PUBLIC HEARING New Faith Baptist Church 955 Oak Street Columbus, Ohio Saturday, November 13, 2004 1:00 to 5:30 P.M. - - - Organized by: Ohio Citizens Alliance for Secure Elections, This Time We're Watching, People for the American Way Foundation, and the Columbus Institute for Contemporary Journalism Panelists: Bob Fitrakis, Marty Gelfand, Tanya Clay, Sharon Lettman, Michael Beaver, Robert Butler, Charleta Tavares, Larry Price, Tanikka Henriquez, Susan Truitt, Sybil Edwards-McNabb, Robert Rubin, Cliff Arnebeck, William Moss - - - 2 1 WERNER LANGE 23 2 MARION BROWN 27 3 HARVEY WASSERNAN 27 4 VICTORIA PARKS 30 5 BOYD MITCHELL HALL 36 6 BARRY EDNEY 49 7 ROBERT BUTLER 56 8 JOE POPICH 57 9 DEREK WINSOR 61 10 CAROL SHELTON 63 11 LYNN LANDERS 75 12 JAMIA SHEPHERD 93 13 KATHRYN CURRY 95 14 ALLESONDRA HERNANDEZ 103 15 ERIN DEIGNAN 106 16 MICHAEL HAYES 110 17 MATTHEW SEGAL 113 18 JOE DONLIN 116 19 ALLYSON SNYDER 122 20 Kofi 123 21 KOFI 123 22 IAN MacCONNELL 125 23 KELLY KNUTH 131 24 VICTORIA LOVEGREN 135 25 MIKE SWINFORD 146 3 1 ELIZA JANE SCHNEIDER 149 2 RICK WILHELM 154 3 FIONA MITCHELL 156 4 JERRY DOYLE 158 5 PATRICIA ANN BLOCHOWIAK 163 6 KIMBERLY RICHARDSON 175 7 MURLIEN FEATHERSTONE 180 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 4 1 Saturday Afternoon Session 2 November 13, 2004 3 - - - 4 MS. HENRIQUEZ: Good afternoon. My name 5 is Tanikka Henriquez, and I am here to talk to you 6 and tell you a little bit about what is going to go 7 on this afternoon. I would like to thank WVKO for 8 all of their help and their support, and we are 9 going to be broadcasting live, and we would like to 10 give them a hand for all of their support. 11 You are here today to witness a public 12 hearing about what really happened on November 2nd. 13 We have seen what the newspaper has said, we heard 14 the rumors and the accusations, but today we are 15 going to hear from you. We are going to actually 16 hear personal accounts of what happened on 17 November 2nd. 18 We would also like to thank New Faith 19 Baptist Church and Pastor Jeffrey Key who was so 20 gracious to allow us to use this venue today. 21 Also our organizers, the League of 22 Independent Voters, Columbus Institute for 23 Contemporary Journalism, and People for the America 24 Way foundation. Thank you. 25 Today we will be hearing from voters, 5 1 poll workers, monitors, voting rights experts, 2 election law specialists, and challengers who will 3 speak for the public records. The reason why we 4 are here today is because thousands of people had 5 trouble voting on November 2nd. Their voices must 6 be heard. Certain communities were 7 disproportionately affected, including first-time 8 voters, young people, and the all-favored people of 9 color. 10 People must have equal access to voting 11 and the electoral process in order to ensure that 12 we have democracy in this country. Sharing these 13 stories will enable us to go forth from here and 14 begin to cre atewhatisneeded,electoralreform. 15 The problems that we heard of included long lines 16 due to inequitable distribution of voting machines, 17 lack of uniform I.D. requirements, machine 18 malfunctions, inadequate assistance at the polls, 19 absentee ballots not received, and lack of 20 consistent info on traditional ballots. 21 This is not about protesting the 22 election or the outcome of the election. This is a 23 question of the legitimacy of this process that 24 makes it less accessible to some voters and more 25 accessible to others. Having your vote counted is 6 1 not a privilege, rather, it is a foundation of 2 democracy. Those of you who will be testifying 3 received a voter affidavit that looks like this. 4 We need you to fill this in concisely, telling us 5 all the pertinent information. Please do not sign 6 until after you testify, at which time you will 7 walk up to this corner of the table, and you will 8 sign in front of a witness. We want you to speak 9 clearly and loudly so you can be heard so that we 10 can get this on the public record. 11 I am going to be introducing today 12 Dr. Bob Fitrakis, who is going to serve as 13 moderator during this time. Mr. Fitrakis is a 14 Political Science Professor in the Social 15 Behavioral Sciences Department at Columbus State 16 Community College, where he won the Distinguished 17 Teachers Award in 1991. He also earned a JD from 18 The Ohio State University College of Law in 1992, 19 and a Ph.D. in Political Science from Wayne State 20 in Detroit, Michigan. 21 We thank Dr. Fitrakis for -- actually, 22 he has been a big adviser for a lot of things that 23 have been going on. He is also the Executive 24 Director for the Columbus Institute for 25 Contemporary Journalism and has published the Free 7 1 Press since 1992, and acted as editor since 1994. 2 In addition, in March 29th, 2004, he 3 served as an International Observer for the 4 national elections in El Salvador. In 1993 he 5 visited Reynosa and Matamoros, Mexico, as part of 6 the Human Rights Delegation to investigate 7 conditions in the Meke Free Trade Zone. 8 As a result of his trip, he co-produced 9 a video entitled the Other Side of Free Trade, 10 shown around the country in colleges and public 11 access stations. This year for Columbus, Ohio, he 12 was an election protection attorney in these 2004 13 elections. As a result, he is quite qualified to 14 lead us today and moderate these public hearings. 15 I would like to introduce to you now Dr. Bob 16 Fitrakis. 17 MR. FITRAKIS: Thanks a lot. Again, the 18 purpose of these hearings is, of course, to put on 19 the record the things that were experienced by 20 voters on election day, November 2nd, and, quite 21 frankly, I was shocked in the 55th ward and in the 22 5th ward to see the long lines of people, many of 23 whom struggled valiantly and waited for hours, two 24 hours and 40 minutes at one poll, three hours and 25 five minutes, more than four hours at another, and 8 1 I think we need to put this on the record at a 2 community public hearing, and again, the idea 3 actually started -- there is some unknown 4 consultant from the Unitarian Church where two days 5 after the election, I was on a panel of political 6 scientists who all sounded greatly depressed, and 7 someone came up and said why don't you guys do 8 something about? And I said, well, we are going to 9 look into this. And he said, well, why don't you 10 have a community public hearing? 11 I don't know his name, but whoever he 12 is, the idea, you know, when I called this the 13 League of Pissed Off Voters, we are there and said 14 we would like to work on it, and I would really 15 like to thank Amy and John who went through the 16 inner city from all over the place, and this really 17 wouldn't have happened without them, and our 18 partners in the election protection coalition. 19 Part of the things is that -- before you give your 20 testimony, I will call your name, you need to 21 actually go through and check in with the court 22 reporter over there, and spell your name to her, 23 and then come up for the testimony. You can do 24 that. I will call the first name or two, and then 25 I will introduce the people that will be taking 9 1 this testimony, with some open comments, and we 2 really, and for those of you, again, who don't like 3 to get up in front of cameras, some of you we know 4 are quite shy, the basement is available to give 5 more private statements. If you don't have time to 6 talk or don't want to talk before the court 7 reporter, you can simply write out, swear out an 8 affidavit. Let me tell you, if what I believe is 9 true as a political scientist, and I believe that 10 there is enough allegation that it looks like 11 systematic voter suppression, is this could go on 12 and perhaps criminal charges could be filed against 13 people, as well as civil suits. 14 With that in mind, let me introduce the 15 panelist, Susan Truitt, again, with CASE Ohio, 16 Citizens Alliance for Secure Elections. She is an 17 attorney, founder of CASE Ohio, and again, their 18 web site is www.CASEOhio.org. And again, we 19 started with Tonya. Where is Sharon? Sharon 20 Lettman, People for the American Way, really who 21 actually trained me for the election, but thanks to 22 Mr. Blackwell, I was trained twice by them. They 23 trained me, and then they changed so many things 24 and went to Court so many times, I had to be 25 retrained. I appreciate you for my training and my 10 1 restraining. The National Election Protection 2 Field Director coordinated 52 field operations 3 across the country on election day in 17 states 4 including Ohio for Election Protection. Welcome to 5 the panel. 6 Robert Rubin with the Lawyers Committee 7 For Civil Rights, lead counsel in challenger cases 8 against Ken Blackwell and counsel and traditional 9 battle cases, ongoing cases that are going on 10 throughout Ohio. You may recall if you go to the 11 Freepress.org, we posted the last change on October 12 28th, they had a free list of signature name and 13 address, and then on election day we have the new 14 one that has affirmation and date of birth, and, 15 again, they are denying this up in Cleveland. But 16 the challenger there sent us the information. So 17 this is an ongoing process to make sure that 18 people's votes are really counted. 19 Again, the lawyers committee are looking 20 for people who were denied a provisional ballot on 21 election day after having requested an absentee 22 ballot. Very important to ongoing litigation. 23 Thank you, Mr. Rubin, for being here. And, of 24 course, my good friend William Moss, former long- 25 time member of the Columbus School Board, and a man 11 1 who has always spoken out on behalf of the 2 community and welcome to have him here today, but 3 also he could have had a second career, because he 4 was one of the great record producers ever, ever in 5 the city with his own studio. Bill Moss, a great 6 community advocate. Thank you, Bill Moss. 7 I would like to allow each of the 8 panelists to say a few introductory comments. I 9 think your mikes are working there, and I have 10 another one if they are not. Let's start with 11 Mr. Moss. 12 MR. MOSS: Thank you, Bob. I, of 13 course, was on the air with you prior to the 14 convening of this portion of the activities today, 15 so I pretty much have spoken to what my purpose is 16 and what I believe this is about. But let me 17 simply thank you. It is such a pleasure, and even 18 more, it is thrilling to see people with this kind 19 of response and who are willing to stand up, and 20 when things are going smoothly and moving along 21 nicely, and everybody is feeling okay, it is easy 22 to take a position. But it is when we might be on 23 under threat, when we may have something to lose, 24 when we may be watched, when there may be some 25 effort to intimidate or to deny, and we make the 12 1 personal choice to take a stand is more 2 commendable, even more important, even more 3 thrilling to witness. 4 I believe this is very important, what 5 is taking place here today, and every last one of 6 you present here has a part in it. I just want to 7 say thank you and let the hearings begin. 8 MR. RUBIN: I'd like to touch on a 9 couple things that we have been looking at in Ohio 10 in the last few weeks. I am actually an immigrant. 11 I am from San Francisco. I hope you will indulge 12 me. We were horrified by what we have seen here in 13 Ohio. We were horrified by what we were seeing in 14 Ohio and made this a priority for challenging 15 Kenneth Blackwell's actions. There are a number of 16 issues that we are focusing on. First of all, 17 Mr. Blackwell took the position that you could only 18 file a provisional ballot in your own precinct. 19 That undercuts the whole purpose of provisional 20 ballots, as many people know. You can move. The 21 whole idea was to empower people who have moved, 22 changed address, who are still registered voters. 23 Mr. Blackwell, yet another attempt to suppress the 24 vote, took the position you had to be in your own 25 precinct. Secondly, he threatened to flood the 13 1 polls with challenges, people whose sole purpose is 2 to harass minority and poor voters as they attempt 3 to secure the franchise. We challenged him on 4 that, and we did get a statewide injunction that 5 was later overturned in the State Supreme Court. 6 Third, we heard a little bit about 7 absentee ballots. Thousands of absentee ballots 8 were never received due to ineptness and 9 inefficiency of Mr. Blackwell's office. That 10 wasn't bad enough, Mr. Blackwell then took the 11 position that even though through no fault of your 12 own you had not received absentee ballot, you still 13 couldn't file a provisional ballot. You hadn't 14 done anything wrong, you were just waiting for an 15 absentee ballot that never came because it was sent 16 to the wrong address. Our lead Plaintiff called 17 the Secretary of State's office to find out what 18 happened to an absentee ballot. He said, oh, it 19 was sent to 231 Chestnut, not 213 Chestnut. And 20 she said, what do I do? He said, why don't you go 21 to 213 and rummage through their mailbox? 22 Seriously. Well, she didn't do that. She 23 contacted us, and we filed suit, and Sara White was 24 able to cast a ballot because of the White versus 25 Blackwell case which secured a statewide injunction 14 1 ordering Blackwell to allow these votes to be cast. 2 Now, what has happened since then is 3 that he has taken the position that even though a 4 federal judge has ordered him to allow the votes to 5 be cast, he is not going to allow them to be 6 counted. So in Kenneth Blackwell's Orwellian 7 vision of election systems, you can cast a ballot, 8 supposedly, but I am not going to count it. We are 9 now looking for people who are in that category of 10 voter, and if you tried to vote a provisional 11 ballot on election day, were turned away, 12 particularly if you have requested an absentee 13 ballot that you never received, please contact me 14 after this panel, we will go downstairs and fill 15 out an affidavit. We very well may be back in 16 court the next few days. 17 So under the guise of combatting voter 18 fraud, Ken Blackwell has engaged in massive voter 19 suppression the likes that we haven't seen since 20 the days of Mississippi and poll taxes and literacy 21 tests and dual registration requirements. Too many 22 people have fought, too many people have died to 23 secure the right to vote. Cheney, Learner, and 24 Goodman are only three. They got buried in an 25 earthen dam in Philadelphia, Mississippi, for 15 1 trying to register black vote. We will not sit 2 idly by while Kenneth Blackwell tries to suppress 3 the vote and tries to deny people this cherished 4 right to vote in our public elections. 5 MS. LETTMAN: Once again, I am Sharon 6 Lettman, People for the American Way Foundation, 7 and I have the unique honor of, as being here as a 8 resident of the State of Florida, by way of D.C., 9 so, believe me, I understand your pain. Ever since 10 the election, there has been a conventional wisdom 11 growing written news media that the election ran 12 smooth. That is a myth. The reality is there were 13 a thousands, there with thousands -- we are going 14 to get this right. The reality is there were 15 thousands upon thousands of problems all over the 16 country from unexplained vote tallies on electronic 17 voting machines, to lines so long that working men 18 and women had to give up and go back to work or 19 care for their children without casting a vote. 20 Election officials made bad decisions, 21 horrible decisions that kept voters away from the 22 polls. Voters were asked I.D. when they didn't 23 need to present it. Absentee ballots were late or 24 never came at all. People in some precincts had 25 plenty of voting machines, while others in other 16 1 precincts had so few, people were waiting in line 2 for more than ten hours. That is completely 3 unacceptable. 4 All of these problems were felt the most 5 in the urban and rural precincts with high 6 percentages of minorities and poor voters, and in 7 many cases all of these problems lead to the same 8 result, eligible voters were denied the right to 9 cast a vote that would count. That is wrong. It 10 is un-American, and it is not the system a great 11 democracy requires. 12 As a founding member of the Election 13 Protection Coalition, People For the American Way 14 Foundation deployed thousands of volunteers at 15 polling places all over Ohio. In fact, we deployed 16 volunteers in minority and low-income precincts 17 across the nation. We saw these problems firsthand 18 on the ground, and more than 125,000 calls came 19 into the election protection hotline. That was 20 just a tip of the iceberg. What about the millions 21 of voters who didn't have election protection 22 volunteers at their own polling places? What about 23 the voters who didn't know the hotline number? You 24 have to assume that the problems we actually heard 25 about and saw were merely a fraction of what 17 1 occurred around the country. That is unacceptable. 2 We are already analyzing the information we 3 uncovered on election day. We have already 4 prepared lawsuits to address some of the most 5 troubling problems we found, and we are starting to 6 put together an aggressive election reform agenda 7 to be carried out by citizens all over this 8 country, especially here in Ohio. The greatest 9 democracy in the world requires the finest election 10 system in the world, one where people of color, the 11 poor, and everyone of every nationality and race 12 has the same chance to cast a vote that counts as a 13 citizen of this country. 14 I am here today to hear your testimony 15 about what happened right here in Ohio and add it 16 to our growing arsenal of truth. Thank you for 17 coming forward with your stories and your energy 18 and your ideas for positive change. We are going 19 to get to the bottom of this. Thank you. 20 PANELIST: Our organization in Ohio, 21 CASE Ohio, has been fighting against Ken 22 Blackwell's outrageous behavior since the early 23 part of this year, and we have watched in horror as 24 he tried to cram paperless Diebold, ES&S, and 25 Intercivic voting machines down the throats of 18 1 boards of elections throughout the State of Ohio, 2 and eventually, with a lot of lobbying and effort 3 on a lot of citizens parts, no new paperless 4 electronic voting machines were deployed in Ohio 5 this year, but there were seven counties in Ohio 6 that have paperless voting machines, including 7 Franklin County, where we are sitting right now in 8 Columbus, and there were other populous counties 9 with those paperless machines, including Mahoning 10 and Lake, and there were reports, over 30,000 11 reports in Ohio of vote jumping, where people would 12 try to vote for Kerry, it would light up for Bush, 13 and it this is being investigated by, among others, 14 the Electronic Frontier Foundation, which is 15 EFF.org. 16 We have reports of 4,000 votes in 17 Franklin County -- I know you know the story in 18 Gahanna -- that were tallied for Bush, when there 19 were only over about 600 voters in the precinct. 20 So this is just what we have discovered thus far 21 this year, and over 90,000 spoiled ballots that we 22 need to hand count. We need to look at those 23 spoiled ballots. 24 We have specific statutes in Ohio that 25 give you precise definitions of what a pregnant 19 1 chad is, a dimpled chad, a hanging chad. We are 2 not as disorganized as Florida was on that issue, 3 but I would say that Ohio is definitely challenging 4 Florida for the debacle of the year, and our 5 election system in this country is broken, and we 6 need to fix it now. 7 Ten hours to wait in line to vote is a 8 system failure. Two hours to wait in line to vote 9 is a system failure. Inability to cast a 10 provisional ballot when you have moved and you are 11 not in Mr. Blackwell's designated precinct for you 12 is a system failure. There were so many denials of 13 right to vote on election day, it was a travesty. 14 I was a volunteer at the election protection 15 organization in Columbus. I was at Driving Park 16 when there were people threatening to tow voters' 17 cars because they had been there too long. 18 Well, excuse us, but we do have the 19 right to vote, an if our cars are parked for a long 20 time, it is merely an indication of a broken 21 system. 22 This is the time to examine Ohio's 23 election and the country's, because if we don't fix 24 it now, we are never going to fix it. 25 MR. FITRAKIS: Thank you for those 20 1 opening comments. Let me -- I am sorry, my very 2 good friend Charleta Tavares, who has joined us, 3 Columbus City Council, and has a long history of 4 standing up for people's rights. Charleta. 5 MS. TAVARES: Thank you, Dr. Fitrakis. 6 First of all, I want to thank everyone for joining 7 us and to all the other panelists, to the 8 sponsoring organizations, thank you, thank you for 9 coming to Columbus, Ohio, and hosting this forum so 10 we can learn about what went wrong on election day. 11 I am not proud at this point in time to 12 be an Ohio citizen because many of our citizens did 13 not, did not get an opportunity to exercise their 14 right to vote. Their right to vote, not their 15 privilege to vote, their right to vote. 16 I just want to share one story. On 17 election day, I had the opportunity and the right 18 to vote at my polling location. It is in an area 19 of the City of Columbus that is predominantly 20 Democrat and an area of our city that is a little 21 more affluent. You would think that we would have 22 the number of voting machines that we should have. 23 A large number of elderly people vote at my polling 24 location, which happens to be the Jewish Center. 25 Large numbers of elderly people, African American, 21 1 Jewish American, white American, residents that 2 live in my neighborhood. I waited two hours. 3 There were three voting machines, three voting 4 machines. 5 My husband, who was there many hours 6 before me, waited two hours to vote. I saw people 7 who, fortunately, because of where we were located, 8 it was a large facility, a facility that enabled 9 all of us to be inside during the election process. 10 We didn't have to stand out in the cold. We did 11 not have to stand out in the rain because of the 12 beautiful large facility we had to vote in. We 13 were fortunate that there were chairs that the 14 elderly could sit down, that they didn't have to 15 stand for two hours to vote. 16 I can't even imagine what my mother and 17 other elderly people had to go through at their 18 polling locations, where they had to stand in the 19 rain, stand outside, and in some cases, because 20 they were infirm or disabled, had to leave and not 21 cast their ballot. I know that is the truth, 22 because I heard it from throughout the State of 23 Ohio, not just in Columbus, Ohio. I heard it from 24 individuals who were elderly, who told me that they 25 did not get to cast their ballot because somebody 22 1 came by their door the night before and said you 2 don't have to go tomorrow to cast your ballot, you 3 can sign this form, and we will cast it for you. 4 That happened in Toledo, Ohio. We had problems all 5 across the state. So this hearing is important. 6 This hearing is important to document 7 what went wrong and how people were disenfranchised 8 from the weight of the paper of the ballot, to 9 provisional ballots that aren't going to be counted 10 because people are not voting in the right 11 precinct. Again, it is a right. It is not a 12 privilege. If you are a citizen of these United 13 States, you meet the requirements of the election, 14 you can vote, and the requirements are to be 15 18 years of age, live in that county or that 16 municipality for 30 days, and you can vote, being a 17 registered voter. 18 So I am anxious, Dr. Fitrakis, to hear 19 from our participants today, those who are going to 20 testify on what happened, so that we can change 21 things in the State of Ohio and change what happens 22 on election day throughout America. Thank you. 23 MR. FITRAKIS: Thank you, Ms. Tavares. 24 I would like to call our first witness, Werner 25 Lange. 23 1 - - - 2 WERNER LANGE 3 Being first duly sworn, testified as 4 follows: 5 MR. LANGE: Thank you. My name is 6 Werner Lange. I reside in northeast Ohio at 510 7 Superior Street, in the town of Newton Falls. 8 After voting in my precinct, I volunteered my 9 service as a pastor at the polls and went to 10 Youngstown, Ohio, to the inner city and observed 11 the following. 12 In precincts 1 A and 5 G, voting at 13 Hillman Elementary School, which is a predominantly 14 African American community, there were woefully 15 insufficient number of voting machines in three 16 precincts. I was told that the standard was to 17 have one voting machine per 100 registered voters. 18 Precinct A had 750 registered voters. Precinct G 19 had 690. There should have been 14 voting machines 20 at this site. There were only 6, three per 21 precinct, less than 50 percent of the standard. 22 This caused an enormous bottleneck among voters who 23 had to wait a very, very long time to vote, many of 24 them giving up in frustration and leaving. 25 The second incident, I estimate, by the 24 1 way, that an estimated loss of over 8,000 votes 2 from the African American community in the City of 3 Youngstown alone, with its 84 precincts, were lost 4 due to insufficient voting machines, and that would 5 translate to some 7,000 votes lost for John Kerry 6 for President in Youngstown alone. 7 Another incident was a van with a 8 wheelchair-bound voter pulling up to a voting site, 9 Hillman Elementary School. The driver tried for 10 over an hour to gain access to the voting machines 11 for this wheel-bound citizen. He couldn't do so, 12 so he drove off, and the disabled voter did not 13 cast his vote. I did not see, but I was told that 14 a similar incident happened at the same site about 15 an hour earlier, then all the voting poll workers 16 went outside and shut down, basically, the poll for 17 about 45 minutes, not allowing anybody to vote 18 while they allowed this one disabled voter to vote. 19 Lastly, just yesterday I went to the 20 Trumbull Board of Elections in northeast Ohio, 21 wanted to review their precinct logs so I could 22 continue my investigation. This was denied. I was 23 told by the Board of Elections official that I 24 could not see them until after the official vote 25 was given. 25 1 So I ask you panel and those that are 2 listening to make the words of the Kerry campaign 3 hold true where they said that every vote counts, 4 every vote will be counted. This is clearly not 5 the case here in Ohio. I ask us to call upon 6 Senator Kerry to unconcede and launch a full-scale 7 investigation. 8 MR. FITRAKIS: Just before the next 9 witness comes, explain the process and the 10 implications of unconceding that you call for John 11 Kerry to do. 12 MR. LANGE: Obviously, with the 13 information at hand at the time, and probably with 14 the best interests of the nation at hand, and 15 perhaps even the news of the breast cancer of the 16 vice-presidential candidate's wife weighing heavily 17 upon his mind, Senator Kerry made his decision, I 18 think, with the limited information he had. 19 However, with the information that is now coming 20 from Ohio, I hope his campaign can give serious 21 consideration to unconceding. 22 MR. MOSS: Thank you very much. I am 23 going to ask at some point Bob Fitrakis, who is an 24 attorney, to explain what the implications are of 25 John Kerry unconceding within the time constraints 26 1 of deadlines, as regarding the officiating. 2 MR. FITRAKIS: Conceding is purely a 3 ritualistic political tradition, that has no 4 binding legal consequence on the actual vote in 5 Ohio. 6 MR. MOSS: Would it have a significant 7 impact that he made a public statement to say that 8 given the fact that we are having these hearings 9 and what is coming forward in testimony, that 10 unconceding would give us a full chance at -- 11 MR. RUBIN: Let me just say one other 12 thing about that, which is that the vote is not 13 actually official. The official ballots 14 themselves, the count will not be completed until 15 this coming Thursday. So I think that what you say 16 is absolutely true, that concession is simply a 17 political tradition and has no legal import. 