2004 U.s. Election Voting Controversies, Ohio

Parent article: 2004 U.S. presidential election controversy
During the 2004 U.S. presidential election, there were numerous problems with the election process in Ohio, including but not limited to missing/uncounted votes, machine malfunction, machine shortage, machine mis-voting, >100% turnout, and abnormal statistical discrepancies such as the vote count having an abnormally low correlation with the exit poll. Below is a county map of Ohio. The blue counties represent counties that voted democratic in the 2004 presidential election, darker shades representing higher population density. The dark blue county in the upper right is Cuyahoga County.

Voting machines in Ohio

No Ohio county used Diebold Electronic Voting Machines. Nonetheless, there were numerous reports of machine shortages and malfunctions, the plurality of which came from Cuyahoga County. https://voteprotect.org/index.php?display=EIRMapState&state=Ohio&cat=02&tab=ALL

Vote suppression in Ohio

See also: 2004 U.S. presidential election controversy, vote suppression

Machine shortages

Precints in some counties reported receiving less than half of the voting machines requested. http://voteprotect.org

Cuyahoga County, Ohio

141 long line incidents have been reported from Cuyahoga County, Ohio https://voteprotect.org/index.php?display=EIRMapCounty&state=Ohio&county=Cuyahoga&cat=12&tab=ALL. This amounts to an average of 0.098 per precinct, over eight times the avg. outside of Cuyahoga of 0.012 per precinct. Likewise, reported long line incidents in Cuyahoga per person is more than eight times as high as outside of Cuyahoga. Voter turnout in Cuyahoga compared with the rest of the state was 4.5% less than usual. Cuyahoga County has an inverse relationship between voter turnout and support for Kerry. This means that, where support for Kerry was high, the voters didn't turnout, for whatever reason. This could possibly be explained by vote suppression, (such as significant machine shortages in black neighborhoods) but more analysis is necessary. http://ideamouth.com/voterfraud.htm#OH 600px Detailed analyses indicate that reports of malfunctioning voting machines were tightly clustered in black neighborhoods, further exacerbating machine shortages. Of the 82 precints for which voters reported that one or more voting machines were not working, the vast majority were in neighboroods where over 75% of the population were black, while non-working machines were reported in only five precincts where less than 5% of the population were black. In one precinct 7 of 17 voting machines were not working. In another, 3 of 9 voting machines were not working. In yet another 2 of 3 voting machines were not working. In two precints, all the machines were not working for a significant period during the day. In addition to reports of machines not working at all, there were multiple reports of voting machines that would not accept a vote for the presidential race, multiple reports of voting machines which highlighted a vote for Bush when Kerry's button was pressed, and multiple reports of voting machines that indicated that a vote for Bush had been registered on the summary screen, despite repeated attempts to select Kerry. http://shadowbox.i8.com/Suppression/ohio/ohiomachines.htm 600px

Franklin County, Ohio

The pattern of machine malfunctions identified in Cuyahoga County also occurs in Franklin County. Reported incidents of malfunctioning voting machines are tightly clustered in neighborhoods where a large percentage of the population is black. 24 of 27 precints in which malfunctioning voting machines were reported were precincts in which the majority of voters voted for Kerry. http://shadowbox.i8.com/Suppression/ohio/ohiomachines.htm 54 incidents have been reported in Franklin County, Ohio, an avg of .065 per precinct. Franklin County has sparked particular attention because the long lines were disproportionately in poor and african-american communities, and largely due to machine shortages in those precincts, in posssible violation of the Equal Protection Amendment. Voting machines in Franklin County were well over capacity, averaging 184 recorded votes per machine. The amount the machines in a precinct were over capacity was directly proportional to the percentage of voters in that precinct voting Kerry. As the graph below shows, this led to suppressed turnout in Democratic precincts. http://copperas.com/machinery/ Voter turnout in Franklin County was expected to be significantly higher than normal, but was in fact significantly lower than normal.
Voter Turnout
Franklin
County		 The rest
of Ohio		 Difference
1992 75.03% 75.62% 0.60%
1996 64.81% 68.14% 3.33%
2000 61.27% 63.88% 2.62%
2004 60.95% 70.91% 9.96%
Although low population precincts were allocated relatively many voting machines and were well within the limits of processing capacity, high-population centers often were not "Is there inner-city election suppression in Franklin County, Ohio?":
"Document reveals Columbus, Ohio voters waited hours as election officials held back machines. One telling piece of evidence was entered into the record at the Saturday, November 13 public hearing on election irregularities and voter suppression held by nonpartisan voter rights organizations. Cliff Arnebeck, a Common Cause attorney, introduced into the record the Franklin County Board of Elections spreadsheet detailing the allocation of e-voting computer machines for the 2004 election. The Board of Elections' own document records that, while voters waited in lines ranging from 2-7 hours at polling places, 68 electronic voting machines remained in storage and were never used on Election Day.... An analysis of the Franklin County Board of Elections' allocation of machines reveals a consistent pattern of providing fewer machines to the Democratic city of Columbus, with its Democratic mayor and uniformly Democratic city council, despite increased voter registration in the city. The result was an obvious disparity in machine allocations compared to the primarily Republican white affluent suburbs."
"The ... Republican enclave of Upper Arlington has 34 precincts. No voting machines in this area cast more than 200 votes per machine. Only one, ward 6F, was over 190 votes at 194 on one machine. By contrast ... 17% of Columbus’ machines were operating at 90-100% over optimum capacity while in Upper Arlington the figure was 3%. In the Democratic stronghold of Columbus 139 of the 472 precincts had at least one and up to five fewer machine than in the 2000 presidential election. ... 29% of Columbus’ precincts, despite a massive increase in voter registration and turnout, had fewer machines than in 2000. In Upper Arlington, 6% had fewer machines in 2004. One of those precincts had a 25% decline in voter registration and the other had a 1% increase. Compare that to Columbus ward 1B, where voter registration went up 27%, but two machines were taken away in the 2004 election. Or look at 23B where voter registration went up 22% and they lost two machines since the 2000 election, causing an average of 207 votes to be cast on each of the remaining machines ... Thus, in four years, the ward went from optimum usage to system failure."
Anecdotal reports can be found at freepress.org.

