PUBLIC HEARING The Franklin County Courthouse Columbus, Ohio Monday, November 15, 2004 6:00 p.m. to 9:15 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: Vicky Beasley, Ed Foreman, Steve Gobble, Jonah Goldman, Leslie Huff, Lee Lybarger, Greg Moore, Bill Moss, Lynn Serpe, Susan Truitt - - - 2 1 2 INDEX 3 4 WITNESS PAGE 5 JASON PARRY 14 6 JAY WAMSLEY 18 7 KAREN HANSEN 25 8 ROBIN SMITH 30 9 SHERRI SUAREZ 37 10 CHRISTIE JO TOBIN 45 11 JONATHAN MEIER 49 12 ARTHUR LIBERT 54 13 STEVE BRACK 58 14 JENNIFER DELANEY 60 15 JEANNE SMITH 63 16 STEVEN HEYMAN 65 17 THOM PINTELLO 70 18 JIMMY SHARP 75 19 JEN MILLER 81 20 JANE HUBBARD 90 21 STACEY MITCHELL KING 92 22 JOHN MANNING 94 23 PAT JOHNSTON 96 24 KATHY VARIAN 102 25 MARK DUNBAR 107 3 1 JOE KUSPAN 109 2 INDEX (CONT'D.) 3 4 WITNESS PAGE 5 JOHN PERRY 111 6 MONICA JUSTICE 114 7 TINA BYER 117 8 MICHAEL GREENMAN 119 9 TOM KESSEL 121 10 - - - 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 4 1 Monday EveningSession 2 November 15, 2004 3 - - - 4 MR. FITRAKIS: My name is Bob Fitrakis. I 5 supervised eight polling places on election day on the 6 near east side. 7 What we'll be doing is we'll be asking the 8 panelists to introduce themselves. And after that, 9 they will each be allowed to do a few opening 10 comments, explain where they're from, the purpose and 11 the procedure. 12 Then we're going to ask anyone who wishes to 13 give testimony to, in fact, stand and be sworn in as a 14 group. When you go to the mic, you will be asked 15 whether or not you have been sworn in. You will have 16 to affirm that. If not, you will have to be sworn in 17 by the court reporter. 18 Also, we will be taking a break. Also, I 19 anticipate these proceedings will be stopped around 20 8:00. We will adjourn. At that point, we will 21 continue with the discussion, and WVKO is broadcasting 22 on where we go from here, and the panelists will all 23 get to speak on that and the audience will be allowed 24 to participate simply where we should go after that. 25 But the court proceeding itself will be stopped at 5 1 that point. 2 With that in mind, again, make sure -- who is 3 taking the names for the people that are giving 4 testimony? Okay. Amy is back there. See her with 5 her hand up? If you haven't signed in, make sure you 6 sign in. 7 And, again, just let me remind you that we 8 don't want hearsay evidence here. We don't want you 9 heard from somebody that. We want what you saw on 10 election day. It would help, again, to repeat your 11 name and, again, if it's hard to spell, to spell that 12 name -- we have media here, as well -- what your 13 address is, where you voted, and if some of you recall 14 the ward or precinct, that would be very helpful. 15 We really appreciate the turnout and we feel 16 that if we're going to improve this system -- and also 17 let it be known that we're going to make this 18 information available to the press, that we frown on 19 secrecy, that the only way to reform this system is to 20 bring in the light of day, and that's what we're going 21 to do here. We're going to get to the bottom of this. 22 So without further adieu, I'm going to allow 23 the panel to introduce themselves, say a little, where 24 they're from, and then it will be followed by a mass 25 swearing in of those of you who wish to give 6 1 testimony. 2 Those of you who are camera shy may arrange 3 to give testimony in the back, written, without coming 4 forward. So, again, during the first hour, you can 5 probably see Ed Foreman who may be able to arrange 6 with somebody else to do that. Ed will be on the 7 panel the second hour. So if you just want to give 8 that testimony, Ed Foreman or Michael Lever may even 9 be able to help you in that capacity, okay. 10 And we'll start with the panel, beginning 11 with who's closest to me. Just, again, state your 12 name and -- 13 MR. GOLDMAN: I think we're actually going to 14 start with her. 15 MR. FITRAKIS: Okay. Go ahead, Vicky. 16 MS. BEASLEY: Good evening, everyone. 17 UNIDENTIFIED SPEAKER: We can't hear you. 18 UNIDENTIFIED SPEAKER: Use the microphone, 19 please. 20 MS. BEASLEY: Can you hear me? No. 21 MR. FITRAKIS: Testing. No. Try that one. 22 MR. LYBARGER: Testing, testing. 23 MS. BEASLEY: Our first technical difficulty 24 of the evening. 25 Good evening, everyone. My name is Vicky 7 1 Beasley. I'm the director for the American Way 2 Foundation for Election Protection efforts. 3 I thank you guys for being here this evening. 4 Obviously, the interest and concern around the 5 November 2nd election has not died. This is our 6 second public hearing here in Ohio, the first being on 7 Saturday here in Columbus, and others are certainly to 8 follow. 9 Tonight, we are here to hear your testimony, 10 your first opinion testimony on what happened right 11 here in your own neighborhoods, in some instances your 12 own experiences on election day. 13 Now, obviously, ever since the election, the 14 conventional wisdom has been that everything ran 15 smoothly. And, obviously, with you being here 16 tonight, with others being here on Saturday, we know 17 that that was, indeed, not the case. It is a myth. 18 The reality is that thousands upon thousands 19 of people were, in fact, disenfranchised here in Ohio 20 on election day and in the weeks leading up to 21 election day. And quite frankly, since election day, 22 there has been evidence that there are still issues to 23 be followed up on. On election day, voters were asked 24 for identification when they didn't need to present 25 it. Absentee ballots were late or never came at all. 8 1 People in some precincts had plenty of voting machines 2 while others in some precincts had to wait hours upon 3 hours to vote. 4 The Election Protection Coalition was formed 5 after the 2000 presidential election. We knew of many 6 of these problems, obviously, before election day, but 7 election day brought a lot more problems to light that 8 we were not prepared to address on election day. And 9 part of the -- part of what we plan to do because we 10 did not get a response on election day, and even 11 though we attempted to follow up on those issues, we 12 want to make sure those issues are not left to the 13 sample anecdotes about what happened, but rather are 14 going to form the catalysts for real election reform 15 and potential litigation because it was ignored on 16 election day by the county in some instances. 17 Election Protection is a nonpartisan effort, 18 so regardless of accounting is at the end of the day, 19 our goal is to make sure that every eligible vote is 20 counted. So that's why we're here tonight. It is not 21 to demand a recount, but it is really to demand that, 22 again, each eligible vote is counted, no matter where 23 it was cast. And that is why we are here to hear your 24 testimony. 25 We're analyzing the information that we 9 1 received through our election incident reporting 2 system. We're going to hear your testimony tonight to 3 gain additional evidence and we will follow up again 4 through an aggressive reformative effort. 5 We are asking that Bob moderate the testimony 6 that you will be giving, but we first want to start 7 with a mass swearing in. When you come up to the 8 microphone, please provide your name, when and where 9 you registered, and describe your experience. And one 10 of the panelists will follow up with very specific 11 questions to you. 12 But we want everyone here who has come 13 tonight, taking your time to come, to have an 14 opportunity to provide your testimony because we know 15 that you want to be heard. And that's why we're here, 16 to make sure that you are heard. So thank you again 17 for coming. 18 MR. GOLDMAN: Thank you, Vicky. 19 My name is Jonah Goldman. I'm with the 20 Lawyers Committee for Civil Rights under law in 21 Washington, D.C. and along with people from the 22 American Way Foundation. The Lawyers Committee is one 23 of the founding members and leaders of a National 24 Election Protection Coalition. 25 Like Vicky, I want to start by thanking all 10 1 of you for coming. This is the first step in this 2 sort of post-November 2nd continuing movement for a 3 lasting prospective voter protection movement. And 4 that's really what it is, essentially. 5 This is the -- you're all part of what has 6 been the largest nonpartisan voter protection 7 mobilization in -- this country has ever seen, and 8 we'll continue to fight for the rights of voters to 9 ensure that all votes have -- all voters have the 10 opportunity to go to the poles and cast a ballot 11 that's accurate. And as we moved forward today and 12 what we're doing tonight is an incredibly, incredibly 13 important step in that. 14 I'm only going to say pretty much that, and 15 I'm going to pass it down to these here in the panel 16 so they all can introduce themselves, but we need to 17 get to -- the most important part when is all of your 18 testimony. 19 So thank you all for being here. 20 MR. LYBARGER: I'm Lee Lybarger and I'm from 21 Delaware, Ohio, and I'm with Common Cause. I'm on the 22 Board of Ohio Common Cause. As you know, Common Cause 23 was founded in the mid-'70s, following the Watergate 24 debacle, by John Gardener. And we are concerned with 25 campaign finance reform and the procedures of 11 1 democracy to ensure it stays intact. 2 And I would simply underscore what Vicky has 3 to say. And as a nonprofit organization, we, too, are 4 also concerned with the voting rights and protections 5 that were in -- that were violated or not violated in 6 this state in this last election. 7 Thank you. 8 MR. MOORE: Good evening. My name is Greg 9 Moore. I'm the executive director of the NAACP 10 National Voter Fund. That's a 501(C)4 organization; 11 that is the (C)4 arm of the NAACP. 12 I want to start by just saying that this 13 year, we worked in conjunction with the state 14 conference and local branches of NAACP to register 15 83,000 new voters here in the state of Ohio. That was 16 a great accomplishment, but it was part of many other 17 organizations that got together and placed voter 18 registration as a high priority. 19 What happened here in Ohio really is a micro 20 column of what we've seen all over the country and not 21 just this cycle. This time, we thought we were ready. 22 We were. We had lawyers prepared and we worked in 23 conjunction with People for the American Way and other 24 allies to be prepared for just what is happening now. 25 And we're glad and appreciate all of the 12 1 people here who decided to make this hearing happen, 2 both today's and Saturday. I did fly in from 3 Washington Saturday to observe the hearing and learned 4 an awful lot of the very heart -- and particularly 5 students from Kenyon who talked about what they went 6 through. 7 I'm an Ohio native. I actually grew up in 8 Cleveland. I'm a graduate of Ohio University and 9 actually served as president for a team called the 10 Ohio Student Association, and I remember how much we 11 fought for the right of students to vote. And so what 12 the students did in Kenyon was actually very inspiring 13 to me. 14 Our democracy is in great danger when we -- 15 when machines replace people on determining the 16 outcome of our elections. And there was a time when 17 we sort of thought that one person, one vote, meant 18 one person, one vote. That's not the case here 19 anymore. There are too many machines in this country 20 that are making mistakes. 21 Remember the blackout last year when 22 electricity went down and remember that there were 23 mistakes that were being made, and when your car 24 breaks down and a lot of you have had your computers 25 crash? Well, guess what? Machines can break, also, 13 1 when the right to vote is involved. And there are 2 just too many incidents, both here and in Florida, of 3 machines that are not accurately reflecting what 4 people went into the polling booth to do. 5 And so I, for one, would not like to 6 relinquish that right to a machine that could be 7 wrong. 8 And finally, I just want to say that we're 9 working in conjunction with this coalition. I'm from 10 Cleveland. I remember some of the things that I saw 11 myself from Cleveland just at one polling site: 12 Harvey Rice Elementary School. No secret ballot. 13 Some of the worst conditions I've ever seen for a 14 polling place. There was no reason for people to be 15 in that situation in 2004 voting. 16 And so I want to hear what you have to say. 17 Thank you for the invitation to be a part of this, but 18 just to let you know that we are here to join you in 19 coalition and we are going to fight until all our 20 voices count. We're going to keep our promise. 21 MS. TRUITT: My name is Susan Truitt. I'm a 22 cofounder of CASE Ohio, which is Citizen's Alliance 23 for Secure Elections. And we're a grassroots 24 nonpartisan group of volunteers who have been working 25 on election issues all year. 14 1 I want to thank all of the voters who, in my 2 mind, are American heroes for standing in line for 3 hours in the cold and in the rain to raise your voice 4 and cast your vote to make our democracy work. 5 And we invite you, again, to raise your voice 6 tonight to tell us your stories. We want to hear what 7 happened to you at the poles and we want to work 8 together to correct the problems in our system. And 9 we clearly have problems in the election system in 10 Ohio and in the country. 11 I know that in the Ohio legislature, there 12 are members who are currently drafting bills to reform 13 elections in Ohio, and we applaud that effort. We 14 want to be involved in that effort, and your testimony 15 tonight will be very useful in that effort in the 16 future. 17 MR. FITRAKIS: All right. Did you wish to -- 18 are you administering the oath? 19 THE COURT REPORTER: Yes. 20 MR. FITRAKIS: Okay. All those people 21 prepared to testify tonight, please stand. 22 - - - 23 (Whereupon all witnesses were duly sworn.) 24 - - - 25 MR. FITRAKIS: Tony West. Tony West. 15 1 Jason Parry. 2 MR. PARRY: Do I say my name and stuff? 3 MR. FITRAKIS: The only question that needs 4 to be asked is whether or not you've taken the oath, 5 and I think Vicky will be asking that. 6 MR. PARRY: Okay. 7 MS. BEASLEY: Have you taken the oath? 8 MR. PARRY: Yes, I did. 9 My name is Jason Parry. I live in Franklin 10 County and was a pole monitor at Columbus 12A the 11 whole day. While there was the usual things on a very 12 high turnout election day, such as lack of pole 13 workers, when I voted at 6:45, the head judge was 14 asking for a Democratic volunteer. There was a 15 shortage of pole workers such as they had no greeter. 16 In my polling site, the actual polling was 17 down in the basement, down a single narrow flight of 18 stairs. And they had no election officials on the 19 upstairs, nobody checking names before you waited 20 three hours, nobody looking for elderly or women with 21 multiple children. 22 I don't think that there was any problems in 23 terms of electronic voting fraud, but what there was, 24 in this precinct, at least, for a decade there had 25 been four voting machines, and this election there was 16 1 only three. I've heard many, many other stories from 2 lots of other precincts where the same thing has 3 happened. 4 My concern here is that they knew -- the 5 Franklin County Board of Elections knew the voter 6 registration was double what it was in previous 7 elections and they made absolutely no efforts to 8 account or make any availability of these people to 9 vote. 10 The question I have is where are these voting 11 machines that have been there for the last decade? I 12 realize they're probably waiting to buy new machines 13 so they haven't replaced any, but I think that's 14 completely irresponsible when the number of new voters 15 was so large, especially in this precinct. But for 16 them to actually take away a voting machine actually 17 limited that precinct to 500 to 600 voters, just from 18 a five-minutes-per-voter numerical system. 19 So the question I have for the Franklin 20 County Board of Elections is, A, they need to account 21 for all the voting machines and, B, they knew about 22 this way ahead of time, the number of additional 23 registered voters, so why didn't they take 20 percent 24 of the precinct and put them on punch cards or 25 something reasonable? It doesn't seem to be -- it 17 1 seems to be a simple mathematic equation: Number of 2 voters, number of voting machines. I don't know why 3 and how they can get away with doing this. 4 MS. BEASLEY: I have a couple of follow-up 5 questions. 6 MR. PARRY: Sure. 7 MS. BEASLEY: You said that there were -- you 8 said that there were four machines previously. What's 9 the basis of that knowledge? Have you -- 10 MR. PARRY: I actually haven't lived in that 11 precinct for a decade, but talking with my landlords, 12 my neighbors, all the people in the precinct, every 13 single one of them have said that there were four 14 voting machines, including the fire -- it was in a 15 fire house -- including all the employees, the 16 firemen. 17 MS. BEASLEY: And did 12 -- was 12A the only 18 precinct that was there or there were multiple? 19 MR. PARRY: No. This was just 12A. 20 MS. BEASLEY: And obviously, we've heard 21 about this problem in a number of polling places not 22 just here in Franklin County, but throughout the 23 state. There is no state law under the election code 24 that requires the county to provide a certain number 25 of machines based on the number of voters, but 18 1 obviously this is an issue that should be included -- 2 MR. PARRY: I would -- 3 MS. BEASLEY: -- as part of the national 4 reform. 5 MR. PARRY: I would disagree with your 6 statement. Under Ohio -- the State Constitution of 7 Ohio, the power of the Ohio Constitution is derived 8 from the voting and the election by the populous, by 9 the citizens. By allowing four-hour waits in line and 10 unreasonable expectations upon voters -- they could 11 have a pencil and paper. This is what they owe the 12 citizens of Franklin County. So I would disagree to 13 say there's no law in Ohio. 14 MS. BEASLEY: No. What I'm saying is there's 15 no statutory authority saying why couldn't they do it 16 based on the number of voters. I'm saying, they don't 17 have a requirement currently under Ohio law to do 18 that. That is obviously an issue that should be 19 followed up on so that there is some explicit 20 direction, I think. I mean, I agree with you that 21 there should be -- 22 MR. PARRY: Well, they knew ahead of time 23 that X number of people were registered to vote. They 24 only provided the ability for about 50 percent of 25 those, at least in my precinct, to actually be able to 19 1 vote. That is irresponsible. 2 MR. FITRAKIS: Let the record reflect that in 3 the last hearing we had testimony, sworn, that there 4 was a guideline of one machine per 100 voters, but it 5 was not, in fact, a state law. 6 MR. PARRY: Thank you. 7 MR. FITRAKIS: Thank you. 8 Is Tony West here? 9 Sherri Suarez? Is Sherri here? 10 Those who were left over from the Saturday 11 hearing. 