18 The other thing that I would like to 19 just say quickly is somewhat of a disclaimer, and I 20 think I can speak on behalf of my colleague from 21 the People for American Way, as well as myself and 22 the Lawyers For Civil Rights, we are a nonprofit 23 organization, therefore, we cannot take partisan 24 positions. So feel free to voice, you know, your 25 feelings. We just need to say that we are here on 27 1 behalf of all voters and the right to vote. We 2 take no partisan position. Thank you. 3 MR. FITRAKIS: Marion Brown. 4 MS. BROWN: I am Marion Brown, and I am 5 here on behalf of a friend. My friend came to my 6 home very upset while she was away standing four 7 hours in the voting, her husband passed away. The 8 funeral was on yesterday, November 13th, at 2:00. 9 Perhaps had she not stood so long in the line, she 10 may have been able to save her husband. 11 MR. FITRAKIS: Harvey Wasserman, come 12 forward. The procedure is you have to be sworn in. 13 PANELIST: If I could take a second to 14 interject something. CASE Ohio is also 15 nonpartisan. We don't ever want to have to live 16 through another election like this, regardless of 17 who won. 18 - - - 19 HARVEY WASSERNAN 20 Being first duly sworn, testified as 21 follows: 22 MR. WASSERMAN: My name is Harvey 23 Wasserman. I live in Bexley. I have lived at the 24 same address since 1986. I have voted consistently 25 since 1976. I decided this year, my wife and I had 28 1 plans to go out of town on election day, so I 2 decided -- we decided to vote absentee, and I went 3 down to the, well, to the registration for absentee 4 balloting on Broad Street, the old COSI building. 5 I went in there. We went separately, but I filled 6 out my form with the same address that I have lived 7 at since 1986, and I checked my registration as 8 Democrat, which I decided to do this year, and a 9 few days later I received in the mail a rejection 10 of my application for the absentee ballot stating 11 that I had filled in the wrong address, but it came 12 to the right address, and so I called and said that 13 this is -- I showed my driver's license by the way, 14 when I signed up for the absentee ballot -- and I 15 called, and the first person I talked to said that 16 we are really swamped because we have been 17 rejecting a lot of these applications, and after 18 four phone calls, I finally did receive an absentee 19 ballot. 20 So my question would be then, how many 21 absentee ballots were actually rejected for no good 22 reason whatsoever? I mean, it was utterly absurd 23 to have a rejection of my particular application, 24 and for no reason whatsoever. I had the time and 25 the wherewithal to make these four phone calls, 29 1 which did not take an inconsiderable amount of 2 time, and we would wonder, have to wonder how many 3 similar absentee applications were rejected. 4 I still, of course, don't know if my 5 ballot actually counted. I did go down there 6 personally to deliver it, but I suppose I will 7 never know. My concern, as with everyone here, I 8 am sure, is not just the outcome of the election, 9 but the fact that this could go on and that we have 10 a situation in this country where an election could 11 be stolen. We saw it happen in 2000. I don't 12 think there is any doubt about that, but the 13 question now is between the electronic voting 14 machines, the fooling around with the 15 registrations, the denial of absentee ballots, and 16 the other kinds of things that have gone on, we are 17 talking here allegedly about a three and a half 18 million vote gap between Bush and Kerry, but the 19 reality is if you look at the mechanics of this 20 election across the country as extrapolated from 21 Ohio, it would be very easy for someone to steal an 22 election, and we simply can't have that in an 23 alleged democracy, because we know if it can be 24 stolen, it will be stolen. 25 So at this point we don't officially 30 1 know as we do about 2000 that this election was 2 stolen, but we do certainly know that it could have 3 been. 4 PANELIST: Just one point real quickly, 5 for people who did vote by provisional ballot, you 6 do have the right to know whether your ballot was 7 counted, and there is a toll free number for the 8 Secretary of State. 9 FROM THE FLOOR: Can you please speak 10 up. 11 MR. WASSERMAN: If we cast an absentee 12 ballot, we have a right to know if it was counted, 13 and so I will follow-up on that and maybe this time 14 you will get my address correct. I am sure the FBI 15 has it. 16 - - - 17 VICTORIA PARKS 18 Being first duly sworn, testified as 19 follows: 20 MR. FITRAKIS: Victoria Parks. 21 MS. PARKS: My name is Victoria Parks. 22 Can you hear me in the back? I have two 23 experiences to testify to today. The first one, I 24 decided this year that I would volunteer to be a 25 poll worker because there was a shortage of them, 31 1 and so I did that in Priority C, Franklin County. 2 We normally have six voting machines in this 3 precinct. This time we had only three. This 4 resulted in long lines. Some people had to wait up 5 to two hours, and working people in the morning had 6 to leave because they couldn't stay in line for two 7 hours. That was my voting day experience, the 8 shortage of voting machines. Yesterday on November 9 12th I had heard about all of the election 10 irregularities and anomalies. I am a concerned 11 citizen. I care about my democracy. Voting is one 12 of the things that makes our country a democracy. 13 I decided I would go to the Pickaway 14 County Board of Elections to take advantage of the 15 open records law and examine these poll books. I 16 had been in Perry County a couple days earlier 17 doing this. 18 In Perry County there were actual 19 signatures, signatures of record, and signatures 20 taken on November 2nd at the time the voters are 21 given their authority to vote. In Perry County 22 they had these signatures on file. 23 In Pickaway County, oh, my goodness, in 24 Pickaway County, I entered there, I was shown a 25 table, 53 poll books were plunked down in front of 32 1 me. I noticed there were no signatures on file in 2 any of the poll books, in any of the poll books, 3 and furthermore, a minute later the director of the 4 Board of Elections of Pickaway County came into the 5 room and snatched the books away from me and said 6 you cannot look at these books. I said are you 7 aware that what you are doing is against the law? 8 She said I have been on the phone with the 9 Secretary of State and he has instructed me to take 10 these books away and you cannot see them. I 11 paraphrase very slightly here. 12 She took them away. I was persona non 13 grata. I did not want to risk arrest, and I left. 14 Thank you. 15 PANELIST: What precinct? 16 MS. PARKS: That was Pickaway. I worked 17 as a poll worker in Prairie C. 18 PANELIST: Prairie C? 19 MS. PARKS: Yes, ma'am. 20 PANELIST: How did you know there were 21 previously six voting machines? 22 MS. PARKS: I was told that by my boss. 23 PANELIST: A precinct captain? 24 MS. PARKS: He was presiding judge. 25 Yes, he was presiding judge. 33 1 PANELIST: And when you were in Perry 2 County, allowed you to compare the signatures, that 3 was given you authority by the election supervisor 4 or -- 5 MS. PARKS: When I was in the room, they 6 were cordial to me, you know, and they did allow me 7 to look at the books. I was able to make some 8 notes and compare, and I noticed that there were 9 some signatures that weren't on file yet, the 10 signature on the day of voting was still in the 11 book. There were about five of those in one 12 precinct that I looked at. 13 MR. MOSS: But you said in Pickaway 14 County they did not allow you to see the books? 15 MS. PARKS: Initially, they did, with 16 some reluctance. I was treated in a terse manner, 17 but not -- I was not impolite at all. I was very 18 polite, and they were reluctant, but they said, 19 sure, come on back and look at the books, and she 20 literally threw the books on the table. And that, 21 you know, I just said thank you. And then I 22 proceeded to begin to look at the very first book, 23 Circleville 1 A. 24 And I noticed that there were no 25 signatures on file. I turned to one of the workers 34 1 who was probably a younger office worker, and I 2 said, excuse me, there are no signatures in this 3 poll book. Do you have the signatures available? 4 And she sort of fumbled around and kind of 5 half-heartedly looked for them, and she said I 6 don't know where they are, and I thought, you know, 7 how strange to not have signatures after, when you 8 are given an authority to vote slip, you only get 9 that slip after you sign the poll book, at least in 10 the precinct I worked at, and that makes sense to 11 me, but these, these weren't signatures, excuse me, 12 these were the names of the voters listed in 13 chronological order, as they must have come in, by 14 the same person, it was in the same writing, and 15 just their name, printed, their address printed, 16 were in these books. No signature. 17 MS. TAVARES: I have one other question. 18 In my poll location there is a typed name, address, 19 and then there is room for an original signature, 20 and then there is a space for you to sign as you 21 get that little form that allows you to vote. So 22 there was not an original signature in the book, 23 and then there wasn't a second signature, is that 24 what you are saying? 25 MS. PARKS: There were no signatures, 35 1 and furthermore, the writing in the book seemed to 2 have been written in the same hand, because that is 3 a requirement. 4 MS. TAVARES: You know, there are 5 challenges to whether somebody is eligible to vote 6 or not, and one of the ways that can be challenged 7 is whether the signatures match. 8 MS. PARKS: That is correct, and I was 9 not able to do that in Pickaway County. Thank you. 10 MR. RUBIN: Is there a note whether or 11 not the results were published? 12 MS. PARKS: Actually, there was some 13 public information that they made available to the 14 public on the counter in the office when I walked 15 in, there was a lady in front of me, an elderly 16 lady, and she asked about these results. There 17 were election results for Pickaway County in the 18 totals on a perforated computer paper, and they 19 were for public record, so I did take one of those. 20 MR. RUBIN: Did they have a reasonable 21 number who had not voted? 22 MS. PARKS: Over 22,000 votes in 23 Pickaway County recorded on this, the information 24 that I got, that they had made available. 25 MS. TRUITT: Prairie C, is that Prairie 36 1 Elementary School? 2 MS. PARKS: Prairie C is a precinct in 3 the far western side of the Franklin County in 4 Prairie Township. 5 MS. TRUITT: Okay. 6 MR. FITRAKIS: In order, next is Boyd 7 Mitchell. 8 - - - 9 BOYD MITCHELL HALL 10 Being first duly sworn, testified as 11 follows: 12 MR. MITCHELL: My name is Boyd Mitchell 13 Hall, and I want to thank everyone who gave me a 14 chance to volunteer with Election Protection, but 15 my experience tells me it was desperately needed, 16 and I feel really good about the time I spent. 17 MR. FITRAKIS: They appear to be towing 18 trucks outside, so if you are in a place that you 19 are susceptible to that, please check that out. 20 MR. MITCHELL: That dovetails with one 21 of my stories. Where I volunteer was at Driving 22 Park Rec Center, 1035 B and C were the precincts, 23 and I was on the front lines. Those were the 24 precincts that went very heavily for Kerry. The 25 unofficial results showed something less than 50 37 1 votes for Bush in those precincts, and something 2 over 1300 votes for Kerry, so that was the front 3 lines, that is where whatever effort they might 4 have been trying to do would have happened. 5 What I saw was voter intimidation in the 6 form of city employees that were sent in to stop 7 illegal parking. Now, in Driving Park Rec Center 8 there are less than 50 legal parking spots, and 9 there were literally hundreds and hundreds of 10 voters there, and I estimated at least 70 percent 11 of the people were illegally parked in the grass 12 around the perimeter of the Driving Park Rec 13 Center, and two city employees drove up in a city 14 truck and said that they had been sent there to 15 stop illegal parking, and they went so far as to 16 harass at least a couple of voters that I saw, and 17 when they were talking to us, they were kind. But 18 when they didn't realize we were overhearing them 19 talking to voters, they were trying to keep people 20 from parking where they were parking. They went so 21 far as to set up some cones, trying to block people 22 from getting into a grassy area. 23 The second thing that I saw that really 24 scared me, frustrated me, was an elderly 25 hospitalized African American there, and his family 38 1 brought him in a van. He still had the IV in his 2 arm, and at the hospital they had refused to allow 3 him to vote absentee, and his family says that they 4 had tried, they made every reasonable effort to get 5 him an absentee ballot in the hospital, and what he 6 was told was that he needed to be there a couple 7 days earlier, you know, somehow he didn't get his 8 request in in time, and this bothers me a lot, 9 because The Columbus Dispatch Thursday, printed a 10 letter to the editor from a person who was claiming 11 that they asked for the opportunity to vote 12 absentee at 4:00 in the afternoon, and they were 13 taken care of, and I have a suspicion that maybe, 14 you know, we are talking about a race issue with 15 the one person being African American being turned 16 down. 17 I also witnessed voters who were angry 18 and frustrated, denied the right to vote, but 19 unfortunately, they weren't fully aware of election 20 protection being there for them, and they were so 21 frustrated, so angry, they just walked away. 22 I saw two instances of that, people 23 said -- for instance, one gentleman said I have 24 been voting here for ten years and I have never 25 moved, never, and I have never had a problem 39 1 voting, but this year they are not letting me vote. 2 They are telling me I have to go somewhere else. 3 Now, another thing I saw was inefficient 4 use of the rec center. There was plenty of room in 5 that rec center to have everybody inside. However, 6 the lines spilled out into the rain, and as 7 everybody knows, 4:30, 5:00, the driving rain came, 8 and we had a lot of people standing outside in the 9 cold and wind and driving rain when they could have 10 been inside. Now, to their credit, when I went in 11 and I said something to the people inside, they did 12 make the line around in a more efficient manner, 13 and within a half hour or so they did get everybody 14 inside, but it shouldn't be up to someone like me 15 to come from across town to have something like 16 this happen. 17 Now, I know I am going over, but if you 18 are willing -- okay. I took a report of people 19 telling me that voters could vote tomorrow, meaning 20 November 3rd, because of the long lines. Now, what 21 they said was -- I had this from three different 22 sources. This is why I believe it. Okay. The 23 first three guys who drove up and told me, you 24 know, I thought, well, maybe this is true, maybe it 25 is not. But then I had two other people come up 40 1 independently, oh, yeah, I saw it, and what 2 happened was they were at Livingston and Champion, 3 they were telling people that because of the long 4 lines and the heavy turnout, you can vote tomorrow. 5 And election protection had a lot of wonderful 6 things, I had a phone, I called a camera crew, and 7 they were on their way over there, but 8 unfortunately, Livingston Avenue is not listed as 9 Livingston Avenue on Map Quest. We need to be a 10 little better organized with more local people to 11 help the out-of-town volunteers with the cameras. 12 It is great that we have people from Pennsylvania 13 and New York and other places with cameras. We 14 need to have local people to explain to them that 15 Route 33 is Livingston and Livingston is Route 33. 16 Another thing that I saw, I calculated 17 that I maybe saw about 20 percent of the people 18 that left Driving Park D and C, I personally saw 19 and talked to about 20 percent of them as they left 20 the poll between 12:30 and 8 p.m. And I saw 15 21 people who left because the line was too long. The 22 lines inside were anywhere from 2 1/2 to 5 hours. 23 Most everybody said 4 hours, and I saw at least 15 24 people who did not vote, and I heard a gentleman 25 who was earlier making some mathematical 41 1 calculations, well, if this is going on across 2 town, and, you know, in a precinct where it was 3 going so heavily for Kerry, and me only seeing 20 4 percent of the people coming out, I saw 15. We 5 could just do the math and extrapolate that out 6 into a huge number of people who might have voted 7 had they had a chance. 8 I have got two more things here. There 9 were people complaining of uncomfortable conditions 10 inside. They didn't have enough chairs, especially 11 for elderly people. You know, at least -- I live 12 in a very white neighborhood, and they had a lot of 13 accommodations for the long lines. They had 14 staggered chairs. You could move from one chair to 15 the next, especially for the elderly people. 16 It was poorly ventilated, not enough 17 circulation, people were uncomfortable and hot. 18 Again, I will say that the lines were anywhere from 19 three to four hours most of the day, 2 1/2 hours 20 was the best I heard all day, and I was there from 21 12:30 until 8, and my sense is the Driving Park was 22 probably one of the places -- I looked into the 23 eyes of one of the challengers that was there, and 24 that will haunt me until the day I die, seeing what 25 he was doing and what he was there for, and it will 42 1 disturb me until the day I die, but people who were 2 actually working the poll, I think they generally 3 were doing the best that they could. They had four 4 machines per precinct, and I suspect maybe 5 something like 1500 or so people actually voting, 6 and if it was 60 or 70 percent turnout, if you want 7 to do your math of how many registered voters are 8 in that precinct to how many machines, maybe that 9 would prevent this in the future. Thank you. 10 MS. TRUITT: I have a question. I had 11 the honor of being out there with you that day for 12 a little while, because it was pretty crazy, and I 13 just wanted to ask a question. Do you remember 14 what the signs -- 15 MR. MITCHELL: Which signs? 16 MS. TRUITT: Did they ask people to 17 remove signs, do you remember? 1866 R vote signs, 18 were they asking -- 19 MR. MITCHELL: You are right, yeah, they 20 did for about an hour and a half. We had to take 21 our signs down. We were set up with six volunteers 22 from Election Protection, and we were passing out 23 you have the right to vote brochures, pamphlets, 24 fliers, and had our signs up, and they asked us to 25 take the signs down. 43 1 MS. TRUITT: Who is they? 2 MR. MITCHELL: I believe that was the 3 same two guys in the city truck who were worried 4 about the parking. I may not -- to be honest with 5 you, there were six of us there, and it took -- we 6 could have used 12, and I was putting out other 7 fires at the time. I am aware that the signs came 8 down, and then I am aware they put the signs back 9 up. I was worried about other things, like the 10 80-year-old man, however old he was, who had an IV 11 in his arm. 12 MS. TRUITT: I was there, and I saw that 13 as well, and I talked to the family, and I told 14 them to file an EIRS complaint, and they didn't 15 want to do it then because they wanted to get the 16 poor man back to the hospital because he was still 17 on IVs, and they said they begged the hospital to 18 let him vote absentee, and they said he got in the 19 hospital with not enough days in the hospital to 20 vote absentee. It was a really amazing scene. 21 I had one other question. When they set 22 up pylons blocking cars from going into more grassy 23 areas, they basically blocked cars in there, right? 24 I mean, there were cars parked in there, and they 25 blocked them in. 44 1 MR. MITCHELL: Including mine. 2 MS. TRUITT: Including yours. Okay. 3 Thanks. 4 MS. TAVARES: One question. I am very 5 very much interested in the City of Columbus 6 employees that you said were towing cars. Were 7 they towing or removing cars or asking people to 8 move their cars? 9 MR. MITCHELL: What happened is they 10 appeared, and we became aware of them when we saw 11 them talking to people who had parked in the grass 12 and were walking in, and then they confronted those 13 people who parked in the grass. They were saying 14 you can't park there. 15 MS. TAVARES: Did you get a license 16 plate or names of any of those -- 17 MR. MITCHELL: The Election Protection 18 people -- I had a cell phone, I called in, and so 19 somewhere in the archives of the Election 20 Protection I am sure there is a mountain of 21 information, but I did call it in and they did take 22 the license plate of the city vehicle from me. You 23 know, I gave that over the phone. I did not write 24 it down. 25 MS. TAVARES: Thank you. 45 1 MS. CLAY: I am Tonya Clay. I am one of 2 the attorneys for the People For the American Way 3 Foundation. I wanted to follow-up with you on that 4 point to make sure we do have all of your 5 information. Just to verify, what precinct were 6 you in again? 7 MR. MITCHELL: 1035 B and C, Driving 8 Park Rec Center. 9 MS. CLAY: Thank you. 1035 Driving Park 10 Rec Center, 1035 B and C. 11 MS. HENRIQUEZ: Just really quick, I 12 want to make some announcements. When you come up, 13 please, after you finish, you are going to start 14 over here on this side, and we want you to sign in 15 with the stenographer, and then you are going to 16 come up, give your testimony. Please try to speak 17 as loudly as possible into the mike. The people in 18 the back are having a hard time hearing you. When 19 you finish, come to me so that you can sign your 20 affidavit and you can leave it here with me. Okay? 21 I am Tanikka Henriquez, and if anybody has any 22 questions, they can refer them to me. Okay? We 23 are going to keep right on going. 24 MR. FITRAKIS: We have confirmed that 25 the Red Cross lot, you can park in there, that they 46 1 cannot tow you. There is an agreement with the 2 church. We now have Marty Gelfand joining us from 3 US Representative Kucinich's office, Dennis 4 Kucinich. If you would say a few words. 5 MR. GELFAND: Thank you very much. It 6 is a great honor to be, here and particularly 7 sharing the panel with Councilman Charleta Tavares, 8 who is no stranger to the Cleveland area. She was 9 up there campaigning for Secretary of State a few 10 years ago, and what a different environment this 11 would be had she been the Secretary of State, but 12 she is with council and great things will happen 13 for her. 14 I am here on behalf of Congressman 15 Dennis Kucinich and Ohio's 10th Congressional 16 District. I am here in an official capacity as 17 senior counsel for Congressman Kucinich and as a 18 congressional aide, because Ohio is the difference 19 between which candidate becomes president and which 20 candidate does not. 21 We know there was a concession. We know 22 that there was on the unofficial vote count there 23 is 136,000 more votes for candidate Bush over 24 candidate Kerry but, this is a very crucial time 25 right now, this interim period between the 47 1 unofficial vote count after election day and the 2 official vote count that will be reported by the 88 3 boards of election to the Secretary of State on 4 December 1st; a very crucial time because a lot of 5 things have to happen. Number one, because all the 6 votes have to be counted, and there are a lot of 7 votes that haven't been counted yet. There are 8 approximately 155,000 provisional ballots, rules 9 have to be made. They haven't been for the most 10 part for how these votes are going to be counted, 11 and there are over-votes, which are -- some people 12 call them spoil ballots, but they are over-votes, 13 because more than one hole is punched in the 14 presidential section. So those all have to be 15 reviewed, and there are also voters from overseas, 16 that we have military people who voted, we have 17 civilians who are overseas, and particularly our 18 military people, they might be fighting in a war, 19 they might be in adverse situations, their votes 20 need to be counted just as the people here who 21 stood in line for so long. 22 As an attorney, I was working on some of 23 the voter protection stuff in Cuyahoga County. We 24 saw a number of problems, most of which we were 25 able to solve pretty quickly. We had a cooperative 48 1 election board that did respond to problems when 2 they occurred. We have a county prosecutor who put 3 the word out that he wasn't going to accept any 4 shenanigans. Things went fairly smoothly in 5 Cuyahoga County. However, we did have long lines, 6 and that does need to be looked at. 7 But the other thing that had to happen 8 is there are attorneys on the grounds, some of whom 9 are on this panel, around the state, who are 10 looking at what the boards of election are doing, 11 what the Secretary of State is doing, and will be 12 ready to make challenges as they need to be made 13 between now and during this important period of 14 counting the votes. Finally, as a congressional 15 aide, I am here to observe all of the things that 16 you are saying, because Congressman Kucinich needs 17 to go back to congress in the 109th Congress come 18 January, and he needs to review these issues, 19 because congress did pass the Help America Vote Act 20 after the 2000 election, but now we have the 2004 21 election, and we need to make sure that some of 22 these issues that are being reported here are 23 reported to the whole congress so that we can 24 address the issues, reform the act as necessary, 25 and see that these problems don't happen in future 49 1 elections. Again, I am honored to be on this 2 panel. Thank you very much, everyone, for coming. 3 MR. FITRAKIS: Also after the testimony 4 we will be introducing Robert Butler with the 5 Libertarian Party. You may have heard that the 6 Libertarian Party is recounting the State, as are 7 the Greens, so he will make a few remarks. And 8 state representative Larry Price, who has joined 9 the panel, and we will hear from them briefly. 10 - - - 11 BARRY EDNEY 12 Being first duly sworn, testified as 13 follows: 14 MR. EDNEY: My name is Reverend Barry 15 Edney, a community activist, a long-time barber in 16 the city of Columbus. I also worked on voter 17 registration, getting people to register throughout 18 the city of Columbus and also in my barbershop. 19 A lot of young people for the first time 20 voted, and also for the first time a lot of people 21 that had felonies that knew that they couldn't 22 vote, tried to vote. I just want to say this, 23 because I am not discouraged of the outcome, but I 24 just want to say let's give everybody in this 25 audience a hand and the people across the America 50 1 that voted for their rights. 2 One thing I thank God that my 3 grandfather and my grandmother always told me that, 4 you know, it was a time when they was unable to 5 vote. So I appreciate the fact that I exercised 6 all of my rights to vote, free speech and 7 everything that comes with this. This is America. 8 The Constitution of America says that we have this 9 freedom. I just want to say this, because I voted 10 at -- and some people didn't tell where they voted 11 and some did. But I voted at Broad Street 12 Presbyterian Church at Broad and Garfield, and also 13 reside on Garfield at Pierce Estates, and I was 14 told when I listened to the news that morning, they 15 said, well, you better not come between a certain 16 time. Now, this is the news saying this, right? 