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People for the American Way sues to have Ohio provisional ballots counted
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Associated Press
Nov. 27, 2004
CLEVELAND -- A watchdog group filed a lawsuit Friday that seeks to overturn the rejection of thousands of provisional ballots in Cuyahoga County.
The county had the most provisionals in the state at 24,472, of which about 33%, or 8,099 ballots, were rejected, mostly because there was no voter registration record for the people who cast them.
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More election updates below:
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People for the American Way Foundation wants the county board of elections to hand check the rejected provisionals against voter registration cards, instead of computerized lists compiled from the cards.
"The electronic lists are not complete lists. There are mistakes," said Vicky Beasley, attorney for People for the American Way Foundation.
The lawsuit also seeks to give voters the chance to have their provisional ballots counted if they cast ballots in the wrong precinct without being directed to the correct precinct.
The 6th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled in late October that a provisional ballot cast outside a voter's home precinct isn't valid.
The suit was filed in the Eighth District Court of Appeals against Secretary of State Kenneth Blackwell and the Cuyahoga County Board of Elections. A message seeking comment was left Friday with Blackwell's office. The county board declined comment until it had a chance to review the suit.
People for the American Way Foundation is a national civil rights organization that helped found the Election Protection coalition.
Published by
Associated Press
Nearly a month later, fight
over Ohio count goes on
by John McCarthy, Associated Press
Nov. 29, 2004
COLUMBUS, Ohio - Nearly a month after John Kerry conceded Ohio to President Bush, complaints and challenges about the balloting are mounting as activists including the Rev. Jesse Jackson demand closer scrutiny to ensure the votes are being counted on the up-and-up.
Jackson has been holding rallies in Ohio in recent days to draw attention to the vote, and another critic plans to ask the state Supreme Court this week to decide the validity of the election.
Ohio essentially decided the outcome of the presidential race, with Kerry giving up after unofficial results showed Bush with a 136,000-vote lead in the state.
Since then, there have been demands for a recount and complaints about uncounted punch-card votes, disqualified provisional ballots and a ballot-machine error that gave hundreds of extra votes to Bush.
Commentary:
“Hundreds of extra votes,” my ass.
There are hundreds of stars in the sky, it’s been hundreds of years since dinosaurs roamed the earth, and there are hundreds of season-ticket holders for the Green Bay Packers.
=H&HH= |
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Jackson said too many questions have been raised to let the vote stand without closer examination.
"We can live with winning and losing. We cannot live with fraud and stealing," Jackson said Sunday at Mount Hermon Baptist Church.
An attorney for a political advocacy group on Wednesday plans to file a "contest of election." The request requires a single Supreme Court justice to either let the election stand, declare another winner or throw the whole thing out. The loser can appeal to the full seven-member court, which is dominated by Republicans 5-2.
Jackson said he agreed with the court filing planned by lawyer Cliff Arnebeck, who has represented the Boston-based Alliance for Democracy in other cases.
"The integrity of our election process is on trial," Jackson said Monday in Cincinnati.
Elections officials concede some mistakes were made but no more than most elections.
"There are no signs of widespread irregularities," said Carlo LoParo, a spokesman for Secretary of State Kenneth Blackwell.
Blackwell, a Republican, has until Dec. 6 to certify the vote. The Green and Libertarian parties are raising money to pay for a recount that would be held once the results are certified.
Other critics have seized on an error in an electronic voting system that gave Bush 3,893 extra votes in a suburban Columbus precinct where only 638 people voted. The extra votes are part of the current unofficial tally, but they will not be included in the official count that will be certified by the secretary of state.
Some groups also have complained about thousands of punch-card ballots that were not counted because officials in the 68 counties that use them could not determine a vote for president. Votes for other offices on the cards were counted.
Jackson said Blackwell, who along with other statewide GOP leaders was a co-chairman of Bush's re-election campaign in Ohio, should step down from overseeing the election process.
"You can't be chairman of the Bush campaign and then be the chief umpire in the seventh game of the World Series," Jackson said.
Blackwell's office responded by saying the state has a "bipartisan and transparent system that provides valuable checks and balances."
"The problem seems to be that Rev. Jackson's candidate didn't win," said Carlo LoParo, a Blackwell spokesman.
Published by
Associated Press
Jesse Jackson seeks voting probe
Cincinnati Post
Nov. 29, 2004
The Rev. Jesse Jackson says Ohioans should not stand for the way elections were run in Ohio Nov. 2, and he planned to bring his message directly to Cincinnati today.
Jackson was expected to speak at a rally this morning at Integrity Hall in Bond Hill, calling for an investigation of the voting process in Ohio. He said the rally this morning and one Sunday night in Columbus were to serve as "a kind of statewide sharing of experiences" that would mobilize citizens and result in "collective state action.
"We are pulling people together from around the state," Jackson, president of the Rainbow/PUSH Coalition said in a telephone interview Sunday. "The Ohio race has not yet been (decided) because of so many irregularities 26 days after the election."
