203&topic_id=195808. But it didn't go very far.

[OhioChick]

53. You have a good gathering of information here.

I'm sorry, but I couldn't get through all of it. That fiasco (of bush winning here) makes me irate and I'll never believe that he won OH in 2004 for as long as I live. I'll never forget watching the local news........long after midnight. People in Cleveland were still waiting in line to vote. Huge lines that were wrapped around buildings and such. Before you knew it........the election was "called" for bush and I know a dent wasn't made in those lines of people yet...........and Cleveland is very "blue."

[Time for change]

58. Very blue indeed: 83% to 16%

This is just the kind of information that is so important to document.

[roseBudd]

141. not only that the very white Warren County managed via fake terror alert

to keep independent observers from observing and keeping their polls open late to ensure that they reported their tally AFTER the most populous and red county of Cuyahoga. Warren had to know how much to cheat and I wouldn't be surprised if Warren was where the cheating in Butler, Clermont and Hamilton was orchestrated.

[Time for change]

145. Could you please explain how the lockdown in Warren County

could have been involved in cheating in Butler, Clermont, etc.? That's a concept that is unfamiliar to me.

[roseBudd]

147. I don't know other than Butler, Warren and Clewrmont are overwhelmingly

white, GOP, had the largest C. Ellen Connaly anomaly of all 87 counties (Hamilton was 4th, andhad a lower Bush to Kerry margin due to being less white).

Butler and Warren are very similar demographically. Butler planned to have enough voting machines. Warren did not. So Warren was an anomaly. A white exurban GOP voting county that kept it's polls open late due to long lines. Usually Cuyahoga, being the most populous county is the last to report. Somehow the sparsely populated Warren County (parts are rural) managed to report their tallies last. After Cuyahoga. Which is important because Cuyahoga is not only big, it's quite red.

I suspect that Warren was ground central for tabulation fraud, because the tabulation was done without witnesses and because Warren, Butler and Clermont are contiguous counties, with the largest C. Ellen Connaly anomaly.

[suneel112]

56. Bring it to the table...

I see there will be an investigation on Karl Rove's espionage case. Bring that evidence to the table, hell, bring EVERYTHING bad about Bush/Republicans to the table, and there will be NO REPUBLICANS LEFT IN GOVERNMENT!!! WOOOOO HOOOO!!!!
:woohoo:
<Takes a drink to that>
:beer:
As we win one investigation after another (starting with easily-provable claims such as Valerie Plame), we can move on to bigger-ticket items, like Bush stealing the 2004 elections (ALL THREE AREAS, House of Representatives, Senate, and the Presidency). Probably the hardest (but most damaging case) as a final conclusion to the backlash would be to prove that Bush was complicit in the September 11th attacks. The snowball of hatred towards the Republican party would grow.

This will be a Katrina-sized (or whatever bigger comes this global warming century) shitstorm for the GOP. It will probably have the result of the Republicans being treated like the Fascists in Italy in 1945. At the end, Bush will be associated closer to a Fascist Dictator than to God.

"I see a Morning in America", the morning of the Democratic Party.

[Bill Bored]

71. "there will be NO REPUBLICANS LEFT IN GOVERNMENT!!!"

Well if this works out, you might want to let Fitzgerald keep his government job!

[Ellipsis]

60. kick n/t

[PeterPan]

61. This is absolutely appalling!

We must do everything we can to make elections more transparent.
HR 550 won't fix everything by any means but it will require a mechanism for verification and its a crucial first step. The Republicans are fighting HR 550 everyway they can. HR 3910 is a threat not only because of its Voter ID but because it will be used to ignore HR 550.
See this thread
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=104x4999575
And sign the petition and send an email at this link
http://www.congressweb.com/cweb4/index.cfm?orgcode=VTUSA&hotissue=1

[Time for change]

62. I've already signed it -- thank you n/t

[Dr Fate]

68. Unitl Kerry or other Top DEMs can say all this in front of a camera...

...voters will assume "everything is fine."

[Time for change]

75. I agree

I hope that we can convince them to do so.