17 So I am sitting there listening to this around 18 6:00. So I am going to get my tail up and get up 19 and vote early. So I got there at 6:45, packed. I 20 heard on the media, they said that your best time 21 to come is between nine and eleven, or around one 22 to two or something, one to three. 23 Well, let me say this, those who were 24 out there serving the polls, and you all know, 25 there was no better time. The lines were packed 51 1 all day. So if they told you that, some people was 2 fooled. What I am discouraged about, what the 3 media did was show this at noon and show how packed 4 it was, and it discouraged a lot of people that 5 voted for the first time not to vote. 6 But I do believe that a lot of people 7 did vote, because it said over 120 to 130 million 8 people voted. So I believe a lot of people did 9 vote. But I do believe that, and I am honestly 10 saying this, that I believe that America was ripped 11 off, because I believe John Kerry actually won this 12 election. 13 I just want to say this, because what I 14 noticed at my polling place is that it was a long 15 line, and then they had -- it was confusing because 16 they had where, you know, people standing in line, 17 the line was all the way out the back door, and 18 then they had a place where people were sitting 19 down some, so people didn't know that. They didn't 20 have enough workers to tell people and, you know, 21 me being the activist that I am, telling people 22 that was trying to stand in line, for the people 23 that already went to the desk that were standing in 24 that to use the machine, that you got to go all the 25 way up front. There were people walking up to that 52 1 door, and they were looking at these people in line 2 and they said, oh, my God, you know. So, you know, 3 we had to, as community people, to volunteer to 4 help people, you know, tell them what to do, 5 because they did not have enough people in those 6 polling places to tell people what to do. 7 There were long lines, a shorter staff, 8 and also there were people out there, I don't know 9 what party they were from, who were they 10 representing, but they were sending people away. I 11 was out there, and I got interviewed by the New 12 York Times, and he was asking me all kind of 13 questions. While I was out there, there were 14 people out there saying, well, it is crowded, maybe 15 you all need to come back. You know, it was 16 discouraging to hear people say that, because I 17 think it should be my right and it is your right to 18 decide what is long and how long you want to wait, 19 because our vote is worth counting, and that is why 20 I stayed. 21 I want to say this, because there was a 22 young lady, she had some children she had to drop 23 off for school. She said that she was coming back. 24 I asked her please come back, because I know it is 25 discouraging, you stand in line for almost an hour, 53 1 and then you think that you are going to get your 2 children -- children outside waiting in the car, 3 and I just really want to thank the Lord and thank 4 God, because you know what? It did rain, but you 5 know one thing, in November it was like 6 50-something degrees, and it was warm, so we could 7 deal with that. So give God a hand. What is wrong 8 with y'all? I am serious, because, you know, we 9 sit and complain, and in my closing, because I can 10 be long sometimes, some of y'all seen me speak at 11 City Council, I just wanted to say this, some of 12 y'all play lottery machines, some of y'all seen 13 this tickets, right? Don't act like you never 14 played. I think the Mega is 120-some million. 15 Some of y'all are probably lying. But I want to 16 say this, I am saying this to say that if you have 17 something as simple as this, a lottery machine 18 card, it basically tells you where you played, it 19 tells you what the number is, what is so hard 20 having a card like this, where we can get in 21 advance, you already have this, and it has a code, 22 has your name, social security already encoded, and 23 it may be a little bit bigger, because you could 24 put all of the candidates' names on it, all of the 25 issues on it, and you just hit that block, okay, so 54 1 when we come to the polls, no long lines, no 2 nothing, just put it in the machine and it is done. 3 Why are we making it so difficult and so hard? 4 I don't even agree with the states that 5 have voting early, because I believe fraud can 6 could be done in that case, because, you know, this 7 is Kerry votes, this is Bush votes, let's throw 8 these out, you know what I mean? So that voting 9 early isn't going to get it for me. The reason why 10 I think everybody should vote the same day, except 11 absentee votes, folk that may be out of town or 12 people sick or elderly, I believe that the only 13 reason why we should vote the same day, because you 14 know what? You and I can change your thought 15 pattern six months -- you might have voted six 16 months ago, then you see six months, you may not 17 want that candidate, and you already voted. So I 18 believe if we come up with a system that so easy as 19 the lottery machine, here you can play the Mega in 20 about 17 states and pay the Powerball in about 15 21 states, almost 30-some states together, they tally 22 up the machines, and they could tell you played it 23 in West Virginia, they can tell you played in 24 Columbus, Ohio, they can tell you played in New 25 York. Why can't they fix the voting machines the 55 1 same way? 2 In my closing, because I mean, you 3 probably got somebody like Bill Gates would like to 4 make these machines and maybe write it off taxes 5 and give us machines for our country, but I think 6 every state, not just Ohio, okay, because, you 7 know, last time it was Florida, and even though we 8 said it on Ohio like they said it on Florida, I 9 believe, especially in rural counties, if people 10 did vote for Kerry, you would not know because they 11 have it controlled, and in this state alone where 12 you have 70 counties that use chad cards, you could 13 throw them away easy. 14 So all I am saying, let us not just fix 15 this in Ohio, but fix this all across America, 16 where it will be all the same type of machines, 17 something as simple as a lottery machine, after 18 7:30, you know what? They can tell you at 7:35 19 what the number was and whether you won, as simple 20 as that. Let's make it simple. God bless all of 21 you. 22 MR. FITRAKIS: Joe Popich. And, again, 23 Robert Butler, if you would like to introduce 24 yourself. Again, we would ask all of the people 25 testifying to speak loudly. 56 1 - - - 2 ROBERT BUTLER 3 Being first duly sworn, testified as 4 follows: 5 MR. BUTLER: My name is Robert Butler. 6 I am here today representing the Libertarian Party 7 of Ohio. You didn't see our name on the ballot 8 this year, and the reason why is because Ken 9 Blackwell kept it off. We signed -- got 57,000 10 signatures to be on the ballot this year as the 11 Libertarian Party, and Ken Blackwell rejected 12 those. He said that there was a slight change at 13 the bottom of the form that needed to be made, and 14 on that basis he rejected those. We took him to 15 court. We are still fighting an appeal now. Of 16 course, the election is already over, but we are 17 hoping that we can clean up the system for next 18 time. 19 We are currently -- our presidential 20 candidate, Michael Badnarik, is currently raising 21 part of the money. We heard that $110,000 was 22 needed by the Secretary of State's office to do a 23 recount. We are currently raising that money with 24 the Green Party, and I just wanted to let you know 25 that the Libertarian party has suffered some of the 57 1 worst kind of discrimination in this race, and it 2 hasn't been talked about on TV. Our presidential 3 candidate was arrested trying to attend one of the 4 debates in Missouri. Our presidential candidate 5 was put on the terrorist no-fly list and not 6 allowed to travel freely without talking to FBI 7 first. 8 So this is some problems that we have, 9 and it is not only the Democrats and Republicans, 10 there are other parties out there that are not 11 getting equal representation. So that is why I am 12 here today. 13 - - - 14 JOE POPICH 15 Being first duly sworn, testified as 16 follows: 17 MR. POPICH: Good afternoon. My name is 18 Joe Popich, and I was the Kerry and Edwards field 19 organizer in Fairfield and Perry Counties for this 20 past election, and having that position after the 21 election, I was in the unique position to look at 22 some numbers that probably were not readily 23 available to the rest of America, to the rest of 24 Ohioans. 25 In analyzing some of the numbers, they 58 1 just weren't adding up. So after a day of 2 mourning, Thursday I went down to the Board of 3 Elections in one of the counties, Perry County, and 4 I started doing a little research, and I went back 5 to our little office that we had, that we were 6 closing up, and we looked at some more numbers, and 7 we decided, a little small group of three people, 8 that the voter log books, the poll books had the 9 answers, because numbers do not lie. 10 So I went to the Board of Elections on 11 Friday, and I started doing a little audit. What I 12 have here is one copy of one poll book from Perry 13 County. I'd like to thank the Perry County Board 14 of Elections for all of their cooperation in our 15 endeavor, I should say. There are a bunch of 16 irregularities in this log book, but the most 17 blatant irregularity would be the fact that there 18 are 360 signatures in this book. There are 33 19 people who voted absentee ballot at this precinct, 20 for a total of 393 votes that should be attributed 21 to that precinct. However, the Board of Elections 22 is attributing 96 more votes to that precinct than 23 what this log book reflects. I will be happy to 24 take any questions. I will be happy to provide 25 this to you if you would like it. I just would 59 1 like you to note page 24, page 25, page 30, where 2 there is no signature on record, yet there is a 3 signature of a person who supposedly voted. 4 MS. CLAY: I would like to have that 5 submitted for the record so that we can have a copy 6 of that. I wanted to ask a follow-up. You said 7 that this is for Perry County, correct? 8 MR. POPICH: Yes. 9 MS. CLAY: Is this the same county that 10 you were based in? You said you were field 11 organizer in that area, is that correct? 12 MR. POPICH: Yes, ma'am. 13 MS. CLAY: Just so I am clear, there is 14 a total of 393 votes that have been now -- you got 15 that count from -- 16 MR. POPICH: I got that count from the 17 signatures in that book, plus the number of 18 absentee ballots that were in that precinct. The 19 precinct is named Reading Township South. Its 20 precinct number is ABC. I should have said that 21 earlier. 22 MS. CLAY: One more question. Where are 23 you -- the Board of Elections, is this coming from 24 the web site, or did you ask them how many, where 25 are you getting a count that they are attributing 60 1 96 additional votes? 2 MR. POPICH: That came from the Board of 3 Elections. 4 MS. CLAY: Directly from a person there, 5 or from their web site? 6 MR. POPICH: We are out in cow country. 7 From their print-out. 8 MS. CLAY: Thank you. My DC stuff 9 coming through. I am sorry. 10 MR. POPICH: Not a problem. Any other 11 questions? Thank you very much. 12 MR. FITRAKIS: Derrick W. Windsor is 13 next. 14 Larry, if you would like to quickly 15 introduce yourself. 16 MR. PRICE: Thank you. I am State 17 Representative Larry Price, and let me give you a 18 hand for coming out and sharing your testimony. 19 Let me share with you quickly, we all believe that 20 the election needs to be looked at very closely. I 21 introduced the Help Reform the Vote Act Ohio 22 instituted last week, and I will be introducing 23 Monday a resolution for a constitutional amendment 24 to allow early voting. I will also be introducing 25 early voting legislation. The last thing that the 61 1 Ohio Legislative Black Caucus is making Secretary 2 of State the number one priority in the 2006 3 election. We believe we should not let this happen 4 again. 5 - - - 6 DEREK WINSOR 7 Being first duly sworn, testified as 8 follows: 9 MR. WINSOR: My name is Derek Winsor, 10 and I have been a resident of Columbus since 1995, 11 full-time in Victorian Village, and I wanted to 12 just briefly relate what happened on election day. 13 I voted at 14 C. Out of the six total voting 14 machines that were at 14 C, three of them showed 15 some type of malfunction that at one point or 16 another during the three or so hours that we were 17 waiting, and between my wife and me, we had asked 18 poll workers individually if they could explain 19 what was going on and what kind of reassurances 20 they could give us that, for one machine in 21 particular that the votes had already been posted 22 on, that machine would be counted, and the response 23 was just, oh, they will be counted. And how can 24 you be sure of that? What storage mechanism do 25 they use to ensure that the votes are stored, and, 62 1 again, the response was just, well, they just are. 2 And that was a bit of a concern here. I have a 3 tremendous amount of respect for any poll volunteer 4 who takes time out of their day to do this work, 5 but I have concerns about the system that is being 6 used to educate these poll workers and also for the 7 people standing in line. If there wasn't any 8 documentation explaining how votes are stored, what 9 types of machines they were, were these Diebold 10 machines you hear about whose C.E.O. apparently 11 promised to deliver Ohio to Bush in 2004, I think 12 an issue was how we as voters, how poll workers 13 receive reassurances about the way these votes are 14 stored, how can they be sure that these votes will 15 be stored? 16 So retroactively for this election for 17 future ones, I am very concerned about that, would 18 like to see better documentation, better education 19 of poll workers so that we can at least be sure 20 that our vote will be counted, considering how much 21 is at stake. That was all I had. Questions? 22 PANELIST: Yes. A couple questions. 23 The machine that you said malfunctioned, could you 24 be more specific? 25 MR. POPICH: Sure. One in particular, 63 1 there was a red light that would go on in these 2 machines when they weren't functioning, and there 3 was one in particular that wasn't functioning 4 during almost the entire three hours that I was 5 there, and I verified this by actually asking one 6 of the poll workers, is that machine broken? I 7 could see that nobody was going up and using it, 8 and she verified it was malfunctioning, and that is 9 what led to the exchange that I was describing. 10 Any others questions? Okay. 11 MR. FITRAKIS: Thanks for your 12 testimony. Floyd Johnson. 13 - - - 14 CAROL SHELTON 15 Being first duly sworn, testified as 16 follows: 17 MS. SHELTON: Hello. I am happy that 18 you are having this hearing. My name is Carol 19 Shelton. I was presiding judge, Democratic, at 20 precinct 25 B at the Linden Branch of the Columbus 21 Metropolitan Library. The precinct is 95 to 22 99 percent black. According to the library 23 manager, literacy rate is low. It was obvious to 24 me by my observations that disability rates were 25 high. Economic level was low, and commitment to 64 1 getting rid of Bush is very high. There were 1,500 2 persons on the precinct rolls. We received three 3 machines. In my own precinct in Clintonville, 19 4 E, we always received three machines for 700 to 730 5 voters. Voter turnout in my own precinct has 6 reached as high as 70 percent while I worked there. 7 I interviewed many voters in 25 B and asked how 8 many machines they had had in the past. Everyone 9 who had a recollection said five or six. 10 I called to get more machines and ended 11 up being connected with Matt Damschroder, the 12 Director of the Board of Elections. After a real 13 hassle -- and someone here has it on videotape, he 14 sent me a fourth machine which did not dent the 15 length of the line. Fewer than 700 voted, although 16 the turnout at the beginning of the day would cause 17 anyone to predict a turnout of over 80 percent. 18 This was a clear case of voter suppression by 19 making voting an impossibility for anyone who had 20 to go to work or anyone who was stuck at home 21 caring for children or the elderly while another 22 family member voted. Many voters had cell phones, 23 and the word got out that the lines were very long 24 in all the precincts within ward 25. The word also 25 got out when the voters who completed their voting 65 1 went home and told of their experiences, and of 2 course it also got out through the media. I 3 unfortunately added to that and didn't realize that 4 I was causing harm as far as voter suppression was 5 concerned. The library manager and her staff, all 6 the poll workers, and numerous volunteers did 7 everything we could to make the voters happy so 8 they would stay and vote. I was unable to enforce 9 the five-minute rule because when the voter got 10 into the booth and stayed too long, I would tell 11 that person that their five minutes were up to a 12 person the response was, I waited hours to get in 13 here, and I am not leaving until I complete my 14 voting. I am an experienced presiding judge. I 15 have been doing it for quite a few years. In 16 addition to following the law, I consider it my 17 duty to make sure no one is disenfranchised 18 regardless of what it takes. This was a travesty. 19 Now, I would like to testify on something, but I 20 need your approval to do it. What I would like to 21 do is I would like to mention a particular media, 22 but it won't be favorable. Is it okay? All right. 23 Well, I had two challengers, one was 24 Democrat, and one was Republican. They both had 25 the necessary papers. I swore them both in. The 66 1 Republican challenger was wearing a baseball cap 2 with 10 TV on it. That was perfectly fine with me. 3 You know, it wasn't advertising a political, a 4 particular political party if you didn't pay a 5 whole lot of attention to what was going on in the 6 world. However, a few minutes after he arrived, he 7 asked me if he could photograph in there, and I 8 said no, you can't play two roles. If you are the 9 challenger, you are not going to photograph. I 10 turned around, did something else, and the man 11 disappeared and never came back for the rest of the 12 day. So that is my off the record, now on the 13 record testimony. Okay. We need to go over all of 14 the records of placement of voting machines for 15 this general election and for the past four years 16 of general elections to determine, one, the per- 17 registered voter distribution, and, two, the known 18 partisanship of the precincts. Because the 19 director of the Board of Elections is a Republican 20 and because the Secretary of State, State Attorney 21 General, Governor, and State Auditor are all 22 Republicans, we must question how distribution was 23 determined. 24 I heard many rumors about some people 25 walking in, voting, and walking right back out. I 67 1 haven't received any facts on it. We really need 2 facts. I personally am more than willing to work 3 as a researcher to undercover these facts. Thank 4 you. 5 MR. GELFAND: Thank you for your 6 testimony, Carol. I wanted to hear a little bit 7 more about the five-minute rule as a poll judge and 8 poll worker, I would like to hear about that. I 9 have been voting for many years, and I know that 10 often particularly in elections where there are a 11 lot of candidates and issues to choose from, I 12 don't think I could ever get out of there in less 13 than 15 or 20 minutes. 14 So I am not even aware of the 15 five-minute rule. Would you say a little bit more 16 about that, and as a poll judge, were you enforcing 17 it, and were other poll workers enforcing it? And 18 how diligently were they enforcing it? 19 MS. SHELTON: Well, as a presiding 20 judge, when a voter who was waiting said to me, the 21 person who was next up or two people up from being 22 up, said that person has been in there too long, I 23 would go over and stand outside the booth and say 24 your five minutes is up, and the answer came back 25 the same every time, what I reported to you. Now, 68 1 we are trained to enforce the five-minute rule, but 2 we are not told how to do it. We are not told to 3 yank them out or call for the police or shut down 4 the machine or anything like that. We are just 5 told to enforce the five-minute rule, and since it 6 is, for me, disenfranchising a voter because of it 7 is certainly not worth it. 8 MR. GELFAND: You didn't do that, but is 9 it your experience as a poll judge, presiding 10 judge, or a poll worker, in your years of doing 11 this, that other poll workers were more zealous in 12 enforcing the five-minute rule? Have you seen this 13 in this election or other elections? 14 MS. SHELTON: I have never seen it. We 15 make every accommodation for people who have 16 disabilities and don't put any time limit on that. 17 We did put pregnant women, that is, ones who were 18 obviously in some degree of stress, up at the front 19 of the line, and people who were obviously 20 exceedingly disabled, we put them up at the front 21 of the line. Other than that, we didn't make any 22 other changes. 23 MR. GELFAND: One other question. You 24 spoke about the long line at your polling place and 25 the frustration level that you witnessed. Did you 69 1 actually personally see people leave because the 2 line was so long? 3 MS. SHELTON: Yes, I did. I spent most 4 of my time, because I had enough poll workers and 5 they were doing a beautiful job, we were always 6 exactly where we needed to be, nobody ever waited 7 for us, I spent all my time circulating and 8 circulating among the people saying please stay, 9 please vote, please bring people from home, that it 10 couldn't be helped, and on two or three occasions I 11 wrote notes as if I were a doctor or a teacher 12 saying that so and so couldn't get to work on time 13 because of the lines at the precinct, and I signed 14 my name and my phone number and all of that. 15 And, of course, the biggest hand, in 16 addition to all the Right-to-Vote people who helped 17 us tremendously, I want to say that they gave the 18 library to us, the Linden Branch library, they gave 19 it to us. They did everything in their power to 20 accommodate us. We took it over. We even made a 21 mess out of it, because people heard about our 22 distress and brought us food and beverage. So 23 thank you very much. 24 MS. TAVARES: Mrs. Shelton, I just have 25 another question with respect to the five-minute 70 1 rule. Has that been a policy in previous 2 elections, that it was enforced, or have you ever 3 been trained that we only have five minutes on a 4 machine in previous elections? 5 MS. SHELTON: I have always been told 6 that for as long as I can remember, and with no 7 information on how to enforce it, and I have never 8 witnessed it being enforced when I was like a poll 9 worker and not the presiding judge, and I have 10 never enforced it. I only do that small gesture in 11 order to help appease the people who are waiting. 12 MS. TAVARES: I guess just one other 13 follow-up question, as a presiding judge and 14 someone who has been involved in elections as a 15 poll worker for a number of years, have you had any 16 problems or did you have any problems in this 17 election with people who wanted to vote but may 18 have had difficulty with either reading the names, 19 or had language difficulties, because I witnessed 20 something of that nature at my personal polling 21 location, and I am just concerned about that. 22 MS. SHELTON: Okay. I have witnessed 23 this many times, but never with language, because I 24 have not been in a precinct where there was a 25 language problem. But many disabled people and 71 1 people with serious vision problems -- by the way, 2 I always bring a couple of pair of magnifying 3 glasses to the polls to help people, but when 4 somebody has difficulty, they are allowed to take a 5 family member in with them, and we always allow 6 that. We do not allow them to take anyone else in 7 with them, but one Republican and one Democrat goes 8 in with them to assist them in handling the voting. 9 We don't allow just one. It has to be one from 10 each party. 11 MS. TAVARES: But that is only if a 12 member isn't there, correct? 13 MS. SHELTON: Right. And if it is, for 14 example, somebody from a nursing home, an employee 15 of the nursing home, we do not allow them in. In 16 any case where there is any kind of a relationship 17 that could possibly be interpreted as coercion. 18 MS. TAVARES: The reason I asked that 19 question was because at my polling location I 20 witnessed a husband and wife where the wife was a 21 Russian immigrant, was a citizen, who needed help, 22 and she wanted her husband to go in with her, and 23 they were challenged by the poll workers, and I had 24 to keep arguing that she had that right. She 25 wanted her husband in there, and they challenged 72 1 her, and then finally, someone then said okay, you 2 can go in, but they were not going to let her 3 husband go in. That is why he wanted to get that 4 on the record. 5 MS. SHELTON: Yes. The challenger needs 6 a little more education on voting rules. 7 MR. BUTLER: I just had a quick 8 question. As a Libertarian, I know many people who 9 are Independent or Libertarian voters who are not 10 allowed to work the polls, because in Ohio you have 11 to be a Republican or Democrat to work in a polling 12 place. Has that been your experience, you know, as 13 presiding judge, that you have only Democrats or 14 Republicans working? 15 MS. SHELTON: No. We also have 16 Independents, but we have never had anyone, in the 17 precincts where I have worked, I mostly have worked 18 in Clintonville, because they try to make it easy 19 for you, and this time the voter protection people 20 asked me to take a precinct that would be 21 difficult, which I was more than happy to do. But 22 I have never had a problem. 23 MR. BUTLER: Was that up to the 24 discretion of the judge, or who determines whether 25 an Independent will be allowed to work at a polling 73 1 place? 2 MS. SHELTON: I think it is up to the 3 Board of Elections. Because I am a Democrat, I 4 have never done anything personally to go out and 5 try to accommodate the Libertarians or the Green 6 Party. I would if I were a member of those, I 7 would do everything that I could. But I have never 8 been in a situation where anybody created an issue 9 of it. 10 MR. GELFAND: I think the answer to 11 that, Mr. Butler, is the board of elections hires 12 all of the poll workers, so it would be an issue 13 that if a Libertarian wanted to be a poll worker, 14 that would be taken up with the Board of Elections 15 in the county in question. 16 MR. BUTLER: That problem that we 17 usually have is that we are told that we are not 18 allowed to work at the polls, either to observe or 19 to be a poll worker. 20 MR. PRICE: My question has to do with 21 the five-minute rule, did that come to you in memo 22 form, quoting the Ohio Revised Code? How did you 23 get that directive? 24 MS. SHELTON: I always attend class, and 25 I believe it is also in the book. But I can't 74 1 swear to that right now. I just know that I hear 2 it whenever I attend class. I don't tend to read 3 the book every time, because I pretty much have it 4 down pat. Maybe, maybe I better read the book 5 again. I don't know. 6 MR. PRICE: We need to find out where 7 that is coming from, whether or not that is a 8 directive from Blackwell versus a directive from 9 the Ohio Revised Code. 10 MS. CLAY: With regard to housing four 11 (phonetic), that is the question that needs to be 12 answered. Typically, according to the statute, it 13 states that if there is somebody waiting in line or 14 if there is a machine malfunction, then somebody 15 requests it, like they have been for you, then you 16 have to enforce it. 17 MS SHELTON: I haven't received my check 18 for working. I might now if everybody in the world 19 finds out I didn't impose a certain rule. 20 MR. PRICE: Well, that is why I asked 21 the question. We need to look at when we put 22 together the polsters package. Thank you. 23 MR. FITRAKIS: I believe we are going to 24 have to go over 4:00 today. Lynn Landers, who is 25 one of the first persons we have asked, will be 75 1 coming up next, and after that, again, we are going 2 to have to be a little strict on enforcing the 3 three-minute rule. 4 Also, six to nine on Monday a the county 5 courthouse. Let it be known we originally tried to 6 get the Franklin County Board of Elections, but 7 they moved us to the courthouse. Okay. Lynn 8 Landers. Thank you. 9 - - - 10 LYNN LANDERS 11 Being first duly sworn, testified as 12 follows: 13 MS. LANDERS: Thank you for the three 14 minutes. Five. Okay. Hi. I am Lynn Landers. I 15 am from Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. I am a 16 journalist. I have been covering this issue of 17 voting systems and democracy issues for the past 18 three years. I write articles. I give interviews. 