Jackson on Sunday called for a recount of votes and said the Ohio Supreme Court should consider setting aside President Bush's victory Nov. 2. Jackson and others are complaining about uncounted punch-card votes, disqualified provisional ballots, discrepancies between exit polling and results, and too many votes counted for President Bush in Ohio. Bush defeated Democrat John Kerry in Ohio by 136,000 votes, according to unofficial results.
Jackson also said that there was a disparity in voting machinery used in suburban and urban neighborhoods.
"The suburban communities had ample machines," he said. "In inner cities, we had people (waiting) five or six hours in line. That was no doubt targeted."
Kerry has already conceded the race. Jackson said he thought it was possible a recount could change the outcome of the election, but said it was more important to get votes counted.
"This is about the integrity of the vote. This is not about the Kerry campaign," said Jackson, who supported Kerry.
On the morning of Nov. 3, less than 12 hours after Ohio's final votes were cast, Kerry called Bush to congratulate him on his victory. His campaign figured he would not get enough of the 155,000 provisional ballots, or those cast by voters whose registrations could not be confirmed at polling places, to overtake Bush's total.
The counting of provisional ballots and wide gaps in vote totals for Kerry and other Democrats on the ballots in certain counties have raised too many questions to let the vote stand without further examination, Jackson said.
"We can live with winning and losing. We cannot live with fraud and stealing," Jackson said.
Attorney Cliff Arnebeck, who has represented political activist groups, said he would ask the Ohio Supreme Court, probably on Wednesday, to take a look at the election results. If the court decides to hear the case, it can declare a new winner or throw the results out.
Since the election, several complaints have surfaced:- The Green and Libertarian parties asked a U.S. District Court judge to order an immediate recount. The judge agreed with the state that a recount cannot begin until Secretary of State Kenneth Blackwell certifies the statewide vote, sometime between Dec. 3 and 6. The two parties are raising the $113,600, or $10 per precinct statewide, needed to force a recount.
- People for the American Way, a national watchdog group, is trying to stop the Cuyahoga County Board of Elections in Cleveland from rejecting 8,099 of the 24,472 provisional ballots cast there. The ballots were thrown out because voters did not properly complete them or cast them at polling places that were not their own.
- An error was detected in an electronic voting system, giving President Bush 3,893 extra votes in suburban Columbus. Elections officials caught the glitch and the votes will not be added to the official tally. Some groups also have complained about thousands of punch-card ballots that were not tallied because officials in the 68 counties that use them could not determine a vote for president. Votes for other offices on the cards were counted.
The Ohio Democratic Party believes every effort should be made to get an accurate count, but it is not planning legal action of its own, spokesman Dan Trevas said.
Tim Burke, chairman of the Hamilton County Board of Elections and of the county's Democratic party, said the county party supports any effort that leads to more efficient elections.
Published by
Cincinnati Post
More questions raised about Ohio vote
by Jon Craig, The Columbus Dispatch
Nov. 25, 2004
Several new voting concerns surfaced yesterday as lawyers combed totals from the Nov. 2 presidential election.
An Akron man filed a complaint with the Summit County Board of Elections saying he "witnessed election judges telling potential voters that they could cast a provisional ballot at any table or precinct and if they did so, it would be counted."
Neil F. Schoenwetter Jr. was a volunteer election challenger for the Democratic Party on Nov. 2 at Copley High School, where six precincts voted.
Congress’ investigative agency, responding to complaints from Ohio and elsewhere, has begun to look into the vote count, including the handling of provisional ballots and malfunctions of voting machines.
The Government Accountability Office usually begins investigations at the request of Congress, but the agency’s head, Comptroller General David Walker, said the GAO acted on its own because of ballot-counting complaints.
The investigation was not triggered by several House Democrats who had written the agency this month, seeking an investigation. That effort was led by senior Judiciary Committee member John Conyers, of Michigan.
Conyers yesterday said he would like the investigation to include allegations that not enough voting machines were available in some Democratic areas, such as Franklin County.
Meanwhile, attorneys for various citizen action groups that plan to contest the results said they are puzzled that vote totals in the presidential race in Warren County far exceed totals in most other statewide and countywide races.
For example, the total of 94,415 votes cast there for President Bush or Sen. John Kerry is 3,000 more than all those cast in the U.S. Senate race and a constitutional amendment about same-sex marriage.
Further, 20,000 to 24,000 fewer votes were cast in three Ohio Supreme Court races and 13,000 to 24,000 fewer were cast in various countywide races.
In Warren County, which reported a 33 percent increase in voter turnout from the 2000 elections, election officials had banned observers at the polls for "homeland security" concerns.
Clifford O. Arnebeck, a Columbus attorney representing the Alliance for Democracy, said he has testimony from poll worker Liz Kent, of Warren County, asserting, "There was no way the actual vote could have been as reported."