12 Let me proceed with Adelle Isman. Adelle? 13 Adelle, are you here? Please proceed to the 14 microphone. 15 Jay Wamsley. And, again, please state your 16 name and answer the question whether or not you've 17 been sworn. 18 MR. WAMSLEY: Hi. My name is Jay Wamsley. I 19 have been sworn. 20 I'm an attorney in Athens, Ohio, who 21 volunteered as an attorney observer in Franklin County 22 on election day. I was assigned to monitor six 23 precincts on the east side: 7D at Broad Street 24 Presbyterian Church, 7A at Champion Middle School, 7E 25 at Sawyers Towers, 12B at Godman Guild, 7C at Trevitt 20 1 Elementary School and 7B at Mount Vernon AME Outreach 2 Center. 3 I, like so many other people, saw extremely 4 long lines all day. We were at the Broad Street 5 Presbyterian Church at about 6:15 before the poles 6 actually opened in the morning, and people were 7 already lining up. And we saw all day, well into the 8 evening, extremely long lines. Two-and-a-half hours 9 were the norm, I would say, in those six precincts. 10 They had machines that broke at some point during the 11 day at the Broad Street Presbyterian Church, and from 12 that time on the lines were more like four hours. 13 In the middle part of the day, because were 14 standing in these lines -- and it's my understanding 15 that each of those six precincts each had three voting 16 booths. In the middle part of the day, we decided -- 17 I and the other member of our team drove to some other 18 precincts, two in Upper Arlington, one at Upper 19 Arlington High School, a firehouse on Coach Road in 20 Upper Arlington and then the Whetstone Recreation 21 Center, which was partially in Upper Arlington and 22 partially Clintonville. And in each of those, they 23 had at least four machines per precinct, and one of 24 the four precincts at Whetstone Recreation Center had 25 five machines. And so the disparity was pretty stark 21 1 out there on election day. 2 Just a couple of other problems that we saw 3 were that 12B -- I don't know at what point the voting 4 site was moved to Godman Guild. Some information out 5 there was that it was at the Weinland Park School, and 6 that information obviously didn't get to everyone and 7 there were people that didn't know where their voting 8 place was. There was no signs at the Weinland Park 9 School; this is an abandon school. There were no 10 signs that indicated that it was moved to Godman 11 Guild. 12 As we were understanding the process, if 13 somebody had to vote a provisional ballot, even though 14 they were using punch cards for provisional ballots, 15 they still had to use one of the three machines, and 16 that was making it go more slowly. 17 We did take affidavits throughout the day. 18 We'll never know, obviously, how many people weren't 19 able to vote. Over the course of the day, we saw many 20 people that, because they had to go to work, they had 21 to get to school, they had to get their kids to 22 school, they had to leave. Many said they would come 23 back. We had no way to document how many of them did. 24 We did take affidavits from one -- from 25 people. One in particular that I remember was Latoya 22 1 Redford who came twice and stood in line. Both times 2 she had to leave. The second time she had her 3 children with her and she realized how late it was 4 getting into the evening and she had to get her kids 5 home to feed them. And she said specifically in her 6 affidavit that she would not be able to come back by 7 7:30. So obviously, we'll never know how many people 8 were in that situation. 9 Yes? 10 MR. LYBARGER: Did you -- can I turn this on? 11 MR. FITRAKIS: Yes. It should be -- is it 12 on? 13 MR. LYBARGER: Did you talk at all with the 14 Board of Elections people? Did they come out and 15 check some of these problems? 16 MR. WAMSLEY: I did not. It was my 17 instructions we were to stay a certain distance away 18 from them, so we were doing our best to communicate 19 that information to the people in our main office so 20 that could be communicated to the Board of Elections. 21 MR. LYBARGER: You could walk out of the 22 booth momentarily and make a cell phone call, no? 23 MR. WAMSLEY: We were making those calls 24 throughout the day, yes. 25 MR. LYBARGER: To the Board of Elections? 23 1 MR. WAMSLEY: Not directly to the Board of 2 Elections. We were working with Election Protection 3 and we were providing that information. We would get 4 affidavits from people and we would bring that down, 5 and I believe there were people in contact with the 6 Board of Elections during the day. 7 MR. GOLDMAN: A couple of quick questions. 8 Now, you said that you spent the day -- you were 9 probably around six precincts in the area here in 10 Columbus, and then you went out to Arlington Hills and 11 there were more voting machines per people in those. 12 What was the difference in times as far as waits? 13 MR. WAMSLEY: It was hard to say. You would 14 talk to people outside and hear their stories. There 15 were certainly some people who said they had waited in 16 line an hour or so in those others. Now, there was 17 one that we saw that had just very few people in line. 18 I think the longest lines we saw were at Whetstone 19 Recreation Center. They had four precincts. And it 20 was hard for us to tell whether each of the precincts 21 had similar lines or not. But we never saw anything 22 certainly resembling a two-and-a-half hour line in any 23 of those. 24 MR. GOLDMAN: Any out there or -- 25 MR. WAMSLEY: In any out there. But that 24 1 seemed to be about the norm at our six precincts on 2 the east side. 3 MR. GOLDMAN: And were you here and there at 4 relatively similar times of the day? 5 MR. WAMSLEY: Yes, yes. 6 MR. GOLDMAN: So you were here in the 7 afternoon and there in the afternoon, as well? 8 MR. WAMSLEY: Yes. 9 MR. GOLDMAN: Were you out there for any of 10 the higher volume -- 11 MR. WAMSLEY: We were not there before work. 12 We did talk to some people who said that they had, 13 like, hour lines. I can't verify that. That's 14 what -- but they did have the rush before work in 15 those other precincts. They had maybe hour lines. 16 And we were not there after work. We were there in 17 the middle part of the day. 18 MR. GOLDMAN: Other than the lines, were you 19 able to -- from your talking to voters and from 20 talking to people at the polling place, were you able 21 to ascertain what the other predominant issues people 22 were facing on election day were? 23 MR. WAMSLEY: There were people frustrated 24 that they were being told that they only had five 25 minutes to vote. They had -- there were issues on the 25 1 ballot. I think a lot of them were unfamiliar with 2 the machines. And I understand when the lines were so 3 long why people were suggesting for them to only take 4 five minutes, I understand that, but that seemed to be 5 a common frustration. But people were determined to 6 vote, incredibly determined to vote. 7 MR. GOLDMAN: Thanks very much. 8 MR. MOORE: Was there any time -- was there 9 anybody enforcing the time limit at the polling site 10 that you observed? 11 MR. WAMSLEY: We were told -- the site that I 12 remember most was Sawyer's Towers where we were 13 hearing from people that they were -- some elderly 14 people, that they were being told they only had five 15 minutes. One person said, I didn't really feel like I 16 got to finish. They told me I only had five minutes 17 and I went ahead and completed my voting without going 18 all the way through. 19 MR. MOORE: Is that the only place you saw an 20 actual incident with someone enforcing the five minute 21 rules? 22 MR. WAMSLEY: We heard stories at other 23 places where people would say they were told, but I 24 wasn't there, so I couldn't verify that for sure. 25 MR. FITRAKIS: Thank you for your testimony. 26 1 Let the record reflect for the panel that the 2 first speaker, Jason Parry, from 12A, that, in fact, 3 instead of a hundred votes per machine, there was 190; 4 that, in fact, there was four machines there in the 5 year 2000 and they did take one away. The voter 6 turnout in that district was up 41 percent. 7 Karen Hansen. 8 MS. BEASLEY: Hi. Have you been sworn in? 9 MS. HANSEN: Yes, I have. 10 My name is Karen Hansen and I was a Move On 11 Pack precinct leader in precinct 55D on the near east 12 side. 13 I arrived at the poles before it opened at 14 6:20 and we set up a stand about a hundred feet away 15 from the entrance. There were already about 50 people 16 in line when I got there at 6:20. The doors opened at 17 6:35. 18 On most of the morning, we saw people coming 19 and going, but many people came to our stand and 20 complained that they could not wait the required 21 amount of time to vote. I would estimate about 22 between five and ten percent of the people who came 23 between 7:00 a.m. and 10:00 a.m. ended up leaving 24 because they said they couldn't risk their jobs or 25 risk losing pay to stay and vote. 27 1 We had three voting machines at our precinct. 2 In the past, we've always had five or six voting 3 machines. This is the same precinct where I vote. 4 At least 30 voters, after voting, came over 5 to our stand and complained to us that they felt 6 harassed by pole workers who kept yelling, you only 7 get five minutes to vote. 8 In four different cases, I personally took 9 people back into the polling place because they came 10 out after waiting two or three hours and reported to 11 us that they were not permitted to vote. None of them 12 were given information about how they could vote, so I 13 took them back into the polling place and asked the 14 pole worker to tell them where they should go to vote. 15 In each case, the pole worker gave us presumably the 16 correct precinct information for that person's 17 address. I have no way of knowing, of course, if 18 these people were eventually able to vote in those 19 other precincts. I also have no way of knowing how 20 many other potential voters were turned away at this 21 precinct. 22 I estimate that I talked to about five 23 percent of the voters at that precinct as they exited. 24 When I was waiting in line to vote myself in 25 the afternoon, towards the end of my wait as I was 28 1 standing near the tables of the pole workers, someone 2 came in after waiting for several hours and was told 3 that they weren't allowed to vote at that location. I 4 suggested to that man that he request his correct 5 precinct from his address. The pole worker said she 6 couldn't give him that information, that she didn't 7 have access to that information. I then said that the 8 other pole worker who was currently on a break had 9 looked that information up in a large book that was 10 sitting on the table. So the pole work then did look 11 up that information for that man and gave him his 12 precinct number. 13 The man said he didn't know where that 14 precinct was located. The pole worker said she was 15 sorry, she couldn't give him any additional 16 information. I then called out from my place in line 17 that the precinct addresses are listed in the back of 18 that book. So the pole worker then looked up that 19 information. 20 This incident occurred at approximately 3:30 21 p.m., nine hours after the pole opened. So for the 22 majority of that day, this poorly-trained pole worker 23 did not have sufficient knowledge to appropriately aid 24 misinformed or confused voters. 25 MR. LYBARGER: Did the voters in question 29 1 have identification or ID that they could provide to 2 prove their proper place of voting? 3 MS. HANSEN: In every case where I helped the 4 voter, they had a driver's license. 5 MR. LYBARGER: So that would demonstrate that 6 they were, in fact, at the correct place for voting at 7 that precinct? 8 MS. HANSEN: Not necessarily. In recalling 9 those cases, they were told that they were not at the 10 right place. 11 MS. TRUITT: And this is in Franklin County, 12 right, in Franklin County? 13 MS. HANSEN: Columbus. 14 MR. MOORE: Is it my understanding that 15 the -- one of the core issues, there was one before 16 the election that people would be allowed to vote a 17 provisional ballot at the locations if they were in 18 the wrong precincts? 19 MS. HANSEN: That was my understanding, but 20 that was not what the pole workers were doing. 21 MS. BEASLEY: I actually -- let me just say 22 this: I think if the pole workers were offering the 23 people the information that were in the incorrect 24 polling place, then obviously that's what we want 25 because we want the vote to be counted. But there is 30 1 a problem if the pole worker wasn't aware, as you 2 indicate, of the procedure of actually looking that 3 information up for the voter and then redirecting 4 them. 5 But based on your own, you know, experience, 6 this only happened the one time or were there 7 others -- 8 MS. HANSEN: I witnessed that one time. 9 MS. BEASLEY: Were there others at the 10 polling place, other volunteers with you who, you 11 know, who helped voters and had similar problems? 12 MS. HANSEN: I assume that they were offering 13 similar help. I don't know that for a fact. 14 MR. GOLDMAN: You said that a couple of those 15 same voters came out to you and said that they were -- 16 they spent a lot of time in line and they weren't 17 allowed to vote afterwards. 18 MS. HANSEN: Correct. 19 MR. GOLDMAN: Do you know if they were 20 offered provisional ballots? 21 MS. HANSEN: They were not offered. 22 MR. GOLDMAN: They were not offered 23 provisional ballots. Do you know if -- 24 MS. HANSEN: They were offered no 25 information. They just came out complaining, so I 31 1 took them back in and asked the pole worker to give 2 them information about where they should have been 3 going. In all the cases, they had waited there two to 4 three hours. 5 MS. BEASLEY: One other cases -- were there 6 multiple precincts in this location? 7 MS. HANSEN: I don't believe there were. 8 MR. FITRAKIS: Just for the record, do you 9 remember what the -- the name of the place that you 10 voted? 11 MS. HANSEN: 55D. 12 MR. FITRAKIS: Which would be what? 13 MS. HANSEN: Douglas. 14 MR. FITRAKIS: Douglas Elementary School. 15 Robin Smith. 16 MR. SMITH: My name is Robin Smith and I 17 voted in precinct 6A in Upper Arlington. During the 18 election campaign, I served as the chairman of Ward 6 19 for UA for Kerry. 20 I'm here today to speak to the inequities in 21 the place of the voting machines in Franklin County on 22 the date of the election. 23 Ward 6 in Upper Arlington had four polling 24 places where people from seven precincts vote. In 25 anticipation of long lines, we had arranged to have 32 1 two or three volunteers at each of the polling places 2 at our ward at the end of the day. Each of these 3 volunteers had umbrellas, chairs, bottled water and 4 snacks all for the people standing in line to ensure 5 they would not get tired and frustrated and leave 6 without voting. 7 As I watched the 6:00 news on election night, 8 I became concerned when they showed long lines in 9 polling places in Franklin County, lines that were so 10 long they were already voting until after midnight. I 11 was concerned that we didn't have a sufficient number 12 of people assigned to our four polling places to help 13 people standing in line to endure the long wait. 14 Our volunteers arrived at the polling places 15 between 6:50 and 7:00 p.m., 30 to 40 minutes before 16 the poles closed, expecting to find long lines 17 stretching out of the building. Instead, they were 18 astonished to find pole workers in virtually vacant 19 buildings standing around with nothing to do. In the 20 course of the next half hour, the few people that came 21 in to vote were on their way home within minutes. 22 Because each of the four voting areas is 23 located within a mile of each other, I drove to each 24 of them between 6:50 and 7:00 p.m. and saw for myself 25 that no lines existed at any of the polling places in 33 1 our ward. How could this be possible? 2 Upper Arlington, like the rest of Franklin 3 County, had a huge turnout of voters. Approximately 4 71 percent of registered voters in UA had shown up to 5 vote, an increase of 12 percent over the 2000 6 election. Yet at the end of the day, no lines 7 existed. 8 Back home at 8:00 p.m., I watched on TV how 9 some areas of Franklin County still had long lines of 10 people that were going to have to wait hours to vote. 11 This could not have been an accident. In my affluent, 12 predominantly Republican community where 62 percent of 13 the people voted for George Bush in the 2000 election, 14 lines were not a problem. In Ward 6 where I worked, 15 every precinct had three or four voting machines which 16 works out to 1 voting machine for every 164 people who 17 voted. 18 Yet late on election night, the news programs 19 continued to show people in Franklin County and other 20 parts of the state waiting in line to vote hours after 21 the poles had closed. It appeared that these lines 22 were primarily in low income, student or minority 23 communities, areas that consisted predominantly of 24 Democratic voters. 25 The only -- I have one paragraph to go. 34 1 MR. FITRAKIS: Finish. Sure. 2 MR. SMITH: The only reason that I can -- 3 excuse me, the only conclusion I can draw from this is 4 there was an intentional effort to usher Republican 5 voters through relatively short lines to ensure they 6 cast their vote while creating excessively long lines 7 in Democratic areas to suppress their right to vote by 8 ensuring some people would leave without voting 9 because they were incapable of standing in lines for 10 three or four hours long or they had to get to work. 11 If, if further analysis of the placement of 12 voting machines demonstrates this was the case, then 13 somebody needs to lose their job and go to prison for 14 attempting to steal our Democratic process. 15 MR. FITRAKIS: Are there any questions from 16 the panel? 17 Included for 34 Upper Arlington wards, there 18 were only two machines less and that, in fact, those 19 areas had experienced 25 percent less registration in 20 one and only increased by one percent in another, but 21 two machines were, in fact, added, despite the fact 22 that registration was only up seven percent, which is 23 much, much lower than in the inner city. 24 Questions for -- 25 MR. SMITH: But turnout went up 12 percent, 35 1 and I can show you, I've calculated for each of the 7 2 precincts in my ward the number of people per voting 3 machines and it comes out to 164 people per machine, 4 which I'm sure is not what it was at Kenyon College. 5 MS. BEASLEY: One of the things, obviously, 6 that we're doing here is to continue to gather this 7 type of evidence. There was obviously a decision, 8 policy decision, that was made at multiple levels to 9 decrease the number of machines and to flaunt, 10 basically, the Ohio law that unfortunately does have a 11 hold in terms of addressing this particular issue. 