19 And so I am involved in print and broadcast media. 20 I have been giving interviews about this issue from 21 radio stations all over the world. 22 Yesterday I had three, one from Jamaica, 23 two online, so this is getting to be hotter as an 24 issue, and it doesn't look like it is going to go 25 away as a result of this election process. I also 76 1 want to describe my background in terms of 2 politics. I was a Democratic committee person in 3 the early nineties. I was chair of our township 4 Democratic party, and I ran for local office. In 5 this last election I was a poll watcher. So I have 6 had quite a bit of experience with the Democratic 7 process, and when I was first introduced to the 8 subject of the insecurity of the voting machines by 9 Dr. Rebecca Berger (phonetic), she and I were 10 committee people together, again, back in the 11 nineties, it took a long time for it to -- for me 12 to get to understand the risk these voting machines 13 pose to our democracy, and I am here to say there 14 is no fixing these machines. In fact, it looks 15 like the machines have already been fixed. I think 16 it is important for people here to understand that 17 there are only about a half dozen countries in the 18 whole world that don't bother to count their own 19 votes, and we are one of them. It is the United 20 States, Venezuela, Brazil, Argentina, and India. 21 Half of the Netherlands also uses voting machines. 22 I got a call from a resident of Trinidad. There is 23 a two-island nation, Trinidad and Tobago. He 24 called me to say that they had suffered with voting 25 machines for 30 years, and finally, the people 77 1 revolted and they are back to paper ballots, and 2 that is what we need to do. If you think of voting 3 as a three-step process, it is marking the ballot, 4 casting the ballot, and counting the ballot. It is 5 a three-step process. All three steps are 6 critical. There are two other standards for voting 7 under the law, under case law and statute, and 8 particularly when you look at the role of the 9 federal observer in US code, what do they want to 10 see? They want to know that voters are qualified 11 to vote, are qualified to vote, and that those 12 votes are counted properly. 13 Now, what does properly mean? Properly 14 doesn't mean correctly every time. It means that 15 the process is done in such a way that we can 16 determine whether vote fraud or system failure took 17 place. You cannot see that. You cannot observe 18 the process when it is inside of a box. You cannot 19 effectively observe the process with early voting 20 for absentee voting. With these processes, we have 21 eliminated public oversight. That is where we are 22 at. In addition to writing about the subject, I 23 filed two federal lawsuits, one against the use of 24 voting machines, and the other one against use of 25 absentee ballots. My suggestion for people who are 78 1 not in this country or are not home, they are at 2 school, or for some other reason, is for this 3 country to establish remote polling precincts, so 4 that you still have the security and integrity of 5 the polling precinct. 6 You have the privacy of the voting 7 booth. You have the oversight of poll watchers. 8 Right now the way we are voting, poll watchers have 9 nothing to watch, federal observers have nothing to 10 observe, and international monitors have absolutely 11 nothing to monitor. That is where we are at today. 12 So we have in this country .6 percent of 13 our citizens actually mark, cast, and count their 14 own ballots .6. Everyone else is using either 15 ballot scanners or touch screen machines. Ballot 16 scanners and touch screen machines, 80 percent of 17 the American vote is controlled by two companies, 18 ES&S and Diebold. You have Sequoia, which is the 19 third largest, which is owned by a British-based 20 company, Dellaroup (phonetic), we have not only 21 eliminated public oversight, we have privatized and 22 in fact out-sourced our voting process. 23 This past year depended on, had given a 24 company, a Bermuda-based company at the British 25 territory, they gave them the contract to conduct 79 1 an on-line vote by the military and overseas 2 civilians. It could have been at least five to six 3 million votes, and they gave it to a company called 4 Accenture (phonetic). They are the former Andersen 5 Consulting, of Arthur Andersen, of Enron infamy. 6 The other day when I was looking up on 7 the internet, surfing for information, I came 8 across a web site. It was a web page from the 9 American embassy in Rome, Italy. It was discussing 10 how would you apply for an absentee ballot. And 11 one of the lines said if you were a US citizen, 12 your parents were US citizens, but have never lived 13 in the United States, this is how you apply for an 14 absentee ballot, you claim the residency of the 15 your parents. So we have people voting in our 16 elections who have never stepped a foot in this 17 country. That is how out of control this situation 18 is. 19 We have private companies that are 20 counting the votes that in any given moment in time 21 their ownership could change. We don't really know 22 who the owners of Diebold are, except we know who 23 their president is, we know some of their chief 24 investors, but we don't know everything about 25 Diebold or ES&S or Sequoia (phonetic). We could 80 1 have Osama bin Laden himself counting our votes, 2 homeland security doesn't seem to care. We don't 3 have one federal agency with any regulatory control 4 over our voting system. There are no standards. 5 There are loose guidelines. The Help America Vote 6 Act might as well have been called the Hack America 7 Vote Act for all the good it did. In the past 8 three years several of us have tried to raise the 9 red flag on this issue, and we have had voting 10 rights groups, the ACLU, NAACP, and others turn a 11 deaf ear to our concerns, and to an extent we 12 understood where they were coming from, because 13 they thought if they got enough voters out, that 14 they could overwhelm this system. 15 Well, now we have seen what has 16 happened, and, you know, many of us have predicted 17 this. Vote fraud, voting irregularities have been 18 going on for decades, absolutely decades, and this 19 has been documented in the vote scam, in Bev 20 Harris's Black Box Voting, extremely good, chapter 21 two. I have got a list of these irregularities. 22 So this is not a recent occurrence. It has been 23 going on for all of this time. 24 So let's talk about this election. 25 Because if you put all of your eggs in this basket 81 1 of being able to find fraud, and it is not going to 2 happen, what is the backup position? Well, we are 3 just going to try and fix these machines, get 4 better machines, you have to have a position if you 5 want every vote to count, you are going to have to 6 count every vote, really count it. And that means 7 get rid of the machines. 8 I want to talk just very specifically 9 about some of the stuff that has been going on with 10 Florida with this election. I got a couple e-mails 11 from some statisticians, and they started looking 12 at Florida and New Hampshire, and Kathy Dock 13 (phonetic) is one of them, and her data was an 14 inspiration to me, so I put up the chart at my end. 15 That made more sense for me. That is at 16 ecotalk.org (phonetic), that is the web site I 17 publish. But, what she noticed in Florida, and 18 this is where I am encouraging the panel to look 19 into this if you are looking for irregularities, is 20 that she noticed a big difference between counties 21 that use the ballot scanners and counties that use 22 the touch screen, and it seemed as though that, you 23 know, everyone got -- all of the publicity was on 24 the touch screens, but what she noticed was the 25 real irregularities were occurring with the optical 82 1 scans. To the extent, the way I did the data, I 2 took the number of votes for Bush, and I compared 3 that to the amount of Republican registration, and 4 it was -- it had gotten completely wild, and then 5 votes for Kerry and Democratic registration. In 6 many of these counties, these were most of the 7 counties in Florida, Bush was winning by 100, 200, 8 300, 400, 500, 600 percent over Republican 9 registration. Kerry was getting 25, 37, 37, 25 of 10 Democratic registration. Now, Peter Jennings of 11 ABC news said, you know, certainly mocking this 12 whole thing saying, oh, no, these are Democrats and 13 they are, you know, shifting around. That is a 14 rumor. There is no evidence that these are 15 Democrats. So what we did is we are looking at 16 that issue, and Ohio presents certain problems, 17 because it is, I have had information from people 18 who were trying to look at Ohio by a 19 county-by-county and voting equipment, and they are 20 having a problem with the registration, who is 21 registered what. That data is not as available. 22 So that is something that has come up. Again, we 23 are being accused of being conspiracy theorists. 24 This is interesting, because we want a free, open, 25 fair election, and it seems likes the Republicans 83 1 want to keep it under lock and key in a big black 2 box. Thank you very much. 3 MR. BUTLER: I think I can confirm as a 4 Libertarian that anyone who actually wants freedom 5 is called a conspiracy theorist. But my question 6 is from what you are saying, it sounds like, you 7 know, a lot of people gathered here today to demand 8 a recount. Do you think that really is going to 9 answer the problem, if there is just a recount of 10 this election? It sounds like what you are talking 11 about is a real systematic change of how we vote 12 for people in this country. 13 MS. LANDERS: Well, one of the things 14 that Peter Jennings said he was, he pointed out 15 Lafayette County in Florida. Oh, they voted this 16 way in the last election, the election before that, 17 the election before, at the top of the ticket when 18 it is a general election, they vote for 19 Republicans. The ballot scanners have been there 20 since '64. It is a contaminated environment. You 21 have no control group. Voting machines have been 22 around since 1892. They came in after the civil 23 war. Same time we had absentee voting being 24 introduced, same time we had restrictive 25 registration. I think these voting machines are 84 1 the worst of Jim Crow. I think that is what this 2 is all about, and that is always going to be what 3 it is about. 4 When John Kerry said that he was going 5 to have thousands of attorneys on the streets to 6 make sure every vote counted, we know the Democrats 7 were well aware of the problems with these voting 8 machines. There was legislation on the hill. Most 9 of the Democrats signed onto that to ask for this 10 paper ballot, you know, situation, which I don't 11 agree with, I still think these machines are 12 obstacle, but they had signed onto it. There was 13 general awareness that there was a problem. They 14 had heard that. So in my mind, when I heard John 15 Kerry say 1,000 attorneys are going to be on the 16 streets, I am saying to myself, to watch what? 17 What are they going to be watching? They have 18 nothing to watch. To me, that was a ruse, and 19 where he folded, some people say like a cheap suit, 20 that didn't surprise me at all. 21 MR. GELFAND: We saw in Cuyahoga County, 22 as probably around the state, a lot of attorneys, 23 part of the Kerry/Edwards campaign, and I was 24 involved in that effort, and once election day was 25 over, there aren't that many anymore, there are 85 1 still some, and I am involved in that effort in 2 Cuyahoga County, there are a few of us attorneys 3 still there, not nearly as many as there was on 4 election day, but we are still watching and we are 5 watching the count. Now, are you involved at all 6 in the count that is going on at boards of 7 elections across the state? 8 MS. LANDERS: Not in Ohio, but one thing 9 I would say is this, I have been in court, I am 10 going to be appealing my case to the third circuit, 11 I put it out on the news wire, the Democrats are 12 well aware of it, haven't had one call from any of 13 them to assist in this lawsuit. This lawsuit is 14 basically this, any election judge or any judge 15 would understand that a crime had been committed if 16 an elections official at the polling place took the 17 box and said, listen, thank you all for putting 18 your paper ballots in this box, now I am going to 19 go behind that door, I am going to count the votes, 20 I am going to shred the votes, and I am going to 21 come out and tell you what the count was, and that 22 is really where we are at, and any court in the 23 land would understand the problem with that. But 24 for some reason the mental blinders go over their 25 eyes when it comes to using voting machines or 86 1 absentee balloting, and in other words, it is 2 extremely important to understand, we are 3 eliminating public oversight. Effective public 4 oversight is over. We have to do something to 5 restore that. 6 MR. GELFAND: The other question I have 7 is if the votes were as skewed as you say they 8 were, with Bush getting 600 percent or more than 9 Republican registrations and Kerry getting 10 27 percent of the Democrat votes, why didn't this 11 election look more like the McGovern/Nixon race or 12 the Reagan/Mondale race? Why was it so close in 13 the end? 14 MS. LANDERS: We don't know what it was. 15 We have no evidence. You know, what those machines 16 produce is direct evidence that they did something. 17 It is circumstantial evidence at best of what the 18 voter intended, and that is why when the Democrats 19 and incumbents are explaining how our message went 20 wrong, I am thinking, you know, look at the voting 21 machines, look at what is processing our votes as 22 if it were a piece of sausage. That is where you 23 have to look first and foremost. 24 I mean, if you are handed a stacked 25 deck, are you going to play cards with that other 87 1 fella who is handing you a stacked deck? And this 2 is what has happened. 3 MR. PRICE: Thank you for your 4 testimony. One of the problems with jurisdiction 5 and reflecting on the federal level and that Ken 6 Blackwell interpreted to mean precinct, trying to 7 correct to mean county, what other problems do you 8 foresee with Help America Vote Act? 9 MS. LANDERS: Help America Vote Act and 10 Election Assistance Commission, which is 11 interestingly, those four members, two of them were 12 selected by the Democrats and two by the 13 Republicans, all four of them are for these voting 14 machines. All four of them are for that. That 15 just made lots of money available for counties to 16 go out and buy touch screens, and the only thing 17 that stopped a lot of states and counties from 18 doing it is the reports coming out from the 19 computer scientists saying hold on here, this is a 20 completely insecure process. They are still saying 21 that. 22 So, you know, all it did was throw a lot 23 of money in states, thankfully some did not go for 24 the bait, but still, we have got these ballot 25 scanners, you have got the evidence there, so I do 88 1 encourage you, go ahead and try to recount those 2 ballots, but don't put all of your eggs in that 3 basket, because the horse is out of the barn. You 4 have somebody in charge of your elections who is a 5 clear partisan, so he has had plenty of time to 6 tamper with those ballots as well, if that is in 7 his mind. 8 MR. PRICE: A majority of southeastern 9 Ohio to southwestern Ohio still uses -- has a chad 10 problem. 11 MS. LANDERS: No, the big problem in 12 Florida was not the chads, it was the touch screen 13 machines. The chads got all of the publicity. In 14 the book Vote Scam, the Stealing of America, which 15 is not particularly the best written book I have 16 ever read, but it really laid out the issue, and 17 what it laid out was there is a network, it is the 18 voting machines and the companies that control 19 them. I mean, they just don't make and sell them. 20 They keep control of that software, and even if you 21 subcontract out some of the software, you still 22 have firmware in there. You have the corporate 23 news networks that come together on election night 24 in the form of -- well, they change their name 25 every so often, then you have voter news service, 89 1 then national election poll, so they not only 2 report the news, but then they hire their own exit 3 pollers, and the allegation of the Collier 4 (phonetic) brothers, the late Collier brothers, was 5 that this is where the scam takes place. You have 6 pre-election polling that can shape public opinion, 7 you have a rigged election, and you have got exit 8 polling that could come in and bolster rigged 9 election results, voila. That is how you get these 10 exit polls. That is how you may get these exit 11 polls meeting so frequently election results. For 12 those who have been looking at the polling data, 13 Mitofsky, Warren Mitofsky, who did this federal 14 election, he is the father of exit polling, he is 15 saying at the end of the day the polls were 16 accurate to the results. Can you trust Warren 17 Mitofsky? It is a completely nontransparent 18 organization. 19 MS. CLAY: I have one quick question. I 20 can be brief. With regard to, you mentioned a 21 couple of things that you would recommend. I also 22 wanted to use this opportunity in this process in 23 this hearing to determine, develop strategies in 24 order to reform the system, not just to hear all 25 the problems. I want to figure out something to do 90 1 about them, and you mentioned that you are not 2 interested in having any type of voting machine in 3 use, and my question to you is what do you do about 4 those who are individuals with disabilities who are 5 very supportive, many of their organizations, 6 especially those representing the Americans with 7 Disabilities, were supportive of these voting 8 machines, because they allow them to vote privately 9 and independently, so I would like for you to 10 answer that question for me to how we can make sure 11 that we are not simply looking out for one segment 12 of society. 13 MS. LANDERS: Yes. First of all, I do 14 want to say, the issue most often brought up about 15 voting with paper ballots is it takes so long to 16 count them up, this is a very burdensome process. 17 Well, the rest of world also has local and federal 18 elections officials, and they manage to get the job 19 done. Really, a quick count depends on the size of 20 the precinct and the length of the ballot. So if 21 you have a long ballot, you might want no more than 22 500 per precinct. That is what Canada has, between 23 250 and 500 per precinct. If you need to make it 24 smaller and have more elections officials, we don't 25 have to depend on volunteers. We don't depend on 91 1 volunteers for our juries. We draft people into 2 that kind of thing. 3 So the idea that it is expensive and you 4 have to rely on volunteers is utter rubbish. In 5 terms of the disabled -- this is interesting, 6 because they have fought a very fierce battle to 7 get these voting machines, the paperless kind, into 8 the polling booth. Without disparaging some of the 9 organizations, I will say this, that there are 10 things for the blind called ballot templates. They 11 can take them into a voting booth -- they are used 12 all over the world. They are used also in Vermont, 13 in other states. You can take them into the 14 polling -- into the voting booth. You can either 15 be -- somebody can give you the names of the 16 candidates, and you can follow along if there is -- 17 it is tacked up. You can follow along and fill the 18 ballot out privately, independently. If you want 19 one, you just call Vermont and ask them to send you 20 one. They will send you a sample. It is not like 21 they can't do this privately and independently, 22 they can. But let's just say you need somebody in 23 there to assist you. Isn't it better to have a 24 person assist you that if they get up to no good, 25 they can be held accountable, but when anything 92 1 goes wrong with these machine, it is somehow a 2 glitch, it is something that ate your vote? It is 3 a completely unaccountable technology. 4 MR. GELFAND: With regard to 5 disabilities, if we register at least 30 days in 6 advance, we could probably find a way to 7 accommodate those individuals with disabilities 8 that have a specific disability so that the Board 9 of Elections will know exactly which precincts, 10 which types of accommodations for the specific 11 voters -- it is just like if you are flying in an 12 airplane and you require a vegetarian meal or a 13 kosher meal, you let the airline know, and when you 14 get there, you get your meal. 15 MS. LANDERS: The same thing with 16 foreign language, you do the same thing. It takes 17 advance planning. You can't walk in at last minute 18 and demand services but for advance planning, and, 19 again, if we want to engage in absentee voting or 20 early voting, it should be in the context of a 21 polling precinct, where you have oversight, not 22 voting anytime, anywhere, anyhow. Thank you very 23 much. 24 MR. FITRAKIS: All right. Just a few 25 quick announcements, Monday night from six to nine 93 1 this continues at Franklin County Board of 2 Elections. We are going to stay here as long as it 3 takes tonight, if it takes an extra hour or two. 4 We are going to try to speed it up. There is a 5 video in the basement if you want to go down there 6 and watch it, 20 minutes of the election line. 7 There is tea and coffee down there. Also, you can 8 give testimony downstairs as well if you are 9 pressed. We are going to try to move it quickly to 10 make sure, particularly those of you who came from 11 out of town get a chance to testify. 12 - - - 13 JAMIA SHEPHERD 14 Being first duly sworn, testified as 15 follows: 16 MS. SHEPHERD: Good afternoon. My name 17 is Jamia Shepherd, and I am going to be brief. I 18 am here representing myself. 19 MR. FITRAKIS: Quickly, a correction, 20 Franklin County Courthouse, 373 South High, Monday 21 six to nine. 22 MS. SHEPHERD: I am representing myself 23 and my mother and aunt, and I know firsthand on 24 election day I went to vote, I took my mother and 25 my aunt. My aunt is 81. My mother is in her 70s. 94 1 She has emphysema. But the bottom line is, with 2 this very important election, somebody dropped the 3 ball. People knew how many new registered voters 4 there were. They should have been prepared. We 5 had to vote at the school up on Mock Road. There 6 are only four booths. We had to go inside of a 7 room, that was a classroom. First we waited in the 8 long hallway, and then when we got inside there was 9 a wraparound. Inside the room it was kind of hot, 10 and there were tables in there. 11 We had to show ID, and also by the time 12 we got there, there were a few chairs, but my 13 mother, she can't stand that long. So we had to 14 ask for a chair so my mother and aunt had to drag 15 their chairs along. So it took a process of like 16 about an hour and a half, but one of the things 17 that -- let me see, I think it was a little bit of 18 intimidation. They told people they only had five 19 minutes, but since this was a new process, 20 especially for new registered voters, these new 21 machines, they were young voters -- I was glad to 22 see so many people had turned out, but once you got 23 inside the booth, you know, one of the things that 24 happened with me was, why was the red light 25 blinking next to Bush's name when I got in there? 95 1 You had to stop and think, you know, what do you 2 do? And how many people really knew that you had 3 to push a button to register your vote? So not 4 only was the room small, there were only four 5 booths, and I think even my aunt said since you 6 only have five minutes once you got inside the 7 booth, she felt a little intimidated. She didn't 8 really have enough time to go over the other issues 9 on the ballot. 10 So one of the things I would just like 11 to say, Bush and Kerry, they made all of these 12 trips to Ohio for our votes. They should have been 13 here today. You know, they should see what is 14 going on. Thank you. 15 MR. FITRAKIS: Cliff Arnebeck with 16 Common Cause will be calling your names. Looks 17 likes Kathryn Curry. 18 - - - 19 KATHRYN CURRY 20 Being first duly sworn, testified as 21 follows: 22 MS. CURRY: Hi, everyone. My name is 23 Kate Curry. I am the co-convener for Ohio Green 24 Party, and so I felt very, very educated as far as 25 my vote when I was to go into the voting booth, 96 1 what I was supposed to do with it. 2 You looked at the little box and write 3 in the name for who you want in there. I knew 4 exactly how I was supposed to write it. It came to 5 our attention over the weekend -- this is November, 6 7th, notice was sent around our votes hadn't been 7 registered correctly on the Secretary of State's 8 web site. 9 So I went and checked it out, and yes, 10 that is true. On Franklin County there are no 11 votes for David Cobb (phonetic). Well, that is a 12 problem. I voted for David Cobb. I voted in 14 B, 13 that is Hubbard School, right behind my house. I 14 vote in the short north, 815 North High Street. 15 So I called the Secretary of State. 