[meppie-meppie not]

69. no doubt he was cheated but he didn't seem to care or think it worth

the fight on our behalf, so why should we care?

[Time for change]

76. Because

we're not doing this for him. We should care because the fate of our Democracy is at stake.

[Mr_Jefferson_24]

70. It's puzzling to me...

...that anyone would respond to this disturbing information by attacking the messenger. It is disturbing to be sure, and I don't enjoy disturbing news and facts any more than the next person, but any anger or distress it causes is not rightly placed on the messenger.
This is quite literally our democracy on the line, people. What the messenger deserves is our thanks. So, THANKS, Time-for-a-Change.

[Time for change]

77. Thank you Mr. Jefferson

I appreciate your support, and I feel that I've gotten a lot more support on this thread than attack, so that doesn't worry me.

[OhioChick]

84. Thank you..........

You have done a very good job with researching and your information here.

[LincolnMcGrath]

74. Don't be silly. It was the far left who lost Kerry the election.

According to some DLC apologists here on DU. :eyes:

[Time for change]

79. Yeah

Some blame it on the far left, some blame it on the DLC, and some blame it on Kerry. I don't think that any of those explanations wash.

It's very hard for me to believe that Kerry didn't WIN this election. He made mince meat out of his idiot opponent in three successive debates. Who could have watched those debates and still voted for *, even if they didn't understand any of the issues.

[mistertrickster]

Sorry, I disagree.

First, a lot of people just aren't going to sit through a 90 minute debate, especially if they're ignorant Bush voters.

Second, Kerry never could overcome the huge problem that he had voted to give the president the authority to go to war. When the president DID go to war, he could say that "Kerry voted for it."

That's not exactly right, but it's close enough that Kerry couldn't mount a good defense against it. And Bush hit him with this over and over again in the debates.

The lesson Dems should learn--give no fucking quarter to Bush. Oppose him everywhere, everytime, for every reason.

[Time for change]

93. I certainly agree with your last paragraph n/t

[mistertrickster]

78. Is there a source for this? nt

[Time for change]

83. I provided links to 15 different sources in my OP

Did they not work?

[mistertrickster]

88. Okay, I see now. Thanks, nt.

[Fox Mulder]

81. Dang...

I didn't know any of this happned. It makes me sick and very angry. :puke: :grr:

:kick:

[mistertrickster]

82. Is there a source for this?

The fact of the matter is that Kerry

1. shouldn't have had to carry one state to win. More effective campaigning would have made that unnecessary.

2. if he was so blatently robbed, why didn't he contest it with his massive war chest, his lawyers at the ready, and his own personal fortune?

He ran like it didn't matter to him if he won or lost. And when he "lost," he acted like it didn't matter to him.

He wimped out on us. Deal with it.

And fight like hell so that we don't get "Kerry-ed out to dry" again.

[Ellipsis]

85. Time will tell...time will tell. n/t

[Time for change]

87. I believe that Kerry ran quite a good campaign

He won three successive debates by large margins, which I believe has never been done before.

And he had significant obstacles to overcome, such as all the Bush money and very unfair coverage by the MSM -- especially how they went out of their way to protect Bush from serious criticism.

But I do agree that Kerry should have fought this -- see my post # 72.

[texpatriot2004]

89. I agree with you Kerry ran a fine campaign. That trash about

him not doing so really irritates me. And you're right, even with unfair money issues and media coddling that lying lunatic * Kerry still won all three debates, he looked more "Presidential" at all times, AND HE PACKED IN HUGE CROWDS OF PEOPLE ALL OVER THIS COUNTRY.

[bobbieinok]

100. you've already forgotten...M$M did NOT show K speeches, report on

his plans

according to M$M, K and E did not exist

look at the large numbers and enthusiasm at his speeches in the last weeks of the campaign....reported locally but NEVER nationally


'More effective campaigning ...' means nothing if not reported in M$M

[SoCalDem]

90. The mandate: 110K "extra votes" x 31 states "won" = 3.41 million

the 110k "extra" could either be votes taken from Kerry OR added to *²..In areas where close scrutiny would be apid, a subtraction would be an easy way..in states where *² was presumed the bigtime winner, who would notice 110K extra..? especially when polls kept telling everyone who HUGE the turn out was.. Who's gonna challenge some extra votes in TX,MS,GA,KY,UT,KS,OK etc??