Arnebeck’s group plans to join several others in contesting the results in the Ohio Supreme Court. Two third-party presidential candidates plan to formally request a recount.
President Bush’s uncertified margin of victory over Kerry totals more than 137,000 votes in Ohio. There were 155,337 provisional and more than 5,000 overseas ballots.
In Summit County, Schoenwetter said he witnessed election judges giving incorrect instructions to voters in four precincts.
"I tried, unsuccessfully, to point out the judges’ errors to the judges," he said in his affidavit. "I also observed that poll workers were not helpful to -- in fact, some were overtly hostile to the idea of helping -- voters whose names were not on the rolls in finding their correct polling place.
"Some lines were over an hour or two long. At other precincts, there was no line. I believe that there were potential voters who requested provisional ballots at the incorrect precinct because it was more convenient and because they were told that casting a provisional ballot at any precinct was acceptable," he said.
Bryan C. Williams, director of the Summit County elections board, said he was unaware of Schoenwetter’s affidavit, saying, "We have a stack of complaints we received."
Williams said it would be incorrect to advise people that their provisional ballot would be counted if they were in the wrong precinct. Of 5,400 provisional ballots, about 25 percent won’t be counted, he said, including people not registered or at the wrong address.
Separately, Williams said he plans to refer to the county sheriff, for possible prosecution, the names of 20 people confirmed to have voted twice.
The Cuyahoga County elections board voted Monday to reject one out of three of the 24,472 provisional ballots cast in the Nov. 2 election. The bulk of the 8,099 invalidated ballots were determined to be cast by nonregistered voters or registered voters who cast ballots in the wrong precincts.
In Sandusky County, double counting of 2,600 ballots from nine precincts resulted from duplicate storage in a computer disk, the elections board said. No outcomes were affected by the error, the elections board in northwestern Ohio said.
Barb Tuckerman, board of elections director in Sandusky County, said the error, initially blamed on ballots being run through a scanner twice, was traced to workers duplicating backups of vote totals for the nine precincts on a computer storage disk.
"We checked everything as it came out of the machines. We got the right answer," Tuckerman said.
In Gahanna, 3,893 extra votes were recorded for Bush because of an unexplained touch-screen machine malfunction. And in Youngstown, some voters who tried to cast ballots for Kerry on electronic machines saw their votes recorded for Bush instead.
Ohio Republican Party Chairman Robert T. Bennett issued a statement questioning the vote challenges:
"These groups have already acknowledged the outcome of the election will not change, and their actions represent a foolish attempt to cast doubt on the legitimacy of the Bush presidency," he said. "I call on the leadership of the Ohio Democratic Party to immediately concede that this worthless recount request is an insult to the integrity of Ohio’s election system."
Published by
The Columbus Dispatch
Judge says Ohio recount must
wait until after election is certified
Associated Press
Nov. 24, 2004
TOLEDO, Ohio -- A federal judge on Tuesday denied a request by third-party presidential candidates who wanted to force a recount of Ohio ballots even before the official count was finished.
Judge James G. Carr in Toledo ruled that the candidates have a right under Ohio law to a recount, but said it can wait. The judge wrote that he saw no reason to interfere with the final stages of Ohio's electoral process. Officials have said the results will be certified by Dec. 6.
The lawsuit by Green Party presidential candidate David Cobb and Libertarian candidate Michael Badnarik had asked Carr to issue an order requiring Ohio Secretary of State Kenneth Blackwell to immediately begin statewide recount of Nov. 2 voting results.
The candidates received a combined 0.26 percent of the vote in unofficial results. But they contend a recount is necessary to ensure accuracy.
President Bush led Democrat John Kerry by 136,000 votes in the unofficial count, and Kerry conceded that there were not enough provisional ballots to change the outcome. But Kerry supporters have made numerous claims of voting irregularities in Ohio.
The two candidates have said they raised more than $150,000 to cover the state's fee for a recount. Ohio law requires payment of $10 per precinct, or $113,600 statewide, but election officials say the true expense would be far greater.
Published by
Associated Press
Florida group sues
over election results
by James Miller,
Daytona Beach News-Journal
Nov. 24, 2004
DELAND, Fl. -- The aftermath of the general election in Volusia County grew more tangled Tuesday, as a local voting rights advocate sued to throw out the results.
The suit, filed by DeLeon Springs resident Susan Pynchon, targets the race for supervisor of elections, alleging that former County Councilwoman Ann McFall's victory was based on "inadequate and incomplete information regarding election results."
While the suit focuses on the most prominent countywide race, it asks that all general election results in the county be set aside.
"What happens (if) that election is set aside, whether there's another election, we'll have to wait and cross that bridge when we come to it," said attorney Daniel Vaughen of DeLand, who filed the suit in circuit court in DeLand.
The suit comes one day too late to meet a state law requiring that such complaints be filed within 10 days of an election's certification, but Vaughen says an exception should be made in part because of delays in getting records from the Volusia County Department of Elections.