Voter registration in Ohio

The Cuyahoga County Board of Elections has botched the registrations of more than 10,000 voters, preventing them from heading to the ballot box next week, according to a lawsuit filed late Monday.
The Citizens Alliance for Secure Elections, the Alliance of Cleveland HUD Tenants and seven residents sued the board in federal court and claimed election board employees failed to enter new registrations on voter rolls, update changes sent in by voters and enter addresses correctly...
...On Sept. 17, there were more than 10,000 names on the list. As of Monday, the suit claims, few errors have been corrected. http://www.cleveland.com/news/plaindealer/index.ssf?/base/news/1098783094159330.xml
Mr Arnebeck said that hearings held in Ohio cities have brought to light new evidence of malpractice. He said one voter of a pro-Republican group caught destroying Democratic registration documents in Nevada before the election, had also been operating in Ohio. http://www.guardian.co.uk/uselections2004/story/0,13918,1363399,00.html
We've done a post-election poll of 1,400 rural and exurban voters in Ohio counties that Bush won by an average of 17 percentage points. Their answers, and a closer look at other poll data, explode a few widely held theories about what happened...
...Third myth: A wave of newly registered Republican voters in fast-growing rural and exurban areas carried Bush to victory.
Reality: Among Ohio's rural and exurban voters, Bush beat Kerry by just five points among newly registered voters and by a mere two points among infrequent voters (those who did not vote in 2000).
Fourth myth: Republicans ran a superior, volunteer-driven mobilization effort.
Reality: When we asked new voters in rural and exurban areas who contacted them during this campaign, we learned that they were just as likely to hear from the Kerry campaign and its allies as from the Bush side. (In contrast, regular voters reported more contact from the GOP.) http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A34157-2004Dec3.html

Provisional ballots in Ohio

With 80 of 88 counties reporting, there are 135,149 provisional ballots; according to Ruth Coulter at Moritz College, this should be presumed to be the accurate and complete list for those 80 counties. If the same proportion of votes went provisional statewide, the remaining counties will produce 19,252 provisional ballots. Even if all of those ballots are found to be valid votes (and Ohio Secretary of State Ken Blackwell has repeatedly noted that in 2000, 90 percent of provisional ballots were eventually counted), they're not remotely skewed enough toward the heavily Democratic counties to provide the margin Kerry would need. By my math, if every one of my projected 154,401 provisional ballots is counted, Kerry would need to win over 88 percent. That's not going to happen. http://www.prospect.org/weblog/archives/2004/11/index.html#004693 Provisional ballot counting in Ohio begins Saturday November 13 and by law must be finished in 4 days. The number of provisional ballots is greater than the vote difference between Kerry and Bush. Most of the challenges were made by Bush supporters, presumably the provisional ballots may NOT be 51%-49% but instead be lopsided. Secretary of State Ken Blackwell had issued a ruling disqualifying a provisional ballot if date of birth is not written on the envelope http://www.freepress.org/columns/display/3/2004/985, but ultimately, that ruling was cancelled. http://www.ohio.com/mld/beaconjournal/news/state/10166750.htm One third of 24,472 provisional ballots cast in Cuyahoga County, Ohio (8,099) were thrown out. The norm in Ohio is 9%. On November 27th, People for the American Way filed a lawsuit seeking to have provisional ballots re-examined. http://www.pfaw.org/pfaw/general/default.aspx?oid=17471 http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/P/PROVISIONAL_BALLOTS_OHIO?SITE=NYSTA&SECTION=HOME&TEMPLATE=DEFAULT The suit demands that provisional ballots be accepted regardless of the precinct they were filed in, in accordance with Ohio state law and the Voting Rights Act of 1965, and that registration be checked against voter registration cards, rather than just electronic voting lists.