The mandate is phony..and so is *²

[Time for change]

91. Yeah, I don't believe that * won the popular vote either

But I feel more confident about Ohio,where so much evidence of fraud has been seen.

[cornermouse]

96. That's why he should have kept fighting.

God knows I wanted him in the White House and Bush out.

[Zynx]

99. There's just one issue with that.

Kerry's vote total in Cuyahoga County was nearly 90,000 higher than Gore's and his margin was better too.

2004 Election Result, Cuyahoga County
Kerry 448,605 Bush 221,600
2000
Gore 359,913 Bush 192,099

In addition, Kerry's number was the highest since 1964 when population was actually a little higher in the county not to mention LBJ won the entire country in a landslide.

[Time for change]

101. Yes, it's true that Kerry's vote total was substantially higher than Gore

in Cuyahoga County.

There was a massive effort put into Cuyahoga County by the Democrats, resulting in huge increases in new voter registration. I have even heard stories of large numbers of New Yorkers moving to Ohio (don't know which counties) just so that they could add their vote to Ohio.

So, your point is valid, but I'm not sure what it means.

[texpatriot2004]

106. I love Gore and Kerry too. I think it means that Kerry's campaign

was fantastic.

[Time for change]

108. It really was

Just think how many votes they would have had to steal if the MSM hadn't worked so hard to hide the fact that * needed a hidden wire in order to prevent losing all three debates even worse than he did.

[Zynx]

122. Not only was it significantly higher than Gore's, it was higher than Bill

Clinton's by a huge margin. Indeed, it was a very strong performance and it is difficult to see how it could have gotten much stronger.

[Time for change]

126. Ok, then look at it like this

In order for my calculations regarding Cleveland to be accurate, two important assumptions would need to be made, assumptions 1 and 2 of the OP. Assumption 3 is inconsequential for that purpose, for it assumes a gain over the official results for Kerry of only a few hundred votes, when in fact it is at least possible (and evidence was presented) that vote swithcing accounted for much more fraud than that. But let's just stick to 1 and 2. Neither of these involves any improvement at all in Kerry's percentage of 83% of the vote in Cleveland. All that these assumptions involve is that a lot more people voted.

Assumption 2 is that the pre-election reports by the NY Times (and there were others too) on massive new voter registration in Cuyahoga County is accurate, and Blackwell's current figures on that issue are inaccurate. I think that it's very reasonable assumption to make, because the reporters had no reason to lie about this, and we all know about Blackwell. We also make the assumption here that the massive Dem. registration in Cuyahoga County was targeted either completely in Cleveland, or in Cleveland plus other precincts in Cuyahoga County that were heavily Democratic. I think that that makes pretty good sense. Why would the Dems. target precincts outside of Cleveland where Kerry had little or no advantage. And Furthermore, the same NY Times report indicated that Republican precincts throughout the state were doing far worse than Dem. precincts (250% increase in Dem. precincts, to about 25% increase in Rep. precincts).

Perhaps assumption 1 is the most difficult to accept. Here we're saying that the turnout in Cleveland was similar to the turnout in the rest of the county, rather than the rest of the county overshadowing Cleveland by 73% to 51%. In additional to some statistical evidence I presented for that (admittedly inconclusive), it is the firm believe of the people who were there that turnout in Cleveland was HUGE. How could it have been so far behind the rest of the county? That is a main reason IMO that the response to this post has been so strong -- it is the strong belief of people who were there or who have a good familiarity from second hand experience with what went on in Cleveland on Election Night. They know in their hearts that turnout in Cleveland could not have been that low, or even close to that low. And comparing it with 2000 or 96 doesn't much change that.

One piece of evidence that would have been important in assessing this, which I tried hard to obtain, but I couldn't, was the relative turnout in Cleveland compared to the rest of the county in previous recent elections. I couldn't obtain that information. I even spoke to the Cleveland Board of Elections, and they could not get that information for me. Of course, even if the Cleveland turnout was lower than the rest of the county in previous elections, that wouldn't have proven that my assumptions about this elections were wrong -- but that would have constituted some evidence against them.