16 That is the number on the web site, called that 17 number, they referred to me to the Franklin County 18 Board of Elections. I talked to Donna at Franklin 19 County Board of Elections. I waited a long time to 20 talk to the receptionist who referred me to Donna, 21 just so you are aware. After talking to her, I 22 spoke to her and I asked her what was going on with 23 the votes on the web page, and she said, well, they 24 are not official. I said what makes them 25 unofficial? And she said, well, because the 97 1 provisional ballots haven't been counted yet, and I 2 said wouldn't it be correct to say that the actual 3 ballots that were cast on the second and the 4 write-ins would be correct, and I said that those 5 should be official, and she said, yes, that is 6 correct. I said, well, that is the problem, 7 because I wrote in David Cobb, and I am proud to 8 say that. I am a Green Party member and I voted 9 for the candidate that I thought was most suited 10 for the job, and said but my vote isn't represented 11 on the web page. She said, oh, well, um, let me 12 transfer you to somebody who can help you. Okay. 13 I am expecting this to be somebody who is going to 14 hear may voice, they are going to listen to my 15 problem, they are going to tell me what is going on 16 and how it is going to be fixed. I got a voice 17 mail. I left a message in good faith. Okay. I 18 called a minute and a half later. He spoke so 19 quickly, the man spoke so quickly on the voice 20 mail, I wasn't sure who I was leaving a voice mail 21 for. It could have been the janitor, because he 22 didn't list his title. That is the problem. Okay. 23 So I called right back. I waited on the answering, 24 you know how you go through all of it, it will take 25 a little while, we are getting to your call, that 98 1 kind of thing. About a minute and a half later I 2 talked to the receptionist. I said, well, I wanted 3 to get the name of who I had been talking to, I 4 believe I was speaking to Donna, and I wanted to 5 talk to who would be a live person to speak to 6 about this, and the woman replied, well, Donna has 7 just left the office for the day. Okay. We are 8 talking a minute and a half later. This isn't five 9 minutes, it is not 15 minutes or a half hour later, 10 a minute and a half later. This was 4:33 in the 11 afternoon she left the office for the day. This is 12 on Monday, November 8th, at 4:30. That is a 13 problem, and I still have, to this day have not 14 gotten a call back, no feedback, nothing, and I 15 know that I am not the only Green Party member to 16 have voted for my presidential candidate in this 17 state and in Franklin County. There are -- a 18 person who filed, his name is Spalding Rochelle 19 (phonetic), he is a member of our Green Party, he 20 voted in Delaware County through an absentee 21 ballot. No representation on the Secretary of 22 State's web page. And in Hamilton County there is 23 about 33 people that voted David Cobb, and there 24 aren't that many people listed -- I don't even 25 believe they are from Hamilton County, is on the 99 1 Secretary of State's web page. At this point there 2 is only 24 votes for the Green Party listed in the 3 State of Ohio, and I know that there are more than 4 24 of us that voted for David Cobb. So this just 5 reeks of something. I don't know what it is, but 6 it is something, and I just, you know, I thought if 7 I saw five votes, okay, my vote has been counted, 8 but there weren't, and I know that he was an 9 official person, so. 10 MR. GELFAND: Is there anyone here from 11 the Board of Elections that could help Kathryn, 12 because she obviously has a complaint that she 13 tried to file with the board of elections and 14 didn't get it filed, so is there anybody here from 15 the Board of Elections that can help Kathryn? It 16 is very important. Anyone here from the Board of 17 Elections who can take her complaint? 18 MS. CURRY: Why am I not surprised? 19 Thank you very much for letting me speak. 20 MR. ARENBECK: I am Cliff Arnebeck. I 21 am Chairman of the Legal Committee of Common Cause 22 Ohio. I am also co-chairman of a group called 23 Alliance for Democracy. There are a couple things 24 I want to do here. First, I want to make everyone 25 aware of the fact that because of the atrocious 100 1 situation that existed at the long lines in 2 Franklin County, particularly in Democratic 3 districts, the Ohio Democratic Party went into 4 federal court and got a court order from Judge 5 Algenon Marbley requiring that everyone in line be 6 given alternatives to waiting further in line, for 7 a paper ballot or some other mechanism by which to 8 register their vote without having to wait longer. 9 The Franklin County Board of Elections 10 testified that they couldn't do it, there was no 11 way to do it. So anyway, the federal court tried 12 to protect the peoples' right to vote. 13 The second thing I'd like to do is make 14 available for the record a document which Matt 15 Damschroeder, who was the Director of the Franklin 16 County Board of Elections, made available to me, it 17 is a description of how the Board of Elections 18 allocated voting machines, and you can see how, 19 which precincts were deducted, which precincts had 20 voting machines added, and this is going to be a 21 very important document for figuring out why, what 22 was so conspicuously discriminatory against young 23 people, against Knox County, and against Democratic 24 precincts in this community. 25 The next person to testify is 101 1 Allesondro -- 2 MR. GELFAND: I have a question for 3 Cliff. Does it appear that there is, in your 4 opinion, an equal protection violation based on any 5 of the suspect classes? 6 MR. ARNEBECK: In my opinion, yes. 7 MR. GELFAND: Based on race? Gender? 8 MR. ARNEBECK: Based upon income level, 9 race. 10 MR. GELFAND: Race. Our attorney is 11 looking at this. Do you know if there are any 12 charges that will be filed, complaints to be filed? 13 MR. ARENBECK: I don't know who else has 14 gotten this document and who is scrutinizing it. 15 But I think there are probably lots of people that 16 will be shortly, if they are not already. 17 MR. GELFAND: Thank you. 18 MR. ARNEBECK: Allesandro. As the next 19 person comes forward to testify, for the good of 20 the order we have new members of the panel, and I 21 think it would be appropriate for the panel to 22 reintroduce themselves to establish who is actually 23 taking public testimony. 24 We can start from the far left. 25 MR. RUBIN: Robert Rubin, Lawyers' 102 1 Committee for Civil Rights, San Francisco, 2 California. 3 MS. TAVARES: Charleta Tavares, a member 4 of Columbus City Council, but here as a concerned 5 citizen as well. 6 MR. BUTLER: Robert Butler, Executive 7 Director of the Libertarian Party of Ohio, also 8 here as a concerned citizen. 9 MS. EDWARDS-McNABB: Sybil 10 Edwards-McNabb, Ohio Conference of NAACP, also 11 concerned citizen. 12 MS. LETTMAN: Sharon Lettman, People For 13 the American Way Foundation. 14 MS. TRUITT: Susan Truitt, CASE Ohio. 15 PANELIST: I just want to say for the 16 record, this is a public hearing on behalf the 17 People For the American Way Foundation, the NAACP, 18 and the Organization Committee for Civil Rights. 19 Under law we are nonprofit, nonpartisan 20 organizations, and everyone has the right to 21 express themselves and express themselves fully, so 22 we are not concerned about your testimony, but this 23 will not become a partisan battle as a public 24 hearing. 25 So you are free to express yourself any 103 1 way you want. I want to make you understand I am 2 not censoring anybody. I just have to say that for 3 the record on behalf of our organization. 4 - - - 5 ALLESONDRA HERNANDEZ 6 Being first duly sworn, testified as 7 follows: 8 MS. HERNANDEZ: My name is Allesondra 9 Hernandez. I am from Toledo, Ohio, and what I 10 witnessed -- I am with the League of Pissed Off 11 Voters, the Toledo Chapter. What I witnessed is 12 that I was helping out at the Glenwood Elementary 13 School voting area, and that is not my polling 14 station. It is a mainly African American part of 15 town. It is also, Glenwood itself is mainly 16 African American students. 17 What I witnessed when I had gotten there 18 about 9 A.M. was a young African American woman who 19 had come out nearly in tears. She was a new voter, 20 very first registered, very excited to vote, and 21 she had said that she had been bounced around to 22 three different polling places, and this one had 23 just turned her down again. People were there to 24 help her out, and I was concerned. I started 25 asking around to everyone else, and they had 104 1 informed me earlier that day that she was not the 2 only one, but there were at least three others who 3 had been bounced around. 4 Also earlier that day the polls had 5 opened an hour late, did not open until about 6 7:30 A.M. The polling machines were locked in the 7 principal's office. Hundreds of people were turned 8 away, were forced to leave the line because they 9 needed to be at school, they needed to be at work, 10 or they needed to take their children to school. 11 The people there who were assisting did the best 12 they could to take down numbers and take down 13 names, but I am assuming that a majority of those 14 people could not come back because of work and/or 15 because of school, because they had shown up to 16 vote, and that was the time that they could vote, 17 and that is why they were there. 18 Also along the same lines, they ran out 19 of pencils for those ballots. To me it seems 20 pretty obvious that with a ballot needed to be 21 filled in with pencil, you need pencils there. 22 Nobody there was willing to go get pencils, so 23 somebody, the lawyers with John Kerry, had taken 24 money out of their own pocket and sent one of the 25 people from the league to go get pencils. 105 1 Unfortunately, he did not know that they could not 2 have erasers, but they still allowed people to use 3 those, but that was the last attempt. And that is 4 all I have to say. Thank you. 5 MS. TAVARES: Can you give me the name 6 of the location again in Glennwood. I heard this 7 story from one of my coordinators up in Toledo that 8 the machines were locked in the principal's office, 9 that he decided not to come in to work that day. 10 MS. HERNANDEZ: That is exactly it, yes. 11 The location was Glennwood Elementary School. 12 MS. TAVARES: Do you know the name of 13 the principal? 14 MS. HERNANDEZ: No, I do not. Any more 15 questions? 16 MS. EDWARDS-McNABB: Yes. You said the 17 young lady had been turned away three times. What 18 was the reason for her being rejected? 19 MS. HERNANDEZ: I do not know. 20 Personally, I did not go up and talk to her 21 personally. I believe -- I had overheard that she 22 had said that they just didn't have her name 23 listed, but that was the reason. She said that her 24 parents had been voting there, she lives with her 25 parents, and so she assumed that was her polling 106 1 place. 2 MR. RUBIN: Did you experience problems? 3 MS. HERNANDEZ: No. My polling 4 station -- I am very lucky to live in a middle 5 class white neighborhood. My parents worked very 6 hard to get in a position that way. Me being 7 Hispanic, I feel lucky, I guess, that I didn't have 8 to show ID. I walked right in. There was a good 9 amount of polling booths, polling stations, a 10 numerous amount of things to take your ballot, and 11 I had no problem whatsoever. I am assuming it is 12 because it was in a middle class white 13 neighborhood. 14 MR. RUBIN: Using one of the regular 15 ballots? 16 MS. HERNANDEZ: Yes. 17 - - - 18 ERIN DEIGNAN 19 Being first duly sworn, testified as 20 follows: 21 MS. DEIGNAN: Hello. My name is Erin 22 Deignan, and I was an official poll worker judge in 23 precinct Columbus 25 F, at the East Linden School. 24 We had between 1100 and 1200 people on the voter 25 registry there. We had three voting machines. We 107 1 did the math. I am sure lots of other people did 2 too. With the five-minute limit, 13 hours the 3 polls were open, three machines, that is 468 4 voters, that is less than half of the people we had 5 on the registry. We stayed open three hours past 6 7:30 and got about 550 people through, but we had 7 one Board of Elections worker come in the morning. 8 We asked if he can bring more machines. He said 9 more machines had been delivered, but they didn't 10 have any more. We had another Board of Elections 11 official come later in the day, and he said that in 12 Upper Arlington he had seen 12 machines. I didn't 13 see that myself, so I don't know if I can verify 14 that, but I also wanted to say that I registered to 15 be a poll worker at the beginning of October, and I 16 didn't find out that I had been placed at a poll 17 until Sunday, October 31. So I went to the last 18 workshop that they offered. It was three hours 19 long, on Monday. Then I worked on Tuesday, and 20 there was a lot of information to go over in that 21 short amount of time. 22 The presiding judge at my precinct did 23 not really know how to use provisional ballots. I 24 had learned it the day before, it was still fresh, 25 but I don't think the workers were properly 108 1 trained. And also we had a cell phone at each 2 precinct to call the Board of Elections with any 3 problems that we had. There was one phone number 4 for every precinct in the county to call with 5 problems, so needless to say, every time we tried 6 to reach this number during the day, it was busy, 7 and I guess that is about all. The precinct I 8 worked was predominantly an African American 9 precinct. I'd say 90 percent of the people were 10 carrying Democratic sample ballots. 11 We -- at the precinct there is supposed 12 to be an equal number of Republican and Democratic 13 poll workers. One Republican didn't show up. So 14 we tried calling the Board of Elections and asked 15 them to send another, and they couldn't, or we 16 couldn't get through. Then we were allowed to hire 17 a new worker on the spot, but our presiding judge 18 announced to the people who were waiting in line 19 that we were looking for a Republican poll worker, 20 and everyone just laughed. So I'd say it was -- 21 everyone's stay was three hours. We stayed open 22 until 10:30, so people who were in line at 7:30 had 23 to wait until 10:30 to vote. Yeah. And I was 24 asking people as they came up if they stopped 25 believing the line was too long. They seemed 109 1 pretty determined to stay, but one woman who had a 2 cane and she was having trouble walking said that 3 someone came -- someone outside the polls told her 4 that she could wait outside and someone would bring 5 the ballot out to her so she didn't have to stand 6 in line and wait, and she knew that that wasn't 7 true. She came in and voted, and when she left she 8 said that man was gone. 9 MS. TAVARES: On the issue of the five- 10 minute rule, was that instituted there at your 11 polling location? 12 MS. DEIGNAN: We did mention to people 13 that they could take five minutes. To be perfectly 14 honest, I was trying to remind people just because 15 I wanted to make sure that we could get as many 16 people through the polls as possible. We were 17 trying to show people before they went in, show 18 them the sample ballot, how to vote, how to use the 19 machines so that they knew before they went in. We 20 did, we tried to mention it periodically, but 21 towards the end we didn't, people had been waiting 22 for so long at that point. 23 MS. EDWARDS-McNABB: Thank you. 24 MR. FITRAKIS: Thank you for your 25 testimony again. Michael Hayes. 110 1 There is a video in the basement. It 2 runs ten to 20 minutes, 23 minutes. If you really 3 want to get a feel, in the basement. 4 - - - 5 MICHAEL HAYES 6 Being first duly sworn, testified as 7 follows: 8 MR. HAYES: Good afternoon. I just 9 wanted to say, first of all, I think that this many 10 people showing up on a Saturday is testimony in and 11 of itself. I think we only show up when there is 12 something that is really on our hearts and in our 13 minds, and we came all the way down from Toledo, so 14 it is obviously important. 15 As for myself, I am with the Toledo 16 Chapter of the League of Pissed Off Voters. My 17 personal voting experience that day was relatively 18 problem free. However, after I completed work for 19 the day and my voting, I did volunteer with the 20 league, and we were going to hand out voter guides, 21 and it was around 7:00. We were trying to make 22 sure that there weren't any instances of voter 23 disenfranchisement in the inner city of Toledo. 24 While doing that, I was on Door Street (phonetic) 25 at the Mock (phonetic) Branch library precinct at 111 1 roughly maybe 7:10, and myself and another member 2 of the league witnessed -- well, as soon as we got 3 there, there were maybe two dozen voters who had 4 just came from the polls milling about, and then a 5 police car rolls up, Toledo Police Department car 6 rolls. Minutes after that two sheriff cars, one 7 unmarked car, and another Toledo Police Department 8 car rolled up. None of us had went inside the 9 library. We were just talking to people as they 10 come from the polls. The word in the circle of us 11 out there speaking is that there was a report of 12 someone stealing ballots. That came from the 13 Republican ballot watcher on the inside. 14 As we were going, in our effort to do 15 kind of an impromptu investigation and to find out 16 who the Republican person was that had supposedly 17 called the police came out to where we were, 18 started asking people to leave. So imagine the 19 sight, in a black neighborhood where a lot of young 20 black voters showing up for the first time, you 21 have full police presence, even though they are 22 sitting in cars, black neighborhood on Door Street, 23 you six police cars in the parking lot, and you 24 have a well-known Republican businessman in the 25 community asking people please disperse, please get 112 1 into your cars, at 7:10 P.M., when most people are 2 getting off work and trying to hit the polls before 3 they go home, and I have pictures if you want me to 4 e-mail it to you. That is all. 5 MS. EDWARDS-McNABB: Excuse me. What 6 was the reason that they were being asked to 7 disperse? 8 MR. HAYES: The only reason that he gave 9 was that there was a crowd, that was it. There 10 were a lot of progressive-minded people out there, 11 we had a right to assemble, and he is trying to 12 usher, and this is not like even young people. 13 There were married people with their kids out 14 there, there were families. They were just 15 discussing the issues after they come from voting. 16 MS. EDWARDS-McNABB: Were the people 17 that were asked to disperse standing in line? 18 MR. HAYES: No. The door was about 19 right here. People could get in, and after people 20 come out, they was kind of congregating over to the 21 left, going to the right of the door, and he came 22 out and asked everyone standing there, the people 23 from the league, the people just got finished 24 voting, the people from Act, he asked everyone to 25 get into their cars and leave. 113 1 MS. EDWARDS-McNABB: Thank you. Joe 2 Donlin (phonetic). Make sure you go to the court 3 reporter. See her here next. 4 - - - 5 MATTHEW SEGAL 6 Being first duly sworn, testified as 7 follows: 8 MR. SEGAL: My name is Matthew Segal 9 (phonetic), and I am here to represent Kenyon 10 College. In this past election, Kenyon College 11 students and the residents of Gambier, Ohio, had to 12 endure some of the most extenuating voting 13 circumstances in the entire country. As many of 14 you may already know, because they had it on 15 national media attention, Kenyon students and the 16 residents of Gambier had to stand in line up to 10 17 to 12 hours in the rain, through a hot gym, and 18 crowded narrow lines, making it extremely 19 uncomfortable. 20 As a result of this, voters were 21 disenfranchised, having class to attend to, sports 22 commitments, and midterms for the next day, which 23 they had to study for. Obviously, it is a disgrace 24 that kids who are being perpetually told the 25 importance of voting, could not vote because they 114 1 had other commitments and had to put up with a 2 12-hour line. 3 As a volunteer for the Knox County 4 Democratic Headquarters, I worked nonstop Tuesday 5 to encourage voters not to leave and not to give 6 up, rather, to exercise their ultimate right to 7 vote and demonstrate to the rest of America how 8 important it is to vote. There was only so much 9 the volunteers like myself could do. People wanted 10 to leave. Many of the students who were going to 11 vote and heard of the 12-hour line didn't show up. 12 We tried to make things more comfortable, providing 13 food, and offering students any sort of help or 14 assistance they need, but it wasn't so much. And 15 what my question is and concern is, is that we had 16 two voting machines for 1300 people in the county, 17 one of which was broken for two hours, the first 18 two hours of the day, from 6:30 to 8:30 the buttons 19 weren't working, so we really had one machine for 20 two hours, and then two for the next remainder of 21 the day, not to mention, we had voters who didn't 22 finish until November 3rd, voters voting into the 23 wee hours of the night. There was a rule where 24 every 100 voters should be entitled to one machine. 25 That being the case, we would have had thirteen 115 1 voting machines, making voting easier and less of a 2 line. Yet we were never even entitled to such, and 3 our county said they had no extra voting machines 4 when we called, and neighboring counties wouldn't 5 loan us any of their extra voting machines. 6 Voting should not be a painstaking nor 7 arduous task, and I just wanted to thank you. 8 MR. RUBIN: Are you a first-time voter? 9 MR. SEGAL: Yes. 10 MR. RUBIN: Congratulations. 11 MR. SEGAL: Thank you. 12 MR. RUBIN: How has this experience left 13 you as your first experience as a voter? 14 MR. SEGAL: Well, quite frankly, it has 15 left me rather bitter. We had -- I am just upset 16 that people had to go through this to vote. In my 17 first election, I did not plan for this to 18 transpire whatsoever. I anticipated a smooth and 19 rather easy voting process, but it was just, it was 20 horrifying. It was -- people were wet, upset, 21 angry, disenfranchised, and ultimately, when the 22 media covered it too, Peter Jennings, ABC News just 23 showed how, what troopers Kenyon College students 24 were, how they persevered to wait, but they never 25 showed the interviews we gave, it said that we were 116 1 upset that we had to wait. I am upset that I had 2 made it quite clear that Kenyon -- and I 3 encouraged the media to get that and cover not just 4 how upset we are but just how proud we are. 5 MR. FITRAKIS: Thank you very much. Joe 6 Donlin. I would encourage people, if you haven't 7 seen the video, it may be the most telling evidence 8 that we have of who is in those lines and often the 9 color of their skin, as well as you may note that 10 there were some tendencies and preferences among 11 college students that are well-known in the public 12 domain, if you wish to search those facts out as 13 well. Joe. 14 - - - 15 JOE DONLIN 16 Being first duly sworn, testified as 17 follows: 18 MR. DONLIN: Thank you, good afternoon. 19 My name is Joe Donlin. I am also here down from 20 Toledo, Lucas County area, giving voice to hundreds 21 and thousands of people who wish they could be here 22 today to speak their hearts. 23 I also represent the League of Pissed 24 off Voters of Toledo. I have a written statement 25 to read and then pieces of two letters that were 117 1 sent to Ken Blackwell. This is a declaration of 2 one Suzanne Husami. The challenge my right to vote 3 was filled by Daphne Sims. I am sorry, let me 4 start. 5 On or about October 27, 2004, at 3 P.M. 6 I received a letter from the Lucas County Board of 7 Elections containing both the challenge of right to 8 vote and correction of registration list, as well 9 as a notice of hearing. The challenge of my right 10 to vote was filed by Daphne Sims, with an address 11 included here. I never met Ms. Sims, and I have 12 reason to believe Ms. Sims does not know who I am. 13 The challenge form stated that Ms. Sims had reason 14 to believe that I, Susan Husami, was not eligible 15 to vote based on the following reason, and I quote, 16 the person is challenged as unqualified on the 17 ground that the person is not a resident of the 18 precinct where the person offers to vote, unquote. 19 Ms. Sims requested that the precinct registration 20 list in precinct Toledo J, Ward 12, be corrected so 21 that my name would be removed from the list and my 22 registration form cancelled. 23 The reason for the request was, quote, 24 the person is not a resident of the precinct where 25 the person offers to vote, end quote. Underneath 118 1 Ms. Sims' signature were the words, quote, whoever 2 commits elections falsification is guilty of a 3 felony of the fifth degree, end quote. 4 Following the form is a notice of 5 hearing. The hearing was set to take place on 6 October 30th. Paula Hudson, Director of the Lucas 7 County Board of Elections, signed the notice. 8 Later I found that 929 other people in the Lucas 9 County area alone, including my boyfriend, received 10 similar challenges, and all of us were scheduled to 11 appear at the same hearing. 12 My main concerns are, one, unless one 13 took the time to read the forms word for word and 14 more than once, it appeared as if registration was 15 already cancelled. The form I received is a form 16 of intimidation and its authors should be held 17 accountable and should be punished to the fullest 18 extent of the law. 19 I am afraid that many legitimate voters 20 who received the challenges may not have voted as a 21 result of this intimidation. Many of these voters 22 might not have heard about the court order that 23 through out the challenges. Finally, I want an 24 investigation into the challenges to identify 25 whether certain individuals were targeted and to 119 1 stop intimidation such as this from occurring in 2 the future. I have lived at my current address 3 since late August of this year and have been a 4 registered voter at this address since that time. 5 That is from Susan Husami. 6 MR. RUBIN: Ms. Husami, I take it, did 7 not get a chance to vote then? 8 MR. DONLIN: Then she was able to vote. 9 MR. RUBIN: Did she vote a provisional 10 ballot or regular? 11 MR. DONLIN: I cannot say for sure. I 12 believe on the regular ballot. We have her contact 13 information on the form. We can verify that. 14 MR. RUBIN: Also, do you know what her 15 ethnicity is? 16 MR. DONLIN: I believe she identified 17 herself as white. 18 MR. RUBIN: Thank you. 19 MR. DONLIN: I also have in response to 20 these instances of voter suppression and 21 intimidation, the League of Pissed Off Voters in 22 collaboration with the Mobilization for Democracy 23 not Disenfranchisement group, sent a letter and 24 held a press conference citing this letter to 25 Kenneth Blackwell, and it read, on November 1st, 120 1 the day before the elections, we are ready to urge 2 you to publicly pledge to refrain from all forms of 3 voter suppression and intimidation in tomorrow's 4 election. This includes submitting to refrain from 5 the following: Challenging voters at the polls, to 6 discourage participation, delaying voters at polls, 7 creating inefficiency, allowing partisan based 8 petitions by the Secretary of State, making private 9 phone calls or visits, intimidating or confusing 10 voters. 11 We are a growing alliance of 12 pro-democracy students and social justice 13 organizations, including the League of Pissed Off 14 Voters, Reach Out Bowling Green, and Northwest Ohio 15 Peace Coalition. We are part of a nationwide 16 network planning public demonstrations on 17 November 3rd to help ensure democracy, 18 disenfranchising it, and to prevent another stolen 19 election. 20 In response to what occurred throughout 21 our state and throughout the country, we are now 22 sending today another letter to Kenneth Blackwell 23 reading, we are writing to encourage you to listen 24 to the testimony of voter suppression and 25 intimidation and to publicly pledge to actively 121 1 seek appropriate election reforms and racial 2 disenfranchisement in the suppression of Democratic 3 rights; and later dated November 1, 2004, we ask 4 for a commitment to refrain from the following 5 action on election day, which I just read, and 6 rather than obliging our request to protect voters' 7 rights, the above actions were encouraged at 8 polling places throughout the state. Subsequently, 9 access to the polls was compromised for thousands 10 of voters. 11 We, the League of Pissed Off Voters of 12 Toledo, assert that the right to vote is the very 13 foundation of our democracy, and when one vote is 14 denied, our democracy is in trouble. When hundreds 15 of thousands of votes are suppressed, our democracy 16 has failed. It goes on down a little bit later and 17 reads, in conjunction, we call for a complete count 18 of every ballot cast, as well as thorough 19 investigations into the origin of each instance of 20 disenfranchisement, voter suppression, and 21 mechanical or electronic malfunctions. As citizens 22 of the state in which you serve, to whom you are 23 obliged, we demand a dialogue of the issues we are 24 facing for the preservation of our democracy. That 25 is all. Any questions? 122 1 MS. EDWARDS-McNABB: Where the one set 2 were sent the letters, were they all students, or 3 were they not? 4 MR. DONLIN: My understanding is that 5 they were not all students. Any other questions? 6 MS. TAVARES: Have you received any 7 response as of yet from the Secretary of State's 8 office from your first letter? 9 MR. DONLIN: I believe we have not, from 10 any of our various contact information. 11 MR. RUBIN: Do you have the names of any 12 other the people, other than Ms. Husami? 13 MR. DONLIN: Not with me, but I can for 14 Monday's public hearing or later this weekend. 