Late Tuesday, McFall, who prevailed by a 51.6 percent to 48.4 percent margin, lashed out at her opponent in the race, County Councilwoman Pat Northey, saying the suit "looks and smells like sour grapes to me."
Northey said Pynchon had contacted her, but she had not endorsed the lawsuit. She declined to comment on McFall's belief that she was involved.
Pynchon, who recently helped found an organization called Florida Fair Elections Coalition, said she sued because of concerns about how election records were handled. She acknowledged that she had been active with the Democratic Party but said her group is nonpartisan.
In part, her suit's claims are based on records Supervisor of Elections Deanie Lowe provided last week to Black Box Voting, a national elections watchdog group that is focusing one of several potential fraud probes on Volusia County.
Pynchon and Bev Harris, Black Box Voting's executive director, say copies of voting machine tapes they received last week are incomplete for 59 precincts. The tapes -- receipt-like records -- are one of several issues raised in the lawsuit.
"At this point, we're (Pynchon and her attorney) not accusing anyone of fraud," Pynchon said. "At the very least, I would say there's been gross negligence and ineptitude."
Harris said Black Box Voting played no part in the suit other than providing information.
Regardless of the lawsuit, Harris said her group will ask for public inspection of the ballots from the 59 precincts. Harris is being shadowed by documentary filmmakers. Although they have met before, Lowe declined to meet with Harris on Tuesday with filmmakers present.
"I'm not here to be part of a circus and a bunch of inferences and insinuations," Lowe said.
She said she would conduct a public recount if Harris asks and might conduct her own, just to set the record straight.
Lowe acknowledged that her office mistakenly provided incomplete copies of voting machine tapes from 10 precincts to Black Box Voting. Poll workers' signatures were cut off during photocopying, she said. But while Lowe said there might have been other errors in copying, she tersely rebutted suggestions of more serious problems.
"I think they're totally wrong," Lowe said. "There was no negligence and there was certainly no fraud."
Published by
Daytona Beach News-Journal
Kerry picks up 1,070 more votes in Ohio
by Jim Bebbington, Dayton Daily News
Nov. 23, 2004
Sen. John Kerry extended his winning margin slightly in Montgomery County in official results Monday at the Montgomery County Board of Elections.
Board staff on Monday conducted a full, official count of the Montgomery County votes from Nov. 2.
The results showed Kerry's margin in Montgomery County grew by 1,070 votes - to 4,616 - over President Bush.
The official count did not change the ultimate result of any issues on the ballot, according to board Director Chris Heizer.
The official results are expected to be adopted at the meeting of the board of elections today.
The official count included 7,375 provisional ballots that were cast Nov. 2 but set aside until board staff could check the voter's registration or residency.
Overall, there were 9,257 provisional ballots cast in Montgomery County, and 1,882 were ruled invalid.
Of the 9,257 provisionals, 11.5 percent were ruled invalid because the voter was not registered, and 8 percent were ruled invalid because the voter was in the wrong precinct, elections officials said.
Democrats had sought before the election to have Ohio count all votes by registered voters regardless of whether the voter was in the correct precinct. But Ohio Secretary of State J. Kenneth Blackwell prevailed in his interpretation of Ohio law that requires voters to vote only in their home precinct.
The official count Monday also helped erase an unusually high number of so-called undercounted presidential votes in several Montgomery County precincts, including Washington Twp. X and Kettering 3-A, where more than 25 percent of the ballots initially registered no vote for president.
Officials said electrical service to three of nine vote-counting machines was interrupted election night when a fuse blew, then backup batteries died.
The precincts that were being counted when the power died were recounted, but the interruption also affected results that were being transmitted to the central computer.
Board staff did not know those were lost until media accounts found the high discrepancies, Heizer said.
In the official count Monday, Washington X and Kettering 3-A had undercounts about 2 percent each.
The error meant 186 votes for Bush and 106 votes for Kerry were not counted between the two precincts.
Boards of elections across the state have until Dec. 1 to complete their official count of the Nov. 2 election results.
Published by
Dayton Daily News
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Related reports from our archives:
Nov. 26, 2004:
Grass-roots movement tries to trick CNN
into practicing journalism in Ohio# One of the diarists on the Daily Kos is urging people to go to CNN's webpage and request customized email alerts
on the topics "Ohio elections" and "voting irregularities." The idea is that CNN might actually give the story some coverage if they are faced with overwhelming demand for it. CNN wants you to register in order to do this, so have your fake ID ready. =Madeline Zane=
Nov. 25, 2004
New Ohio voter transcripts feed floodtide of doubt about Republican election manipulation
Nov. 24, 2004:
US offers hypocritical response
on Ukraine election
# with comments by 100 Watts and H&HH
Nov. 23, 2004:
Greens, Libertarians sue to stop
stonewalling on Ohio recount
- Lawsuit challenges
Nevada’s Republican electors
- Ohio Finds at least
2,600 ballots counted twice
- Lingering doubts
about 2004 election
Nov. 22, 2004:
Widespread election fraud in Cleveland?