And lastly, look at the parallel with Florida. The National Election Incidence Reporting System (EIRS) received reports on Election Day of voters who tried to vote for one candidate, but the machine registered for the other candidate. These incidents favored Bush over Kerry, nationwide, by a 12 to 1 ratio. If this wasn't suspicious enough, almost half of these reports in the country came from the SE Florida Democratic strongholds of Palm Beach, Broward, and Miami-Dade. Why not any from Cleveland? Because Cleveland didn't use electronic voting (except for the central tabulators, which the voters didn't interact with directly.)

[Zynx]

137. I think a better way of looking at Ohio voting irregularities is to look

at the counties around Cincinatti and Columbus that showed enormous vote increases for Bush from 2000 to 2004. Not only did his number of votes skyrocket, but his percentage did as well.

[Time for change]

138. Well, that could be a factor too

Things like the national security "lockdown" in Warren County are extremely suspicious IMO.

But I still think that Cleveland is where the key lies -- notwithstanding the fact that Kerry did better in Cuyahoga County in 2004 than Gore in 2000. I don't see why a 51% turnout rate for Cleveland seems reasonable, considering all the other circumstances.

[bleever]

107. Kicking this great piece.

And Tfc, over 70 votes! Hard work rewarded with well-deserved attention.

:thumbsup:

[Time for change]

110. Thank you again bleever

I wanted to finish this and post it before I leave on vacation tomorrow. But I worked on it until 12:30 last night, and then I was too tired to go any further. So I got up early this morning to work on it, but I was still too tired, so I made a bad move and my computer shelf and keyboard fell on me, and I lost the v from my keyboard. So probably the most difficult thing was to try to finish this post about voting and Cleveland without a v on my keyboard (I had to cut and paste every time I used a v.)

But yes, I've never gotten half this many votes for a thread before. I think that one of the main reasons for that is that this really struck home with a lot of people, who recognize from what they saw or heard or experienced on Election Night that Cleveland was indeed targeted by Blackwell, Rove, and all the rest of those Neoconsters.

And there is a very interesting parallel with Florida. Much of the fraud in Florida, as you probably know, was targeted specifically at the Dem. stronghold counties in SE Florida -- Palm Beach, Broward, and Miami Dade, where there was massive "electronic vote switching" perpetrated on the touch screen voting machines.

[novak goes postal]

109. WHY AREN'T WE DRIVING THESE CROOKS OUT OF THE WHITEHOUSE

NOW..... HE IS DOWN IN THE POLLS TO 37%

[Time for change]

111. Well, many of us are working on it

Understandinglife, for one, has posted numerous threads with that express purpose in mind. Here's one that's received quite a bit less attention than most of his posts, but it's very worth while IMO:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=post&forum=104&topic_id=4999979&mesg_id=5005019

[donheld]

113. This stuff makes me numb

So many people like to be totally oblivious to this sort of thing. They think it's impossible for this sort of thing to happen here in the US, but we've seen it happen in FL in 2000 and now again in 2004. God only knows what kind of shenanigans went on in the 2002 mid-term election. For all the talk about love of democracy and freedom isn't free crap, you'd think people would want to make sure we have good elections. People in our country don't care about their government. Too many view this as a game. Reds versus Blues. Cubs versus Yankees. This is not a game it's serious shit. Forgive my rambling, but i get pissed about all this.

Did Kerry really care? Did Edwards really care?

[Seabiscuit]

114. That's not "rambling". You're just telling it like it is.

Color me thoroughly disgusted with the American voters as well.

[Time for change]

115. Yes, Kerry and Edwards did care and they do care

And you care, and I care, and so do the good majority of 60,000 DUers.

Those who don't care IMO are in denial.

We were taught when we were young that we were born into a Democracy, and we were led to believe that that's the way it would be forever, no matter what we did. But probably IMO what we needed more education in was the fact that Democracies turn into tyrannies when the citizenry becomes apathetic and believes that their Democracy is a given. We need to avoid falling into that trap and work hard to preserve our Democracy.

