Will Blackwell Provide Enough Voting Machines to Dems in 06 Election?

Time for change

(1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore

Thu May-18-06 09:00 PM
Original message

Will Blackwell Provide Enough Voting Machines to Dems in 06 Election?

Because electronic voting is generally subject to more delays than other types of voting, a cynical way to help your candidate win is to make sure that precincts dominated by the opposition party don�t receive enough voting machines. Kenneth Blackwell, Ohio�s Secretary of State during the 2004 Presidential election, must have known that very well, as tens of thousands of mostly Democratic, poor and minority voters left long voting lines, characterized by waiting periods of up to several hours, prior to casting their ballot, on Election Day 2004.

There were 7 Ohio counties in November 2004 that used electronic voting machines. Three (3) of the 7 counties were characterized by unequal distribution of voting machines to one party or the other. In each of those three counties (Franklin, Mahoning, and Lake) Republican precincts had significantly more machines per thousand voters than Democratic precincts.

Relationship between machines per registered voter, voter turnout, and Kerry vote share

More specifically, here are tables for all three counties, which specify the number of precincts, machines per registered voter, and voter turnout, according to the Kerry vote share (percent of voters voting for Kerry). These tables were computed using the data that Professor Walter Mebane used to produce his portion of the 2004 Ohio Election Report sponsored by the Democratic National Committee (DNC).

Lake County

Kerry %     Precincts    Machines/1000 reg. voters    Turnout
20-30       4                3.82                                 67.5%
30-40       32              3.51                                 68.4%
40-50       76              3.55                                 69.1%
50-60       88              3.40                                 66.1%
60-70       15              3.19                                 62.0%
70-80       2                3.10                                 50.0%

Mahoning County

Kerry %     Precincts    Machines/1000 reg. voters    Turnout
30-40       17               6.90                                 68.2%
40-50       51               6.48                                 66.1%
50-60       68               6.48                                 65.6%
60-70       75               6.41                                 62.0%
70-80       42               5.72                                 56.0%
80-90       38               5.01                                 47.6%
90-100     21               5.31                                 50.0%

Franklin County

Kerry %     Precincts    Machines/1000 reg. voters    Turnout
20-30       18              4.02                                 67.8%
30-40       130             3.92                                 66.4%
40-50       236             3.66                                 60.6%
50-60       154             3.32                                 57.1%
60-70       90              2.94                                 51.1%
70-80       57              3.10                                 48.6%
80-90       69              3.08                                 49.4%
90-100     32              3.03                                 47.5%

There are two important things to note from observation of these tables. First, there is a general and significant trend in all three counties for the number of machines per registered voters to be very high in the heaviest Bush precincts and then become progressively lower the higher the Kerry vote. Secondly, voter turnout demonstrated precisely the same relationship, being highest in the heaviest Bush precincts and then becoming progressively lower in the Kerry precincts.

Low voter turnout in precincts with small numbers of machines per registered voter

When too few voting machines are available in relation to the number of voters and the length of time that it takes to vote on those machines, long voting lines develop, with consequent long waiting periods. This causes many voters to leave the voting lines before voting, as working class voters are often faced with the fear of losing their job if they don�t report to work, some voters may not be physically fit enough to stand in the lines for hours, others need to attend to family responsibilities, and some voters may simply lose patience. These lost voters, in turn, are reflected by low �voter turnout�, since �voter turnout� is calculated as the number of votes cast, divided by the number of registered voters.

Reports of long lines on Election Day 2004 were especially prevalent in two of the three counties noted above, Franklin and Mahoning. Those two counties were among the top four counties in Ohio that day with respect to the rate of reporting instances of long voting lines to the national Electronic Incidence Reporting System � EIRS (The other two top four counties were Cuyahoga and Summit, also heavily Democratic counties.) And furthermore, a detailed statistical analysis by Elizabeth Liddle, of the relationship between voting machines per registered voter and voter turnout, indicated that the long voting lines in Franklin County alone resulted in a net loss to the Kerry/Edwards ticket of approximately 7,000 votes.

Reason for small numbers of machines per registered voter in the Kerry precincts

Given the fact of low voter turnout in precincts with too few machines per registered voter, it is obvious that providing insufficient numbers of machines for specific precincts will hurt the Party that predominates in those precincts.

That raises the question, �Why were there inadequate numbers of voting machines in 3 of the 7 Ohio counties that used electronic voting machines on Election Day 2004?�

One excuse for the shortage of voting machines in Democratic Ohio precincts on Election Day 2004 was that the allocation of voting machines was based on the number of �active voters� rather than registered voters. �Active voter� means a voter who has voted in recent elections. Since Democrats often vote less frequently than Republicans, so this excuse runs, fewer machines per registered voters were allocated to Democratic precincts because these voters were thought to be less likely to vote than Republican voters.

I don�t buy that excuse for a minute. In the first place, there was a massive and well publicized get-out-the-vote campaign for the Kerry/Edwards ticket in Ohio in 2004, Democrats were highly energized for that election, and election officials (including Kenneth Blackwell) should have known that and prepared for it. Secondly, it could very well be that a history of relatively low voter turnout in Democratic precincts is due largely to the same kind of voter suppression that we saw in Ohio in 2004. Thirdly, voting is among the most sacred of rights in our country, and there is no excuse for election officials failing to provide sufficient numbers of voting machines. Fourthly, there were 68 unused voting machines in Franklin County on Election Day 2004. And fifthly, dirty tricks of this sort were perpetrated all over Ohio on Election Day 2004, as meticulously detailed in John Conyers� Report of the Democratic Staff of the House Judiciary Committee.

What is the outlook for 2006

My belief is that if something isn�t done to prevent this problem from recurring, it will happen again in 2006. There are two ominous facts that suggest the likelihood of an even worse problem in 2006 than we saw in 2004. First, Blackwell is running for Governor this time � which means that he�s likely to be even more interested in the outcome of the election than he was in 2004. And secondly, I believe that there will be more Ohio counties using electronic voting machines in 2006 than there were in 2004 (Someone please tell me if I�m wrong about that).

Other Types of Fraud to watch out for

Lastly, I want to remind Ohioans that the kind of election fraud discussed in this post is far from the only kind of election fraud perpetrated in Ohio in 2004 under the leadership of Kenneth Blackwell:

Voter registration fraud (illegal targeted purging of Democratic voters) was so rampant that it very well could have determined the results of the Presidential election in Ohio in 2004, even without the help of other kinds of fraud. The Democratic Party must give as much attention to making sure that their voters remain registered as they do to getting out the vote on Election Day.

Central tabulator mediated fraud could well have been a significant factor in the surprisingly low voter turnout in Cleveland and elsewhere in 2004. To prevent that we need to make note of the vote totals at every precinct at the time the polls close, and then make sure that those totals match the officially reported results.

Electronic vote switching was almost certainly a factor in the 2004 election, and is always a potential problem with electronic voting machines, especially when those machines count our votes with secret software code. Computer programmer Clint Curtis�s Judiciary Committee testimony to the effect that he was asked by Tom Feeney, a sleazy Republican operative, to write a vote switching program because they needed it in 2004 to control the south Florida vote, demonstrates the intent of Republicans to use this method of election fraud.

And finally, we must watch out for all the dirty little voter suppression tricks that were so well documented by Representative Conyers� report, noted above.