Your source for alternative media coverage of the 2008 election alongside the 2004 elections and the related voter irregularities in Ohio.<br><br>Additional articles about the elections by <a href=http://www.freepress.org/columns/display/3>Bob Fitrakis</a> and <a href=http://www.freepress.org/columns/display/7>Harvey Wasserman</a> are in the <a href=http://www.freepress.org/columns>columns</a> section.
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Those interested in contributing statistical skills to the project may want to contact <a href=mailto:truth@freepress.org>The Free Press</a> and <a href=http://uscountvotes.org target=usvotes>uscountvotes.org</a>.
Election Issues
Members of the Progressive Ohio Backbone Campaign traveled to Hocking
County on Monday morning, July 11, and filed an affidavit of fact alleging criminal conduct with the Hocking County Sheriff’s Department against the county’s Board of Elections (BOE) Director Lisa Schwartze.
Schwartze had previously admitted at the July 5 BOE meeting that she had used the office to promote a Republican Party fund-raiser last fall. The affidavit of fact alleging criminal conduct filed against Schwartze, however, does not to pertain to Schwartze’s use of the BOE office for partisan political fund-raising. Rather, the affidavit filed pertains to her alleged illegal shredding of election documents, the Free Press has learned.
Sherole Eaton, the fired Hocking County BOE deputy director and Congressional whistleblower, who swore an affidavit against a Triad company technician for allegedly offering a cheat sheet and replacing the county’s central voting tabulator hard drive during last year’s presidential recount, says that Schwartze may have destroyed up to “ten thousand documents.”
Schwartze had previously admitted at the July 5 BOE meeting that she had used the office to promote a Republican Party fund-raiser last fall. The affidavit of fact alleging criminal conduct filed against Schwartze, however, does not to pertain to Schwartze’s use of the BOE office for partisan political fund-raising. Rather, the affidavit filed pertains to her alleged illegal shredding of election documents, the Free Press has learned.
Sherole Eaton, the fired Hocking County BOE deputy director and Congressional whistleblower, who swore an affidavit against a Triad company technician for allegedly offering a cheat sheet and replacing the county’s central voting tabulator hard drive during last year’s presidential recount, says that Schwartze may have destroyed up to “ten thousand documents.”
The below handbook was designed to assist activists working on voting issues "persuade and educate [Boards of Elections], lawmakers, media and citizens about the woeful inadequacies of electronic voting."
Download the 33 page PDF now!
Download the 33 page PDF now!
The uproar of applause at attorney Cliff Arnebeck's serving the Hocking
County Board of Elections with a court order not to make any decision regarding the
firing of Hocking County BOE whistleblower Sherole Eaton, was in the very
least, memorable. It shall be treasured by the present Eaton, who blew the
whistle on a Triad GSI Technician who was witnessed by Eaton early last December,
illegally switching out hard drives on an election machine involved in last
year's election recount in Hocking County, Ohio. Sherole Eaton's decision to stand
up for election integrity was an easy decision for this slight woman who most
people would not immediately think of as "courageous." Her thought at the
moment was that what she was doing the right thing. Now, she is in a fight to
keep her job with the Hocking County Board of elections who voted to fire her in
May 2005.
In the 2004 general election, Ohio was one of several states in which a constitutional amendment prohibiting gay marriage appeared on the ballot. This is widely believed to have resulted in an unprecedented turnout among rural white evangelical Christians, which helped George W. Bush win the presidential election. In Ohio, the proposition was known as “Issue One.”
To investigate the matter, I prepared a table comparing the vote for president with the vote on Issue One, county by county. State wide, Issue One received 61.71% of the vote, whereas Bush, officially, is reputed to have received 50.81% of the vote, a differential of 10.90%. Bush ran 469,567 votes (14.10%) behind the “Yes” votes on Issue One, and Kerry ran 675,705 votes (32.71%) ahead of the “No” votes on Issue One.
Read the entire 15 page document as a PDF
To investigate the matter, I prepared a table comparing the vote for president with the vote on Issue One, county by county. State wide, Issue One received 61.71% of the vote, whereas Bush, officially, is reputed to have received 50.81% of the vote, a differential of 10.90%. Bush ran 469,567 votes (14.10%) behind the “Yes” votes on Issue One, and Kerry ran 675,705 votes (32.71%) ahead of the “No” votes on Issue One.
Read the entire 15 page document as a PDF
Direct testimony: Presented to Election Assessment Hearing, Houston, Texas, July 29, 2005
I have investigated the Ohio election results, precinct by precinct, and have found three categories of problems: voter suppression, ballots cast but not counted, and alteration of the vote count.
In the City of Columbus, discriminatory allocation of voting machines led directly to lower turnout in Democratic precincts. Urban Democratic precincts had too few voting machines and long lines; suburban Republican precincts had enough voting machines and short lines; 122 voting machines were not provided to any polling station anywhere. As a result, voter turnout was 60% in Bush precincts, and 50% in Kerry precincts. This wrongly reduced Kerry’s margin of victory in Franklin County by about 17,000 votes.
I have investigated the Ohio election results, precinct by precinct, and have found three categories of problems: voter suppression, ballots cast but not counted, and alteration of the vote count.