Nov. 21, 2004:
Help wanted: Last chance to count Nevada vote
Nov. 18, 2004:
Research team sounds
'smoke alarm' for Florida e-vote count
Nov. 18, 2004:
"Something is definitely wrong," says Zogby
Nov. 18, 2004
Voting machines count backwards in Oklahoma
Nov. 17, 2004:
Consistant swing from exit polls
to Bush vote unexplained
Nov. 17, 2004:
Minority precincts were deliberately shortchanged on voting equipment
Many people waited hours to vote ...
while many more gave up and left
Nov. 16, 2004:
Ohio vote to be recounted
Greens and Libertarians fund re-count together
# with comments by Angry Annie
Nov. 16, 2004:
While the news networks were
covering Scott Peterson's trial ...
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- Election stolen, group suspects
- Hackers rigging voting machines
a real possibility
- Complaints of election theft quickly, efficiently dismissed (with comments by H&HH)
- Wacky turnout totals just another glitch
- Computer glitch elects
wrong candidate in Indiana
- Minnesotans kicked off voter
registration lists are still asking why
- Nader seeks limited recount of
optical-scan vote in New Hampshire
- Worst voter error is apathy toward irregularities
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Nov. 16, 2004:
What can we do about the stolen election?
by Atomicktom and Helen & Harry Highwater, Unknown News
Nov. 12, 2004:
Major bugs found in Diebold vote systems
Nov. 11, 2004:
Kerry lawyers eye Ohio recounts
but insist effort isn't aimed at challenging results
Nov. 11, 2004:
Republican Party wants to end exit polls
Nov. 11, 2004:
Green, Libertarian candidates
demand Ohio recount
Nov. 10, 2004:
Florida e-vote fraud? Unlikely
Nov. 9, 2004:
A stolen election?
Nov. 9, 2004:
Bush's 'incredible' vote tallies
Nov. 8, 2004:
The e-vote factor:
Kerry conceded but did he really lose?
Nov. 8, 2004:
Media blackout on vote fraud allegations
Nov. 7, 2004:
With 638 votes cast, Bush leads 4,258 to 260
... and other amusing anecdotes
from the stolen election of 2004
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- Absentee votes draw Florida eye
- Kerry leads in Ohio exit polling
- Newspaper denied access at polls
- Foreign monitors 'barred' from US polls
- Journalist beaten, arrested outside Florida polling place for violating secret rule
- Countless other frauds occurred ...
- Defective software 'lost' votes
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Nov. 6, 2004:
Evidence mounts that the vote
may have been hacked
Nov. 5, 2004:
Should America trust the results of the election?
Editorial, The Washington DispatchExcerpt: Without question, the evidence presented thus far should raise suspicion among honest individuals. While maintaining a calm and reasonable demeanor, the results of the Novermber 2nd election should be fully investigated simply for the sake of the nation and our future confidence in the democratic process.
Nov. 5, 2004:
Something amiss in Ohio
Nov. 4, 2004:
Was the Ohio election honest and fair?
Press release, Progressive NewswireExcerpt: Ohio State Senator Teresa Fedor said today: "There was trouble with our elections in Ohio at every stage. It's been a battle getting people registered to vote, getting to the ballot on voting day and getting that vote to count. There is a pattern of voter suppression; that's why I called for [Ohio Secretary of State] Blackwell's resignation more than a month ago. Blackwell, while claiming to run an unbiased elections process, was also the co-chair of the Bush-Cheney campaign in Ohio.
Nov. 4, 2004:
First of all, this election was definitely rigged
by Mark Crispin Miller, Salon
Nov. 4, 2004:
States with electronic voting machines
gave Bush mysterious 5% advantage
Nov. 4, 2004:
More votes than voters?
Nov. 4, 2004:
Kerry won. Here's the facts.
Nov. 4, 2004:
Evidence of fraud is indisputable
... but there is no accountability
Nov. 4, 2004:
4,000+ votes vanish in one countyExcerpt: The county's technical consultants contacted UniLect Corp., the manufacturer of Carteret County's electronic voting system, had given misinformation about how many votes the system can store.
The county was told its units could store up to 10,500 votes when, in fact, the limit is 3,005 votes.
Nov. 4, 2004:
Computer glitch still baffles county clerk
Nov. 4, 2004:
Were the absentee ballots lost or stolen?
Either way, it's a crime.
Nov. 3, 2004:
Photo shows voter fraud in Ohio?
Nov. 3, 2004:
Florida numbers don't add up
Nov. 3, 2004:
America is screwed: Election stolen againExcerpt: In most states, the returns were pretty much as predicted by the last polls. Florida seems the odd exception -- the last polls were for Kerry, 49-44%, but the returns are running 52-47 Bush.