12 But this is obviously one of the key areas, 13 inequitable distribution of resources, whether it's 14 machines, whether it's the type of machine, whether 15 it's the number of ballots, because there were also 16 incidents of ballots, running out of ballots in a 17 number of neighborhoods, again, particularly poor, 18 minority precincts where this occurred, and not just 19 here in Franklin County. So that will be an integral 20 part of the reform. 21 Again, thank you very much for your testimony 22 and very clear information. It's hard to follow up 23 when they're only anecdotes, but one of the things we 24 want to do here tonight is to continue to gain the 25 hard evidence and to identify credible people who can 36 1 talk about what they saw personally on election day. 2 So again, thank you for taking your time and preparing 3 a statement. 4 MR. SMITH: I think that we need to have a 5 precinct-by-precinct analysis of the number of voting 6 machines per person and map that with the vote, 7 Democratic or Republican vote, and see if there was a 8 clear pattern. 9 MS. BEASLEY: I just want to -- there was 10 a -- 11 (Applause). 12 MS. BEASLEY: There was an article in one of 13 the Ohio papers not too long ago, probably about a 14 week ago, laying out how many machines were in one 15 location versus in a location compared from 2000 and 16 2004. We actually began that process today of 17 following up specifically to gather the information 18 that is going to be needed to establish either a 19 reform agenda or election information based on that. 20 MR. FITRAKIS: Thank you. 21 MR. MOORE: A question for the panel: Does 22 anybody know of any panel in Ohio that's currently 23 voting like that? 24 MR. GOLDMAN: You mean section 5? 25 MR. MOORE: Section 5, yeah. 37 1 MR. GOLDMAN: There's no Section 5 2 jurisdiction, but the whole state is covered under 3 Section 2. 4 MR. MOORE: Thank you. 5 MR. FITRAKIS: Some quick announcements. The 6 order, it is first come first serve, except for the 7 priority of those who didn't get to testify on 8 Saturday and people who have traveled and witnessed 9 events from out of state. 10 The rest rooms are through the exit doors 11 there. 12 Please don't use the elevator. 13 And Matilda Woods wants to give private 14 testimony, and I think you're going to need to see Ed 15 Foreman, if Ed is still in the room near the entrance. 16 Sherri Suarez, proceed and see the court 17 reporter. She'll swear you in. 18 Again, a preliminary analysis -- and all of 19 this will be made public -- is we're finding total 20 system failure. And if you look at the 34 precincts 21 in Upper Arlington, none had over 200 voters. We're 22 finding dozens of these in the city of Columbus, and 23 many of those, of course, in the near east side and 24 other areas. It looks like a fairly clear pattern. I 25 think those stats are going to be broke down in your 38 1 future. 2 - - - 3 (Whereupon Sherri Suarez was duly sworn.) 4 - - - 5 MR. FITRAKIS: Christine Tobin will be next. 6 Sherri Suarez. 7 MS. SUAREZ: Hi. I'm Sherri Suarez. I have 8 a Hispanic last name and I'm registered as an 9 independent. 10 When I arrived in Reynoldsburg, Ohio, to 11 vote, it's precinct D, I was told immediately -- 12 everyone else is walking in and out, but I was told 13 immediately that I was on a predetermined list that I 14 was to be challenged. And my response was, well, I 15 heard about this, that you would be doing this, and 16 what does that mean, what do you need of me? 17 I was asked for my ID, and upon showing the 18 lady my ID, she said, well, I'm sorry, you won't be 19 able to vote today. 20 And I said, well, no, you will not be pulling 21 that with my vote, which now that I rethink, that was 22 saying that I was voting for Kerry. And I said, you 23 will not be pulling that with my vote today. I will 24 be voting and I am here to vote. 25 She then asked me if I had a utility bill, 39 1 and the only thing I had was my driver's license and I 2 had printed off a copy of my voter's registration from 3 the Franklin County Board of Elections, which I have 4 here, and I did not receive any card in the mail. I 5 showed her my voter's registration and she said, no, 6 that wasn't good enough, I needed a utility bill. 7 I left the line, went out and searched my car 8 for anything and I didn't have a bill, and most people 9 wouldn't. I then called the Franklin County auditor 10 because I had just paid $500, and I asked him -- 11 fortunately, I was voting at a school. I asked him if 12 he would fax me a receipt. And I went in and asked 13 the school office if they would let me receive a fax. 14 So I got the faxed bill from the Franklin County 15 auditor, which I have, and it's stamped and it's 16 dated. And the lady looked at that, looked at my ID, 17 looked at my registration and said again, for the 18 third time, she was sorry, that I wouldn't be able to 19 vote. I could go home. I wasn't offered a 20 provisional ballot, and at that time I'm really 21 getting angry because they're going on with other 22 people. 23 And I asked for -- well, actually, I demanded 24 a Democratic representative, I demanded an attorney, 25 and then I was told, I'm sorry, but not all voting 40 1 locations have to offer you that and we don't have 2 anyone here to assist you. And then I called Franklin 3 County Board of Elections and I was on hold forever 4 and ever and ever. Finally, someone picked up and 5 hung up. And I told the people there I was not 6 leaving, I was redialing that number and they might as 7 well call whoever they had to and get someone over 8 there to help me vote, because I voted for the past 9 two presidential elections. This is my third one, 10 same location. And she saw that I wasn't leaving. 11 Finally, I was offered a provisional ballot 12 after being told to go home three times. I refused 13 the provisional ballot because, in talking to the 14 sheriff that was there, he said that most of those are 15 thrown out. And so I didn't want to do that. I'm 16 still waiting. And it took me an hour and a half to 17 vote at two -- well, actually, I got there about 1:30 18 and I didn't get out until 3:00. Everyone else had 19 been out in 20 minutes because it was pretty slow at 20 that time and I just refused to leave. 21 Finally, a lady said that -- a black lady, 22 she told -- I'm sorry, there was a black lady there 23 and she said, well, there is a challenge booklet. She 24 can fill out the challenge form. They had to look for 25 it. 41 1 Now I'm voting. It's now like 2:30, 3:00 and 2 the lines were lined up an hour and a half prior, 3 earlier in the morning, because I was talking to the 4 sheriff. I was the first person to use this book. 5 They had to find the book and it was one of those 6 things that you don't tear out the form, you have to 7 turn the whole book in. They had to read the 8 directions, but first they had to find it. And I was 9 the first one to use it, and I wonder how many people 10 they told to go home. It was really ridiculous. 11 Another thing, I just found out about these 12 hearings on Friday at work around 3:00 and I called 13 Channel 6 -- not 6, that would be a waste of time. I 14 called Channel 4 -- true. I called Channel 4 and 15 Channel 10 and they said they knew of the hearings, 16 but they didn't want to put anything on it on the TV 17 to announce so that people could show up, they would 18 have reporters there covering it on Saturday. 19 I then called the newspaper and offered to 20 put an ad in the paper with my own credit card and 21 asked for people to please help me pay it back and 22 they refused to let me. It was 3:00 and they said 23 that they didn't have any articles in the news section 24 about it and they wouldn't let me run an ad about it. 25 And they said, maybe you can run it in the 42 1 classifieds. I agreed, got classifieds and they 2 refused, and that was 3:00 on Friday. That's it. 3 MS. BEASLEY: I have a couple of follow-up 4 questions. 5 MS. SUAREZ: Okay. 6 MS. BEASLEY: You said you voted in precinct 7 D. Where exactly, ward and -- 8 MS. SUAREZ: You can have this if you want. 9 Actually, that's my bill. You can have that, too. 10 It's the Franklin County auditor and that shows the 11 very time that he faxed this over, that I was having 12 trouble voting. 13 MS. BEASLEY: Do you have copies? 14 MS. SUAREZ: No. Do you want me to get you 15 copies? 16 MS. BEASLEY: We'll get copies. 17 MS. SUAREZ: You can have the original. I 18 really don't need those. 19 MR. MOORE: I have a question. 20 MS. SUAREZ: Oh, and another thing, I had 21 three pole workers, not four. I was told that I'm 22 supposed to have four. 23 MR. MOORE: Did they ever tell you why they 24 weren't allowing you to vote, what was the reason? 25 MS. SUAREZ: Because she looked at my 43 1 driver's license and the address was different. 2 MS. MOORE: And you moved since you got your 3 driver's license? 4 MS. SUAREZ: Yeah. And I moved back due to 5 losing a child, which I had to explain my whole life 6 story and they still said no. 7 MR. MOORE: So the reason you were told that 8 you couldn't vote was the address didn't match the 9 address on your voter registration card? 10 MS. SUAREZ: I was on their books clearly and 11 my registration is there. 12 MS. BEASLEY: When did you move? 13 MS. SUAREZ: Two years ago. 14 MS. BEASLEY: So you moved since the 2000 15 presidential election? 16 MS. SUAREZ: Right. 17 MS. BEASLEY: Did you update your voter 18 registration? 19 MS. SUAREZ: No. When I was back in 20 Reynoldsburg, I didn't. 21 MS. BEASLEY: Was it within the county or -- 22 MS. SUAREZ: No. I went to Licking County. 23 MR. LYBARGER: Did they tell you that 24 although you have moved, you can vote by signing an 25 address confirmation? 44 1 MS. SUAREZ: I think that's what I ended up 2 signing in the end, the challenge form that they had 3 to look and they found it under a stack of papers 4 about like that, (indicating). And they read the 5 directions and they didn't see where for me to sign, 6 but I turned the page and I signed on the back page. 7 And I was the first person to use that booklet and 8 those lines were about an hour and a half. 9 MS. BEASLEY: Actually, this is very 10 important, we need to know precisely, if you can, you 11 moved in 2002, approximately? You don't have to give 12 me the date. 13 MS. SUAREZ: Right. 14 MS. BEASLEY: Did you move between counties 15 or within the same county? 16 MS. SUAREZ: Out of county and back into 17 county. 18 MS. BEASLEY: And when did you move back? 19 MS. SUAREZ: March this year. 20 MS. BEASLEY: Of this year you moved back to 21 Franklin County? 22 MS. SUAREZ: I was always at the same 23 residence. I have three properties and that's -- 24 MS. BEASLEY: But you were always on the 25 books as a resident of Franklin County? 45 1 MS. SUAREZ: Yes. It never switched. 2 MS. BEASLEY: All right. 3 MR. MOORE: Did you vote in 2002? 4 MS. SUAREZ: In '96, same location. 5 MS. BEASLEY: But you didn't vote in 2002? 6 MS. SUAREZ: Oh, no, no, 2000 and '96. 7 MR. GOLDMAN: The house that you now live in, 8 is that the house that you lived in before you moved 9 away? 10 MS. SUAREZ: Reynoldsburg. 11 MR. GOLDMAN: It's the same house, though? 12 MS. SUAREZ: Same. But I've gone back and 13 forth. 14 MS. BEASLEY: What we're trying to figure 15 out -- what we're trying to figure out, basically, is 16 whether or not at some point there was another address 17 on the books that would explain why they were asking 18 you if your address had changed. We're trying to 19 confirm that you were, indeed, at the same address, 20 but it sounds like you were on their records at the 21 same address the entire time. 22 MS. SUAREZ: Ever since I first registered. 23 MR. GOLDMAN: And when you moved away, did 24 you reregister? 25 MS. SUAREZ: No, no. 46 1 MR. GOLDMAN: You didn't reregister. Thank 2 you. 3 MR. FITRAKIS: Thank you very much. 4 Christine Tobin. Christine Tobin. 5 MS. TOBIN: It's Christie, C-h-r-i-s-t-i-e, 6 Tobin, T-o-b-i-n. 7 MR. GOLDMAN: Have you been sworn in? 8 MS. TOBIN: Yes. 9 I was hospitalized at Mount Carmel/St. Ann's 10 in Westerville and a man came in and said he was from 11 the Franklin County Board of Elections, and he said, I 12 would have been hospitalized, too, if I had gone to a 13 Kerry fund-raiser. Kerry was in town with Bruce 14 Springstein; I was at the concert. And I had some 15 health problems and so I ended up going to the 16 hospital, and he read it out of my chart. 17 And he said, it's real easy to use this 18 ballot, you just poke a hole in it and if you want to 19 vote for Bush/Cheney, you just poke number five. And 20 I said, I know who I want to vote for, but it's not 21 Bush and Cheney. 22 I filled out my ballot in straight Democratic 23 ticket. He put it in an envelope and told me to sign 24 my name on the outside of the envelope. He took it 25 and left. What I'm afraid of is that he didn't take 47 1 it -- he didn't turn it in. 2 I also have a mental illness and I think he 3 read that in my chart, and I think that he was trying 4 to get me to vote for Bush and Cheney and I think 5 that's wrong. 6 MS. BEASLEY: And do you happen to know if 7 this gentleman had any official documents with -- you 8 know, any official documentation, whether he gave you 9 his name, did he give you anything to document that 10 you were actually voting? 11 MS. TOBIN: No. He just said he was from the 12 Board of Elections and he just wanted me to punch 13 number five. 14 MR. GOLDMAN: Did you notice if he was 15 wearing any kind of identification or whether he just 16 was wearing sort of street clothes, was he wearing 17 any -- 18 MS. TOBIN: No. He had a jacket on and a 19 tie, but I didn't see anything -- 20 MR. GOLDMAN: There wasn't a badge or 21 anything? 22 MS. TOBIN: No, I didn't notice one. 23 MS. BEASLEY: Have you followed up with the 24 county Board of Elections to find out if your ballot 25 was ever turned in? 48 1 MS. TOBIN: No. I didn't know what to do. 2 But I can do that? 3 MS. BEASLEY: Yes, you can. 4 MR. MOORE: Do you know if he had reached 5 other people? This happened at Mount Carmel? 6 MS. TOBIN: Yeah. I had a private room. I 7 was having heart problems and so I was in a ward where 8 we had single rooms. 9 MR. MOORE: Was this on election day or was 10 it before the election? 11 MS. TOBIN: It was -- I think the Monday of 12 election. 13 MR. MOORE: And there was no other people -- 14 was he going from room to room or -- 15 MS. TOBIN: Yeah. What happened was is the 16 guy -- chaplain came in and he said, there's going to 17 be a guy coming around so you can vote. Your sister 18 called and wanted to make sure that you got to vote. 19 And so probably maybe an hour later this guy 20 comes in and says that he's from the Board of 21 Elections and he gives me some ballot and says, all 22 you have to do is poke a hole in it. And he says, if 23 you poke it in number 5, you can get it to Bush and 24 Cheney. But I didn't want to vote for Bush and 25 Cheney. 49 1 MR. MOORE: Sure. 2 MS. BEASLEY: There is a provision under Ohio 3 law that allows people who are hospitalized to vote. 4 So the fact that someone came to the hospital to take 5 your vote isn't unusual. The only question is whether 6 or not it actually made it there. And there's a 7 record that's kept of everyone's voting history, so 8 you can find out whether or not your vote was actually 9 counted. The specifics, obviously, of how it was 10 counted is something that you can follow up on, as 11 well. 12 MR. LYBARGER: Can you tell me if this person 13 can be identified? Did the chaplain said that a man 14 would come around? The chaplain must have known who 15 he was. 16 MS. TOBIN: Probably. The chaplain may know 17 who he was. 18 MR. LYBARGER: That should be identified to 19 verify he was real. 20 MS. TOBIN: Okay. 21 MS. BEASLEY: Thank you. 22 MR. FITRAKIS: Thank you. 23 Jonathan Meier. 24 MR. MEIER: I haven't been sworn. 25 - - - 50 1 (Whereupon the witness was duly sworn.) 2 - - - 3 MR. MEIER: Hi. Fist off, I voted at 4 Livingston Avenue Elementary on Heyl Street. And 5 personally -- the precinct official, the precinct 6 judge showed up a half hour late to the poles. And 7 around between 12:00 and 1:00, he left, walked out on 8 the job and quit, leaving the school in a pretty big 9 mess. 10 When I voted, I waited in line and I 11 witnessed at least one person -- I can confirm one 12 person leaving because the precinct official showed up 13 a half hour late. The person had to go to work. And 14 also later on that morning, I went back in the school, 15 as I was there witnessing and saw that there were two 16 lines: One, a line to check in, sign in, get the slip 17 of paper; and then the other line, once you have a 18 slip of paper, to go in and get in line to vote. 19 There was no one directing traffic. So as I 20 stood at the school, people were coming out after 21 being in there for two, two-and-a-half hours in 22 complete frustration and anger saying that they waited 23 in the voting line, did not know that they had to get 24 a slip first before they got in line, so they went out 25 all the way, stood in line for two hours, only to find 51 1 out that they needed to get a slip first, were sent to 2 get a slip and were made to get back in the end of the 3 line. 4 I went inside to direct traffic and make sure 5 people knew -- I was totally -- I didn't have any 6 partisan insignia or anything like that, and I was 7 kicked out and threatened with arrest for doing that, 8 for directing traffic. 9 Also, throughout the day, standing outside -- 10 I went back outside, and I witnessed two -- I can 11 confirm two people who were -- who had to leave 12 because they were physically ill. 13 The line, I timed the line, and after 10:00 14 a.m., the line time, it took, on average, 15 two-and-a-half hours; from two to six hours, six hours 16 maximum. When the precinct judge left there were some 17 people who had to wait in line six hours and the lines 18 were scurrying and it was a mess after the precinct 19 official left. 20 The two people I can confirm who were kicked 21 out because -- or they had to leave because of 22 illness, one was an elderly woman who had cancer and 23 could not breathe inside the building. She stood in 24 line for two hours but could not wait any longer. She 25 had about another half hour to wait, but she couldn't 52 1 make it. And another person, also a cancer patient 2 who was afraid that the long wait would expose her to 3 illness, and she was -- yeah, very ill. 4 That's what I have to say. 5 MS. BEASLEY: A couple of questions. What 6 was the ward precinct again? 7 MR. MEIER: I don't remember the ward. 8 MS. BEASLEY: What was the location? 9 MR. MEIER: It was Livingston Avenue 10 Elementary School and I think the address is on 11 Carpenter Street. 12 MS. BEASLEY: And you say that the precinct 13 official arrived a half hour late? 14 MR. MEIER: That's correct. 15 MS. BEASLEY: Did they open a half hour late? 16 What time did they get there? 17 MR. MEIER: People didn't start voting until 18 7:20. 