15 MR. FITRAKIS: Thank you. Allyson 16 Snyder. Make sure that you have told your name to 17 the reporter and spelled it. Kofi, please proceed, 18 Kofi will be next. 19 - - - 20 ALLYSON SNYDER 21 Being first duly sworn, testified as 22 follows: 23 MS. SNYDER: My name is Allyson Snyder. 24 I voted in Clintonville at the Clintonville 25 Community Resource Center. A lot of the normal 123 1 things, five-minute rules, long lines, however, a 2 few things stuck out in my mind, one being that the 3 line where we were directed to stand was in an 4 alley, a narrow alley, and the street was not 5 blocked off. So there were cars constantly driving 6 by. That is a little strange, and also the big one 7 was when I got in there, the photocopy box where 8 your signature is, name, address, photocopy box and 9 you sign your name in the box, first of all, was 10 not my name, and, therefore, was not my signature, 11 so it was my name, my address, and then some random 12 person's signature and name. And when I asked 13 about the validity of that, I was pushed along 14 because of the line. So that is my experience. 15 That is all I have. 16 MR. FITRAKIS: All right. Kofi. Where 17 is Kofi? Following Kofi is Ian MacConnell. 18 - - - 19 KOFI 20 Being first duly sworn, testified as 21 follows: 22 MR. KOFI: Peace and blessings to 23 everyone. I am from Cincinnati, Hamilton County, 24 Ohio. I work with several groups mobilizing young 25 people between 18 and 35 to get involved in the 124 1 political process. As most of you know, in 2 Hamilton County the majority in Cincinnati, the 3 voter registration in many urban precincts exceeded 4 the census records, so we had record amounts of 5 young people, previously unengaged voters register 6 to vote. Of those newly registered voters, there 7 was Republican challenges to approximately 90,000 8 of them, and we found out, and it had gone into a 9 court case, and we have gone back and forth, and we 10 found out the morning of the election that these 11 challenges would stand, all of these 90,000 voters' 12 votes would be set aside and counted at some later 13 date. That has not yet occurred yet after some 14 court case that has not been filed yet. 15 In addition to that, there were close to 16 about 40- to 50,000 votes that were voters whose 17 names just didn't appear on the voter rolls, and 18 those were filed as provisional ballots. Those 19 were set, also have not yet been counted or 20 considered, decided upon if they are going to be 21 counted. 22 There were long lines on election day, 23 people actually stood in the lines, nothing like 24 some of the stories we have heard here, about an 25 hour to two hours. It was very rainy. It was cold 125 1 that day. People stood in line. It was really 2 amazing. There was tremendous energy, and it was 3 just difficult to communicate to these young people 4 that even though they are standing in line, they 5 are out there feeling their power, that none of 6 these votes that they are casting are actually 7 going to be actually counted, and welcome to 8 America. 9 MR. FITRAKIS: Ian MacConnell. Again, 10 thanks for your patience. The outpouring that -- 11 we were sitting around worrying that no one would 12 show up, obviously, we were wrong, much like the 13 Secretary of State was in terms of being prepared. 14 - - - 15 IAN MacCONNELL 16 Being first duly sworn, testified as 17 follows: 18 MR. MacCONNELL: Hello. My name is Ian 19 MacConnell, and I voted at precinct 16 B, which is 20 on the Ohio State University campus. I attempted 21 to vote in the same place that I voted in the 22 primaries and was told that my name was not in the 23 rolls. I then was told that I needed to vote 24 provisional, was very disturbed about that, because 25 I didn't know exactly what that meant. I said will 126 1 my vote be counted? They said, yes, it would. 2 They also then told me I needed to sit 3 down and wait, and I did wait, and as I waited 4 there in front of two election officials, I noticed 5 that -- well, another election official came over 6 and said to the two election officials, for the 7 people who are voting provisional, you need to push 8 a button on the back of the machine that says 9 official override, or something to that effect. 10 And I didn't -- you know, I was just kind of like 11 what does this mean? 12 A woman, election official, who I called 13 the woman wearing the beret, she had a beret on, 14 and she said that is not what we have been doing. 15 And it is my -- so my theory is that what that 16 meant was that you could go into that voting 17 machine, provisional ballot, to look at the ballot, 18 and possibly vote twice, maybe vote on the machine, 19 push the vote, and fill out the provisional ballot. 20 That was my fear, because I thought that maybe -- 21 and he showed it to her in a book. I am a smart 22 guy. I can read upside-down. He showed her the 23 thing that said this is what you are supposed to be 24 doing, and she said that is not what we have been 25 doing, that is not what we were told. So I thought 127 1 that was very strange. And I am also kind of an 2 outspoken person, so I said to them, you know, this 3 could be a whole lot simpler. My thought is that 4 if you are 18 years old, you should be able to -- 5 you should automatically be registered to vote and 6 that your voting I.D. should be either your drivers 7 license or your state I.D., and the woman says to 8 me, the woman said to me, you know, we don't want 9 the Muslims to vote, and to say I was floored was 10 an understatement. And I said, well, you do want 11 Muslim Americans to vote, and the election official 12 next to her said, well -- you know, he looked at 13 her and kind of shook his head, and she was, what I 14 meant was, you don't want foreigners to vote. 15 I work for high-performance computing, 16 in the high-performance computing industry, and we 17 have talked about this, very smart people have 18 talked about how you fix this, and there is no way 19 to do it without a paper trail, but it could be 20 very simple, and that is really what I wanted to 21 say. 22 The Muslim American thing really did -- 23 the Muslim thing really talked about the fear that 24 is kind of perpetuated in this country against 25 people of color and religion. My response to her, 128 1 of course, was that Muslim Americans have as much 2 right to vote as anyone. Then the election person 3 who was sitting next to her jokingly said, a 4 majority of complaints came -- were because of you 5 last time, and then they both kind of joked and 6 laughed and said oh, you know, and they didn't 7 really -- they just kind of laughed about that. 8 And the funny thing was is when I said, you know, 9 you could really make this happen with technology, 10 she said this isn't 2030. And my response was it 11 was the 21st century and it could happen. With 12 that being said, I want to say thank you. 13 MR. FITRAKIS: All right. 14 MS. TAVARES: We have a question. You 15 said that when they asked you to sit down and wait 16 to cast your provisional ballot, they told you how 17 you were to cast it, and then one of the election 18 workers told you that that is not how it had been 19 handled before. Did you get that person's name? 20 MR. MacCONNELL: You know, I was kind of 21 just stunned. Once you kind of feel like things 22 aren't working at the voting booths, you are kind 23 of, like it is surreal, quite honestly, and when 24 you know this type of thing can be fixed, you know 25 these types of things can be fixed, and the 129 1 problem, I think, is that in America we will never 2 have faith in our country or our government until 3 this thing is fixed, and so I was so excited to 4 vote, and when I was told it was going to be a 5 provisional ballot, nobody told me that it was 6 going to be ten days later or -- they didn't tell 7 me anything like that. So -- 8 MS. TAVARES: You were at precinct 16 B, 9 and it was a male and female? 10 MR. MacCONNELL: There was a man, gray 11 hair, and he had an Ohio State shirt, I believe; 12 and a woman sitting next to him, who was wearing a 13 beret, and the person who walked up and said, you 14 guys need to follow this rule, was wearing a 15 yarmulke. I hate to be remembering hats. I wish I 16 remembered names, but I was -- again, it was a 17 very, I mean, I am sure -- 18 MS. TAVARES: And the last person that 19 was wearing a yarmulke was the one who said this 20 isn't how we handled it previously? 21 MR. MacCONNELL: Right. He said there 22 is a problem here and you guys need to be following 23 this book, and the woman said, well, that is not 24 what we have been doing. So I was a little taken 25 aback by that. That is why I engaged in the 130 1 conversation about how easy it really could be to 2 make democracy work. 3 PANELIST: Ian, what county? 4 MR. MacCONNELL: This was Franklin 5 County. 6 PANELIST: The person that made the 7 defamatory statement, that was the person with 8 the -- 9 MR. MacCONNELL: The beret. The beret. 10 I have to be quite -- at the end of this, I was a 11 little freaked out, and I said as I got up, I said, 12 I predict a landslide for Kerry. The person with 13 the gray hair said, if you are going to say that, 14 you need to be 100 feet or a hundred yards from the 15 front door. That is when I was told that, you 16 know, my speech was inappropriate, but it is okay 17 for this other kind of stuff to be said. 18 PANELIST: If you had to, could you 19 identify this person? 20 MR. MacCONNELL: Absolutely. 21 MS. TRUITT: What time of day was this 22 when they said that is not the way they had been 23 doing this? 24 MR. MacCONNELL: It was 8:20. I think 25 that there were just three provisional ballots 131 1 ahead of me, but what I do know is that it didn't 2 seem as though the woman wearing the beret really 3 cared one way or the other how it was really 4 supposed to be done, nor did the person who was 5 kind of sitting in front of me, which was the gray- 6 haired gentleman. The man with the yarmulke was 7 very concerned, but it didn't seem like -- and I 8 just wanted to say that my vote has not yet still 9 been counted, and that is quite disturbing to me. 10 MR. FITRAKIS: Again, we thank you for 11 your patience. The outcome here has been, the 12 outpouring has been very good. 13 - - - 14 KELLY KNUTH 15 Being first duly sworn, testified as 16 follows: 17 MS. KNUTH: My name is Kelly Knuth. I 18 am a resident of Bexley, Ohio, and first I'd like 19 to thank you guys for allowing us to have this 20 public hearing so that our voices can finally be 21 heard. 22 I am not -- I have two things to talk 23 about, and one I am not sure if it is important at 24 all, but I just wanted to get it into the public 25 record. Many of you have probably heard of Greg 132 1 Kelly's (phonetic) work, and he published an 2 article right before the election about redlining 3 or -- I am sorry, caging in Florida. He had gotten 4 his information from a Republican campaign worker 5 who accidentally sent a memo to GeorgeWBush.org 6 instead of GeorgeWBush.com. I went to that site, 7 and they had published on it other such misdirected 8 memos, and I saw one that was from Ohio, and from 9 Ohio's 23rd district, to be exact, and this memo 10 said, just very quickly but short, Carl, Sandra, 11 and staff, we have redlined the district that gets 12 us about 70 percent of their voters for challenges, 13 but we need the updated voter maps ASAP. We are 14 still working off of the 2000 maps. This is the 15 third e-mail I have sent out on those people. 16 Let's get it together. The election is Tuesday. 17 The more we challenge, the more we get. This 18 e-mail is signed William Ohio 23rd district, 19 supervisor, with the e-mail address which was 20 Ohio23rd@Yahoo.com and also W.polls@SBCglobal.net. 21 I brought this memo to the attention of Mark Decas 22 (phonetic) at the Columbus Dispatch. He has been 23 doing a really good reporting on possible 24 irregularities coming up in the vote. This is, 25 obviously, before November 2nd, and he said that 133 1 there wasn't enough time to investigate it. 2 So I decided to do a little sleuthing of 3 my own, and I am not really good at it, and I just 4 addressed, I just sent e-mails to the addresses 5 that were in this memo, and they were returned, 6 obviously. I don't know if they just had covered 7 their tracks, if the whole thing was a hoax or not, 8 but the use of the word redlining just really 9 bothered me. 10 I have done a little work for the Ohio 11 Civil Rights Commission, and I once wrote an 12 article on redlining, and so I know that it is a 13 big problem, and if they were actually choosing 14 which voters to challenge on the basis of race, it 15 is illegal. That is what I wanted to get into the 16 public record. 17 The other thing was, in my volunteering 18 for organizations here in Ohio, yesterday I went to 19 the Union County Board of Elections to look up 20 voter rolls, and it was closed. The Board of 21 Elections was closed during the time that it was 22 supposed to be open according to their posted 23 hours. 24 I asked around a lot of places, finally 25 got sent to the County Board of Commissioners. It 134 1 was closed. No explanation. Nobody knew. Many 2 people in the same building didn't even know they 3 were closed. 4 PANELIST: Do you have copies of the 5 e-mail trail that you just spoke of? 6 MS. KNUTH: When I was telling somebody 7 about this yesterday, I believe it was, I went back 8 to that web site, and that mailbox was gone. I 9 wrote to web site owner to find out and never got 10 any response. I can certainly e-mail -- I mean, I 11 have a printed copy of it. 12 MS. TAVARES: That will work. Do you 13 have a copy? 14 FROM THE FLOOR: We will make copies. 15 PANELIST: We are formally requesting 16 copies for the members of the panel prior to 17 departing, as well as all information on this 18 panel. 19 MS. TAVARES: I just have one other 20 follow-up question, Kelly. You indicated that you 21 went to the Union County, to the Board of 22 Elections, and they have a posted sign of their 23 hours, they were not open? 24 MS. KNUTH: Correct. 25 MS. TAVARES: Then you went to the 135 1 County Commissioners office? 2 MS. KNUTH: First, I called the lawyer 3 for this organization I was working with, and he 4 advised that I go to the county courthouse and ask 5 there. I went to the county courthouse. They 6 directed me to the clerk of courts. So the clerk 7 of courts said go to the county commissioner. I 8 went to the County Commissioner's Office, they were 9 closed. I went upstairs and asked the County 10 Treasurer, and they had no idea. All the other 11 governmental offices were open. So it was kind of 12 odd to me that these particular very vital, you 13 know, to the recount effort were closed. 14 MS. TAVARES: On that point, did you 15 call and let them know that you were coming? Did 16 you call in advance to say that you wanted to look 17 at the rolls or anything of that nature? 18 MS. KNUTH: No. 19 PANELIST: What organization are you 20 with, or are you free to say? 21 MS. KNUTH: I guess. Vigilance Ohio. 22 MR. FITRAKIS: Victoria Lovegren from 23 Cleveland. 24 - - - 25 VICTORIA LOVEGREN 136 1 Being first duly sworn, testified as 2 follows: 3 MS. LOVEGREN: I hardly know where to 4 start. There are so many things that I have 5 noticed about this election leading up to the 6 election. My dear friend got me involved in this 7 electronic voting issue. I have been very 8 concerned about that for a while. I have a Ph.D. 9 in math and computer science, and I am not a 10 technophobe at all, but I think technology and 11 voting machines, by private vendors especially, is 12 nuts. I personally think paper is the way to go, 13 needs to be transparent, and anybody needs to be 14 able to watch the counting, and they don't need to 15 have a computer science background to do that. 16 So second, I was concerned when I was 17 registering students at the university where I 18 work. I had voter registration cards. The voter 19 registration cards had nothing in the way of 20 mailing address. You can give these to people, but 21 it was not easy for them to mail them back, because 22 there was no address. So I found that kind of odd. 23 I also found it kind of odd that nowhere 24 on the voter registration card did it say that the 25 date of birth was required, and when I went down to 137 1 ask about that, the guy that was -- the clerk there 2 was actually, was actually discarding voter 3 registrations because there was not a date of 4 birth, even though it didn't say it was required. 5 He said that they were going to mail them back. 6 Hopefully, they will be fixed, but that was a red 7 flag. 8 He also told me about layoffs that were 9 going to be happening in the near future and that 10 they were going to be losing a lot of their staff, 11 and we both sort of laughed. Well, like this is a 12 good time, the most important election, most of the 13 largest election in our lifetimes, and they are 14 laying off people. 15 So I guess given that it is not 16 surprising that there were so many voter 17 registration misrecording errors and omissions, 18 lots and lots of people I heard and actually was 19 entering data with Norm Robins (phonetic), who was 20 doing some research on people, that physically had 21 their registration card, but they were not in the 22 system. And okay. So that was before the 23 election. 24 I was also concerned about the directive 25 or whatever you call the rules or the laws that 138 1 Blackwell comes up with, particularly the paper 2 weight. I am sure everybody knows that. The 3 provisionals, the fact that this election, they 4 were requiring that person needed to be in their 5 correct -- I have a time limit, oh, my God, can I 6 come up again? Let me tell you the most important 7 thing. 8 I was watching the provisional -- the 9 fact that I don't have 30 seconds is sacrilege. I 10 have so much. The date of birth has to be on the 11 envelope of the provisional ballot for it to be 12 acceptable, and this is a change in the rules, and 13 this change came down on Tuesday, and I saw that 14 coming with my own eyes. 15 The other thing that I have seen is that 16 they are not letting us look at the records. They 17 are not letting us go to the Board of Elections and 18 look at the records. Blackwell, again, made phone 19 calls to the counties, telling them that we are not 20 to see those records, and this is public 21 information. The Ohio Open Records Act says so, 22 and I think we all should be at the Board of 23 Elections and demand to see this information. And 24 if you want to get involved, if you want to help us 25 get information, you can go to web site 139 1 Ohiovigilance.org, or you can go to CASEOhio.org, 2 Blackboxvoting.org, and recountOhio.org. A lot of 3 people are very upset about what is happening here 4 in front of our very eyes, and we are not going to 5 let this go down. Thank you. 6 MS. TAVARES: We have questions for you, 7 ma'am. Can you please come back. 8 MR. PRICE: Where were you at when you 9 said that you were doing the voter registration and 10 date of birth was required and layoffs, where were 11 you at, which county? 12 MS. LOVGREN: Cuyahoga. Now, they did 13 fix that. I made phone calls, and they said they 14 were going to reprint registration cards. So I 15 think the reprinted ones had that corrected. 16 MS. TAVARES: And you said the address 17 to return on those voter registration cards was not 18 on the card anywhere? 19 MS. LOVGREN: No. It just said Cuyahoga 20 Board of Elections, no address. 21 MS. TRUITT: Can you go into Tuesday's 22 incident a little bit more, because this was the 23 incident that Bob Fitrakis -- 24 MS. LOVGREN: Well, I just went in to 25 observe the verification of the provisional 140 1 ballots, since I was a Democratic challenger, and 2 you are not going to let me tell you about that. 3 I went in, and I was watching, and 4 people were talking about this new ruling that just 5 came down in the last half hour or so that these 6 provisionals were not to be accepted if there was 7 not a birth date written on the outside of the 8 envelope, and some of the clerks were even saying, 9 you know, even if their birth date in the record, 10 we are still supposed to reject it. They said yes. 11 I saw somebody had the actual date of the election, 12 11-2-04 written in that mark, because they 13 obviously did what I probably would have done. I 14 said what about that? They said it is going to be 15 rejected, so it was flat out rejection. It wasn't 16 put in the limbo pile, where you get another chance 17 to look at it, it was flat rejection, and that was, 18 the documentation that I got when I came in there, 19 they had the procedures, specifically said right in 20 the middle of the page that ballots were not to be 21 rejected based on the lack of having a birth date. 22 And then there was also a new procedure, also a new 23 page where they filled out the reason for the 24 rejection. That had been printed up probably just 25 that day, maybe just an hour or two before. That 141 1 was not in the packet. It was a stand-alone 2 document that was being used to accept this new 3 form, this new type of rejection. 4 PANELIST: Did you have any pertinent 5 experience as a challenger? 6 MS. LOVGREN: Yeah. I was the only 7 Democratic challenger in a precinct that I believe 8 is heavily Democratic, and I was the only one 9 there. There were seven precincts. I walked in, 10 there was an inspector, and he was supposed to be 11 nonpartisan, but they harassed me. Actually, there 12 is also only supposed to be one inspector in a 13 polling place. I got that information from the 14 woman, Jackie Maden (phonetic) at Cuyahoga County. 15 There is only supposed to be one inspector, and 16 there were four inspectors there during the course 17 of the time that I was there, and they gave me such 18 a hard time because I was trying to help the voters 19 find their precinct. I was talking to them, trying 20 to convey their -- you know, they were hot. It was 21 hot. It was smelly, had fumes, it was like a 22 service garage, and other people were standing 23 there for a long time. 24 The other thing there was, there was one 25 precinct, one that I was assigned to, that was, 142 1 that had a huge line, and all the other precincts 2 were virtually no one in line. So I immediately 3 saw that there was a resource allocation issue when 4 I was there, and I tried to get additional voting 5 machines to free up that bottleneck, and there 6 seemed to be no procedure to talk to any person to 7 do that, and about 9:00 they did get a few more 8 voting machines in there. 9 I looked at the data base when I got 10 home, because I had the voter registration data 11 base, to see how many people were in each of those 12 four precincts, and the one that I was in had over 13 twice as many as the others. And I also asked 14 Jackie Maden about how they allocate these voting 15 machines based on voter registration numbers. She 16 said the general rule was one to 125. That was 17 counties one to 100, but even if you used that, 18 there should have been 12, 12 voting machines, and 19 there were six, and one of them was broken from the 20 beginning of the day. 21 So that is kind of my experience as a 22 designated challenger. I was intimidated. I 23 actually found, because I didn't do what these guys 24 told me, I did talk to the voters, and I did try to 25 find their precinct, even though when they were not 143 1 found by this guy, I had my son who stayed home 2 from school that day, he was looking up these 3 people in the data base, and he gave me the 4 locations of the precincts, three people, and I can 5 give you their names. I don't have them offhand, 6 that I found their precinct, that this guy could 7 not find their precinct, but he would not let me 8 talk to the voters. He wouldn't even let me walk 9 around, because he was afraid that the voters might 10 talk to me, which they did, with their complaints, 11 and it was, it was, there were four of them, four 12 people, and I was the only Democratic challenger. 13 MS. TRUITT: How long a wait did people 14 have in your precinct? 15 MS. LOVGREN: Again, with other people's 16 experience, I guess mine was not so bad, 17 45 minutes. But there were lots of old people, and 18 there was -- this one man broke my heart. He 19 waited in line 45 minutes. He was in his eighties, 20 I am sure. He got back in line and waited another 21 45 minutes so his wife could vote, and she was 22 sitting in a chair waiting for that. 23 There were a lot of old people. It just 24 broke my heart, and I am -- I was a consultant and 25 I know about effective resource utilization and 144 1 efficiency. This was totally -- it can't be 2 anything other than planned. 3 MR. RUBIN: Excuse me, one more 4 question. I am sorry. I came in late. I heard 5 about a lot of problems with provisional ballots. 6 Did any of them have to do with people who had 7 previously requested absentee ballots? 8 MS. LOVGREN: I didn't personally 9 experience that. I have heard stories to that 10 effect. I heard that people that had -- I did hear 11 about a lot of people who did not receive their 12 absentee ballot and they were entitled to vote. I 13 think -- there seemed to be some confusion about 14 whether they were given a regular ballot or a 15 provisional ballot. I have heard both stories, so 16 I don't know personally. 17 MR. RUBIN: They should have been given 18 a provisional ballot, at least according to the 19 federal judge that issued a ruling that afternoon. 20 MS. LOVGREN: Okay. They wanted that in 21 by 7:30 or something? 22 MR. RUBIN: That is the problem. We 23 only got three and a half hours. 24 MS. LOVGREN: The absentee ballots have 25 to be in by 7:30 on the dot. 145 1 PANELIST: Victoria, I just has one more 2 question for you. You mentioned that there is the 3 possibility that registration applications that you 4 had worked on were possibly being discarded because 5 their date of birth was not on them? 6 MS. LOVGREN: Yes. In fact, I counted 7 them. I wasn't supposed to count them. I wasn't 8 supposed to talk. I counted, and there were about 9 150 that had been put in the reject because of date 10 of birth pile. 11 MS. TRUITT: That was contrary to the 12 written instructions saying not to discard 13 provisionals if there is no birth date on the 14 cover? 15 MS. LOVGREN: Correct. I have the 16 document. You can see that it is written very 17 clearly. It says they have to have the signature, 18 but it didn't say anything -- in fact, it says 19 specifically, date of birth is not mandatory, it 20 should not be a reason for rejection. 21 PANELIST: Is that document something 22 that you could provide a copy? 23 MS. LOVGREN: Sure, or you can get one 24 from Cuyahoga County. It is called provisional 25 ballot verification procedures. 146 1 MR. PRICE: What precinct were you 2 working? 3 MS. LOVGREN: I was in precinct 0 A, 4 which is Parma Heights. Parma Heights was the 5 polling place. 6 MR. PRICE: Thank you. 7 MS. LOVGREN: Thank you. 8 - - - 9 MIKE SWINFORD 10 Being first duly sworn, testified as 11 follows: 12 MR. SWINFORD: Good afternoon. I am 13 Mike Swinford from Knox County, and I will start 14 off by telling you that I had originally, was 15 signed up to be a certified challenger and witness. 16 I went into the poll and was immediately rejected, 17 no explanation given. 