In the City of Columbus, discriminatory allocation of voting machines led directly to lower turnout in Democratic precincts. Urban Democratic precincts had too few voting machines and long lines; suburban Republican precincts had enough voting machines and short lines; 122 voting machines were not provided to any polling station anywhere. As a result, voter turnout was 60% in Bush precincts, and 50% in Kerry precincts. This wrongly reduced Kerry’s margin of victory in Franklin County by about 17,000 votes.
An Open Letter to John Tanner, Chief, Voting Section, U.S. Department of Justice, Civil Rights Section in response to his June 29, 2005 letter to Nick A. Soulas, Jr., Assistant Prosecuting Attorney, Civil Division,
Franklin County:
Dear Mr. Tanner:
I was curious to find that you had “conducted an investigation into the November 2, 2004 general election in Franklin County, prompted by allegations that Franklin County systematically assigned fewer voting machines in polling places serving predominantly black communities as compared to its assignment of machines in predominantly white communities.”
Let me begin by suggesting the word “contrasted” would be more appropriate than “compared.” Indeed, the difference is literally black and white.
Dear Mr. Tanner:
I was curious to find that you had “conducted an investigation into the November 2, 2004 general election in Franklin County, prompted by allegations that Franklin County systematically assigned fewer voting machines in polling places serving predominantly black communities as compared to its assignment of machines in predominantly white communities.”
Let me begin by suggesting the word “contrasted” would be more appropriate than “compared.” Indeed, the difference is literally black and white.
I wish to acknowledge the work of Pat Lent, Brian Taylor and Cindy Darrah who contributed research and ideas for this paper. Dan Kornacki converted the data from Lucas County into an Excel Spreadsheet.
This report contains overwhelming evidence of voter suppression in Lucas County, Ohio.
This report contains overwhelming evidence of voter suppression in Lucas County, Ohio.
A list of voters who voted provisionally was obtained from the Lucas County Board of Elections. The report listed name, address, precinct voted in and reason for the vote being invalidated. Voter turnout data by precinct was obtained from the Lucas County Board of Elections website. Other information was obtained over the telephone from the Lucas County Board of Elections and the Wayne County City Clerk’s office.
A large number of citizens voted by provisional ballot in Lucas County on November 2nd and most of the uncounted provisional votes were cast in Toledo.
Lucas County Provisional VotesTotal Provisional Votes 4,469
Votes Not Counted 3,123
In an astonishingly limp report on the stolen 2004 election, the Democratic Party has once again proven why it is unworthy to lead this country and incapable of mounting significant resistance to the far-right GOP juggernaut.
The Democrats much-vaunted "investigation" entitled “Democracy at Risk: The 2004 Election in Ohio” could well have been conducted by a high school class in elementary polling. It consists almost entirely of post-election phone interviews. It says nothing about the devastating discrepancies between exit polls and the highly improbable and virtually impossible vote total that gave George W. Bush a second term. It makes no case about precinct-by-precinct illegalities including unguarded ballots, election machine tampering, an unexplained bogus Homeland Security alert, the firing of whistle-blowing election board officials, and much more.
The Democrats much-vaunted "investigation" entitled “Democracy at Risk: The 2004 Election in Ohio” could well have been conducted by a high school class in elementary polling. It consists almost entirely of post-election phone interviews. It says nothing about the devastating discrepancies between exit polls and the highly improbable and virtually impossible vote total that gave George W. Bush a second term. It makes no case about precinct-by-precinct illegalities including unguarded ballots, election machine tampering, an unexplained bogus Homeland Security alert, the firing of whistle-blowing election board officials, and much more.
The Democratic National Committee's investigation into Ohio's 2004 presidential election irregularities is the perfect postscript to the party's 'election protection' efforts last fall: it is a shocking indictment of a party caught completely off-guard in its most heated presidential campaign in years, and a party that still doesn't fully understand what happened and how to avoid a repeat in the future.
The report primarily documents the fact that Jim Crow voter suppression tactics targeting Democratic African-American voters were rampant in Ohio’s cities during the 2004 presidential election. It cites and spends most of its time analyzing the most visible problems: from shortages of voting machines in minority precincts, to unreasonable obstacles to voter registration, to disproportionate use of provisional ballots on Election Day among new voters and Democratic constituencies, to inadequate poll worker training and election administration, to poor post-Election Day record keeping.
The report primarily documents the fact that Jim Crow voter suppression tactics targeting Democratic African-American voters were rampant in Ohio’s cities during the 2004 presidential election. It cites and spends most of its time analyzing the most visible problems: from shortages of voting machines in minority precincts, to unreasonable obstacles to voter registration, to disproportionate use of provisional ballots on Election Day among new voters and Democratic constituencies, to inadequate poll worker training and election administration, to poor post-Election Day record keeping.
Those who hold the sacred trust of overseeing the election procedures and voting systems in this country are an alphabet-soup of organizations. The National Association of Secretaries of State (NASS); the National Association of State Elections Directors (NASED), the Technical Guidelines Development Committee (TGDC), the Elections Assistance Commission (EAC); the Election Center. What do these groups have in common? They either receive their funding from the vendors or are greatly influenced by those who do receive funding from the vendors. We can only hope that the EAC can resist the influence. The others haven't.