19 MS. BEASLEY: Were they there at 6:30 and 20 setting up? What was the scene around that time? 21 MR. MEIER: Yes. There were people there at 22 6:30 setting up, but the man with the books came at 23 7:00 and they wouldn't allow anyone to vote until 24 7:00. And they had three machines and one of them 25 broke down at 10:00, leaving two machines in a pretty 53 1 populated -- 2 MS. BEASLEY: Did they replace the machine 3 that was broken? 4 MR. MEIER: No, they did not. 5 MS. BEASLEY: And then the two voters who 6 left, did they ask for curbside voting, do you know? 7 MR. MEIER: They didn't ask. They weren't 8 given assistance, and I didn't know enough to ask for 9 them. But no, they explained the situation to 10 precinct officials. Oh, and they weren't given 11 assistance. 12 And another thing was, the precinct officials 13 stopped signing people in. Their line to vote was so 14 long that they said they were going to stop signing 15 people in until the line shortened up, so people left 16 without even being allowed to sign in to vote. And I 17 was a witness to that. 18 MS. BEASLEY: And you say that the precinct 19 official quit mid-day. How many people were left to 20 run -- 21 MR. MEIER: To run -- 22 MS. BEASLEY: -- the election? 23 MR. MEIER: As far as I know, I remember 24 there being at least three other people, maybe four, 25 no more than four. And I couldn't tell, when I went 54 1 in to vote, who was the challenger and who wasn't. 2 MS. BEASLEY: And were you there as a 3 volunteer or were you there just voting? 4 MR. MEIER: I was there as a voter in the 5 morning and as a volunteer later on just to make sure 6 that -- 7 MS. BEASLEY: Did you report these to anyone 8 during the course of the day? 9 MR. MEIER: I called the 866-VOTE number and 10 I did report it. 11 MS. BEASLEY: All right. Okay. Thank you. 12 MS. TRUITT: I have one more question. 13 MR. FITRAKIS: There's one more question. 14 MS. TRUITT: Did you report to EIRS, the 15 1-866-OUR-VOTE number, that they were not signing 16 people into the pole book? 17 MR. MEIER: I did not. The 866-OUR-VOTE 18 number was busy. I wasn't able to report any of the 19 problems. 20 MS. TRUITT: Did you report that to anybody 21 that day? 22 MR. MEIER: No, I did not. 23 MS. TRUITT: Okay. Thanks, Jonathan. 24 MR. FITRAKIS: Thank you. 25 It looks like Arthur Libert, Arthur. 55 1 MR. LIBERT: Hi. Hi name is Arthur Libert. 2 I live on the north side of Columbus. I voted in Ward 3 54, I believe. 4 MR. GOLDMAN: Were you sworn in? 5 MR. LIBERT: Pardon me? 6 MR. GOLDMAN: Were you sworn in? 7 MR. LIBERT: Yes, sir. 8 MR. GOLDMAN: Thank you. 9 MR. LIBERT: I voted at Marburn Academy on 10 Walden Road. 11 Let me just frame this first. The first week 12 of August, my neighbor and I, his name is Randy 13 Walker, we visited the Franklin County Board of 14 Elections. And after being betted by a couple of 15 mid-level staffers, we ended up talking to Matt 16 Damister, and we questioned him on the voting machine 17 and he gave us answers. He told us they were 18 calibrated, they were tested, they were sealed, they 19 were stored, and they would be ready to go on election 20 day. 21 And at the end, I asked him about are you 22 going to be able to handle the flow of voters that 23 we're going to have? Because everybody knows that 24 this is going to be a mass turnout. And he assured me 25 in no uncertain terms that they would be able to 56 1 handle it. Well, obviously they didn't. 2 I went to my voting precinct at 6:00 in the 3 morning. I was first in line, one of the first in 4 line. We had six voting machines. Two of them 5 already were not working and the people who worked at 6 the polling place honestly didn't know what they were 7 doing. They kind of did a go over and push a few 8 buttons and hit it on the side a few times, and after 9 about 20 minutes or a half hour, some voting going on, 10 the lights finally came on, which that didn't give me 11 any confidence in using those two machines. And they 12 proceeded to let people vote on them. Well, when it 13 came my turn, I refused to go to either one of those 14 machines and I waited until one that worked became 15 available. I mentioned this to the pole workers. 16 They didn't seem -- they didn't know what to do. They 17 said they would call the Election Board. Well, they 18 never showed up. So these two machines operated all 19 day with a question mark on whether they were viable 20 or not. 21 I canvassed to moveon.org and I spent the 22 whole day outside of the precinct talking to people. 23 Many people came out and they had gotten into the 24 wrong line. We had a C and a D. There was nothing up 25 in the precinct and nobody to tell them where to go. 57 1 Some of them had waited two hours out in the rain to 2 find out they were in the wrong line, and instead of 3 the pole workers walking them across the room to the 4 right side, they had to go to the back of the line and 5 wait again. 6 Some people I talked to were told they 7 weren't in that precinct, they were sent to another 8 one, only to find out that they were sent back to 9 where they started at. Well, we're talking five, six 10 hours of waiting in line on misinformation. 11 Just to put this in perspective, my daughter 12 voted in southern Franklin County -- or southern 13 Delaware County. They had 14 voting machines. They 14 were in and out in about ten minutes. We had six; two 15 of them weren't working. And I know the reports of 16 others being three, four, as we heard tonight. 17 My son-in-law was challenged and he found out 18 when he did go to the polling place and he looked at 19 the book that his name was marked in yellow, and 20 nobody could tell him why that was. But he was one of 21 the people that were challenged in Delaware County. 22 You had mentioned earlier that Ohio law says 23 there's no requirement for a specific amount of voting 24 machines. That may be true, but the spirit of the 25 vote is about people being allowed to vote. And what 58 1 I saw was a passive suppression, not enough voting 2 machines, and I kind of put it this way: It's kind of 3 like a funnel effect. You have all these people that 4 want to vote that are going in the top of the funnel 5 and you have just a few machines at the bottom and 6 you've got a 12-hour period for people to vote. 7 They're not all going to get to vote. That's what 8 happened. 9 MS. TRUITT: I had a question. Your son, is 10 he a registered Democrat? What's his party register? 11 MR. LIBERT: Am I a registered Democrat? 12 MS. TRUITT: No. Your son who was 13 challenged. 14 MR. LIBERT: I believe he's independent. 15 MS. TRUITT: Is he a new registered voter? 16 MR. LIBERT: No. He had voted in the 17 primaries. He had been at this location where he 18 lived for over a year. He had a voter registration 19 card and he was still challenged. 20 MS. TRUITT: Thank you. 21 MR. FITRAKIS: Thank you for your testimony. 22 MR. LIBERT: Thank you. 23 MR. FITRAKIS: Steve Brack. Steve Brack. 24 MR. BRACK: Good evening. I'm Steve Brack. 25 I have been sworn in this matter. 59 1 On November 2nd, I voted in the city of 2 Riverside, Ohio, Montgomery County, Riverside precinct 3 S. While I personally was allowed to vote 4 unchallenged, the personal immediately behind me in 5 the pole line was stopped from voting because the 6 Board of Elections records indicated he had received 7 an absentee ballot. He had he had not; however, the 8 election officials did not give him a provisional 9 ballot or allow him to vote in any other way. 10 Also during that day, I volunteered with the 11 Montgomery Democratic Party handing out literature at 12 various polling places. At the city of Dayton, 13 precinct 3B, a voter was told that she had to discard 14 her voting guide before entering the polling place; 15 although, in every election I voted in, which would be 16 elections since 1990, I've never seen that done 17 before. 18 Also in precinct L, they had a partisan 19 challenger in the precinct who was approaching, 20 speaking to voters directly, which according to the 21 Secretary of State guidelines I believe to be 22 unlawful. 23 Also, at Harrison Township, precinct L, a 24 representative of the church in which the precinct was 25 housed came out in the parking lot and tried to evict 60 1 me from handing out materials, even though I was 2 maintaining hundred-foot separation from the polling 3 place. It took a call to Ohio Democratic Party, one 4 of their lawyers calling the church, to get her to 5 back down. 6 The last item I personally observed was in 7 Dayton, the city of Dayton, precinct 3M, as in Mary, 8 four precincts vote in the same location. The 3M line 9 averaged two to three hours long between 12:00, noon, 10 when I arrived and 8:00 p.m. when I stopped working 11 there and went downtown. The other three precincts in 12 that same polling place, I never saw an appreciable 13 line at any of them. 14 MR. GOLDMAN: Regarding the first polling 15 place you voted in, you said that there was someone 16 directly behind you who was told that he or she had -- 17 or was sent an absentee ballot and was not able to 18 vote. What time was that? 19 MR. BRACK: That was approximately 7:00 a.m. 20 MR. GOLDMAN: 7:00 a.m. And was that 21 somebody that you know or was that just -- 22 MR. BRACK: That was just a random member of 23 the precinct. 24 MR. GOLDMAN: Okay. Thank you. 25 MR. FITRAKIS: Thank you for your testimony. 61 1 Jennifer Delaney? Jennifer Delaney. 2 After this witness, we'll -- was that not 3 Steve who just testified? Okay. 4 Jennifer Delaney. 5 After that, we're going to take a very brief 6 break and switch the panel members and then we'll 7 proceed forward as quickly as possible. Proceed. 8 MR. GOLDMAN: Have you been sworn in? 9 MS. DELANEY: Yes. 10 I'm here -- I'm a graduate teaching associate 11 at Ohio State University. My particular polling 12 location was the Prairie Township Firehouse in 13 Galloway. I only -- it's a white, middle class 14 neighborhood. I had a 30-minute wait. It was fairly 15 easy. 16 But when I asked my students about their wait 17 and they primarily voted in and around Ohio State, I 18 asked if they'd had long waits or any problems and a 19 bunch of hands shot up. So I took down -- I took down 20 names, polling places and contact information for 13 21 people that had problems, and I have a copy for you 22 with all their information. 23 MR. FITRAKIS: Thank you. 24 Jeanne Smith. 25 Oh, yeah, I did say we'd take a very brief 62 1 break here. We're starting promptly in five minutes, 2 five minutes. Also, you can give private testimony in 3 the back, if you'd like. 4 (Recess taken.) 5 MR. FITRAKIS: The panelists, if we can have 6 you sit down until the -- your partner's taking 7 testimony. 8 Okay. Testimony regarding the election day, 9 the election process. I asked just quickly for new 10 panelists, because we have many people waiting to 11 testify, to simply state where you're from and, of 12 course, your organization. And use the lavalieres 13 there. 14 MR. GOBBLE: Steve Gobble, the Institute for 15 Policy Studies in Washington, D.C. 16 MS. HUFF: Leslie Huff, the legal -- I was 17 legal trainer for the State of Ohio for the PFAW 18 program for -- people For the American Way Foundation. 19 MR. LYBARGER: As I said before, I'm Lee 20 Lybarger here with the Common Cause of Ohio. I'm on 21 the board. And we are concerned with the same 22 procedure that others of you are concerned with. 23 MR. MOSS: I'm Bill Moss. I'm an 18-year 24 member of the Columbus Board of Education, the last 25 term ending 31 December '03, a long time broadcaster 63 1 here at WVKO radio. I'm currently executive vice 2 president of hbcuconnect.com, which is a web-based 3 brokerage that connects students, recruits and alumni 4 of the historically black colleges and universities. 5 MS. SERPE: My name is Lynn Serpe and I'm 6 here as a representative from the Cobb/LaMarche Green 7 presidential campaign. We're part of the recount 8 effort and we're just here to listen to your stories. 9 Thank you. 10 MR. FITRAKIS: Jennifer Delaney. Jennifer 11 Delaney. 12 Again, you will be asked whether or not you 13 have been sworn in. 14 Jennifer Delaney. 15 Jeanne Smith. Mrs. Smith? 16 MS. SMITH-WHITE: Good evening. My name is 17 Jeanne Smith-White. Sometimes I forget that I'm 18 remarried. I signed the paper wrong. But I'm from 19 Youngstown, Ohio. 20 MS. HUFF: Excuse me, have you been sworn in? 21 Have you been sworn in? 22 MS. SMITH-WHITE: Oh, I have been sworn in. 23 MS. HUFF: Thank you. 24 MS. SMITH-WHITE: I went to my polling place 25 approximately about 9:45 to vote. I waited, I would 64 1 say, 30 minutes in a line. 2 When I did get to my machine, I pushed John 3 Kerry and my vote immediately jumped up to George 4 Bush. After I started screaming about them cheating 5 again, the aide hurried up and came over and said, oh, 6 that's been happening a lot. Just go ahead and push 7 John Kerry again. And I'm saying, you say that's been 8 happening a lot and it hasn't been corrected? Yes, 9 but we can't do anything about it. 10 So I did push John Kerry again and the vote 11 did stay on John Kerry. Even though I completed my 12 voting, and after I went over my ballot and I pushed 13 the vote button, I'm still not sure that I voted for 14 John Kerry because, I mean, did my first vote that 15 went to George Bush count or did John Kerry count? 16 And speaking with people -- I was also 17 working with America Coming Together. And in speaking 18 with other people, this had been happening all over 19 the precincts. And I did get some names of people 20 that it happened to. One -- my sister-in-law, in 21 particular, was voting over on the east side. I vote 22 on the north side. She was voting on the east side. 23 Her machine jammed, and when it jammed, a Republican 24 worker came over to unlock it, so what was that all 25 about, you know? 65 1 And then another -- my neighbor, they would 2 not permit him to vote because they said he was a 3 convicted felon. So they wouldn't let him register to 4 vote. So there is a lot of inaccuracies in this 5 voting in this year of 2004 and I certainly wish that 6 we could get them straightened out. 7 MR. FITRAKIS: For the record, it is law, is 8 it not, panelists, in Ohio that you're only prohibited 9 from voting if you're inside prison; if you're outside 10 you're allowed to vote? 11 MS. HUFF: That's exactly true. 12 MS. SMITH-WHITE: He's out walking around. 13 MS. HUFF: That's exactly true. Ex-felonies 14 who reregister to vote after leaving incarceration are 15 allowed to vote, and moreover, people who are 16 incarcerated for misdemeanors may vote while in jail 17 as long as they have registered and asked for and 18 received an absentee ballot. 19 Could you tell me which polling place, what 20 precinct? 21 MS. SMITH-WHITE: I vote at St. Anthony's 22 School in precinct 3B. 23 MS. HUFF: St. Anthony's Church 23D, as in 24 dog? 25 MS. SMITH-WHITE: 3B, as in boy. And my 66 1 neighbor, when he did go, they gave him such a hassle, 2 he said forget it and didn't vote. 3 MR. FITRAKIS: That was the felon? 4 MS. SMITH-WHITE: The felon, ex-felon. 5 MR. FITRAKIS: Thank you for your testimony. 6 Steven Heyman. 7 MR. HEYMAN: I've been sworn in. 8 I voted in Pickerington and we had lots of 9 the pin-type machines, but I also volunteered on Moler 10 Road at precinct 51A. I was there from 7:00 in the 11 morning until about 7:30 in the evening. There were 12 people from NAACP helping. There were people from 13 some of the other organizations that are here. So 14 there were quite a few of us, and we had an attorney 15 inside from the Democratic party and a couple of other 16 attorneys outside. So we were able to try to help the 17 voters. 18 I noticed that one of the big problems was on 19 Moler Road there are two different buildings that you 20 can vote in: 1201 and 1560 South Moler Middle school. 21 People were sometimes confused as to which precinct 22 they were supposed to vote in. I had a listing of all 23 the voters for 51A, and if I could catch them before 24 they went in and stood in line for two or three 25 hours -- and they were really upset if they were in 67 1 the wrong precinct and had to go to the other one. 2 We probably lost at least 75 voters during 3 the 12-1/2 hours I was there. I talked to many of 4 them. Really not a good situation. I would have to 5 say that it's Ohio's new poll tax, keeping people who 6 can't afford to stand at the poles to vote away from 7 the poles, and that's wrong. 8 MS. HUFF: You said that you volunteered at 9 several different precincts? 10 MR. HEYMAN: No. 11 MS. HUFF: Just one -- 12 MR. HEYMAN: 7A for the 12-1/2 hours. 13 MR. LYBARGER: Could you describe a little 14 bit about what kind of harassment or intimidation 15 people received. 16 MR. HEYMAN: Well, I wasn't in the -- I was 17 outside. I can only tell you that the problems that 18 people had were that they felt that they couldn't 19 stand there and wait two hours or two and a half or 20 three hours to vote. And so a number of them came to 21 the poles several times and waited for an hour in the 22 morning, maybe an hour at lunchtime, and they just 23 felt they just couldn't stay. 24 There were plenty of youngsters -- when I say 25 youngsters, they're all voting age, who I tried to 68 1 catch on the way in and check to see if they were sure 2 they were at the right precinct, and if they'd let me, 3 I checked the list. And there were probably 15 or 4 more that were in the wrong place. And if I didn't 5 know where they were supposed to go, I'd call the 6 Democratic hot line and they would provide me with the 7 information that I needed. 8 MS. HUFF: So you're saying that there were 9 several different precincts -- 10 MR. HEYMAN: Yeah, but they're -- 11 MS. HUFF: -- in that general space? 12 MR. HEYMAN: Yeah, within like four or five 13 blocks. 14 MS. HUFF: Within four or five blocks? 15 MR. HEYMAN: Yeah. One was at 1201 Moler and 16 the other was at 1560 Moler. 17 MS. HUFF: How many precincts were in each 18 building? 19 MR. HEYMAN: I wasn't inside the other 20 buildings. I don't know. But I can tell you this: 21 We bought pizzas for people, we bought lots and lots 22 of water, snacks. And at 7:30, there were at least a 23 hundred fifty people sitting in the auditorium still 24 waiting to vote. On the four machines they had, we 25 figured that they could handle about 41 people an 69 1 hour. 2 MR. LYBARGER: Did you notice whether there 3 were any disabled people or those over 65 of age, were 4 they given the right to an accessible voting place or 5 were they given the right to -- 6 MR. HEYMAN: Yes. The two attorneys that 7 were outside with me would not only help people 8 inside, they would take them right into the pole and 9 talk to the precinct judge and make sure they were 10 taken care of. 11 The able-body people had to walk down some 12 stairs. I think there was a stage that people who 13 were in wheelchairs or were on walkers were able to 14 stop and sit there and vote. 15 MR. LYBARGER: These attorneys were who? Who 16 were these attorneys? 17 MR. HEYMAN: Well, one of them was from in 18 town and another one, I think, was from Rhode Island. 