So in just one day -- and in just one state -- Bush went from five points down to five points ahead?
Nov. 3, 2004:
All exit polls matched results
... except Ohio, Florida
Nov. 3, 2004:
Graph:
Exit polls vs. E-vote tallies
Nov. 3, 2004:
Where did Bush get
8,000,000 new voters?Statistical analysis:
Bush's 8 million
new votes found
Nov. 3, 2004:
Votes lost in cyberspace
Nov. 3, 2004:
Presidential votes miscast on
e-voting machines throughout the country
Nov. 3, 2004:
CNN just changed their Ohio exit poll page
Nov. 2, 2004:
BlackBoxVoting files fleet of FOIA requestsExcerpt: At 8:30 p.m. Election Night, Black Box Voting blanketed the U.S. with the first in a series of public records requests, to obtain internal computer logs and other documents from 3,000 individual counties and townships. Networks called the election before anyone bothered to perform even the most rudimentary audit.
... Among the first requests sent to counties (with all kinds of voting systems -- optical scan, touch-screen, and punch card) is a formal records request for internal audit logs, polling place results slips, modem transmission logs, and computer trouble slips.
An earlier FOIA is more sensitive, and has not been disclosed here. We will notify you as soon as we can go public with it.
Nov. 2, 2004:
Group tallies more than 1,100 e-voting glitches
Nov. 2, 2004:
Watchdogs spot e-vote glitches
Nov. 1, 2004:
One million Kerry votes
stolen before election day
Oct. 28, 2004:
58,000 absentee ballots lost in Florida
Oct. 26, 2004:
E-voting companies reveal some software to feds
# with comments by CactusPat
Oct. 26, 2004:
New Florida vote scandal feared
by Greg Palast, BBC News
Oct. 22, 2004:
Some early voters say
machines mark incorrect choices
Oct. 20, 2004:
Republican-backed group allegedly involved
in Pennsylvania vote registration fraud
# with comments by CactusPat and H&HH
Oct. 16, 2004:
Florida's Bush ignored advice to
'pull the plug' on flawed felon voter list
Oct. 12, 2004:
Republican-backed group allegedly involved
in vote registration fraud in Nevada and OregonRepublicans phone voters to discourage Democrats' voting
Oct. 9, 2004:
Republican
dirty tricks in Ohio
Sept. 8, 2004:
November surprise: Electronic voting machines add uncertainty to close election race
Aug. 30, 2004:
Florida fixed again? Absentee ballots go AWOL
Excerpt: Although 37,000 citizens have requested absentee ballots, Supervisor of Elections Theresa LePore says she'd only received 22,000 when she began the count. Where are the others? Don't ask: though she posts the names of requesters, she won't release the list of those who have voted, an eyebrow-raising deviation from standard procedure.
Aug. 26, 2004:
Diebold central tabulator
contains stunning security holeExcerpt: By entering a 2-digit code in a hidden location, a second set of votes is created. This set of votes can be changed, so that it no longer matches the correct votes. The voting system will then read the totals from the bogus vote set. It takes only seconds to change the votes, and to date not a single location in the U.S. has implemented security measures to fully mitigate the risks.
This program is not "stupidity" or sloppiness. It was designed and tested over a series of a dozen version adjustments.
Public officials: If you are in a county that uses GEMS 1.18.18, GEMS 1.18.19, or GEMS 1.18.23, your secretary or state may not have told you about this. You're the one who'll be blamed if your election is tampered with.
Aug. 23, 2004:
Vote count at mercy of clandestine testing
Aug. 16, 2004:
Is Florida facing a new electoral crisis?
by Linda McQuaig, The Toronto StarExcerpt: Concerns about the lack of a paper trail have prompted some states to ban the machines in the November election. But Jeb Bush has brushed aside such concerns, refusing to even allow independent audits of the machines in Florida.
Aug. 6, 2004:
Government makes sure soldiers' votes count (the rest of us are on our own)
# with comments by Madeline Zane
Aug. 4, 2004:
Computerized voting systems proven insecure
Aug. 3, 2004:
A new variation on voter fraudExcerpt: Today, around lunchtime, I went with my parents to the polls to vote in our primary election. When I got there, I found that I had somehow been removed from the books, and hence could not vote.
July 25, 2004:
New citizens in Florida are
unknowingly registered as Republicans
July 16, 2004:
A bigger threat to November's election
than any terrorists' attack
by Madeline Zane, Unknown News
June 20, 2004:
Stage set for repeat of 2000 presidential vote fraud
May 19, 2004:
Feds threaten subpenna against activist for honest vote counts
May 18, 2004:
The people's paper trail
by Carlos Pecciotto Jr., Unknown News
May 6, 2004:
Officials warn against
receipts for electronic ballots
# with comments by Phil
April 30, 2004:
California Secretary of State
bans electronic voting
April 28, 2004:
Two companies & two brothers will count 80% of U.S. ballots
April 23, 2004:
Diebold may face criminal charges
April 22, 2004:
Diebold apologizes for
disenfranchising California voters
April 13, 2004:
E-voting probe finds no reason for Diebold glitches
March 14, 2004:
Designer of verified vote system
dies in unlucky accident
March 4, 2004:
A deafening silence as democracy expires
Feb. 24, 2004:
Diebold, electronic voting and
the vast right-wing conspiracy
Feb. 15, 2004:
Would you like a receipt with that election?
