by Michael Collins,
Scripps Howard News Service
Dec. 22, 2004
Here's something that has been largely overlooked amid all of the complaints about voting irregularities in Ohio during the Nov. 2 election:
Nearly 97,000 ballots, or 1.7 percent of those cast across the state, either did not record a preference for president or could not be counted because the voter selected more than one presidential candidate.
An analysis by Scripps Howard News Service found that Ohio recorded the second-highest number of missing votes in the country, behind California. Elections experts say a large number of missing votes in a high-profile race like president should raise a red flag that something may be amiss.
Secretary of State Ken Blackwell said it's difficult to know what happened because the numbers don't include a breakdown of how many voters simply chose not to vote for president or how many picked more than one presidential candidate.
But he said the data reinforces his belief that the state must move away from punch-card ballots and toward electronic machines that prevent voters from picking more than one candidate in the same race.
Voters in 68 of Ohio's 88 counties used punch-card ballots in November. Electronic voting machinery must be in place in every county in Ohio by May 2006.
On the other hand, Blackwell said, some voters probably chose not to vote for president because they didn't like either of the major candidates on the ballot.
"Given human nature, when you're talking about 5.8 million people casting a vote, it wouldn't be too far-fetched to think that you have a small percentage of people who would say, 'A pox on both of your houses,' " Blackwell said.
"I just hear, as I crisscross the state talking with voters, some people don't think they have a clear choice and they think it's (between) tweedledee and tweedledum. Sometimes they just take a pass and focus on those issues and candidates that they know and that they see have a clear difference."
The number of missing votes in Ohio increased over the last presidential election. This year, there were 96,580 missing votes, compared to 93,991 four years ago. Blackwell attributed the increase to the fact that nearly 1 million more voters cast ballots in this year's contest than four years ago.
As for percentages, the number of missing votes in Ohio actually declined. Four years ago, 2 percent of all ballots cast in Ohio did not register a vote for president or could not be counted because of double-voting. This year, that number dropped to 1.7 percent.
The three Ohio counties with the highest percentage of missing votes were Coshocton County, where 1,365 ballots, or nearly 8 percent of all ballots cast, did not register a vote for president; Van Wert County, which reported 698 missing votes, or 4.5 percent; and Holmes County, which had 570 missing votes, or 4.48 percent.
Mary A. Fry, director of the Coshocton County Board of Elections, attributed the number of missing votes in her county to a mental health issue that was on the ballot. Voters were asked to approve a property tax levy on which the proceeds would go to mental health programs in the county.
"A lot of people voted on a mental health issue and nothing else," she said.
In Van Wert County, elections officials said the problem could be traced largely to a voting machine in one precinct. Some 400 votes had to be thrown out after elections workers in one precinct borrowed a punch-card reader from another precinct.
The order in which candidate names appear on the ballot in Ohio is rotated from one political jurisdiction to another. But elections workers forgot to rotate the ballot when they borrowed the punch-card reader in Van Wert County, making it impossible to determine which presidential candidate the voter was trying to vote for, said Carlo LoParo, spokesman for the Secretary of State's office.
Holmes County traditionally has a high number of missing votes because the county has a large Amish population, said Lisa Welch, director of the Holmes County Board of Elections.
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Congressman
seeks exit
poll data
by Seth Sutel, Associated Press
Dec. 22, 2004
NEW YORK -- The top Democrat on the House Judiciary Committee has asked The Associated Press and five broadcast networks to turn over raw exit poll data collected on Election Day so that any discrepancies between the data and the certified election results can be investigated.
Rep. John Conyers Jr. of Michigan said in a letter released Tuesday in Washington that the polling firms that conducted the polls on behalf of the news organizations, Mitofsky International and Edison Media Research, had declined to share the information with the committee.
"Without the raw data, the committee will be severely handicapped in its efforts to show the need for serious election reform in the United States," Conyers said in the letter.
