2004 DEAD IN OHIO PT. 1
Ohio Secretary of State Kenneth Blackwell grudgingly consented today to delay the destruction of the Ohio paper ballots from the presidential election of 2004. This may represent a toe hold for those – including myself – who would like to see further investigation, if not a proper lawsuit concerning election fraud that may have put George W. Bush back in the White House.
Even before the Ohio results were in, questions were being raised about the execution of the election. Ken Blackwell is a controversial figure, which is my polite way of saying that he sucks tremendously, and was roundly criticized in the lead-up to election day for rejecting absentee ballots that hadn’t arrived in his office on anything other than 80-point card stock.
Blackwell is currently overseeing the Ohio gubernatorial election. Blackwell is also currently running for governor of Ohio. Again, disputes have arisen over rules - instituted by the Secretary of State's office - that make voter registration more difficult, proving that Blackwell is the archetype figure for Republican Get Around The Vote efforts. Read more here.
In the last two years, a number of concerns have been raised over potential inconsistencies in the Ohio balloting. For starters, and finishers on this post, I will leave you with the short fact sheet compiled by Lewis Lapham, until-recently Editor of Harper's Magazine, in his NOTEBOOK piece from January 2005:
- A precinct in Franklin County, Ohio, possessed of only 638 voters awarded 4,258 votes to Bush.
- In forty-seven of the sixty-seven counties in Florida, Bush received more votes than there were registered Republicans.
- Of the 120,200,000 votes cast on Election Day roughly a third were processed by electronic voting machines supplied not by government but by private corporations, at least one of them (Diebold) controlled by a zealous partisan of the Republican Party who made no secret of his wish to bring victory home for the holidays. The software programs enjoyed the protection granted to commercial trade secrets.
- In three states that relied extensively on paper ballots (Illinois, Maine, Wisconsin) the exit polls corresponded to the final tally. In six states that relied extensively on electronic touchscreens (North Carolina, New Hampshire, New Mexico, Pennsylvania, Florida, Ohio) the discrepancy between the exit polls and the final tally invariably favored Bush.
- In ten of the eleven swing states the final result differed from the predicted result, and in each instance the shift added votes for Bush.
- Voters in six states, most particularly those in three Florida counties (Broward, Dade, and Palm Beach) reported touching the screen for Kerry and seeing their ballots marked for Bush.
- The electronic machines in Broward County began counting absentee ballots backward once they had recorded 32,000 votes; as more people voted, the official vote count went down.
- Exit polls in states equipped with verifiable paper receipts corresponded to the final tally; in states employing electronic touch screens the margin of difference between exit polls and the final tallies was as high as 5, 7, and 9 percent.
To be continued...
Even before the Ohio results were in, questions were being raised about the execution of the election. Ken Blackwell is a controversial figure, which is my polite way of saying that he sucks tremendously, and was roundly criticized in the lead-up to election day for rejecting absentee ballots that hadn’t arrived in his office on anything other than 80-point card stock.
Blackwell is currently overseeing the Ohio gubernatorial election. Blackwell is also currently running for governor of Ohio. Again, disputes have arisen over rules - instituted by the Secretary of State's office - that make voter registration more difficult, proving that Blackwell is the archetype figure for Republican Get Around The Vote efforts. Read more here.
In the last two years, a number of concerns have been raised over potential inconsistencies in the Ohio balloting. For starters, and finishers on this post, I will leave you with the short fact sheet compiled by Lewis Lapham, until-recently Editor of Harper's Magazine, in his NOTEBOOK piece from January 2005:
- A precinct in Franklin County, Ohio, possessed of only 638 voters awarded 4,258 votes to Bush.- In forty-seven of the sixty-seven counties in Florida, Bush received more votes than there were registered Republicans.
- Of the 120,200,000 votes cast on Election Day roughly a third were processed by electronic voting machines supplied not by government but by private corporations, at least one of them (Diebold) controlled by a zealous partisan of the Republican Party who made no secret of his wish to bring victory home for the holidays. The software programs enjoyed the protection granted to commercial trade secrets.
- In three states that relied extensively on paper ballots (Illinois, Maine, Wisconsin) the exit polls corresponded to the final tally. In six states that relied extensively on electronic touchscreens (North Carolina, New Hampshire, New Mexico, Pennsylvania, Florida, Ohio) the discrepancy between the exit polls and the final tally invariably favored Bush.
- In ten of the eleven swing states the final result differed from the predicted result, and in each instance the shift added votes for Bush.
- Voters in six states, most particularly those in three Florida counties (Broward, Dade, and Palm Beach) reported touching the screen for Kerry and seeing their ballots marked for Bush.
- The electronic machines in Broward County began counting absentee ballots backward once they had recorded 32,000 votes; as more people voted, the official vote count went down.
- Exit polls in states equipped with verifiable paper receipts corresponded to the final tally; in states employing electronic touch screens the margin of difference between exit polls and the final tallies was as high as 5, 7, and 9 percent.
To be continued...
posted by Mike | 5:19 PM
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