18 Later, a couple hours later, one of the 19 board of directors did get me back in. He ordered 20 the judge to allow me in. I was there for a few 21 more hours before I got rejected a second time. 22 While I was there, I did observe a few 23 irregularities. One, there was no security over 24 the people that had already been booked in and was 25 waiting to vote. What they did was they booked 147 1 people in to vote, they were then given the number 2 and told to wait. They was just in like a large 3 waiting area something like you see back here. It 4 was public. I saw some people get up and leave, I 5 heard numbers called and nobody responded, so I 6 know some people did not vote because they gave up. 7 I saw other people coming in and going out. 8 Apparently, they were not voters. When we did call 9 the number, there was no way to verify if that 10 person was the same person that was issued a 11 ticket. They would go out, you have no idea. I 12 heard one person say, I will come back later, I am 13 going to lunch. So they are at lunch and could 14 have given his ticket to somebody else. I also 15 know the poll judge is biased. I did hear one 16 person talk about a half hour, about a 20 or 30 17 other people could hear that person, the other 18 voters waiting, the talk, he was very biased 19 towards Bush, and another point that same judge 20 jumped up and ran over and told somebody entering 21 the area that he could not have a button. He had, 22 looked like part of a button underneath a jacket, 23 it was for Kerry. So if you voted for Kerry, you 24 could not have anything, but if you wanted to talk 25 for Bush, that person was allowed to speak for, you 148 1 know, as long as they wanted, at least a half hour, 2 and that person was a lot closer to the judge than 3 I was. So I know the judge could overhear that 4 person making the pro-Bush views being stated to 5 other people. 6 I want to touch upon some of the others, 7 since this is Knox County. You have a previous 8 person talk about Kenyon College. In September, 9 the students at Kenyon College were intimidated by 10 someone from Blackwell's office, and that created 11 quite a stir. The news media did not report the 12 red-faced angry students that were intimidated. 13 They just reported the good deed that the person 14 from Blackwell's office -- oh, so anyway, also it 15 did not report that Knox County has two colleges. 16 The one that has been profiled is Democrat, had 17 long lines, that has already been testified to. 18 The other one, Mt. Vernon Nazarene University, that 19 has been profiled as a Republican. That one did 20 not have any problems as to waiting lines, and then 21 they were not intimidated by the representative 22 from Blackwell's office. 23 I have here a more detailed statement. 24 I got a couple copies if anybody wants those, and I 25 am done. Thank you. 149 1 - - - 2 ELIZA JANE Snyder 3 Being first duly sworn, testified as 4 follows: 5 MS. SCHNEIDER: Hi. I will be very 6 brief. I volunteered to help out with the 7 elections. I came in from New York. I am 8 registered in Oregon. I travel a lot. I am a 9 performer, and I think that the rules are 10 incredibly unfair for people like myself who don't 11 necessarily stay in the same place all the time but 12 are definitely citizens of the United States. 13 What I witnessed was at Columbia 14 Alternative High School, during the hours of 15 6:30 A.M. to 8:30 A.M., everyone was turned away 16 due to broken machines. That is what I watched. 17 They turned -- between 6:30 A.M. and 8:30 A.M., I 18 was there with moveon.org, and they started turning 19 people away because they didn't have any working 20 machines. At 8:30 A.M. they fixed one. 21 Then I took a person that I met in a 22 convenience store to his precinct so that he could 23 vote where he had been registered his whole life, 24 where he went to elementary school, it was 25 Worthington Elementary School. His name was Sam 150 1 Doughty (phonetic), and he was told that because he 2 no longer lived in that neighborhood, even though 3 his name was on the list, his signature was on the 4 list, he had to fill out a provisional ballot. He 5 went ahead and did that in the county that he now 6 resides during the week, although he stays during 7 the weekend in Columbus, because like me, he 8 doesn't necessarily live in the same place all the 9 time, and he was told that because he had filled 10 out a provisional ballot with an address that 11 wasn't the same as the precinct where he was 12 registered and where he had in fact cast the 13 ballot, his ballot would be thrown out. So he was 14 told after he filled it out that it would be thrown 15 out. Then when we talked to the legal observer 16 outside, I said can I drive him to Glouster, which 17 is an hour and a half away, where he lived during 18 the week, and he had told them honestly that is 19 where I live right now, even though I am registered 20 here, he was told that he would be charged with a 21 felony for casting two ballots. So we were caught 22 in a Catch 22 where there is absolutely no way. 23 For four hours I tried to get this one 24 man's vote counted, and there was nothing I could 25 do. Then in the afternoon I went on to another 151 1 precinct where I watched people standing in the 2 rain for four hours, and I don't remember the names 3 of the streets, but I could give them to you in a 4 little bit. It was a church. It was, I believe, 5 Hill Street. I was being moved all over the place 6 to try to help. I made hot chocolate. I drove 7 people to the polls, but I mean, people were out 8 there for a great deal of time freezing. 9 MS. TRUITT: Was this in Franklin 10 County? 11 MS. SCHNEIDER: Yes. That is all. 12 PANELIST: The gentleman that you drove 13 around, do you have his name? 14 MS. SCHNEIDER: His name is Sam Doughty. 15 Samuel David Doughty. 16 PANELIST: You said after you drove him 17 to -- 18 MS. SCHNEIDER: Worthington Elementary. 19 PANELIST: He was told, I guess you 20 drove him there because he was told by the other 21 polling place that is where he was supposed to 22 vote? 23 MS. SCHNEIDER: He went there because 24 that is where he always voted. That is where he 25 grew up. That is where he is registered. 152 1 PANELIST: Did he have his registration 2 card that said that that is where he -- do you know 3 that? 4 MS. SCHNEIDER: No, but his name was on 5 the list. 6 PANELIST: And they before -- they told 7 him to vote a provisional ballot, they told him 8 after the fact, after he filled out the provisional 9 ballot, they said that his vote would not be 10 counted? 11 MS. SCHNEIDER: Yes. But they first 12 asked him do you live here? And he said, well, I 13 live here during the week and there during weekend, 14 but this is where I am registered. I want to vote 15 here, and he was upset, he was very upset about it. 16 MR. ARENBECK: What kind of artist are 17 you? 18 MS. SCHNEIDER: I do cartoon voices, and 19 I travel. I have a one-woman show called Freedom 20 of Speech, which I actually had my tape recorder on 21 the whole time during that whole 22 disenfranchisement. I had him carry it with him up 23 to and including the table where the guy behind the 24 desk said, the guys, the people's names behind the 25 table were Rob and Lois, and they said you can't 153 1 have that on in here, you have to turn that off, 2 and, you know, all of that kind of stuff. 3 MR. ARENBECK: We always think that 4 other countries where people are subjected to 5 intimidation for political reasons. Have you ever 6 seen anything like this in this country in terms of 7 what you experienced as an observer in this last 8 Ohio election? 9 MS. SCHNEIDER: No, I haven't, and in 10 fact, I spent the last two weeks prior to the 11 election on the streets myself raising money for 12 the Kerry campaign, and I talked to people from 13 South Africa who said they haven't experienced this 14 kind of intimidation since they were living under 15 apartheid. 16 MR. ARNEBECK: Were they saying we were 17 better than South Africa under apartheid, or worse? 18 MS. SCHNEIDER: Oh, about the same. 19 MR. ARNEBECK: That is great. Thank you 20 very much. 21 MS. SCHNEIDER: Thank you. 22 MR. FITRAKIS: Joining the panel is 23 Cliff Arnebeck, an attorney, also with Common 24 Cause, and Michael Beaver, with the Lawyers 25 Committee on Civil Rights. Rick Wilhelm. 154 1 - - - 2 RICK WILHELM 3 Being first duly sworn, testified as 4 follows: 5 MR. WILHELM: My name is Rick Wilhelm. 6 I vote at Bishop Ready High School, precinct 10 B. 7 I have been voting there for a long time, so I 8 really just walk in and vote, but I think the 9 evidence shows that the vote was manipulated. I do 10 not know the extent it was manipulated this time 11 more than it was the last time, more than usual. 12 It was said on this stage earlier, the radio show, 13 that the hearing was not about Democrats or 14 Republicans, there was a much bigger issue of voter 15 suppression and manipulation. The two issues are 16 inseparable. It is about Democrats and Republicans 17 and a system both parties support. Voting is a 18 means of electing public officials by free speech, 19 by casting a ballot. In order for that vote to be 20 meaningful, voters should have a candidate they can 21 depend on to offer a clear alternative. John Kerry 22 did not offer that alternative, in my opinion, and 23 neither does the Democratic leadership control the 24 Democratic party. The Democratic Leadership 25 Council is a group that got together and decided 155 1 that the Democratic party should be more like the 2 Republican Party and take more money through 3 corporations and -- 4 MS. TRUITT: Excuse me. Do you have any 5 specific incident of election day? 6 MR. WILHELM: Yes. From my precinct, 7 only the fact that my son-in-law, who is out in the 8 suburbs, he said he waited five minutes, I waited 9 an hour and 15 minutes, and most of the people I 10 know in the inner-city waited over three hours. I 11 will be quick. 12 The Democratic party suppressed the 13 third party vote the way the Diebold machines did 14 for the Republicans. Had Kerry won, the war he 15 voted to authorize would still be going on, and 16 poor people would have continued to be poor. 17 Kerry, in addition to voting for the war, voted for 18 and bragged about during the campaign, he voted for 19 the welfare reform law. In order for our system 20 to -- 21 MR. FITRAKIS: Your time limit is up. 22 If you would finish your statement. Again, let me 23 remind the audience, I don't care if you like Bush 24 or Kerry, we are looking for facts. This is 25 on-the-record testimony, and again, my candidate in 156 1 the year 2000 didn't win and didn't get on the 2 ballot in this state. I won't tell you who that 3 is, but that is not what this is about. 4 Could the next person come forward. 5 Gary Harmon. And, again, we encourage everyone, 6 you have been sworn in, and maybe you think your 7 opinions are worth swearing to, but we are trying 8 to get to the facts here. 9 - - - 10 FIONA MITCHELL 11 Being first duly sworn, testified as 12 follows: 13 MS. MITCHELL: Hi. My name is Fiona 14 Mitchell. I am from Athens, Ohio. I worked with 15 move on pack and vote mob (phonetic). The night 16 before the election, just after midnight we 17 received a call at the vote mob headquarters that 18 there had been fliers posted on South Green stating 19 that due to unprecedented voter registration 20 turnout, voting dates had been changed by the 21 bipartisan voting authority. Republicans and 22 undecideds will vote on November 2nd. Democrats 23 and undecided will vote on November 3rd. It went 24 on to say make sure you bring proper ID and go to 25 the proper voting place for you. So I just wanted 157 1 to let you know about that. 2 PANELIST: Do you have a copy? Did 3 anybody get a copy of the posting? 4 MS. MITCHELL: We have a copy, but I 5 think it is in Athens. 6 MS. TRUITT: Could you get a copy of the 7 posting to our group? 8 MS. MITCHELL: Yeah. 9 MR. BEAVER: Fiona, if I may, it sounds 10 like they were a little more concerted in Athens 11 County than they were in Franklin County, because 12 in Franklin County they didn't even include 13 independents or anyone like that on their flier. 14 Was there anything done about it? Was the story 15 put in the media? 16 MS. MITCHELL: Yeah. We stayed up all 17 night long walking around trying to find those 18 fliers. Apparently, we found about 20. I didn't 19 personally find any. We didn't have access to the 20 inside the dorms. I called the radio stations the 21 next day, Board of Elections, county Democrats were 22 informed, and it is also in Polish and the various 23 newspapers in Athens. 24 MR. FITRAKIS: We only have a few more. 25 At that point we are going to move into a 158 1 discussion period. There is still, if you need to 2 testify, you are going to have to give an affidavit 3 in the basement, also on Monday, from six to nine. 4 Many people need to get catch a flight to get them 5 back to Washington and other places, so Jerry 6 Doyle, followed by Mike Petraka, and then we are 7 going to move into closing comments by the panel. 8 You can give it again on the record with the court 9 reporter on Monday, six to nine, 373 South High. 10 Jerry Doyle. 11 - - - 12 JERRY DOYLE 13 Being first duly sworn, testified as 14 follows: 15 MR. DOYLE: My name is Jerry Doyle. My 16 wife said all the time you speak, you should have 17 called it off today. I have been up since 2:30 18 this morning because of my breathing condition and 19 from walking. And but I always find a reason to 20 perform, and I got a lot of reasons not to be here 21 today, but I am here, so this is very important. I 22 want to thank you all. But I want to talk about my 23 experience voting. You know, and it is like I 24 said, this was really pitiful. I voted at precinct 25 13, and I got there around a quarter till nine, and 159 1 I didn't get out of there until about ten minutes 2 to one. And there is a lot of, you know, my wife 3 and I, we both went to vote, and so there is a lot 4 of people, elderly people behind me that couldn't 5 stand, that was in worse shape than I was, and they 6 were not offered any assistance, and I thought that 7 was wrong, you know. And I was there for all of 8 that time, over four hours, and I wasn't offered 9 any assistance, you know. And there was a lady 10 about three, four people behind me, she was arguing 11 on her cell phone, I guess to her employer, and she 12 asked, she said well, I have been in this line for 13 two hours, you know, and it looks like it is going 14 to be another hour, and she was telling him -- I am 15 telling you what I heard her say, you know, she was 16 on the cell phone. And she said, I will make it 17 up, the time I lose, no matter what, or no matter 18 how long, I will make it up, please let me stay 19 here, and I guess he said no, because she got very 20 upset and she had to leave to protect her job, you 21 know. 22 And so, like I say, I was there for 23 almost four hours. Now, the precinct I was in, 24 they had an out-of-order sign -- there were five 25 booths there. There was an out-of-order sign on 160 1 one, and then the other, another one turned up with 2 two people working on it. So there was about 200 3 people there. The line was coming from in the 4 basement all the way wrapped up to the top floor, 5 all the way outside. Now, it took me two hours to 6 get inside. I was standing outside, my wife and I, 7 in the rain, you know. So then after you get 8 inside and get down to the basement, there was 9 another line, you had to get your number and then 10 you were allowed to sit and rotate in chairs, you 11 know. So I witnessed a lot of people discouraged, 12 some, you know, a lot of them stayed, but some did 13 leave, because it was impossible for them. One 14 lady had her kids with her, and she couldn't stay. 15 You know, and a lot of people had to leave. So I 16 want to speak on what happened to me on that date 17 because of all my years, you know, this was really 18 a nightmare, you know, but I stood that out. I 19 rode the horse, and I cast my vote. You know. 20 MR. ARENBECK: What is your best 21 estimate of the number of voters that were in line 22 that you saw leaving because of the conditions? 23 MR. DOYLE: Well, a lot of people 24 that -- I was out in the rain, and a lot of people 25 just seen the long line, and they didn't even give 161 1 it a try. 2 MR. ARENBECK: You are under oath. What 3 is your best estimate, if you had to pick a number, 4 of the number of people that did not vote who came 5 to that polling place with the intention to vote? 6 MR. DOYLE: Oh, a lot of people left the 7 line. I don't know. I couldn't give you an 8 estimate. I just know people coming and leaving. 9 MR. ARNEBECK: But a range, two or 10 three? Five? Ten? 11 MR. DOYLE: A lot more than that. 12 MR. ARNEBECK: 30? 13 MR. DOYLE: I was there for the whole 14 four hours, and I witnessed a lot of people that 15 couldn't stay. 16 MR. ARENBECK: 30? 50? 17 MR. DOYLE: I would say, if you want a 18 figure, I would say at least 30 that I witnessed 19 that came in and had to leave. 20 MR. ARNEBECK: Thank you, sir. 21 MS. TRUITT: I state for the record that 22 you have a cane, and so you are visibly impaired 23 physically, slightly anyway. But no one offered 24 you any special assistance that day, is that 25 correct? 162 1 MR. DOYLE: Right. 2 MS. TRUITT: Which county were you in? 3 Was it Franklin? 4 MR. DOYLE: Franklin County. 5 MR. BEAVER: If I may, what your 6 testimony seemed to indicate, that you had to walk 7 up numerous flights of stairs, is that correct? 8 MR. DOYLE: Yes. Once you get in there, 9 you had to walk down some stairs, you know, and an 10 elderly person that was in a walker, she was in 11 worse shape than I was, but she was with, I guess, 12 her son or grandson, helping her out, and she -- 13 and I told her, I said, listen, I seen that she was 14 in a lot of pain standing there, and I said, 15 listen, I told her grandson, why don't you take her 16 down there anyway, because I am pretty sure nobody 17 will complain, and that is what he did. And nobody 18 did complain. The line came up, you know, he told 19 them her condition, and she walked on ahead and 20 went down into the basement, and she sat down. So 21 thank you very much. 22 MR. FITRAKIS: Next is Patricia 23 Blochowiak. After Patricia we have Kimberly, who 24 will be the last, and them I am going to ask for 25 some concluding remarks from the panel, and stick 163 1 around for the discussion on where we go from here, 2 and we will have some other people that will speak 3 on that. Also, if you want to give testimony in 4 the basement, you can do that. Also we are doing 5 this again from six to nine on Monday at the 6 Franklin County Board of Elections -- no, they 7 moved us, right, at the county courthouse, once 8 again, I stand corrected, county courthouse, 373 9 South High. We wanted the Board of Elections. 10 Apparently they didn't want us. 11 PANELIST: If you make it on Monday, you 12 go to the top of the list. 13 - - - 14 PATRICIA ANN BLOCHOWIAK 15 Being first duly sworn, testified as 16 follows: 17 MS. BLOCHOWIAK: My name is Patricia 18 Blochowiak, and I reside in east Cleveland Ohio, 19 which is Cuyahoga County. And for anyone who might 20 not be totally familiar with east Cleveland, we 21 have demographics that make Cleveland, the poorest 22 city in the country, look good. 23 I voted absentee the day before the 24 election and served as Democratic challenger at 25 east Cleveland ward two precinct B, which is at 164 1 Lakeside Baptist Church in east Cleveland. While I 2 could testify that people were leaving because they 3 had to get to work, machine malfunctions, people 4 with cards from the Board of Elections not being on 5 the list, election officials not being aware of how 6 to do provisional voting, being unable to reach the 7 Board of Elections at either of the two phone 8 numbers we had for them, and a group of Republicans 9 who stayed outside of the polling place, and a 10 letter purportedly from the Lake County Board of 11 Elections telling people that they couldn't vote if 12 they were registered by the NAACP, the Caprica Barr 13 (phonetic) campaign, the Kerry campaign, and one 14 other group we are checking, it was either Act or 15 move on, that if they had registered with one of 16 those groups, that they would not be able to vote 17 until the next election, but what I am really here 18 to focus on today is the three separate groups of 19 well-dressed white people who entered the Lakeside 20 Baptist Church and refused to show any sort of 21 identification, all stating -- well, no, five of 22 the seven people involved, stating that they were 23 members of the GOP legal team. 24 The first two came in in the early 25 afternoon, one of them identified himself by name 165 1 as a Republican lawyer from a prominent Cleveland 2 legal firm, and he asked for the name of the 3 presiding judge. He also asked that I be required 4 to leave when he saw that I was a Democratic 5 challenger. He asked to see my identification 6 papers from the Board of Elections, even though he 7 refused to show any kind of identification 8 whatsoever, much less anything that would allow him 9 to legally be inside of our polling place trying to 10 intimidate people there. 11 I did discuss this with the lawyer who 12 was my supervisor as a Democratic challenger, and I 13 did discuss this with other lawyers, not being able 14 to get in touch with the Board of Elections, and I 15 was told that at a later point in time that he had 16 also gone to Mount Eagle (phonetic) Baptist Church 17 and that the Democratic challenger there was quite 18 upset, and that he had also gone to a polling place 19 in the Lee Harvard area of Cleveland and that he 20 had attempted to interfere with the ballot box. 21 This is from lawyers whose word I trust, but that 22 part of it I did not see. 23 We were united, the election workers at 24 the polling place where I was a Democratic 25 challenger and I, and fortunately, all of the 166 1 people who were waiting there were in agreement 2 that these people who were refusing to show 3 identification needed to leave and that I did not 4 need to leave. They did eventually leave. I would 5 say they were there maybe 15, 20 minutes, but I 6 wouldn't count on that amount of time to be very 7 precise. 8 About half an hour, 45 minutes later, we 9 had another group of three, again, white people 10 coming into a precinct where I think there was one 11 voter who was not African American. I think we had 12 one white voter, but, again, I did take breaks, and 13 so there could have been more, but it is a largely 14 African American group, and these three people came 15 in asking to see the Republican observer, and there 16 was no Republican observer challenger, anything at 17 our polling place, and the three of them again 18 refused to show any identification, refused to give 19 their name to the presiding judge or to anyone in 20 the location, and one offered to -- said that she 21 had a card back in her car. So I followed them a 22 block to their car. They were parked a block away, 23 not near the polling place where they could have 24 parked, because there were spaces, and waited, 25 standing there, did try to reach several people 167 1 while I was there in the hopes that we could have 2 police or Michael Moore, who was filming, 3 apparently, did hear about it, because I read 4 yesterday in the Cleveland Scene that there were 5 allegations around that time that somebody 6 pretending to be a lawyer was in east Cleveland and 7 that they were going to try to get there, but at 8 any rate, they did not arrive while this was going 9 on. 10 But I waited there, and I did get a 11 name, and I have automobile information on the 12 three groups of people who came inside the polling 13 place, which I will give to you. I was assisted 14 with that while I was waiting for them, a gentleman 15 from the ACLU came, and I was very pleased. I was 16 standing there and he came. There was an umbrella 17 over me in the rain, and at any rate, I waited 18 there until I briefly reviewed the identification 19 of the man, there was a man and two women, and he 20 was from Arlington, Virginia, and we know whose 21 headquarters is there. 22 At any rate, while they had been in 23 there, one thing I forgot to say was that they had 24 told me if we wanted to know who they were, we 25 should call Mr. Fritz (phonetic) from the 168 1 Republican Party. Now, not being all that familiar 2 with the Republican Party, I am not familiar with 3 Mr. Fritz, and I asked what his phone number was, I 4 asked what city he was in, I asked for information 5 as to how I could find Mr. Fritz to ask him who 6 they were, which struck me as a strange way to try 7 to figure out who people who were standing in front 8 of me were, but nonetheless, he refused to give me 9 anything except to say if I looked in the phone 10 book, there would be an 800 number, and at that 800 11 number I could find Mr. Fritz and Mr. Fritz would 12 then tell me who these three people were, who by 13 then would be gone from my polling place. 14 However, he did allow me to see his 15 driver's license briefly. I do have his address as 16 well. 17 During this time, I was in contact with 18 the lawyer who was my supervisor in east Cleveland, 19 and so he came to my polling place once, and I 20 basically told him go other places, because we were 21 doing okay and other people sounded like they were 22 doing worse, for example, Chambers School, Superior 23 School, and Mount Neable (phonetic) Baptist Church 24 all seemed to be having significant problems, but 25 as we were sitting there talking, two more white 169 1 people came into the door, a man and a woman, 2 walked in the door, came about three or four feet 3 into the polling place, and the two of us stood up 4 to address them, the lawyer and I, and they turned 5 around and immediately walked out of the polling 6 place. Just outside the door the lawyer who was 7 with me asked them who they were and what they were 8 doing there, and they said, again, they were 9 looking for someone. Each time this got a little 10 vaguer, and they walked to their car, and again I 11 have automobile contact information on these 12 people, including a bar code, which I was, which I 13 would assume is something that says it is a rental 14 car. 15 At any rate, the summary is that we had 16 seven inside the building, who were upper middle 17 class white people in an impoverished area in east 18 Cleveland, some of whom were trying very definitely 19 to get rid of me, and we also had another group of, 20 again, well-dressed white people leaving signs, and 21 they didn't bring one or two signs for outside of 22 the polling place. I would estimate they brought 23 maybe 30 or so, that they were putting outside of 24 the polling place and one of them they put too 25 close to the polling place, but they did move it 170 1 when they were reminded that that was illegal, and 2 then they put a number of them, again, I estimate 3 about 30, that they put around the church and down 4 Euclid Avenue, to the tune of many complaining 5 residents who I hear -- I mean, when I came out 6 later, they were all gone or all except maybe a few 7 were gone, but the residents were complaining that 8 they were coming into their neighbor and putting 9 all of these signs up. Thank you. 10 PANELIST: Thank you, Patricia. I do 11 want to follow-up first to ask you about, you said 12 that you got the -- well, first let me ask you 13 this, would you be able to identify all of the 14 challengers that you witnessed that day? 15 MS. BLOCHOWIAK: All of them, no. 16 PANELIST: Would you be able to identify 17 some of them? 18 MS. BLOCHOWIAK: One of them spoke at 19 City Club, and his name is listed in the Cleveland 20 Free Times as one of the people who challenged 21 17,000 voters. There was a list that they 22 published of the people. His name is listed there, 23 and he was a recent speaker at the City Club, so 24 that is easy. 25 The others, some of them I can remember, 171 1 some of them -- the two at the end, I don't know 2 who they are. 3 PANELIST: Secondly, the information 4 that you collected, their automobile information, 5 and I guess the address of some of the challengers, 6 one of the challengers, is there a way that we can 7 have that submitted to the record, or is there a 8 copy of that? 9 MS. BLOCHOWIAK: I apologize. I thought 10 I had this on my computer, and I went in to print 11 up another copy, because I faxed this to a lawyer, 12 and when I got there, that file was empty, so I 13 couldn't print up another copy, but I can send, 14 fax, mail, otherwise get you that information. 15 PANELIST: If you follow-up afterward, 16 and we get that, that would be wonderful. 