[Lethe]

118. why did Kerry concede so quickly?

when something is that close, give it at least a week c'mon

[Time for change]

119. There's a lot of discussion and dissension over that

Many are very upset with him.

But see post #s 72 and 104 for a more benign view.

[Vektor]

121. Yes, yes he was.

No doubt about that.

[Twist_U_Up]

124. No need to phrase this as a question,

Kerry was cheated out of more than 100000 votes, he was ROBBED all over the country.

PAY NO ATTENTION TO THAT MAN BEHIND THE CURTAIN
(diebold)

Are you pissed off ENOUGH ?

[Time for change]

127. I don't doubt that at all

But much more work has gone into investigating Ohio than any other part of the country (for good reason, of course). So we have much less direct evidence regarding other parts of the country than we do for Ohio.

[PinkyisBlue]

125. Exit Polls

I was struck by the exit polls that consistently showed Kerry well ahead of Bush all day long. But the exit polls in the evening put Bush ahead. Is this due to the weighted polls? Most people (including me) don't (or didn't) realize that the exit polls towards the end of the day are adjusted or "weighted" to better reflect who received more actual votes. Could Kerry have requested a recount in Ohio based on the exit polls? Some countries use exit polls to reflect the integrity of an election, and in the Ukraine, the results of an election were dismissed due to exit polls not correlating with actual votes.

[Time for change]

129. Good points

Yes, Kerry actually won the unadjusted exit poll in Ohio by a comfortable 4.2%. But at some time after 1:00 a.m. the poll suddenly changed to show Bush ahead in Ohio. As you note, that was because the poll was "adjusted" to reflect the actual results -- and therefore that particular number is meaningless as a poll number.

This caused a great deal of suspicion by many people, including thousands of DUers probably. It is in fact standard practice to do this end of the day adjustment of the exit polls. But I also feel that it should have been the responsibility of our MSM to explain this to their viewers. It is their job after all to keep us informed of important matters, and this end of the evening switch probably caused tens or hundreds of thousands of viewers to actually believe that Bush won the Ohio exit poll.

With regard to your question about a recount, I personally believe that when the loser of the election has won the exit poll that should be sufficient basis for a recount. There was in fact a "recount" in Ohio, but it was only a 3% recount, and it was tainted by lots of "irregularities" that IMO were fraudulent. I suggest taking a look at this excellent report by Georgia10 to get an idea of the extent of fraud that went into the recount. The recount stuff starts on page 36: http://www.ajschuler.com/challenge.doc

[OnTheOtherHand]

133. note on the Ukraine

I don't know that the (Ukraine) Supreme Court's ruling has been translated into English, but as far as I can tell, it isn't true that the results of the first run-off there were dismissed because of the exit polls. International monitoring organizations, and AFAICT the Supreme Court, relied on credible direct evidence of election law violations, including multiple voting, ballot-stuffing, and (I've heard -- dunno if this appeared in the ruling) destruction of ballots with acid, as well as intimidation, denial of media access....

Surely the Ukraine exit polls influenced the politics on the ground, but they didn't have any legal force. The same is true in Ohio.

The doc Tfc linked to has lots of great info, but I will warn you that IMO a lot of what it says about exit polls is misleading (and some of the other stuff is somewhat dated). But it still an excellent roundup, and as far as I know it is accurate on the Ohio recount issues.

[paineinthearse]

134. What really happened in Ohio

I hope everyone has read John Conyers' book, "What really happened in Ohio". It's simply amazing.

Makes a great holiday gift for tinfoil hats and "normal" people too.

Available at www.johnconyers.com

[Time for change]

136. Good point -- I should have referred to that in my OP n/t

[robbedvoter]

139. Kerry wasn't. We the People were.

[Chi]

144. Very nicely done as always Tfc! n/t

[Ellipsis]

146. Kick for Sunday

[Amaryllis]

149. kick

[texpatriot2004]

150. Kick it for Kerry and the millions who voted for him and were

CHEATED.

[Ellipsis]

151. Monday night kick.