The AP and the five television outlets -- ABC, CBS, NBC, CNN, and Fox -- formed a consortium called the National Election Pool to conduct exit polls for this year's election after disbanding a previous exit poll group called the Voter News Service, which had problems in both the 2000 and 2002 elections.
Edie Emery, a spokeswoman for the National Election Pool and a CNN employee, said the poll data were still being analyzed and that the group's board would decide how to release a full report on the data early next year. "To release any information now would be incomplete," she said.
Several Web logs carried accounts on the afternoon of Nov. 2 of what they said were leaked information from the exit polls showing that Kerry, a Massachusetts senator, was leading Bush in several battleground states, including Ohio, and poised for victory.
But Bush, a Republican, beat Kerry by about 119,000 votes in Ohio, winning that state's 20 electoral votes and putting him over the top in the race. Bush won re-election with 286 electoral votes to Kerry's 252.
Conyers' letter said the exit poll information could help determine whether there is evidence "of voting irregularities that occurred as a result of poor election practices and intentional voter disenfran-chisement."
The exit polling was conducted for the AP and for ABC, a unit of The Walt Disney Co.; CBS, a unit of Viacom Inc.; NBC, a unit of General Electric Co.; CNN, a unit of Time Warner Inc.; and Fox News, owned by News Corp.
"Like Congressman Conyers, we believe the American people deserve answers," said Jack Stokes, a spokesman for the AP. "We want exit polling information to be made public as soon as it is available, as we intended. At this time, the data is still being evaluated for a final report to the National Election Pool."
Officials from ABC and NBC referred calls for comment to the National Election Pool, where CNN's Emery responded for the group. A CBS spokeswoman declined to comment, and officials at Fox could not be reached.
Earlier this month Kerry asked county election officials in Ohio to allow his witnesses to inspect the 92,000 ballots cast in the state in which no vote for president was recorded.
Despite improvements since 2000, when the presidential outcome was delayed for weeks by problems counting ballots in Florida, the nation's voting system remains a locally administered patchwork whose lack of national uniformity distinguishes the United States from many other democracies.
Most complaints have come from Democrats and third-party candidates, but Republicans and bipartisan groups have acknowledged problems. The Government Accountability Office is investigating election problems. Rep. Bob Ney, R-Ohio and chairman of the House Administration Committee, will oversee an inquiry next year.
The U.S. Election Assistance Commission, created in 2002, is also scrutinizing the outcome. It plans to publish in January the government's first report on the voting, which will serve as the basis for congressional recommendations and reforms.
Published by
Associated Press
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"Traditionally, our Amish do not vote on candidates, they only vote on issues," Welch said. "They do not feel it's their right to judge men."
Published by
Scripps Howard News Service
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| This material is copyrighted by its original publishers.
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There's much more than this at Unknown News.
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Latest related reports from our archives:
Dec. 27, 2004
Evidence of fraud and disenfran-
chisement in Ohio: A partial list
Dec. 25, 2004:
Ohio numbers support claims of Triad fraud
Dec. 23, 2004:
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Dec. 23, 2004:
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PDF FILE (REQUIRES ADOBE ACROBAT)
Dec. 23, 2004:
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# So, they didn't increment the counter, they didn't log the event, and they sent the voter on his/her ignorantly blissful way? What if they put these machines in places with Democratic majorities? =Underground Panther in the Sky=
Dec. 18, 2004:
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Dec. 15, 2004:
Proof of Ohio election fraud exposed Excerpt: TRIAD is owned by a man named Tod Rapp, who has also donated money to both the Republican Party and the election campaign of George W. Bush. TRIAD manufactures punch-card voting systems, and also wrote the computer program that tallied the punch-card votes cast in 41 Ohio counties last November.