19 The Democratic party had a fairly large number of 20 attorneys in town. 21 MR. LYBARGER: Is it safe to assume that you 22 have voted in numerous presidential elections during 23 your adult life? 24 MR. HEYMAN: Yes, it is. 25 MR. MOSS: Have you ever witnessed -- 70 1 MR. HEYMAN: Let me explain what I thought 2 when I walked into Pickerington. I was the 12th 3 person to vote. I had gotten there at 6:10. I left 4 there at ten minutes to 7:00 and headed to the 5 precinct I was working at. I have never, ever seen so 6 many people in my whole life. 7 But I can't tell you the exact count of the 8 pin-type machines we have, but I'll bet there were 9 eight on one wall and eight on the other for two 10 precincts. And I don't know the number of the voters 11 there, but at 51A, the voters number about 1,350. 12 MR. MOSS: What you're describing sounds as 13 though the situation approached chaotic. Have you 14 ever witnessed conditions such as what you saw on 15 election day at that voting location during the years 16 that you voted in presidential elections? 17 MR. HEYMAN: Absolutely not. If I added up 18 every voter I saw out in Pickerington when I went into 19 the poles -- and I generally will go to the in-between 20 elections, too -- they wouldn't equal the number of 21 people I saw at 6:00 in the morning. 22 MR. FITRAKIS: Thank you for your testimony. 23 I'd also like to note we invite the various 24 public officials here, people in Franklin County, and 25 back there observing, one of them is in the room. 71 1 Mary Jo Kilroy, if you could raise your hand. 2 Richard Smith. Richard Smith. 3 Also, the Election Protection attorney in the 4 hall could use some assistance, if you have a laptop, 5 if you'd really like to help him, there are people out 6 there giving notarized affidavits and swearing 7 testimony and he could use a little help. Ed Foreman 8 and Michael Lever have produced many of those 9 affidavits. 10 Thom Pintello. 11 MR. PINTELLO: Hello. My name is Thom 12 Pintello. I'm a new arrival in Columbus. I just 13 moved from southern California three months ago. 14 MS. HUFF: Have you been sworn in today? 15 MR. PINTELLO: Yes, I was. 16 MS. HUFF: Thank you. 17 MR. PINTELLO: I need to tell you what 18 happened on my first experience voting in Ohio. On 19 November 2nd, I got to my polling station early, so I 20 got -- I wanted to get there early, so I got in the 21 car and I headed over to nearby Livingston School and 22 I signed in and waited about 45 minutes in a line that 23 looked to have about 60 people waiting to vote. 24 Once in the library, we noticed that there 25 were only three voting machines. 72 1 Once it was my turn, I got inside and looked 2 over the voting machine, and this is one of the 3 electronic voting machines. It consisted of an array 4 of blinking lights urging you to vote for something, 5 and once you did vote for something, the blinking 6 light would go out and a steady red light would appear 7 next to your selection. 8 On the upper left-hand part was the selection 9 for president. I wanted to do this. I wanted to get 10 this out of the way, that's what I came here, to vote, 11 that was my number one priority. So I pushed the 12 button for John Kerry for president of the United 13 States. And the light -- the flashing light went out 14 and the light next to John Kerry's name came on. I 15 then mulled over the rest of the propositions and 16 local races that were taking place, some of which I 17 knew about, some of which I didn't. It took the 18 better part of five minutes or so to get through them 19 all. Some of the political players locally I don't 20 know about, so I just left them blank because I think 21 you should be making an informed decision and not just 22 pressing buttons. 23 Once I was finished, I got down to the lower 24 right-hand corner and the big green vote button was 25 beckoning. I almost pushed it and I said, no, wait a 73 1 minute, I want to -- I want to proofread what I just 2 did. I want to look over my selections. I looked up 3 into the upper left-hand corner and the area for 4 president of the United States was now flashing again. 5 My vote for John Kerry had been neutralized. It had 6 been reset. 7 Now, you can call this a glitch, you can call 8 this a design flaw, you can call it a bologna sandwich 9 if you want, but whatever you call it, that machine 10 nearly threw out and neutralized my vote for John 11 Kerry. 12 The thing I want to know is what are we going 13 to do about it? Because if we don't do something 14 about this, I fear that the foundation of our very 15 democracy, voting, is in peril. 16 As an aside, I was going to do a little 17 experiment and push the George Bush button, but I 18 feared I would be damned to hell for all eternity. 19 And the funny thing is, you're probably 20 thinking to yourself, why didn't -- did you tell 21 someone about it? But it didn't -- honestly, it 22 didn't occur to me until the next day. I was reading 23 through some newspapers. They were talking about 24 malfunctioning, quote, malfunctioning voting machines 25 made by Diebold, no doubt. And it dawned on me that 74 1 this malfunctioned somehow and it didn't occur to me 2 until the following day when I was just sitting there 3 realizing what had happened. 4 I'm not going to go in the direction of, oh, 5 this is some kind of grand conspiracy or something. I 6 just feel that this is -- I think that we are rushing 7 head long into these technological fix its with new 8 toys when the old tried and true methods, like the 9 punch cards -- the kind we used in California were 10 punched with an overgrown stapler of some sort -- they 11 were accurate. They got rid of the chads and they 12 were quite good. 13 Thank you. 14 MR. LYBARGER: Did you notice whether Nader 15 was on the ballot or was there a sign posted in the 16 booth saying that you could not vote for Ralph Nader, 17 that he was no longer -- 18 MR. PINTELLO: I believe there was a sticker 19 up there in that quadrant which said that -- oh, I'm 20 trying to remember the exact wording and it escapes 21 me, but he wasn't there. 22 MS. HUFF: Did you, in fact, recast your vote 23 for president in the presidential category? 24 MR. PINTELLO: Yes, I did. And this time, I 25 pushed the button next to John Kerry, got the steady 75 1 red light, snuck this hand over to the big green vote 2 button, pushed it, and I got the hell out of there. 3 But outside of that, things went fairly well. 4 MR. FITRAKIS: Let the record show there was 5 a reenactment. 6 MR. LYBARGER: You must be from Hollywood. 7 MS. HUFF: Assuming that you voted for 8 other -- in other categories, as well, did you notice 9 that any of those had a similar glitch? 10 MR. PINTELLO: I'm glad you asked me that. 11 No. It was just the presidential box that switched 12 back to neutral. I mean, it occurred to me after I 13 had thought about it for a while that of all the 14 people going through there that did not have the 15 foresight to proofread what they had done, what if 16 they were in a hurry? What if they might have been 17 elderly or just not paying attention? How many 18 people? It doesn't take much to do the math when 19 you're 51/49 in a close election that could go either 20 way and you're in this district that is voting 21 overwhelmingly for John Kerry, I'm thinking to myself 22 that something is amiss. 23 MS. HUFF: Thank you. 24 MR. PINTELLO: You're welcome. 25 MR. FITRAKIS: Thank you for your testimony. 76 1 Jimmy Sharp. Jimmy Sharp. 2 MR. SHARP: Hello. I have been sworn in 3 already. 4 I get nervous in front of big crowds, so give 5 me a second here. 6 I don't really know where to begin. I voted 7 at precinct 84B on Briggs Road, and like Art and John, 8 I noticed the several lines phenomena. I actually 9 waited in 84A. I arrived at 11:30. 10 I'm just going to put this up. (Indicating.) 11 Can I do that or something? No, I can't. 12 I arrived at 84A at 11:30 and after -- there 13 we go. Now I'm more comfortable. I arrived at 84A at 14 11:30, and after being there for about an hour, I 15 realized I had to go in and sign to receive my 16 authority to vote slip, which I shouldn't have to even 17 realize because we were waiting outside the library. 18 And from what I gathered, authority to vote 19 slips are only supposed to be distributed to four or 20 six people. Well, one of the pollsters had sort of 21 the idea to alleviate the stress of the long lines and 22 tell everybody in the lines to go up and make sure 23 they registered to receive their authority to vote 24 slips. So in a flash, I went up there, signed it and 25 ended up in 84B. This is after being there for about 77 1 an hour, I guess. 2 So at 12:30, I got in 84B. And then, just 3 talking with people and singing and reciting poetry in 4 line to pass the time, I realized that we all had 5 these slips and that a person in front of me had left 6 and realized that he'd already signed and received the 7 authority to vote slip. 8 And so it occurred to me to ask everybody 9 else, okay, you signed in, you got your slips -- 10 because I was trying to help them make sure we all got 11 our votes counted. And I realized what I was really 12 doing was playing into their hands. And not that they 13 knew what they were doing at the time, but 14 distributing these authority to vote slips or getting 15 people to sign up, I guess -- I don't want to -- I 16 don't want to go outside of my allotted time here, but 17 people were leaving and they had already registered 18 or, you know, signed up to vote, received these slips 19 and, therefore, what we run into is, you know, missing 20 votes. 21 So I went up and pointed out to the, I guess, 22 PJ or -- what, precinct judge -- yeah, that's what he 23 was. And I didn't get his name, but at the urging of 24 everybody around me I went and talked to him and he 25 kind of threw a fit and said I was being unreasonable. 78 1 And I said, well, look, all we have to do is cut off 2 four to six and only give these to four to six people. 3 And Zeke Kemphill, the other precinct judge, 84A, came 4 over and said, look, you're going to be accountable 5 for this. And he shrugged Zeke off. Zeke said, look, 6 I called the Franklin County Board of Elections, it's 7 going to be taken care of. This is at 12:30, 1:00 at 8 this point on November 2nd. So prior to 1:00 p.m., no 9 one had intervened. So from 6:30 to 1:00 p.m., this 10 occurred all day. 11 And there were also eight machines at this 12 location. One had broken down, so there were seven 13 machines. One more quick thing, there were seven 14 machines -- there were 17 machines, from what I 15 gathered, a friend of my mother's told her in an upper 16 middle class also in Franklin County, but when my 17 mother returned hours later to vote -- not returned, 18 but went to it, that machine had not been fixed in our 19 district and there were still seven machines at 5:00 20 that day, so I just wanted to make that clear. 21 MR. FITRAKIS: Thank you for your 22 testimony. 23 MS. HUFF: Please, I have a couple of 24 questions. Number one, could you explain the 25 distribution of the authority to vote slips? 79 1 MR. SHARP: Yeah. I was hoping you'd ask, 2 because I don't want to run out of time here. The 3 distribution of the authority to vote slips, we would 4 wait in the hallways which eventually curved around 5 the lockers, the 84B. 84A would wait in the hallway 6 all the way out the door almost. 7 And from what I gathered, about the only 8 being distributed to four to six people, I said, well, 9 why don't we limit this to the people coming in the 10 library? Well, he said, what you want me to do, I 11 mean, chain people to the doors? We can't keep them 12 from leaving. I said, I want you to go by the rules. 13 At this point, this is the best election 14 money can buy and at which point he threw a fit 15 because what we could do is literally sell out slips. 16 He admitted this to me. We have no way of knowing, 17 you know, identifying who people are when they go into 18 the booth. 19 MS. HUFF: So the way it operates, then, if I 20 can get a clear picture, is that you walk into one 21 space, you get it and sign. 22 MR. SHARP: Yeah. 23 MS. HUFF: They match your signature, you get 24 a slip -- 25 MR. SHARP: Yes. 80 1 MS. HUFF: -- that says you can vote. But 2 after that -- 3 MR. SHARP: You can leave the building. You 4 had to go in this line of 60 to 70 people in each 5 line, if not more than that. And like I said, one 6 person had left in front of me and said he was going 7 to return. I have no way of knowing if he returned, 8 but he already received his voter authority slips. He 9 said, I know what I'll do. Later, I'll have my wife 10 go in line and try to solve this problem. 11 I know when I came back another person had 12 left because he was diabetic. I mean, as chaotic as 13 it was, it was discomforting in some cases with this 14 man having to leave because of being diabetic. So I 15 mean, these are -- from what I gather, these are 16 crimes, perpetrated. 17 MS. HUFF: Is it customary for you -- have 18 you voted before? 19 MR. SHARP: No. Also, I'm visually impaired 20 and I pointed this out to the judge, my precinct 21 judge, and he was kind to me, perfectly all right. 22 And then when I came and talked to him, that's 23 apparently when I caught him in a bad mood. And then 24 he said, you caught me in a bad mood, later after I 25 reached the front, three hours, and I shook his hand 81 1 and everything. But like I said, until 1:00, this had 2 occurred all day. I can't say how long people were 3 waiting in line from 6:30 at the Briggs Road 4 precinct. 5 MS. HUFF: Have you had to use an authority 6 to vote slip before -- 7 MR. SHARP: No. 8 MS. HUFF: -- in any other election? 9 MR. SHARP: No. I never voted before. 10 MS. HUFF: So this is a fist time for you? 11 MR. SHARP: Yeah. I'm digressing all over 12 the place. I just don't know what to say. 13 MS. HUFF: Thank you. 14 MR. FITRAKIS: Thank you for your 15 testimony. 16 MR. LYBARGER: One more question. Can you 17 tell us whether there was a Ralph Nader sign saying 18 you couldn't vote for Ralph Nader? 19 MR. SHARP: Yeah. There was no way to vote 20 for Nader. 21 MR. FITRAKIS: Thank you. 22 Jen Miller. 23 MS. MILLER: Hi there. I have been sworn in. 24 I'll make it easy for you. I'll just testify. 25 My name is Jennifer Miller and I actually had 82 1 a positive voting experience; however, I worked the 2 precincts for 29B and 28A and so I have a lot to say. 3 I'm talking really fast. I really will -- 4 MR. FITRAKIS: We don't want you to -- 5 MS. MILLER: I worked as an Election 6 Protection volunteer and I have statements in regards 7 to that. 8 This was not a site that was selected by 9 Election Protection, but I used to vote at this site 10 and I just knew -- and I know this community, and it's 11 a community of low income Appalachian people, and I 12 know that they're very easily intimidated. So my 13 friend and I decided that we were going to just check 14 it out and we were going to hang some signs, if there 15 were any problems, people could at least call the 866 16 number. 17 And when we got there, it was chaos and we 18 were actually asked to stay. We didn't have supplies 19 or anything, we just had signs. So I stayed to 20 advocate and she went to get supplies. And really it 21 was just chaos. 22 I went ahead and walked in because the lines 23 at that point were four hours long. Again, this used 24 to be my polling location, after the last presidential 25 location. It was my polling location. And at that 83 1 time, there were two precincts and there were four 2 booths per precinct. This year the first thing I 3 noted that there were three and not one of the -- one 4 of the precincts had a booth down, so they were 5 operating on two, just 50 percent the amount that they 6 had the election before. 7 The next thing I noted that there were more 8 people in line, probably, at that point than had 9 probably had ever voted in that precinct. I had voted 10 there for several times. It was just absolute chaos. 11 People were wandering this way and that. The first 12 thing someone said to me is, I don't think they want 13 me here. This is confusing. I voted here for years 14 and I'm leaving. And I asked him to stay, but he 15 wouldn't. 16 As I stayed, I noticed there were several 17 systematic problems and then I also noted there were 18 several other types of problems, several other issues 19 that you also needed to hear. The systematic, number 20 one, is in regards to ADA. And I'll just tell you the 21 systematic ones are. Two, I said was the polling 22 booths, the number of those. Three is the lack of 23 workers, they needed more workers. And four -- I'm 24 sorry. What was the fourth one? Oh, the split in 25 precinct lines. 84 1 The voting house is handicap accessible; 2 however, that entrance was off the back of the 3 building and there was not signage or a pole worker to 4 communicate that. In fact, the entrance is so out of 5 the way that I was working there for several hours -- 6 and I used to live a block from this location. I was 7 working there for several hours before I even found 8 out that there was a handicap-accessible entrance. 9 And I did not find out from a poling worker. I 10 finally found out from the director of the South Side 11 Settlement House. 12 I'm sorry. I have so much more. 13 So I would say at least a third of the people 14 that were in line were elderly or had mobility 15 challenges. A lot of those people would be standing 16 in line for one to three hours to then come across 17 some steep steps that would be even challenges for the 18 average able-bodied person. One side of the steps 19 could -- one side of the steps didn't even have a rail 20 to hang onto and there was no one to assist people 21 down, okay. 22 I had lawyers -- finally, I got lawyers about 23 10:00 from AFL-CIO and others that actually called and 24 said that there was a blatant, noncompliant ADA issue 25 and requested that they get more pole workers in 85 1 there. And when I left at 5:30, there was still none. 2 And one other thing is that if someone did 3 find the location, when they got to the entrance, 4 there was absolutely no system in admitting those 5 people with disabilities, so that just added to the 6 confusion down there. 7 I just want to give you a couple stories in 8 regards to that. There's an older woman who had bad 9 legs who waited in line for four hours, which was hard 10 enough, and she asked the polling official for a 11 little extra time saying that she had a sight problem, 12 that she had a vision issue and it would take a minute 13 for her eyes to adjust. They said she could have as 14 much time as she needed, but that person didn't 15 communicate it to the pole person and she was 16 relegated to the five-minute limit. She complained to 17 me that she did not vote for over half of the issues. 