17 MR. PRICE: Thank you for your 18 diligence. We need more people like you. Mine is 19 a simple question. Do you remember what the signs 20 said? 21 MS. BLOCHOWIAK: The signs they were 22 putting up, Bush/Cheney, yard signs, nothing 23 unusual. 24 MS. BLOCHOWIAK: There were certain 25 areas in the state where they were putting up very 172 1 strong signs in terms of abortion and some other 2 issues. That is why I asked what specifically. 3 MS. BLOCHOWIAK: Lots of Bush/Cheney 4 signs. 5 MS. TAVARES: I have a question 6 regarding the Board of Elections. You said that 7 you were given phone numbers, but you were not able 8 to reach the Board of Elections there. 9 MS. BLOCHOWIAK: The phone lines were 10 always busy when I called. They came in shortly 11 after we -- as we were setting up in the morning, 12 and I don't remember if it was before the polls 13 opened or just after, but it was in that early part 14 of the time, and they gave a phone number in 15 addition to the standard Board of Elections phone 16 number that was to be called if there were problems 17 there, and I do believe that my presiding judge 18 called about issues, provisional ballots and that 19 sort of thing, and but when I tried to call them, I 20 could net get to them. 21 I did mention this to Mr. Boone 22 (phonetic) on Friday, when I did speak to him. And 23 he asked for that also. I have not given him 24 something in writing. I have only given things in 25 writing to a lawyer in Cleveland who worked with 173 1 the Kerry campaign, and he is trying to find 2 information specifically about the lawyer who was 3 one of the first two people who came in. I am not 4 aware that he is addressing the rest of the 5 problems. 6 MS. TAVARES: My final question goes to 7 the issue of the other locations where you said 8 there were major problems. You mentioned that you 9 were at east Cleveland. You said there were 10 problems at -- you were at Lakeside Baptist Church, 11 but there were also problems in Lee Harvard area of 12 Cleveland, and there was another area. 13 MS. BLOCHOWIAK: I mentioned three 14 specific polling places in east Cleveland. The Lee 15 Harvard one, I do not know which precinct that was. 16 But Superior School, which has east Cleveland 17 precincts 2-F and 2-G, and I know that because that 18 is my home -- that is where I vote when I am not 19 voting absentee like did I this time, and Chambers 20 Elementary School, which is also an east Cleveland 21 polling place, and I did not know which ward or 22 precinct that is. 23 MS. TAVARES: Thank you. 24 PANELIST: One more question for you. 25 You also mentioned a letter, maybe the rest of the 174 1 panel was provided with this letter, but the letter 2 telling people that they couldn't vote if they were 3 registered with a certain group. 4 MS. BLOCHOWIAK: There was a letter 5 stating it was sent from the Lake County Board of 6 Elections, that I have only seen by e-mail, but I 7 hear that Ron Colvin -- and I may not have that 8 name right -- from Lake County NAACP has or had an 9 original. But it was allegedly sent out by the 10 Lake County Board of Elections that the Lake County 11 Board of Elections did send out a denial later that 12 said it was not from them, which, of course, they 13 would have to do, and they said it wasn't signed by 14 the right person, and something wasn't right about 15 the letter, but this was a letter saying very 16 specifically, that if you were signed up by the 17 NAACP, by the Caprica Farrow campaign, by the 18 Kerry/Edwards campaign, and by one other group, and 19 I do not remember whether it was Act or Move On, 20 but it was one of the well-known 527's that support 21 progressive causes, that you would not be able to 22 vote in this election cycle, that you would be able 23 to vote in the next one, and they were sorry for 24 the inconvenience or something like that. That was 25 well publicized nationally. 175 1 PANELIST: Were you ever able to contact 2 Senator Frisk, Republican Leader, were you able to 3 find out, to contact him so he could tell you who 4 these people were in Cleveland? 5 MS. BLOCHOWIAK: They did not say Frisk. 6 Fritz, and Mr. Fritz, whose name I don't have, I 7 don't have a first name, supposedly, someone you 8 can reach at the Ohio Republican Party. I have 9 made no attempt to reach Mr. Fritz. Thank you all 10 for your work. 11 MR. FITRAKIS: After the last two 12 witnesses, again, at the Franklin County 13 Courthouse, 373 South High on Monday from six to 14 nine. 15 The last two, then concluding remarks 16 and a then a statement from Jim Conti (phonetic) 17 if anyone else wants to talk about where we are 18 going from here. 19 - - - 20 KIMBERLY RICHARDSON 21 Being first duly sworn, testified as 22 follows: 23 MS. RICHARDSON: Thank you, Bob. I am 24 Kimberly Richardson, and I am a poll worker on 25 election day, November 2. I worked at three 176 1 different locations. My first location was Walnut 2 Ridge High School. At that particular location, 3 there wasn't anyone there to help people get in the 4 right line. There were two precincts, and people 5 were getting in the wrong line, wait two hours, and 6 just to find out they were in the wrong line. And 7 start all over again, then they had to get back in 8 line. That was at Walnut Ridge. 9 My second location, Franklin Middle 10 School, at that particular location there were 11 several precincts also, we did have someone out 12 there helping people, we had, there was someone 13 there that had a list of people registered to vote 14 there, and they would help them and show them 15 exactly what precinct they were in and what line 16 they needed to get into. So that was very helpful 17 for a lot of voters coming in. At that particular, 18 also at that particular location there was a group 19 there representing themselves as voter protection, 20 some type of voter protection group. They were not 21 helping anybody. They were there in a very 22 intimidating, in my opinion, personally, very 23 intimidating presence, because of as I was there 24 for about three hours, the longer I was there, the 25 more of them showed up. Due to, I believe, the 177 1 fact that one of the voters that had went in and 2 voted came out and told one of the voter protection 3 people that the people inside were not doing their 4 job, because the people working in the voting 5 booth, voting location, did not ask them for 6 identification. That was not their job to do. 7 That was the challenger's job to do. So anyhow, 8 this particular couple, they were Bush people, came 9 out telling this voter protection group the people 10 weren't doing their job, so I told them that they 11 were causing confusion and they were trying to 12 suppress other people from voting, and the man got 13 so upset at me that he threatened to have me 14 arrested. Now, this was a voter. That was my 15 experience at the Franklin Middle School. 16 Also I worked at the Broad Street 17 Presbyterian Church. At that particular location 18 there were three voting machines in the morning. 19 They did not work. Some people that got there 20 early wanting to vote were not able to vote. They 21 waited until 11:30 and they finally got the 22 machines working, and the people were able to vote. 23 But, of course, people had to leave, they had to 24 come, they had to leave because they got children, 25 families, have jobs, they have lives. So they 178 1 could not continue. The lines were out the door. 2 First of all, it was raining, it was wet. We know 3 it was cold. The weather was horrible. People 4 were standing -- this was all across the inner-city 5 precincts, two to three hours' waits, not enough 6 machines, and broken down machines, all across the 7 inner-city precincts. They knew we had a record 8 turnout this year. They did nothing to accommodate 9 us, nothing. And, unfortunately, but of course the 10 district that I voted in, I personally live in a 11 district that is not in Columbus but outside of 12 Columbus, a suburban district, it had about four or 13 five precincts in it, of course, there were people 14 standing, it is a church on 161, people standing 15 outside in the rain, long lines, of course, because 16 I didn't get there until about 5:30 or 6:00 that 17 evening because I was late, and there was no one 18 there at that particular location either helping 19 the people get into the right line so they could 20 vote in the right precinct, so that took additional 21 time. Once people got up to the door, there was 22 nobody there to instruct them. So that was my 23 experience at that particular location. 24 I also would like to say I met several 25 attorneys from all over the country that were there 179 1 to help, that came out for us to support us also. 2 In my opinion, I believe that the Secretary of 3 State Blackwell did accomplish his goal of 4 suppressing our vote, because of all the logistical 5 problems that we had all across the City of 6 Columbus, and the broken-down machines, with three 7 to four machines in the inner-city precincts that 8 had the high volume of new voters. I really 9 believe that he did, unfortunately, accomplish his 10 goal. Thank you. 11 MR. PRICE: What did the voter 12 protection folks, do you know what they had on? 13 MS. RICHARDSON: They had on black. One 14 man had a black jacket on, and also the T-shirts 15 they had on had NAACP printed on them, and they 16 were handing out fliers also saying if you needed 17 any help, if you needed any assistance to call this 18 800 number if you were having a problem. The 19 longer I was there, the more of these people showed 20 up. Okay. And these black T-shirts talking about 21 voter protection, they had signs up and all of this 22 business, but I personally -- and the man told me 23 he couldn't even talk to me, so I personally 24 believe they were there to distract people and to 25 intimidate people, because they were not there to 180 1 help. I didn't see them help anybody personally, 2 you know, so I thought it was another group, a 3 bipartisan group there to intimidate people, not to 4 help. 5 MR. MOSS: Did anyone test the 1-800 6 number? 7 MS. RICHARDSON: Not to my knowledge. 8 MR. FITRAKIS: Thank you for your 9 testimony. Murlien Featherstone, the last person, 10 and then at that point the panel can reintroduce 11 themselves, make some brief concluding remarks, and 12 then after that there will be at least one person 13 discussing in terms of where we go from here. 14 - - - 15 MURLIEN FEATHERSTONE 16 Being first duly sworn, testified as 17 follows: 18 MS. FEATHERSTONE: My name is Murlien 19 Featherstone, and I have been a judge for 21 years. 20 I have been a presiding judge for 20 years, I have 21 been at the Ohio Avenue School for, I guess, six 22 years or so. This election I was at Ohio Avenue 23 School as presiding judge. We always had four 24 machines at election time. During the primary, we 25 had four machines. When I walked in the door 181 1 Tuesday morning, we had three, and I couldn't 2 understand why we only had three, knowing that this 3 election was going to be the way it was, and I 4 called them up and I asked them, where is my other 5 machine? And first they told me, ma'am, we are 6 going to try to get you a machine. I called back 7 the second time and told them I don't need one, I 8 need two, I said because we got a line. They said 9 how long was the line, is it 100 feet? I said, 10 yeah, about 150 feet, and some people had been in 11 line three and four hours. When I called them the 12 third time and asked them about the machine, they 13 said, ma'am, we are not going to get you no 14 machine, we are not going to get you any machine, 15 and what we want you to do is do the best you can 16 with what you got, and that is what we did. We had 17 people leaving. I went out in the hall. I walked 18 down the line, and I asked the people not to leave, 19 when I heard people was leaving, I said because 20 this is what Blackwell wants you all to do, he 21 wants you all to leave. I said don't give in to 22 the adversary, stay here and vote, vote anyway. I 23 said beat him, don't let him win, and I went on 24 back in. Thank you. 25 MR. MOSS: I want this panel and I want 182 1 the audience to know that Murlien called me during 2 the course of this program here this afternoon and 3 asked, and told me that she wanted very much to 4 come out here and give her testimony as a presiding 5 judge, but she was keeping her two grand kids and 6 she didn't have transportation. And I went out, I 7 got her address and went out to her house a 8 distance from here to get her here because what she 9 did to me represented the spirit of so many people 10 who were denied their right to vote. They were 11 determined. They stayed, and they put up with the 12 deprivations. They put up with the intimidation. 13 They put up with what was obviously an effort to 14 suppress and deny their vote. 15 And she called because she wanted to get 16 here before this program was over, having heard us 17 earlier on the radio, and we went out and got her, 18 and I want to thank you along with all the people 19 who came and testified today for having that grit 20 and determination to see justice done and to be 21 determined to make your contribution to this most 22 important and historic effort. Murlien, thank you 23 very, very much. 24 MR. FITRAKIS: We have affidavits in the 25 basement. Remember six to nine on Monday night at 183 1 the Franklin County Courthouse, 373 South High in 2 the auditorium. Those that are here, if want to 3 give your name, if you didn't get a chance, you can 4 be the first ones up. Really, I mean, it has been 5 amazing, we have gone ten minutes over. So I want 6 to make sure that at least we get the panel to 7 conclude, have a brief discussion and, again, thank 8 you for participating in this forum to help restore 9 democracy. 10 Susan Truitt, reintroduce yourself and, 11 of course, a few concluding remarks from our panel 12 and those who took your testimony. 13 MS. TRUITT: Susan Truitt, CASE Ohio. 14 We are a nonpartisan group in Ohio overseeing 15 election issues, and our web site www.CASEOhio.org. 16 The testimony that was heard today is 17 heartbreaking, it is outrageous, and it should 18 never happen again. 19 MS. CLAY: My name is Tanya Clay. I am 20 with People for the American Way Foundation. We 21 are one of the organizations that help -- we are 22 the founding members of the Election Protection 23 Coalition, and we are a nonpartisan organization, 24 which are most of the people here on this panel, 25 here to hear testimony, here to hear about any 184 1 voter irregularity, we are here representing all 2 voters, trying to make sure that we do have an 3 election that is there for all people, so the vote 4 is not simply just cast but also counted, and I 5 would like to say on behalf of everybody who has 6 stayed for this long hearing, I definitely 7 appreciate your diligence in coming out here and to 8 giving your testimony. Your dedication, it really 9 is heart warming to me to see this, and I do have 10 to say, my generation, there is a lot of people in 11 my generation that are not as engaged, and I 12 truly -- but because they don't completely 13 understand what our mothers and our fathers and our 14 grandparents went through in order to protect that 15 right to vote, and so, thank you for giving me 16 something to go back and express my experience and 17 talk about how we can't just allow this to continue 18 and how we cannot allow everything that our parents 19 sacrificed to go down the tubes, regardless of who 20 is voted into office, and so thank you again. We 21 will attempt to follow-up on a lot of the testimony 22 that was received here today. We are in the 23 process of trying to do a number of things, 24 including we have already submitted Freedom of 25 Information Requests to the county board here in 185 1 Ohio requesting all of the information with regard 2 to the number of registered voters and 3 discrepancies that are becoming very apparent in 4 all of the counties. We are in the process of 5 following through with a number of lawsuits, and we 6 don't know exactly what some of these testimonies 7 will result in, but please rest assured that we 8 will attempt to follow-up on things, and also to 9 help and that some type of reform agenda, that is 10 what I think we are going to be here talking about 11 momentarily, because we can't just do this in the 12 courts. We need to do this legislatively in the 13 state and also on the federal level, so since 14 people also follow up with us, you can get in 15 contact with any of us at People For the American 16 Way Foundation web site, WWW.PFAW.org. Thank you. 17 MR. MOSS: Thank you, Tanya. 18 You know, we have, most of us, in all 19 probability, heard over the years shenanigans in 20 electoral politics in this country. Some of the 21 stories are legends, but when it comes to the kinds 22 of things that took place to bring about what is 23 really a disaster on the second of November, 24 obviously, you understand the importance of 25 speaking to the issue and letting your -- our 186 1 voices be heard. Your presence here and your 2 making the trek to get here indicates clearly that 3 you do and you appreciate fully what is at stake. 4 And, you know, we hear a lot about patriotism, and 5 someone said that the last bastion of a rascal is 6 patriotism. It seems that those who would snatch 7 our freedoms from us are the very ones who tend to 8 wrap themselves so righteously in the flag, 9 patriotism. 10 And I want to think beyond this day and 11 I want to ask you to think beyond this day, this 12 event, and what we are about here, because this is 13 in a historic sense, looking forward, to look back 14 on this, we don't know where this is going from 15 today, but when I project into the future, and look 16 back at this, what you are doing here today, I 17 think history will record that this, this was a 18 turning point for this country. That is the way I 19 look at it. And I want you to look at it that way. 20 And I would want, I would urge you to commit 21 yourselves and dedicate yourselves to the 22 proposition that this is only an event, but this is 23 a beginning for us. This isabeginningforus. 24 You know, I am not going to take much more time, 25 but I got to call attention to some words that 187 1 Abraham Lincoln said years ago when it seems he 2 looked into the future across the span of time and 3 saw such a time as what we are experiencing in our 4 body politic today, and Mr. Lincoln said this, when 5 the government was under the threat of dissolution, 6 he said, this government must be preserved despite 7 the acts of any man or set of men. Nowhere in the 8 world is there a government that presents so much 9 liberty and opportunity to the homeless and poorest 10 among us, held highest positions and opportunities. 11 He went on to say what constitutes the bulwark of 12 our liberty and independence? It is not the 13 frowning battlements nor bristling sea coasts, our 14 Army and our Navy. These are not our reliance 15 against tyranny. Our reliance is in the spirit 16 which prizes liberty as the heritage of all men in 17 all lands everywhere. Destroy that spirit, and you 18 have planted seeds of despotism at your own doors. 19 At what point shall we expect the approach of the 20 danger? By what means shall we fortify against it? 21 Shall we expect some transAtlantic giant to step 22 the ocean and crush us a blow? Never. Mr. Lincoln 23 said all of the armies of Europe, Asia, and Africa 24 combined could not by force take a drink from the 25 Ohio nor make a track on the blue ridge. At what 188 1 point then shall we expect the approach of danger? 2 I answer, he said, if it approaches us, it must 3 spring up amongst us. It cannot come from abroad. 4 If destruction be our lot, we ourselves must be its 5 author and its finisher. One of the most certain 6 ways to be a part of that destruction is apathy, 7 cynicism, and the disregard of our duty and 8 responsibility as citizens to stand in the gap 9 against that tyranny to which Mr. Lincoln referred. 10 And as Frederick Douglas said, who lived in his 11 time, if there is no struggle, there is no 12 progress. Power concedes nothing without demand, 13 it never did, and it never will. So I say to you 14 thank you, stand proud. 15 MR. BUTLER: My name is Rob Butler, 16 Executive Director of the Libertarian Party of 17 Ohio, an organization which, according to the Ken 18 Blackwell doesn't exist, even though we have 19 monthly meetings on a regular basis. I am here 20 today because I think that there is a problem, and 21 we have seen that problem with all of the testimony 22 that we have heard today, that not only do we need 23 to recount this vote this year, but we need to 24 reform the entire election process so that whoever 25 is in power, we need to reform the entire process 189 1 so that whoever is in power, they cannot enforce 2 their will on others, and that is why we are all 3 here today. Thank you for coming. 4 MR. RUBIN: Robert Rubin with the 5 Lawyers Committee for Civil Rights, involved in 6 various pieces of litigation here in Ohio. I am, 7 despite, I think, a sense of melancholy that 8 pervades many of our spirits, I am hopeful when I 9 see Murlien overcome and make the sacrifice that 10 she made just to be here today, what she did on 11 election day, it heartens me. When I see young 12 students forced to stand in line until three, four 13 in the morning still have the fighting spirit, I 14 think again that that is reason for hope. When I 15 hear about efforts at the state level to try to 16 reform the federal law that has obviously failed 17 us, I am heartened. The issue that Representative 18 Price is talking about is an important one. It 19 involves traditional ballots. It involves the 20 ability to basically correct the errors and the 21 arbitrariness of the Secretary of State's office 22 so that he can't get away with things like mailing 23 absentee ballots to the wrong address and then 24 saying tough when somebody shows up and says I want 25 to vote a traditional ballot. It is not tough. It 190 1 is a fundamental right to vote, we are here to 2 accept it. 3 Finally, I would just say that I think 4 that I won't even attempt to compare the eloquence 5 we have just heard about where our biggest concerns 6 lie and, obviously, it has got to come from within, 7 but I would say that what I think is emblematic of 8 what has happened here today is something that 9 Justice Brandise talked about when he talked about 10 how the truest sign of a free society is whether or 11 not there are laws that prevent criticism of the 12 government, and that any government that bans 13 criticism is not a free government. I think that 14 what we have heard here today is emblematic of the 15 fact that we are a free society, and as long as we 16 keep criticizing the government, turn it into 17 progressive thought, we can succeed. Thank you. 18 MS. TAVARES: First of all, I would like 19 to thank Pastor Jeffrey Key for opening up his 20 church to us to witness today's public hearing on 21 the failure of our 2004 election to ensure that 22 everyone had the ability to vote and to have their 23 vote cast and counted. I am also very proud of the 24 organizations that put this together, and Dr. Bob 25 Fitrakis, thank you for pulling this all together. 191 1 I have got a quote, and my friend, Bill Moss, stole 2 the quote I was going to use about power concedes 3 nothing without demand, but I am going to share a 4 quote with you, and then I will share who said it. 5 The only thing worse than running for Secretary of 6 State is being Secretary of State, J. Kenneth 7 Blackwell. He said that when he ran for election 8 back in 1998. All of us know that when you don't 9 want to do a job, you don't do a very good job. He 10 predicted what he was going to do. He was clear 11 about his goals. He was clear about what was going 12 to happen. He has no interest in being Secretary 13 of State. That was at '98. But then he said it 14 again in 2002. He didn't want to be Secretary of 15 State. He wanted to run again for treasurer or 16 governor. So let us be clear, that this was not 17 something that was just planned in this election. 18 He has an agenda. He didn't do a very good job 19 because he didn't want to do the job, and so the 20 people suffered. The people were disenfranchised. 21 The votes were suppressed. The votes were not 22 counted. We as the people should have been more 23 alert. We should have demanded, demanded, because 24 power concedes nothing without a demand, that we 25 had the appropriate number of voting booths, that 192 1 we had the appropriate number of people voting at 2 each location so we wouldn't have a long line. We 3 have an opportunity, as Bill Moss said, to move 4 forward from this, to learn from this. That is 5 what this testimony was all about. It was 6 gathering the data so we can make the changes that 7 are necessary. And we have got to demand those 8 changes. We have got an Ohio Legislative Black 9 Caucus that says that this is a priority and there 10 is legislation that is being developed that will 11 improve the voting process in Ohio. We have got to 12 stay vigilant. This is not a sprint. This is a 13 marathon run. We have got to make sure we are 14 there to the very end until everything is 15 corrected, and then we have to be vigilant in the 16 2005 and 2006 elections, because it is not going to 17 straighten up if we are not there monitoring every 18 step of the way, going to the public hearings that 19 are going to be conducted on election legislation, 20 and as Representative Price said, he's got 21 legislation, it is a lot easier if you propose 22 something and then you work to make sure that your 23 ideas are adopted than reacting to what somebody 24 else put forward. And reacting to what a J. 25 Kenneth Blackwell puts forward, I would be 193 1 concerned. 2 So you need to stay in contact with the 3 Ohio Legislative Black Caucus, and then as a group 4 we have to be vigilant in looking at every other 5 avenue that we can use to ensure that next year's 6 election and those that go from here forward are 7 done appropriately and that every vote is in fact 8 counted, and then we need to make sure that we stay 9 on top of this together, that all of us who are 10 here today, I hope that your names were gathered 11 and I hope that when you are called upon, you will 12 be there when you are needed. Thank you very much. 13 MR. PRICE: State Representative Larry 14 Price. It is not really a lot that is left to be 15 said, between Bill and Charleta and everyone, but 16 let me just share a couple of observations. I have 17 sat on about seven committees over the last two 18 years, and never have I been as moved as much as 19 today in terms of both commitment, I commit to you 20 that we will be pushing legislation forward in 21 terms of provisional ballots, jurisdiction, being 22 counted, early voting, and a constitutional 23 amendment to allow the State of Ohio to do early 24 voting. But there is something else that I have 25 been inspired to do today because of you, I hadn't 194 1 really thought of it, but we need to begin to press 2 for hearings on the state level about this 3 election. Something should be done. I will be 4 talking to the speaker of the house about hearings 5 statewide in terms of this election and what has 6 happened in this election. Stay together. We hope 7 to gather all of the information, because we are 8 going to need it. I need your help, and I need 9 your support as we push forward. Thank you. 10 - - - 11 CERTIFICATE 12 - - - 13 I, Celeste C. Dawley, a Notary Public in and for 14 the State of Ohio, do hereby certify that the 15 witnesses were sworn or affirmed by me, and that 16 the foregoing is a true, correct, and complete 17 transcript of the proceedings in this matter to the 18 best of my ability on Saturday, November 13, 2004, 19 taken by me and transcribed from my stenographic 20 notes. My commission expires August 22, 2007. 21 22 23 ________________________ Celeste C. Dawley 24 Registered Professional Court Reporter 25 Notary Public