... A representative from TRIAD Systems came into a county board of elections office un-announced. He said he was just stopping by to see if they had any questions about the up-coming recount. He then headed into the back room where the TRIAD supplied Tabulator (a card reader and older PC with custom software) is kept. He told them there was a problem and the system had a bad battery and had "lost all of its data". He then took the computer apart and started swapping parts in and out of it and another "spare" tower type PC also in the room. He may have had spare parts in his coat as one of the BOE people moved it and remarked as to how very heavy it was. He finally re-assembled everything and said it was working but to not turn it off.
He then asked which precinct would be counted for the 3% recount test, and the one which had been selected as it had the right number of votes, was relayed to him. He then went back and did something else to the tabulator computer.
The TRIAD Systems representative suggested that since the hand count had to match the machine count exactly, and since it would be hard to memorize the several numbers which would be needed to get the count to come out exactly right, that they should post this series of numbers on the wall where they would not be noticed by observers. He suggested making them look like employee information or something similar. The people doing the hand count could then just report these numbers no matter what the actual count of the ballots revealed. This would then "match" the tabulator report for this precinct exactly. The numbers were apparently the final certified counts for the selected precinct.
Dec. 14, 2004:
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. Who did voters pick on Nov. 2?
In some cases, we'll never know
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At that point, we retreated to Zuppa's, a very untrendy cafe located on the north side of the lobby. We ordered orange juice and sat down at a table. Within minutes, security was all over us.
"You must leave this building now,” said an exasperated Borden security cop, his hands shaking quite visibly.
“What’s the charge?” I asked. “Are we trespassing or do you just ‘reserve the right to refuse service to anyone?’”
“You must leave this building now,” he repeated. ...
Dec. 10, 2004:
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Dec. 13, 2004:
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by Katherine Yurica, Axis of Logic
Dec. 13, 2004:
Startling new revelations highlight rare Congressional hearings on Ohio vote
Dec. 12, 2004:
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Dec. 12, 2004:
Ohio absentee vote inflated
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Dec. 11, 2004:
Complete original exit polls from 2004 election
Dec. 11, 2004:
Diebold pays $2.6-million
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by surprise Blackwell orderExcerpt: On Friday December 10 two certified volunteers for the Ohio Recount team assigned to Greene County were in process recording voting information from minority precincts in Greene County, and were stopped mid-count by a surprise order from Secretary of State Blackwell’s office. The Director Board of Elections stated that “all voter records for the state of Ohio were “locked-down,” and now they are not considered public records.”
Dec. 10, 2004:
Zogby insists polls were "very,
very good, extremely accurate"
|
. Professor says vote numbers don't add up
. Congressman wants 'raw' exit poll data
. Who did voters pick on Nov. 2?
In some cases, we'll never know
. Former Congressman jailed
for confronting Blackwell
. Ohio Supreme Court won’t block certification
. Some voters hold outhope for Kerry victory
. Ohio counties dealing differently
with Kerry recount requests
. FBI, Congressional staffers curious about
self-described vote fraud programmer
|
Dec. 10, 2004:
Blackwell locks out recount volunteers,
claims voter records not public documents
Dec. 10, 2004:
Uncounted votes in Ohio's Montgomery County
Dec. 9, 2004:
Trouble counting votes in Ohio
Dec. 7, 2004:
Florida e-vote study debunked by statisticians
Dec. 7, 2004:
As questions keep coming,
Ohio certifies its vote count
|
. New round of challenges in Ohio vote
. Kerry team finally, halfheartedly joins Ohio recount fight
. LePore served with lawsuit at elections meeting
. Greens, Libertarians seek recounts in New Mexico, Nevada
|
Dec. 7, 2004:
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Dec. 7, 2004:
Evidence dramatically raises
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"The bigger the prize, the bigger the discrepancy"
Nov. 6, 2004:
Democrats launch investigation
of voting problems in Ohio
Dec. 6, 2004:
Democratic Underground bars
Black Box Voting's Harris
Dec. 5, 2004:
Evidence of fraud in the 2004
U.S. Presidential election: A reader
Latest related reports from our archives:
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