18 Another important issue is the separation of 19 precincts. Again, there was absolutely no 20 communication with the voters until they were in line 21 for one to three hours. Because of the two precincts, 22 they were standing in the same line and at some point 23 they would split. They continued throughout the day 24 to change where the split happened, so I couldn't help 25 advocate where that split was happening. People would 86 1 get down to the bottom. They would sign in to find 2 out or try to sign in to find out they were in the 3 wrong line. They were sent all the way -- they were 4 told they had to go all the way to the back. They 5 were not accommodated just to cross over. When those 6 individuals complained, they were given provisional 7 ballots. They were not advocated for. They were 8 either sent to the back or they took a provisional 9 ballot and dealt with it. 10 I tried a couple times to advocate for them; 11 however, what would happen is those individuals would 12 come out of the line, come see me because I was 13 generally outside, I would walk them to the front and 14 other voters would think that I was helping them and 15 showing preference to them and they would get mad. So 16 I stopped doing that. But that was another systematic 17 problem. 18 I wanted to share a couple other things. 19 There was a young first-time voter with a double 20 stroller. She had two children with her, both under 21 the age of two, and she waited in line for four hours. 22 I'm a single mom and that's brave. When she got to 23 the steps, she struggled to get the stroller down. 24 She was helped by a citizen; she was not helped by 25 pole workers. And when she was down there, a pole 87 1 worker was standing close to the stroller and the 2 two-year-old was tugging on the pole worker and the 3 pole worker asked her not to touch her. But she did 4 not move back and the woman had no place to go. So 5 the two-year-old, being a two-year-old, tugged again. 6 And she said that she got very nasty and yelled at her 7 daughter. At this point, she said she felt really 8 rattled and upset and she went in to vote, and instead 9 of being given five minutes she was given three. And 10 she said she was shouted at, but with a menacing tone 11 saying three minutes, two minutes, you're done. She 12 came out and said that she had not voted for probably 13 half of the issues and that she wasn't even sure if 14 she made the right selection for president. So here's 15 a woman that waited four hours in line with two 16 babies, and she doesn't even know if she made the 17 right selection for president. 18 Another woman noted that her name was listed 19 twice. And she had been a pole worker, so she asked 20 that they make the proper notations because they 21 weren't going to make notations at all. And I guess 22 there was a disagreement as to what those proper 23 notations were. And one of the workers said, well, it 24 doesn't matter as long as you're voting for Bush. 25 That same worker actually, on several 88 1 occasions, harassed the Kerry workers that were well 2 outside the hundred markers which they had placed, you 3 know, the flags, well outside markers, but continued 4 to harass them all day, yelling at them to get off 5 that side of the property, that they had to be on the 6 other side of the street and other things. So there 7 was great preference. 8 And I just want to say that waiting in line 9 for four hours in the rain to vote given five minutes 10 at a confusing, intimidating machine with over 25 11 selections is not democracy, not if you can't afford 12 to be off work, not if you don't have a baby-sitter 13 and not if you're a first-time voter, not if you have 14 vision problems, literacy challenges, or if English is 15 not your first language. 16 When I was done that day, I cried for three 17 hours because I knew that the individuals of the south 18 end were not heard. So thank you for hearing me 19 today. 20 MR. LYBARGER: I have a question. I 21 understand that there's supposed to be pole workers 22 representing both parties at polling stations. 23 MS. MILLER: Yeah. 24 MR. LYBARGER: Were there no Democratic pole 25 workers there? 89 1 MS. MILLER: Actually, there was only one 2 challenger and that was a Democratic challenger, and 3 he was actually a really great guy that helped -- this 4 is my daughter -- to help with the precinct split. 5 There was not a Republican challenger as far as the 6 pole workers, I don't think. There was one that made 7 his preference very clear throughout the day. 8 MS. HUFF: Can we get the voting location 9 again, please. 10 MS. MILLER: Sure. It was the South Side 11 Settlement House and the precinct is 29B and 1A. 12 MS. HUFF: And the split that you described 13 at the bottom of the stairs where they would step 14 people off splitting them from 29B to 1A? 15 MS. MILLER: Right. Sometimes it was at the 16 top of the stairs, sometimes it was at the bottom of 17 the stairs. And it continued to change throughout the 18 day and there was no signage and no polling records to 19 assist with that. I did eventually -- I know the 20 director of the South Side Settlement House, and so I 21 enlisted her help. And when she could, she and I 22 actually disobeyed the 100-foot rule and was in there 23 all the time trying to help people understand. 24 But the reality is, when they were 25 confronted, they were confronted by me, they were 90 1 confronted by the director of the South Side 2 Settlement House, they were confronted by several 3 different lawyers. They continued to deny it, but the 4 complaints continued to happen. So -- 5 MS. HUFF: Were you able to contact either 6 the Board of Elections or the Election Protection -- 7 MS. MILLER: Well, yeah, these were -- the 8 lawyers that were -- I had, at one point, a team of 9 ten lawyers. Those lawyers were coming from the 10 Election Protection from the 866-OUR-VOTE. 11 Unfortunately, this was a site that probably 12 needed those lawyers at an earlier time. It took 13 probably about -- it was probably about a three-hour 14 wait before they got there. So we could have gotten 15 more affidavits and things. And further, it could 16 have been because it was not an official Election 17 Protection site. This was my instinct. 18 MS. HUFF: I understand. 19 MS. MILLER: Okay. Thank you. 20 MS. HUFF: And I do thank you very much for 21 your instinct. 22 MR. FITRAKIS: Thank you. 23 Janie Hubbard. Jane Hubbard. 24 - - - 25 (Whereupon the witness was duly sworn.) 91 1 - - - 2 MS. HUBBARD: Thank you. Sorry. I have eye 3 problems. I have some comments and then some 4 testimony. And my name is Jane. 5 (Whereupon the witness gave opinion 6 testimony, which was not recorded per request.) 7 MS. HUBBARD: Okay. So basically, I wanted 8 to mention two things. Prior to the election, I 9 called the Franklin County Board of Elections and 10 asked them since, you know, the registration was up, 11 would they -- I spoke to two supervisors, one in 12 person the day before, and was assured that they had 13 increased the number of voting machines to accommodate 14 the new voters, which 50 percent were Democrats, 25 15 percent were Republicans. They didn't say it was only 16 in the suburbs that they would be increased, not in 17 the city. 18 I also asked would the voters be able to 19 reach you on election day. It was so difficult to 20 reach them prior to that. And I'd called on the day 21 and they were impossible to reach. 22 I was at two polling locations, Cleveland 23 Avenue and Bryden Road, on election day, minority and 24 poor areas, one 95 percent black. 25 I had been at both locations during the 92 1 primaries and the waits averaged five to ten minutes. 2 On election day, the waits were two to three hours. 3 People were determined to vote and one eye witnessed 4 standing in the rain for hours, the other was inside, 5 and they persevered despite the attempts to get them 6 to leave by having such long lines. 7 And one woman I observed had to leave to drop 8 off her child and said she couldn't handle the child 9 and had such a great passion to vote and she 10 apparently did not. 11 And, you know, to have 15-minute waits in 12 affluent areas and two- to ten-hour waits in poor, 13 minority areas who have the most at stake and the 14 student areas is just unconscionable. 15 And I have some other comments, but I'll just 16 let it lay. Thank you. 17 MR. FITRAKIS: Thank you. 18 Questions from the panel? Okay. 19 And, again, I would just advise the 20 testifiers -- there's some very good testimony there 21 except it all came at the end. Try to get the actual 22 things you saw on election day up front. And the 23 political comments -- we can adjourn and we'll have a 24 period after that, but it's very important we get the 25 testimony. 93 1 Gary Josephson. Gary Josephson. 2 Debbie or Debe. I can't tell. There's an 3 accent mark there. Debbie. 4 Ed Foreman will be joining the panel. 5 MR. FOREMAN: Hi. 6 MR. FITRAKIS: Stacey Mitchell King. 7 MS. KING: I'll be short and sweet. 8 I'm a Columbus public school teacher and I 9 took the day off to take food out to people. My 10 sister-in-law, a friend of mine, we went to the store 11 and we bought food to try to encourage people to stay 12 in line. We went to the Eastland Lanes where the line 13 was longer than the entire length of the bowling alley 14 and it started to wrap around. We also went out to 15 Eastland Manor where there were four very long lines 16 that took up the entire room. I also voted at 17 Franklin Middle School and the lines were very long 18 there, as well, and I also went to Champion Middle 19 School. We also went to the library on Parsons to 20 deliver food. 21 In all those places, the lines were 22 enormously long, and we went there several times 23 during the day. Our night ended maybe about 9:00 that 24 we took out food all that time. And we noticed during 25 the time that there were some people that I saw 94 1 three -- at least three people who couldn't stay. One 2 was a single father who decided that his daughter had 3 just been out too long, she hadn't eaten, and there's 4 only so much that candy can do for you during the 5 daytime or even during the night. But I saw at least 6 three people, and the same thing was witnessed by both 7 my sister-in-law and my friend. And I just imagined 8 how many other people actually decided to leave 9 because they just couldn't stay. 10 That's all. 11 MR. FITRAKIS: Thank you for your 12 testimony. 13 MS. SERPE: Excuse me I'm sorry. We actually 14 didn't verify whether you were sworn in. 15 MS. KING: Yes, I was sworn in. 16 MR. FITRAKIS: All right. John Manning. 17 I would encourage the panel, since we're 18 running late, unless it's essential, let me know and 19 then ask the question, but we're scheduled to cut off 20 here at 8:30 and I have a summation session. 21 Go ahead. 22 MR. MANNING: My name is John Manning and I 23 have been sworn in. 24 On November 2nd, I voted at the German 25 Village voting place on Schuller Park. I arrived at 95 1 6:15 in the morning and I was about the 30th person in 2 line. I was able to vote about 7:00 a.m. I observed 3 that there were six voting machines for two precincts, 4 that is Ward 2, Precincts D and F -- Precincts E and 5 F. Sorry. I completed voting around 7:00. As I came 6 out of the building, I observed a line of about 150 7 people. 8 I was a volunteer for an outfit called German 9 Village for Kerry and I manned a table and supervised 10 a pole -- I'm sorry, literature distributors all day 11 who went around the area and distributed literature 12 and gave rides to people to the poles and generally to 13 try to be of service. 14 We did that all day long. And around 7:30 at 15 night, the rain had been falling maybe five hours by 16 that time, I was getting reports from the various 17 wards around the German Village area, which included 18 east of the Parsons Avenue, the Parsons Avenue library 19 and other locations, that the lines were so long that 20 people were standing in the rain. We sent workers out 21 to buy parkas at Wal-Mart and the various stores 22 around the south Columbus area. We bought them all 23 out of parkas and distributed them immediately. 24 Then we went to supermarkets and bought 25 garbage bags in rolls and cut face holes in those 96 1 garbage bags and distributed all of those. And this 2 went on around 7:30 p.m. to 9:30 p.m. And there 3 wasn't anything else we could do, so we shut down our 4 operation. I have no idea how many we distributed. 5 I did not observe any polling lines because I 6 was in a garage managing the operation and I was only 7 talking to other people who were out distributing 8 parkas and garbage bags, food and coffee, as well. 9 And that's my testimony. 10 MS. HUFF: So you didn't -- you're saying 11 that you didn't witness firsthand the long lines, but 12 you were facilitating the people who were standing in 13 long lines by -- 14 MR. MANNING: That's right, getting reports 15 all day. 16 MS. HUFF: From individuals who distributed 17 assistance to -- 18 MR. MANNING: Correct. This was about 30 19 people I managed, and we paid for these out of our own 20 pockets and we took collections. 21 MS. HUFF: Thank you for helping with the 22 election. 23 MR. FITRAKIS: Thank you for your testimony. 24 Pat Johnston, Pat Johnston. 25 Again, Ed Foreman is on the panel with the 97 1 Committee for Civil Rights. 2 MS. JOHNSTON: Hi. My name is Pat Johnston 3 and yes, I have been sworn in. 4 I voted early because I volunteered at Parson 5 Avenue branch library, as a matter of fact, on 6 November 2nd. And when I voted early, I asked if I 7 had to fill out all the lines on the envelope and I 8 quite clearly said no, all you have to do is sign your 9 name. So now I wonder if my vote even counted because 10 I understand if you didn't put your name and 11 everything else down, that it was going to be thrown 12 out. I just wanted to interject that. 13 I was a pole observer at the Parsons Avenue 14 branch library. There are 1,215 people registered to 15 vote in that precinct. We had approximately 800 16 people show up that did vote. There were four 17 machines. 18 I called downtown to the Board of Elections 19 and I spoke with a young man named -- if you want to 20 know his name, hold on, a man named Jeff Gressel and I 21 asked how many -- how they allocated their voting 22 machines. And he said you get approximately 1-1/2 23 machines for every 300 people. So I said 24 approximately 1 machine for 200 people? And he said 25 yes. So I said, if you have 400 voters, you should 98 1 have 2 machines? He said, yes. So at 800, you should 2 get 4. And he said, well, starting at 8, you actually 3 should start getting more because they should expand 4 the number of machines you get. So at 800, you should 5 get 4, possibly 5. So I said in the thousands, you 6 should go 5 or 6? He said, yes. So I said, at 1,200, 7 how many should you have? He said, well, you should 8 have 6, possibly 7, maybe 8. There were 4 in this 9 precinct. This is a highly Democratic precinct and 10 there were 4 machines. 11 We approximately got between 52 and 55 people 12 there, per hour, through. From the time I arrived 13 there, which was at 6:15, till the time I left, which 14 was at 9:00 that night, we never had a line of less 15 than an hour and a half in length. 16 I would go to the end of the line, tell 17 people to please be patient, you need to vote, you 18 know, please wait this long line out. The longest 19 line we had was about three hours. 20 I did go outside of the little room that they 21 actually voted in and went out and went to the end of 22 the line and let people know how long the wait was at 23 that point in time. No one -- I never realized that 24 people who were handicap should have been brought to 25 the front of the line, because we had several disabled 99 1 people. There were obviously a couple people there 2 with cancer. There was a woman there who was on 3 crutches who stood in the line for over two hours. No 4 one ever offered them any help, but also no one ever 5 left that little room that were pole workers to know 6 that there were people out there to help. 7 It started raining at 2:30. I asked if we 8 could -- if I could ask the librarian to bring the 9 people inside. I went to the librarian and the 10 librarian did let us bring the people inside, and we 11 snaked them around the inside of the library. So I 12 want to thank the Columbus Public library for that. 13 We shouldn't be voting out in the rain. No 14 one should have to stand in the rain to vote. Every 15 voting place should have an internal place to vote. 16 No one should have to vote and not get a receipt for 17 the vote. I don't take money out of my ATM and not 18 get a receipt for my money. 19 Also, I had two children who voted in their 20 first presidential election, I forgot to say. My 21 first child voted out of state, New Hampshire, and my 22 second child voted here in Ohio. And I told him, I 23 said, you're probably going to have to miss your 24 second class because lines are so long that you're 25 just going to have to miss your evening class. 100 1 He had one class that ended about 2:30. He 2 drove from a polling place -- and we live in Dublin, 3 Ohio. He walked right in, walked right out. At a 4 point in time when where I'm working at people are 5 waiting three hours to vote, my son, fortunately, was 6 able to walk right in and walk right out. Where is 7 the justice here? 8 MR. FITRAKIS: Thank you. 9 MR. LYBARGER: A quick question you may not 10 be able to answer, but the question for the record is 11 that is Board of Elections in Ohio is supposed to have 12 both Republicans and Democrats on the board. 13 MS. JOHNSON: Yes. 14 MR. LYBARGER: And I'm wondering, where were 15 the representatives of both parties? Surely they must 16 have heard these reports. Where were they during all 17 this chaos in the voting in Franklin County? 18 MS. JOHNSON: I don't know, really, where 19 they were, but they weren't answering phones. I can 20 tell you that. 21 The other thing that I'd like to tell you 22 that the guy at the Board of Elections told me -- let 23 me refer to my notes. I'm sorry, let me find my note. 24 One of the things that he told me -- I asked 25 the precinct judge if she could get another machine 101 1 there and she said she called and they said all the 2 machines were out. He told me that they withhold -- 3 that they put 30 and 35 machines out the day before 4 elections for faulty ones and that they were holding 5 back 30 to 35 more that day in case machines broke. 6 And she called at 8:00 that morning. I can't believe 7 that they sent 35 machines out prior to 8:00 that 8 morning. And he told me that there were 30 to 40 9 machines left in the warehouse waiting to be -- 10 replace broken machines. 11 Now, he said there were -- I said I thought 12 there were about 80 machines. He goes, well, there 13 were about 20 machines that were dated from circa '92 14 that they weren't sure that they would work. And 15 there was another 30 to 40 machines waiting to go out 16 to replace broken machines that I don't think ever 17 left the warehouse. 