Technologists advocate a paper trail
for electronic voting machines
Feb. 6, 2004:
Michigan plans internet vote
despite hacking risks
Feb. 6, 2004:
Company lied about voting machine's reliability
Jan. 30, 2004:
This week in vote fraud
Jan. 20, 2004:
Company with worst e-voting security record produces machines with wireless capability
Jan. 17, 2004:
This week in U.S. election fraud
Dec. 17, 2003:
Yeah, let's put Diebold in charge of elections
Dec. 14, 2003:
Vote system provides receipt, verification that your vote was counted
Dec. 2, 2003:
Diebold backs off legal intimidation
Nov. 10, 2003:
More election machine problems
Nov. 6, 2003:
Electronic voting machines cause problems nationwide
Nov. 4, 2003:
Diebold sued over cease-and-desist tactics
Nov. 3, 2003:
New York Times briefly awakens from long nap, notes controversy, goes back to sleep
Nov. 3, 2003:
When votes don't count
by Madeline Zane, Unknown News
Oct. 24, 2003:
Diebold memos disclose
Florida 2000 e-voting fraudBackground information :
Election 2000: Our final tally
Oct. 22, 2003:
Electronic Frontier Foundation
to Diebold: Bite me
Oct. 14, 2003:
The hand that counts the ballots ...
Oct. 13, 2003:
Did Diebold patch Georgia election?Excerpt: Republican candidate Sonny Perdue managed to unseat Democratic incumbent Roy Barnes with only 51 percent of the vote. It was the first time an incumbent governor had not won his second term since Georgia law allowed back-to-back terms in 1978.
Sept. 24, 2003:
Diebold feels the heat,
sends out attack lawyers
Sept. 23, 2003
Italian Diebold memo website, BlackBoxVoting.org shut down
Company claims hyperlinks are
'illegally' linked to leaked memos
Sept. 19, 2003
Democracy's vanishing act
by Chris Floyd, The Moscow [Russia] Times
Sept. 17, 2003:
Diebold's vote-tally software -- Security review instructions# This is a page with instructions on downloading & using Diebold's GEMS program. It's the REAL Diebold program, with step by step instructions on how to hack into it and alter the vote counts. Altering the vote counts is child's play for those who have Microsoft Access, a part of Microsoft Office Suite, the most common business application software package available. =Joe F.=
Sept. 12, 2003
Diebold confirms U.S. vote vulnerabilities
Sept. 11, 2003
Strange case of an election tally that
appears to have popped up on
the Internet hours before polls closed
Sept. 3, 2003:
Bush's "solution" to vote fraud funds massive switch to insecure computerized voting systemsExcerpt: It seems fitting that a president who was brought into office because of a scandalous election would enact a law to overhaul the electoral process to make it easier for people to choose their leaders the second time around.
But that's not what the Omnibus Appropriations Bill, signed into law by President Bush in October 2002, will do. Instead, the law will force most states to switch from paper balloting to a fully computerized system -- one that is currently rife with programming flaws and is incapable of being audited -- that could call into question the legitimacy of future local and national elections and put the wrong candidates into office.
Aug. 28, 2003
President of voting machine company
says he's "committed" to Bush re-election
Aug. 26, 2003:
Voting industry insiders hold secret meeting to hire PR firm to sell electronic voting to public
Aug. 8, 2003
How George W. Bush won
the 2004 presidential election
by Sandeep S. Atwal, Infernal Press
Aug. 7, 2003
New security woes for computer-voting firm
Aug. 5, 2003
Lawsuit to block voting
machines gains momentum
Aug. 1, 2003
Experimental web program
opens voting to overseas military
July 30, 2003:
Electronic voting rife with problemsTheft of your vote is just a chip away
July 24, 2003:
Computerized voting open
to easy fraud, says study
July 24, 2003:
Original study:
Analysis of an electronic voting system| REQUIRES ADOBE ACROBAT READER |
July 8, 2003
The 'walk right in, sit right down, and compose your own tally' vote counting system
by Bev Harris, Scoop
Jan. 31, 2003:
How Chuck Hagel stole a seat in the Senate
Nov. 12, 2002:
Three Republicans in one Texas county each win election by 18,181 vote margin
May 11, 2001:
Election 2000: Our final tallyFAQ about our tally
More related reports from our archives:
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Commission says voting
problems were widespread
by Thomas Hargrove,
Scripps-Howard News Service
Nov. 23, 2004
Mountainous stacks of unopened absentee ballots cluttered South Florida election centers. Sixty-year-old voting machines jammed, forcing New Yorkers to stand in lines three blocks long. Punch-card machines went unused in Ohio because poll workers didn't know how to plug them in.