Ballot spoilage in Ohio

These are the same type of punch card machines used in Florida in the 2000 election. Anyone paying attention to the coverage of the Florida recount may be aware of the need to remove the chads underneath the grid ("punch guide") inside the punch card machines. If this is not done, voters would be unable to punch out the perforated chads, creating the infamous dimpled, hanging, and pregnant chads. Worse, if enough chads build up beneath the grid, the stylus - the metal pin that actually punches out the chad - can't even push the chads through the holes in the grid. When this happens, you have a "broken" machine. Since there was no coverage at all - neither local nor national - of the large number of machines "broken" on election day, there is no way of knowing if this was the problem - we can only speculate. But if chad build-up was not the problem, then why were there "broken" punch card machines in 34 polling places, consisting of 70 precincts, in the Cleveland area? And where were these broken machines located? In heavily Democratic, pro-John Kerry, predominantly black communities. http://shadowbox.i8.com/Suppression/ohio/ohiomachines.htm
600px

Other Problems in Ohio

Auglaize County

In October, a former employee of Election Systems and Software (ES&S), the company that provides the voting system in Auglaize County, was allegedly on the main computer that is used to create the ballot and compile election results, which would go against election protocol. http://ideamouth.com/voterfraud.htm#OH

Youngstown

  • A precint in Youngstown recorded a negative 25 million votes.

Franklin

Mercer

Miami

Warren

Individuals and Organizations in Ohio

Read about Ohio election law in regards to recounts here. Read House of Representatives Judicial Committee formal enquiry letter to Ohio Secretary of State Dec. 2 2004 here.
investigation statewide recount recusal of Blackwell seating of Ohio electors legal action
Organizations          
GAO systemic N/A N/A N/A N/A
Black Box Voting underway   endorse   Freedom of Information Act requests
Common Cause collecting info pending petition   Headed by Cliff Arnebeck
Alliance for Democracy collecting info pending endorse   Headed by Cliff Arnebeck
Move On petition endorse endorse    
People for the American Way endorse endorse president thinks prosecution should be considered   provisional ballots
CASE Ohio endorse endorse endorse, organizing protest oppose, organizing protest  
National Voter Rights Institute   pending     Representing Cobb & Badnarik
U.S. House underway     might object to  
People          
David Cobb endorse pending   speaking at protest early recount, recount deadline, move case to federal court, against Blackwell
Michael Badnarik endorse pending   supporting protest early recount, recount deadline, move case to federal court, against Blackwell
Dennis Kucinich endorse endorse      
Jesse Jackson (interview, video) endorse endorse, "set aside" current results endorse, removal    
Greg Palast endorse endorse      
John Kerry underway pending     petition, provisional ballots, join cobb/badnarik suit
*Cliff Arnebeck & Bob Fitrakis, representing a group of voters collecting info pending      
*Cliff Arnebeck is the Chair of Common Cause Ohio and a Co-Chair and attorney for the Alliance for Democracy.

U.S. House Committee on the Judiciary

The U.S. House Committee on the Judiciary has requested an investigation by the GAO, asked Kenneth Blackwell for an explanation, and scheduled a Public Congressional Forum. The hearings are currently scheduled for Wednesday, December 8th @ 10:00am http://www.house.gov/judiciary_democrats/ohvotinghrgadvisory12304.pdf. Among the many potential attendees and invitees are Jesse Jackson, Cliff Arnebeck, Ken Blackwell and Warren Mitofsky. Mitofsky, Blackwell declined to attend. Forum proceedings: Source and summary of the forum proceedings http://www.yubanet.com/artman/publish/article_16045.shtml
Overflow room needed. GOP refused to attend, GOP majority on Judiciary committee refused to allow official video taping of proceedings.
"If you look at who was here," said Arnebeck, "you had leaders from the generally white political reform movement, and leaders from the black civil rights movement. This is a powerful coalition. We are not talking about one group having dominance over the other, but a real partnership of the traditional political reform community with the traditional civil rights community ... Jesse Jackson, as you could see today, is giving tremendous moral leadership to this. He has tremendous credibility. This is a man who walked with Dr. Martin Luther King in the long civil rights struggle that we honor so much in our history now. This is the man who was holding Dr. King when he died. I was sitting right next to him when he talked about the fact that there aren't members of Congress with children dying in Iraq, and tears were in his eyes. This is a man who feels this stuff deeply, and when he talks about what is at stake, he means it in the deepest part of his being."
"Rep. Conyers intimated ... that he might object to the seating of the Ohio Electors when the certification process begins."
rtsp://cspanrm.fplive.net/cspan/project/c04/c04120804_conyers.rm
Press releases:
  • Blackwell asked to explain irregularities in Ohio (pdf)
  • Open congressional forum to be held on Dec. 8 (pdf)
Letters:

Green Party

Libertarian Party

John Kerry

BlackBoxVoting.org

Led by Common Cause and The Alliance for Democracy http://www.thealliancefordemocracy.org/, both David Cobb (Green Party) and Michael Badnarik (Libertarian Party) will be filing for official recounts in Ohio. Black Box Voting is also launching a fraud audit in Ohio. Accuses Ohio Secretary of State Ken Blackwell of failing to properly account for provisional ballots, and refusing to allow citizens to see the pollbooks.

Public Hearings

Ohio recount

In Ohio a recount is automatic for statewide election if difference in the vote is within 0.25% of the total votes cast. For a recount in the presidential race, this is probably about a 19,000-vote margin between Kerry and Bush. Only a losing candidate can request a recount. A recount may always be requested regardless of the closeness of the race. The recount is requested by the losing candidate. The request for a recount must be made within 5 days of the official announcement of the results by the Secretary of State. The fee for a recount is set by each Board of Elections and may be between $5 and $10 per precinct. You can limit the recount to specific precincts. The cost is deposited by the person making the recount request at the time of the application based on the number of precincts requested to be recounted. The entire recount and contest procedures are outlined at ORC 3515. http://www.truthout.org/docs_04/111004V.shtml

Recount efforts

Presidential candidates

After statements by Dennis White of the Ohio Democratic Party indicating that John Kerry would "participate" in the Ohio recount effort http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/6533008/#041122b, the Kerry/Edwards campaign has filed a brief to formally join in legal proceedings to seek a recount of all Ohio votes for President http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A23344-2004Nov30.html, http://72.3.133.32/press/2004/nov/pr2004-11-30b.php, initiated by David Cobb (Green) and Michael Badnarik (Libertarian). This was necessary for the recount to have any practical effect since a federal judge had ruled the recount need not be expedited since the original plaintiffs (Cobb and Bardnarik) could not be positively affected by its outcome. A partial recount of New Hampshire optical scan ballots requested by Nader has begun and is progressing slowly. So far, 2 precincts have been recounted, turning up 3 additional votes for Bush and 6 additional votes for Kerry, out of slightly more than 10,000 votes recounted. http://www.thenation.com/doc.mhtml%3Fi=20041206&s=baker http://www.truthout.org/docs_04/112204A.shtml With all 11 wards in the partial recount now completed, no signficant discrepancies were found. http://votenader.com/media_press/index.php?cid=413 Recount requests were filed on November 29, 2004 by David Cobb (Green) and Michael Badnarik (Libertarian) for all presidential ballots cast in New Mexico and Nevada http://72.3.133.32/press/2004/nov/pr2004-11-29.php. On December 2nd, the recount request in Nevada was cancelled. http://www.votecobb.org/press/2004/dec/pr2004-12-02b.php

Ohio voters

A parallel recount effort is being headed by Cliff Arnebeck of the Alliance for Democracy, representing a group of voters. On Wednesday Dec. 8th, he is expected to ask the courts to set aside the results and declare John Kerry the winner of Ohio, on the basis of widespread systematic election fraud that altered the outcome of the election, which he claims to have sufficient evidence to prove. Ohio law permits the state Supreme Court to review elections in such cases. http://www.marionstar.com/news/stories/20041206/localnews/1705172.html

See also

External links

In the news

November 2004

Nov. 2: Nov. 5: Nov. 6: Nov. 7: Nov. 10: Nov. 11: Nov. 13: Nov. 14: Nov. 15: Nov. 16: Nov. 17: Nov. 18: Nov. 20 Nov. 24 Nov. 26 Nov. 27 Nov. 29 Nov. 30

December 2004

Dec. 1 Dec. 2 Dec. 3
  • Ohio, House Committee on the Judiciary: Conyers and other congressmen to hold forum on Ohio voting irregularities (pdf)
  • Ohio, House Committee on the Judiciary: Conyers follow-up letter to Blackwell (Ohio Sec. of State) (pdf)
  • Ohio, House Committee on the Judiciary: Judiciary Committee holding forum Dec. 8 for interested parties to discuss this and related issues (same source)
  • Ohio: Federal judge rules that Ohio recount wil go forward in all counties http://www.votecobb.org/press/2004/dec/pr2004-12-03.php
Dec. 5 Dec. 6 Dec. 7 Dec. 8 Dec. 9 Dec. 10 Dec. 11 Dec. 12 Dec. 13 Google news query

 

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