18 MR. FITRAKIS: Let the record reflect that we 19 had entered into evidence that there were 2,886 total 20 machines, this is from Franklin County Board of 21 Elections. Twenty were in vans for breakdown. 2,866 22 were available. Only 2,798 machines placed by close 23 of pole, meaning that, again, there were 68 machines 24 never replaced. 25 Also let it be known the Election Protection 102 1 Coalition was monitoring 58 polling places at least, 2 many of them which had fewer machines; that they did, 3 in fact, admit to holding back 68 machines. 4 MS. JOHNSON: And that's what he told me on 5 the phone. He admitted holding them back and that was 6 today. 7 MS. HUFF: I have a question about your 8 comparison of Dublin to where you were volunteering. 9 MS. JOHNSON: Yes. 10 MS. HUFF: How would you characterize that 11 difference? Why was there such a difference? 12 MS. JOHNSON: Well, unfortunately, I live in 13 a highly Republican neighborhood, so my guess is that 14 they got a lot of machines for that. 15 MS. HUFF: Thank you. 16 MS. JOHNSON: I wish I could answer it. I 17 don't know. I mean, I can tell you from 9:00 in the 18 morning until 3:00 in the afternoon, we had three-hour 19 wait lines at the library. And at 2:30, my son walked 20 right into the polling place, not one person in front 21 of him, and walked out. 22 MS. HUFF: Thank you. 23 MR. FITRAKIS: All right. I'm going to ask 24 the speakers, to get the last ones in, is that if you 25 can, give testimony in the hall, but I'm going to have 103 1 to limit you to one minute. Really hit the highlights 2 unless it's essential. We need to speed up because we 3 also need to adjourn and have a discussion on where we 4 go from here. So quickly, as I call your name. 5 Kathy Varian. Kathy Varian. 6 MS. VARIAN: Coming, running. 7 MR. FITRAKIS: And if you can, in fact, feel 8 comfortable giving your testimony in the hall, do so. 9 MS. VARIAN: Hi. First of all, thank you, I 10 feel so much better now you're here. 11 MS. HUFF: Were you sworn? 12 MS. VARIAN: Oh, yes, I was. 13 I was a pole worker at 39B at Cedarwood 14 School. Quickly, the poles did not open at 7:00. 15 They didn't open until 7:20. We did not sign our 16 tapes like we were supposed to at the beginnin g.We 17 signed everything at the end and it was very chaotic. 18 The presiding judge was very inexperienced 19 and lacked training. He was very judgmental against a 20 lot of people that came into our pole, one especially 21 that I want to speak out for today. 22 There was a black woman born in 1927, 23 elderly, and she stood in line for two hours in order 24 to cast her vote. When she got to the front, he 25 challenged her. It was some challenge vote that he 104 1 wasn't even supposed to be using, but he challenged 2 her, anyway. 3 So I called the Board of Elections and spoke 4 with them and they said that that wasn't the case; the 5 reason that he challenged her was because she went 6 into an elderly home about two blocks from where she 7 was living in our precinct. And I told them -- you 8 know, I told them what he was doing and they wound up 9 giving her a provisional vote. She did have someone 10 from the Kerry campaign helping her. 11 And just other things, during the day he 12 turned away several people that were in our precinct 13 from work who said they had signed up but they weren't 14 on our books. 15 Lastly -- I mean, this went on all day. It 16 was horrible. And then towards the end of the day, 17 he -- I bent over and said, oh, if you do that again, 18 they're going to kick us out of here, saying comments 19 like that all day long trying to get me to leave. 20 I fought hard and long. I called 21 1-866-OUR-VOTE. I called the Board of Elections of 22 the Republican party and told them what happened. 23 They said if I wanted to be the presiding judge next 24 time that I could, but there was nothing that they 25 could do. 105 1 I wanted to assist him going downtown because 2 I was afraid he was going to open up the provisional 3 ballots and do something with them because I fought so 4 hard and so long all day trying to protect them. And 5 it was a horrible, horrible experience. And there was 6 a lady that was up here with her child, and what she 7 said, I could double that, as well. 8 So thank you. 9 MS. HUFF: Did two people accompany the -- 10 MS. VARIAN: No. The people outside the 11 1-866-OUR-VOTE representative that was there, he -- I 12 told him what happened. I actually ran out in the 13 rain and said, look, we've got to do something. And 14 they -- three people came, I believe one was a lawyer. 15 He would not let them escort. The police were 16 involved. The police did escort him down to the Board 17 of Elections, but a Democratic representative could 18 not go with the presiding Republican judge in a 19 Democratic precinct, period. 20 And I have other examples, but I know there's 21 others that want to speak. 22 MS. HUFF: That's all right. Could you 23 restate that, please. 24 MS. VARIAN: Our presiding judge was 25 Republican in a Democratic precinct and they would not 106 1 let me, the Democratic pole worker, accompany him 2 downtown, even though I was running the whole thing. 3 I got so mad. 4 There were posters that weren't even posted, 5 and I went up and posted -- I started taking over. I 6 pulled people out of the rain. You know, I was 7 telling them, please, you know, be familiar with the 8 screen before you go in and -- 9 MS. HUFF: So only one person went with the 10 ballots, is that it? 11 MS. VARIAN: Only one person went with the 12 ballots and the tapes, and I begged and pleaded and 13 called everybody I could. 14 MS. HUFF: And you said that when you first 15 began, first thing in the morning, you did not sign 16 the tapes? 17 MS. VARIAN: No. We did not sign the tapes 18 until the end of the evenings. Signs on how to use 19 the machines weren't posted and people were turned 20 away. 21 Thank you. 22 And I have names and numbers, as well, but I 23 can do that later. So thanks. 24 MR. FITRAKIS: Just very quickly, did you 25 want to make that announcement now? 107 1 MS. TRUITT: We've organized a candlelight 2 vigil for after the hearing tonight. So immediately 3 following the end of the hearing tonight, we would 4 invite you to go across the street to the park across 5 the street and we have over 50 candles that are 6 battery operated and we would invite you to join us in 7 a candlelight vigil in support of fair and free 8 elections. 9 MR. FITRAKIS: I'll do that later. I'm going 10 to have to allow -- Cliff Arnaback (phonetic) will be 11 filling in and then we'll adjourn and we'll have a 12 discussion, the panel will sum up the discussion and 13 then we can -- Tomika will also be moderating. 14 UNIDENTIFIED SPEAKER: This is just a quick 15 follow-up to the lady that was just here. The 16 precinct where I was at, the judge, who was also -- 17 the presiding judge was also just taking the box and 18 the ballots by herself. And when the question was 19 made, well, that's why that $15, so I think that's 20 standard operating procedure that the judge alone did 21 that. 22 MS. HUFF: No, it's not. 23 UNIDENTIFIED SPEAKER: Well, I think it was 24 this time. 25 UNIDENTIFIED SPEAKER: It is where I worked. 108 1 MS. HUFF: It's my understanding that the 2 ballots are to be accompanied by two individuals, one 3 from each party, and that is standard operating 4 procedure. 5 MR. DUNBAR: Hi. My name is Mark Dunbar and 6 I have been sworn in. 7 I'm a bus driver for Columbus Public Schools, 8 so I had the chance to go around to several different 9 schools that was holding voting on the 2nd of 10 November. 11 I went to Fairview Elementary; East Columbus; 12 Brentnell Elementary; Eastgate, where I vote at; then 13 I went to North on Morristown Court, there was a 14 voting poll up there; Brach Hill Elementary; Brentnell 15 Recreation Center and Brittany Hills. Those are all 16 the places that I had passed by as I did my job. 17 MR. ARNABACK: Mr. Dunbar, would you please 18 speak more into the mic so you can be heard better. 19 MR. DUNBAR: Okay. Those are all the places 20 that I passed through as I did my job. 21 I got off work about 9:30 that morning. I 22 went down and dropped off some ballots down at the 23 Board of Elections. Then I went to my home near 24 Eastgate Elementary. I arrived there at 10:00. I 25 went in. 109 1 There was no signs as to how to use the 2 voting machines. I heard one of the pole workers tell 3 a guy in one of the booths that he had one minute 4 because he had been in there four minutes. So they 5 were actually rushing people in and out of the poles. 6 The line was about three hours when I got 7 there. There was only three voting booths, and I 8 remembered the last time I vote there we had at least 9 four to five voting booths, so we were down to three. 10 They did allow the people to sit in chairs 11 and move the chairs up and down the line. They did 12 have an elderly woman who was in a wheelchair just 13 sitting there for a couple hours, and she was still 14 sitting there when I left. So she didn't get to vote 15 the kind of way she should have. She should have been 16 taken to the front, but I didn't see any handicap 17 accessory to the voting booths. 18 And I saw -- I counted at least 27 to 30 19 people who left while I was there, but I didn't leave. 20 I had to vote. 21 Thank you. 22 MR. ARNABACK: Sir, when you say left, are 23 these people who left who wanted to vote but -- 24 MR. DUNBAR: Who came there to vote but who 25 could not wait for one reason or another. 110 1 MR. ARNABACK: Thank you. 2 MS. HUFF: Thank you very much. 3 MR. ARNABACK: Barry McPeak. 4 Julia Torez. 5 Joe Kuspan. 6 MR. KUSPAN: My name is Joe Kuspan and I have 7 been sworn in. 8 I want to tell a story similar to the 9 gentleman earlier who talked about the voting in Upper 10 Arlington. I was a runner for the Kerry/Edwards 11 campaign in Bexley Precincts 1A, 1B and 1C. In 12 addition, I was lucky enough to vote in one of those 13 three precincts at 7:00 a.m. It probably took about a 14 half an hour. I noticed a line in the adjoining 15 precinct which shares the same polling place, and I 16 was estimate, just based on my wait, that those people 17 might have had 45 minutes to an hour. 18 I dropped my children off at 8:30 in the 19 morning at Marilyn Avenue school, another one of the 20 voting places, and I noticed a line outside of the 21 school. But again, I would estimate those people 22 probably voted within an hour. 23 Later on, as a runner, I had the opportunity 24 to go back to those precincts during the day. At 25 11:00, I noticed no lines outside the building in any 111 1 of those three precincts. At 4:00, you could have 2 probably walked into any one of the three precincts 3 and voted within a matter of a few minutes. 4 Now, for the benefit of those who don't know 5 Bexley, two of those precincts are arguably probably 6 in the top ten wealthiest precincts in Franklin 7 County, and I would argue 1B may be the top of the 8 list. It includes the governor's mansion, president 9 of Ohio State University, the president of a very 10 large insurance company here, dean of the medical 11 school and the list goes on and on. 12 If you look at the data that I got off the 13 Franklin County web site, there are 1 for 139 voters. 14 And frankly, if you do the math, in 12-1/2 hours, 15 given 5 minutes, anything under 150 would be good. 16 And my first and third-grade kids over there can do 17 that math. That's not rocket science. 18 I would also argue that it was very difficult 19 to vote in five minutes. I have voted the straight 20 Democratic ticket for 32 years, and I didn't put a 21 stopwatch on it, but it took every bit of five 22 minutes, I would believe, just to vote that way. 23 So in conclusion, I just want to say that 24 we've heard the old adage, "All men are created equal; 25 some are more equal than others," and I think the same 112 1 applies to voting in the state of Ohio. 2 MR. ARNABACK: John Perry. 3 MR. PERRY: I'm John Perry. I've not been 4 sworn in yet. 5 - - - 6 (Whereupon the witness was duly sworn.) 7 MR. PERRY: I was precinct captain for 8 Precinct 6C, which is my home precinct in Upper 9 Arlington, and also for Precinct 6B. 10 And it turned out the vote efforts that have 11 the vote efforts in two adjacent precincts, as well. 12 During the course of that, I had the opportunity to 13 observe three voting places, one of which included 14 Windmill Elementary School, which when I went over to 15 check at 7:30 in the evening, had absolutely no voters 16 in it whatsoever. They had no lines. 17 My wife had gone over to look there at 6:00, 18 and at that time, there had been only a handful of 19 voters with no waiting time. 20 When I went at 7:30, I observed in amazement 21 that there were no voters there and hoped that the 22 turnout had been good. I was told by one of the pole 23 workers that, in fact, they had calculated at 6:00 24 that there had been 78 percent turnout in this voting 25 place, which covers three precincts. They obviously 113 1 had plenty of machines. 2 I also, after the election, went around to 3 several different polling places and wrote down the 4 election results off the machine tapes, and observed 5 in 16 different precincts an average of 158 voters per 6 machine. 7 For the record, I did observe, in my voting 8 place, that there was a sticker over the ballot and 9 spot apparently originally intended for Ralph Nader. 10 However, in looking at the machine tapes from other 11 precincts, I noticed that there were numerous machine 12 votes -- not write-in votes, but machine votes -- for 13 Nader in other precincts. So apparently if you pushed 14 the button for the Nader spot, it was recorded as a 15 vote for Nader and printed out as such on the tape. 16 That concludes my testimony. 17 MS. HUFF: Are you aware of how many booths 18 were there, how many machines were available? 19 MR. PERRY: I looked in 16 different 20 precincts and wrote down the numbers. I'd be happy to 21 give you the numbers. Typically, it was four or 22 three. There was one very small precinct which had 23 only two machines, but they had only about 150 votes 24 per machine. 25 MS. HUFF: And your location specifically 114 1 where you voted? 2 MR. PERRY: I specifically voted in 6C at 3 St. Andrew's church. 4 MS. HUFF: How many machines were there? 5 MR. PERRY: There were three machines there 6 and I had to wait about an hour when I went at 7 mid-morning to cast my own vote. 8 MR. LYBARGER: These votes for Nader, was 9 there a sticker warning them not to vote for Nader? 10 MR. PERRY: I can't tell you if there was in 11 those other precincts. I know the results from my own 12 precinct showed, 6C, had no votes for Nader and that 13 there was a sticker on that spot on the machine. I 14 don't know if they had stickers at the other locations 15 or not, but there were several votes. And I can give 16 you the specifics of who those votes were if you would 17 like those. 18 MS. HUFF: And you're saying that you 19 observed those votes on the tape? 20 MR. PERRY: On the tapes, yes. 21 MS. HUFF: And those were machine votes, not 22 write-in? 23 MR. PERRY: Those were machine votes, not 24 write-in. In fact, I did take some pictures of some 25 of the tapes. I have photographs of some of those 115 1 tapes. 2 MS. HUFF: Thank you. 3 MR. ARNABACK: Monica Justice. 4 MS. JUSTICE: My name is Monica Justice and I 5 was here for the oath. 6 I have two quick issues. One, I ran six 7 wards for the Kerry campaign in the Clintonville 8 corridor. At 8:00 -- my precinct location was 19H. 9 It is run out of the Southwick Funeral Home, Bill 10 Good. Bill Good is a Republican. 11 At 8:00 in the morning, he went out to the 12 people in line -- there was already over an hour wait 13 at this time -- and informed them that they all needed 14 to get out of line and move their cars because he had 15 a funeral coming. This was reported to me by 16 volunteers who were working for the Kerry campaign who 17 wanted to vote because I told them to vote earlier. 18 At this point, I immediately called my 19 assistant, who is the Franklin County coordinator for 20 the Kerry campaign, who immediately called the legal 21 department. Needless to say, the problem was resolved 22 in about 20 minutes by placing an armed, uniformed 23 security guard on the property who would direct people 24 as to where to park if you were for the funeral versus 25 voting. 116 1 Had I probably not had a direct line to the 2 Kerry campaign coordinating staff of Franklin County, 3 it probably would have taken several hours and people 4 would have been forced to move their cars off his 5 business property. 6 According to the Franklin County Board of 7 Elections, it was their fault for not verifying that 8 business was not being held on that day, that they 9 needed to inform them of that. They had not been 10 informed of that. 11 So for me personally, I live right across 12 that location, I don't want that to be our precinct 13 location anymore. 14 On a different issue, I know that someone 15 spoke about the Linden library. Our staging location 16 was shut down at 5:30. At 7:30, we left completely 17 and went to the various poling locations that we were 18 aware of because our grounds people where -- there 19 were still hundreds of people in line. At Linden 20 library, there were over 300 people in line at 8:00. 21 When we walked in, it was a very aggressive 22 and volatile environment. The people were not aware 23 of the fact that, one, they could leave the line to go 24 to the bathroom. They were not aware of the fact that 25 they -- some of them had not had -- most of them had 117 1 been waiting from three to six hours at this point. 2 There had already been a fight in the library where 3 the police had to be called because of problems at 4 this voting place. 5 When we got there, we had brought water. We 6 called in reinforcements. McDonald's and Pizza Hut 7 brought food over. 8 Throughout the night, the next four hours 9 after the poles closed, I think the last voter was out 10 of there at 11:00 or 10:30. People from all over the 11 city brought food to these people. The judge had to 12 close the building, so at 7:30 the pole was locked, 13 the library was locked. 14 This is the only place in the county where 15 they were concerned about workers. I had to convince 16 the pole judge to get extra pole workers there. She 17 deputized a republican and a democrat that happened to 18 be in the building to get more people there because 19 they were understaffed and underprepared for the 20 situation. 21 So the point being is that the voters and the 22 people in the city did not fail in their duties. The 23 Board of Elections and the people who were trained 24 improperly totally failed. 25 MR. ARNABACK: Anyone who wants to testify 118 1 about long lines that took two machines, and there has 2 been a lot of testimony on that, if you would like to 3 fill out an affidavit, that would be a legal 4 equivalent. We're not trying to discourage anyone 5 from testifying if you wish to, but that is an 6 alternative to keep in mind. 7 Alfred Martin. 