The four members of the new U.S. Election Assistance Commission met Tuesday to compare horror stories while acting as federal observers in the Nov. 2 election. America is lucky that President Bush was re-elected by a 3 million-vote margin, they said, or the nation would again be wracked by election uncertainty.
"The margin was enough that the glitches were not important," concluded commission Chairman DeForest Soaries. "The bad news is, we still don't live up to the expectations that democracy demands."
The four commissioners fanned out around the country three weeks ago to watch a record 119 million Americans try to cast ballots in the presidential election. The most traveled commissioner was Paul DeGregorio, who went to New Jersey, New York, Illinois and Missouri on Election Day.
"I went to the largest polling place in the world, Co-op City in the Bronx, where there are 14,000 people registered," DeGregorio said. "It was pretty orderly for the most part. They used the old lever machines built in the 1940s and those machines did jam."
All four commissioners said they saw unacceptably long lines.
"The line at the polling place nearest the (site of the former) World Trade Center was three blocks long. The problem was some machines jammed within just a few minutes," DeGregorio said.
Emergency workers were summoned to keep order at Laclede Elementary School in St. Louis when DeGregorio arrived at 6 p.m. "There were 200 people who had been waiting 2-1/2 hours. There weren't enough poll workers and there was only one (voter registration) book containing names A through Z," he said.
The additional county employees ripped the registration book into three parts to process voters quicker.
Commissioner Ray Martinez spent the day observing 10 polling sites in Cleveland, where he "generally saw very dedicated poll workers and very patient voters." But police were summoned to one polling place where voters had been waiting for at least two hours.
"There was a great deal of confusion and the voters were becoming upset," Martinez said. "I saw six or seven voting stations in the corner that weren't set up for use. The precinct official said she thought each machine had to be plugged in separately. She didn't know that they could be plugged together," he said.
Martinez, legally required not to interfere in a local election, used his cell phone to call Cuyahoga County authorities to tell precinct officials that the machines could be set up together.
Soaries spent Election Day in Florida, where state officials had eliminated all of the punch-card voting machines that caused havoc in 2000. "Many people who were looking for Florida to be another Florida were disappointed," he said.
But Floridians suffered considerable disputes over early-voting procedures in Volusia County and absentee-voting problems in Miami-Dade and Broward counties.
"By the time I got to Miami, there were about 50,000 absentee ballots that had yet to be opened and more absentee ballots were arriving (in the mail) that day," Soaries said. "There were only three machines available to tabulate the absentee ballots. They may still be counting absentees in Miami to this day."
The only commissioner who did not report Election Day horror stories was Vice Chairman Gracia Hillman, who observed voting in Los Angeles. But there were delays of up to three hours. "There is a question of what is a reasonable length of time for people to stand in line to vote," she said.
The commissioners agreed to hold a series of three public hearings next year to establish testing standards for voting machines, to consider statewide voter-registration standards and to review the often-inconsistent use of new provisional balloting for voters who say they are eligible but don't appear on local registration lists.
Published by
Scripps-Howard News Service
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Concerned locals push for
presidential election fraud probe
by Nick Diamantides, NewsAshland [OR]
Nov. 23, 2004
MEDFORD, OREGON -- "We believe exit polls in the Ukraine, but we don't believe exit polls in the U.S.," said Tim Ream. "What is that telling us?" Ream was one of the speakers at a meeting Monday night in the Medford Public Library attended by about 75 people from Southern Oregon who want the federal government as well as state governments to investigate occurrences they say indicate widespread fraud in the 2004 U.S. presidential election.
"The exit poll is a very pure type of sampling; you're taking a random number of people who just left the voting place," said Ream, who lives in the Applegate Valley. "Historical data has shown time and time again that exit polls are very accurate." Ream added that in Florida, Nevada, New Hampshire, New Mexico, Ohio, Pennsylvania, and a number of other states, exit poll percentages contrasted sharply with election results, and in all cases the disparity was in favor of President George Bush.
Ream noted that several statistical studies were undertaken regarding the issue. "One team out of Berkley concluded that the odds are 250 million to one that it could just be a coincidence that the exit polls could be so wrong," he said adding that a growing number of Americans suspect that Republicans stole the election and John Kerry was the true winner.
Ashland resident, Mat Marr, who also spoke at the meeting, cited a study undertaken by Professor Steven Freeman of the University of Pennsylvania. "Freeman looked at past exit polls and found that they are amazingly accurate," said Marr. "Then he studied the results on the 2004 election and identified several states where the results massively shifted toward Bush, contradicting the exit polls."
Published by
NewsAshland
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