8 Tina Byer. 9 MS. BYER: Hi. My name is Tina Byer. I have 10 not been sworn. 11 - - - 12 (Whereupon, the witness was duly sworn.) 13 MS. BYER: I was a Move On precinct leader in 14 what I believe is 47D, bordered by James, Livingston, 15 Kenwick and Ashley. That is east of Bexley. It's not 16 actually the precinct where I live. I live just south 17 of the Livingston and Berwick, but I was precinct 18 leader just north of Livingston. 19 As precinct leader, I had arranged for a 20 volunteer to pick up three voters who needed a ride to 21 the poles. One voter had gone to the poles earlier, 22 only to be turned away by a pole worker probably from 23 28F, the other precinct at this location, who said she 24 wasn't registered, so she went home. 25 He -- I know he did not direct her to the 119 1 other precinct because after I verified that she 2 registered, she was registered in 47D by looking at 3 the voter lists that were posted, I asked the 4 presiding judge where she should have voted about her, 5 and she knew nothing of the situation. But she very 6 graciously offered to help her if we could get her 7 back in the poles. 8 I noticed in the judge's voter list a note 9 that her vote should be challenged. So I told one of 10 my volunteers at least five times to go get her, drag 11 her back to the poles, and she did, and also make sure 12 that she brought ID or a utility bill with her. 13 It was rumored that the same pole worker who 14 had told this woman that she was registered there but 15 didn't bother to tell her because of the precinct, 16 that this pole worker had given inaccurate information 17 to other voters. 18 Also for precinct 28F where I voted, there 19 were 828 registered voters, and across Livingston 20 there were 1,124 registered voters. There were three 21 machines for each precinct. 22 When I voted at 11:30 a.m. at Christ the King 23 School on Livingston and I only waited a little over 24 two hours. My authority to vote slip was number 25 1,218. I verified that. Only one step of slips was 120 1 being used in that precinct. After five hours of 2 voting, 218 voters had voted for an average of about 3 40 voters per hour for three machines. At that rate, 4 it would require 13 hours for 525 voters to vote, but 5 there was at least a one-hour wait still at 7:30. 6 The 47D line was even longer, at least two 7 hours longer, a precinct of mostly very small houses 8 and rental units and very diverse racially. 9 Also, there were way too many issues and 10 races to limit voting to five minutes. I had studied 11 the races in advance and I knew how I would be voting 12 and I still probably took the entire time allotted. 13 Thank you. 14 MR. ARNABACK: Michael Greenman. 15 - - - 16 (Whereupon the witness was duly sworn.) 17 MR. GREENMAN: Hi. Hi name is Michael 18 Greenman and this is going to be short. I live in 19 Westerville, voted in Precinct 3B. I voted there in 20 the elections for the last five years. 21 When I went to the precinct this last 22 election, I came in and looked at the list and my name 23 was not on the list. It was a computerized list. My 24 wife's name was on the list. I asked them how this 25 could be. They had no explanation. They were very 121 1 cooperative, gave me a provisional ballot. I was in 2 and out right quickly. They were very efficient. It 3 was a good precinct. But I cannot imagine how many 4 could have been removed from the list without some 5 active action. 6 I'm a political activist. I'm the head of a 7 political group called Citizens for Democracy and the 8 Corporate Rule, but I don't know why my name was not 9 on the list. 10 MS. TRUITT: Had you voted within the last 11 five years? 12 MR. GREENMAN: Every year, every time for the 13 last five years at that precinct. 14 MS. HUFF: And you had no prior notice at all 15 that your name was being removed from the list? 16 MR. GREENMAN: No notice, nor can I think of 17 any reason that it would have been removed. 18 MS. HUFF: Did you move out of the county? 19 MR. GREENMAN: I did not move, have been at 20 the same address. 21 MS. HUFF: So you were given a provisional 22 ballot? 23 MR. GREENMAN: Yes, I was given a provisional 24 ballot. I don't know if that would have been counted. 25 MS. HUFF: Thank you very much. 122 1 MR. ARNABACK: Brenda Keltner. 2 Tom Kessel. 3 - - - 4 (Whereupon, the witness was duly sworn.) 5 MR. KESSEL: Yes, I worked as a -- to watch 6 pole challengers in Precincts 4A and 4C in Bexley. 7 What it was is Republican challengers got there about 8 7:30 in the morning. Precinct 4C was going fine, so I 9 watched her. On three different occasions, I caught 10 her sitting at the table with the pole workers. Each 11 time I had to go up there and say, excuse me, you're 12 not allowed here, you know, you're not allowed to be 13 sitting there. She was not challenging it. She was 14 talking and kibitzing and working with the pole 15 workers. I don't know. 16 One time I went outside, I came back in, she 17 was actively going over some sort of computerized list 18 she had with the precinct judge in Precinct 4A in 19 Bexley. 20 One of the three machines went down and they 21 were not able to get the tape out of it and the 22 cartridge at the end of the day. Later on, when I got 23 the pole -- data from Franklin County pole workers, 24 that machine, which had the lowest number of votes, 25 had the highest percentage of Bush votes. The other 123 1 two machines were coming back 30 percent for Bush. 2 This one came back 40 percent for Bush. I don't know. 3 Also, they sealed up their provisional 4 ballots before I had a chance to count them and let 5 them know how many provisional ballots were there. 6 Also, she signed off as an official witness 7 at the end of the day, even though she was a 8 Republican worker. 9 I was met with open hostility from the 10 workers in precinct 4A in Bexley. They let me know in 11 no uncertain terms that they were Bush people. 12 Also, I would like to say this in front of 13 everybody here: On November 3rd, I tried calling the 14 number, this 866 number I got, voter protection, to 15 report voter fraud. When I punched number 2, all I 16 got -- and this sounds crazy -- was strange music, a 17 forever hold, and you never got to talk to anybody. 18 Within an hour of John Kerry's concession speech, that 19 block or whatever was on the line was gone. 20 That's it. 21 MR. LYBARGER: Were there no Democratic pole 22 workers in these places? Both parties are supposed to 23 be represented. 24 MR. KESSEL: Yes. At the end of day, I was 25 able to find out one of -- one was -- a Democratic 124 1 worker was working precinct 4A. However, the 2 presiding judge was a Republican because her daughter 3 brought a dog by and was outside and it growled and 4 she goes, oh, it growls at all Kerry people. 5 MR. LYBARGER: The Democratic pole worker 6 didn't say anything? 7 MR. KESSEL: About the challenger being 8 there? 9 MR. LYBARGER: Yeah. 10 MR. KESSEL: No. 11 MS. HUFF: Now, I'm not quite clear what you 12 were describing when you said that one machine broke 13 and that there was a higher percentage -- 14 MR. KESSEL: One machine, at the end of the 15 day when they were closing it down, it gave a ding, 16 ding, ding, and they weren't able to -- and she called 17 the Franklin County Board of Elections. I was 18 overwatching because both precincts 4A and 4C were in 19 the same room. I was overlooking at 4C. But they 20 were not able to generate a tape out of the back of 21 the machine that day or the cartridge. 22 MS. HUFF: And that was the broken machine? 23 MR. KESSEL: That was the broken machine, 24 yes. 25 MS. HUFF: So later you discovered -- 125 1 MR. KESSEL: I discovered that -- the numbers 2 on there. 3 MS. HUFF: Well, are you relating that in a 4 difference in percentages? 5 MR. KESSEL: Yes, that was in percentages. 6 The raw numbers in the things were 49 Bush, 100 Kerry 7 in one machine; 43 Bush, 107 Kerry; and then the 8 machine that was broken came back 50 Bush, 70 Kerry. 9 MS. HUFF: And you're sure you can connect 10 the broken machine to the higher number? 11 MR. KESSEL: Yes, because those numbers were 12 the numbers I wrote down because they posted the tape 13 at the end of the day. Those are numbers I -- I did 14 it. As a matter of fact, I drove out there the next 15 morning and I double-checked the numbers. And the 16 only way I was able to figure out how the third 17 machine came back that way is I pulled the precinct 18 numbers up and I added and did some ciphering. 19 MS. HUFF: Thank you. 20 MR. MOSS: Did you indicate that you made 21 your complaint to the presiding judge at that polling 22 place where the Republican challenger was? 23 MR. KESSEL: Yeah. I -- all I was was just, 24 you're not allowed back behind the table. She says, 25 well, you don't have to watch me. What are you doing 126 1 back here? And I said, because you're here. You 2 know, I would have been delighted not to have been 3 there. 4 MR. MOSS: But there was a priding judge 5 there? 6 MR. KESSEL: There was a priding judge there. 7 MR. MOSS: And what did that individual 8 respond to you with regards to your complaint? 9 MR. KESSEL: Kind of dismissive, just -- you 10 know, one -- not the presiding judge, but another 11 woman at the table, when I said, what are you doing 12 over here? She says, well, we called her over here. 13 MR. MOSS: But you never got an official 14 response from one of the polling officials -- 15 MR. KESSEL: No. 16 MR. MOSS: -- who works for the Board of 17 Elections? 18 MR. KESSEL: No, not -- as far as the people 19 who were sitting at the polling table? 20 MR. MOSS: Right. 21 MR. KESSEL: No, I did not really get a 22 reason on why she was over there and why she was over 23 there on two or three other times. She literally was 24 over there sitting at the table with them. 25 MR. MOSS: So from your observation, there 127 1 was encouragement on the part of the pole workers for 2 this individual to be sitting there with them? 3 MR. KESSEL: I can't say that. All I can say 4 is she was there -- 5 MR. MOSS: And there was no effort to 6 encourage -- 7 MR. KESSEL: No, no, no. The only time she 8 left was when I come over and go, excuse me, you're 9 not supposed to be there. 10 MR. MOSS: So she did leave after you -- 11 MR. KESSEL: She left, but then if I was out 12 of the room, if I would go to the bathroom, boom, back 13 at the table. And one time I was outside and she was 14 back there. 15 MR. ARNABACK: Kathleen Greiner. 16 MS. GREINER: Mine is mainly on long lines 17 and I'm just writing it out. I'll attach it. 18 MR. ARNABACK: Thank you. 19 We will now have a summary from the panelists 20 and we would invite those who were in the previous 21 panel to join in this for brief summaries. 22 MS. TRUITT: Well, I want to thank everybody 23 for coming tonight and I want to thank everyone who 24 gave testimony. 25 It is very important that we document the 128 1 problems of the 2004 election. It is clear that there 2 is a pattern of disenfranchisement in Ohio and in 3 Franklin County as far as distribution of election 4 machines and inequities between affluent white 5 communities and low income, inner city minority 6 district voting precincts. And this is an issue that 7 is clearly a pattern and it has been testified to at 8 length in the two days of hearings and it's an issue 9 that we need to be talking about. 10 Our election system in the United States is 11 broken and it is time that we all recognize that, and 12 wish that the mass media would recognizing that fact, 13 too, instead of being in denial. 14 And I would applaud the Ohio legislators who 15 are trying to introduce election reform. State 16 Senator Teresa Fedor is currently writing a bill for 17 election reform and I applaud her efforts. She is the 18 one who introduced the bill to require a voter 19 verified paper audit trail by 2006 in Ohio; otherwise, 20 we would all be voting on paperless Diebold machines. 21 So we're making progress, but we have a long way to 22 go. 23 And this is the first step in recognition of 24 the problems and we have a long way to go. So I ask 25 all of you, please stay involved, please stay on top 129 1 of this issue. It's not going to go away unless you 2 make it get fixed. 3 MR. ARNABACK: That was Susan Truitt of the 4 Citizens Alliance for Secure Elections. 5 MS. HUFF: And I'm Leslie Huff, the Election 6 Protection coordinator for the state of Ohio through 7 the people for the American Way Foundation and our 8 coalition. 9 I want to thank you, because without you, we 10 wouldn't have the opportunity to hear the stories of 11 people on the ground, in the -- at the precincts 12 casting your ballots, protecting your rights as 13 citizens of the United States. 14 Our -- I can't say enough about the 15 importance of our taking on the responsibilities and 16 maintaining it, holding true to that responsibility 17 not just on election day, not just the day before, a 18 couple weeks before, but between now and the very next 19 election we have to be on guard to protect this very, 20 very fragile thing, this experiment that we have going 21 here called representative democracy. Because unless 22 we do it, it can't get done. 23 So I want to thank you for coming out and 24 lending your voice and giving us your words because 25 it's your words that are our tools, your eyes and your 130 1 ears heard and saw. And those are the tools we'll use 2 to help do our part to protect the election process. 3 MR. LYBARGER: Lee Lybarger, I'm with Common 4 Cause Ohio. And I, too, want to thank you for hearing 5 your testimony. I have been a student here in front 6 of you. I feel that I have learned an awful lot about 7 this whole process and what can go wrong. 8 Democracy should never be taken for granted 9 in this country. It is something that has to be 10 worked at constantly. In order that it be kept alive, 11 we require an informed citizenry. 12 And I believe the Common Cause here in Ohio 13 has their work cut out for them in order to make sure 14 that we contribute along with others to make sure that 15 we have equal and equitable and full participation in 16 the political process. 17 MR. MOSS: I want to -- I was on the panel on 18 Saturday night and I didn't get to testify. And I 19 have been sworn this evening. And what I have to say 20 is not about being a Kerry partisan or a Bush 21 partisan. 22 It is about the integrity of the electoral 23 process, because I firmly believe, and I always have, 24 that the vote that we have the constitutional right to 25 in this country is a sacred right. And as a citizen, 131 1 I have a duty and responsibility to do all that I can 2 to uphold that right. 3 My wife and I, two of my sons and one of my 4 daughters, went to the poles together on the morning 5 of the 2nd of November. The lines were doubled at the 6 Eastside Middle School where we normally vote. And 7 they were very long. All of us decided, because we 8 had to go to work at the same place, same locations, 9 family business, that we would leave and come back and 10 vote later, which we did. We left about 10:30. 11 My wife and I went back to the polling place 12 at 3:00. The lines were still long. There was much 13 frustration. We witnessed some people leaving. It 14 was raining throughout the day. It was raining when 15 we got out of the car to go to the polling place in 16 the morning and it was raining in the evening when we 17 left. We got back to vote, got in line at 3:00. We 18 voted and left the polling place at 6:30. 19 It was predictable, leading up to the 20 election, because of the machinations of electoral 21 officials, under the leadership, and it appears at the 22 behest of the Secretary of State, whose duty and 23 responsibility it is to conduct fair and impartial 24 elections, but he started out in conflict of interest 25 as the cochairman of a of a Bush/Cheney election 132 1 campaign. 2 I have been voting in Columbus for 40 years. 3 In all of those years, it has never taken me more than 4 20 minutes to vote. The chaos that took place on 5 November 2nd at the various voting locations in this 6 city that I observed could not be described any way 7 but deliberately contrived. It was deliberate. 8 And why not? The American people rolled over 9 so easily after the debacle of 2000 in Florida. What 10 better place to relocate the fraud than the must-win 11 state of Ohio? Consider that all the state offices, 12 elective offices, are held by the same party, the 13 Republican Party, including the Supreme Court 14 majority, the Senate, the House and the General 15 Assembly and the Executive Office. There are no 16 checks and balances in this state. The same applies 17 at the national level: The Congress, the Senate, the 18 Supreme Court and the Executive Branch. 19 The only way there can be -- now, history 20 confirms that power corrupts and absolute power 21 corrupts absolutely. 22 I won't go so far as to say the conduct of 23 the Secretary of State in Ohio during this election 24 was corrupt, but it certainly approached the level of 25 corruption. And unless we have a thorough and 133 1 complete independent investigation to determine was 2 the vote legitimate and were all the votes counted, 3 many questions will remain. That should not be. 4 And the only way the check is going to happen 5 with the predominance of one party at every level of 6 government both here and at the national level is we 7 the people take the responsibility. And your presence 8 here tonight indicates that you certainly are 9 committed to doing that, taking the responsibility and 10 duty of citizenship and demand redress. We've heard 11 it said, for those of you who feel that your vote was 12 suppressed or denied -- well, I certainly feel that 13 way, and we heard the expression, been there, done 14 that. I've been there, done that, got the T-shirt. 15 If you want more information, www.freepress.org. You, 16 too, can get the T-shirt. 17 Thank you. 18 * * * 19 - - - 20 Thereupon, at 9:15 p.m. on Monday, November 21 15, 2004, the hearing was concluded. 22 - - - 23 24 25 134 1 CERTIFICATE 2 STATE OF OHIO : SS: 3 COUNTY OF LICKING : 4 I, Breanna Schwart, a Registered Professional 5 Reporter and Notary Public in and for the State of 6 Ohio, duly commissioned and qualified, do hereby 7 certify that the foregoing is a true, correct and 8 complete transcript of the proceedings, as reported by 9 me in stenotype and transcribed from my stenographic 10 notes to the best of my ability; that I am in no way 11 related to or employed by any attorney or party hereto 12 or financially interested in the action, and I am not, 13 nor is the court reporting firm with which I am 14 affiliated, under a contract as defined in Civil Rule 15 28(D). 16 IN WITNESS WHEREOF, I have hereunto set my 17 hand and affixed my seal of office at Pataskala, Ohio, 18 on this 2nd day of December, 2003. 19 ______________________________ 20 BREANNA SCHWART, RPR NOTARY PUBLIC-STATE OF OHIO 21 My Commission Expires: December 27, 2006. 22 23 24 25