Parent article: 2004 U.S. presidential election controversy

After the 2004 U.S. presidential election there were allegations of data irregularities and systematic flaws which may have affected the outcome of both the presidential and local elections. Unofficial results currently indicate a victory by George W. Bush over John Kerry. Allegations range from significant exit poll and other data irregularities potentially characteristic of fraud, to complaints voting was not conducted equally for all citizens, for example, uneven voting machine distribution which might lead to long voting lines and disenfranchisement.

Voting machine shortages

Long lines at voting stations are suggested by some as a way in which voting was selectively suppressed. By making it more time consuming to vote, voting is claimed to have been deterred more in some locations than others, and that the impact was to selectively deter voters in high-population areas which were known to be principally Democratic.

Long lines, though seemingly benign, were a problem with the 2004 election. In many places, lines were over 6 hours long. Two causes contributed to this:

• Precincts being given insufficient ballots.
• Precincts not being allocated enough voting machines.

These two factors influence the saturation point of voting stations. Number of machines * Max. votes per hour per machine * hours poll is open = max. number of votes precinct is able to process. Every voter over this limit is effectively disenfranchised as the precinct runs out of voter-time-slots. Most polling places stayed open to accommodate all voters who were in line as of the official closing time, but large numbers of voters were unable to wait the many hours before they could cast their vote, and many who had attended to vote ultimately left without voting for this reason.

Precincts sometimes had less than half the machines requested and were well outside the limits of processing capacity, effectively disenfranchising an undetermined number of voters. For example, approx. 17% of voting machines in Columbus were operating at 190%-200% "optimum capacity".

This may explain the discrepancy between expected voter turnout in high-population areas and counted voter turnout in these areas. Since high-population areas are predominantly Democratic, this would primarily affect the Democratic constituency, and appear on the surface to reflect inefficacy in the Democratic get-out-the-vote effort.

Reports of broken or non-functional voting machines seem to be clustered tightly in minority neighborhoods in Cuyahoga Count and Franklin County. The overwhelming majority of reports of non-functional voting machines come from minority neighborhoods in Cuyahoga and Franklin Counties. Voters at many precincts were reporting that half or more of voting machines actually delivered were not working. [1]

In democratic counties in Ohio with at least three reported long line incidents, counties with higher voter turnouts have more long line incident reports per registered voter. Statewide voter turnout is 69.86%, whereas in said counties, which make up 34.34% of registered voters in Ohio, voter turnout averaged 66.01%, and elsewhere it averaged 71.87%, for a difference of 5.85%.

1357 incidents of this type have been reported, 459 of which are from Ohio [2], and 191 of which are from Florida [3].

Cuyahoga County, Ohio

141 such incidents (over 1/9 of the national total) are from Cuyahoga County, Ohio [4]. 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. [5]

Detailed analyses indicate that reports of malfunctioning voting machines were tightly clustered in black neighborhoods, further exacerbating machine shortages. Of the 82 precincts for which voters reported that one or more voting machines were not working, the vast majority were in neighborhoods 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. [6]

Lucas County, Ohio

Lucas County, Ohio, shows the same trend as Cuyahoga.

When the precinct numbers are combined into totals for each ward, a clear and unmistakable pattern emerges. The 14 wards with the highest reported turnout were won by John Kerry by a margin of 11 to 7 in the aggregate. The 10 wards with the lowest reported turnout were won by John Kerry by a margin of 6 to 1 in the aggregate. The more competitive the ward, the higher the reported turnout. Conversely, the less competitive the ward, the lower the reported turnout. [7]

Franklin County, Ohio

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.

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. [8]

(This graph discludes voting machines that were reported to be out-of-order.)

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. [9]

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

Facilitating voter registration was the main goal of the National Voter Registration Act of 1993. States were required to make registration more widely available, notably through driver’s license agencies (hence the nickname “Motor Voter”). In 2004, however, there were incidents in several states in which people who had submitted registration forms through a motor vehicle agency were not found on the voter rolls on Election Day.

There were also complaints about the rejection of registrations by government agencies. College students encountered difficulties in registering where they attended school. [10] Some officials rejected voter registration forms on grounds that were contested, such as a failure to use paper of a particular weight (Ohio) or a failure to check a box on the form (Florida).

Aside from such official actions, there were disputes about other voter registration activities. In Nevada and Oregon, a company hired by the Republican Party solicited voter registration forms, but was accused of filing only the Republicans’ forms and discarding those completed by Democrats. [11] A nonprofit organization, ACORN, was accused of submitting false voter registration forms and of carelessly or deliberately failing to submit some valid ones that it had received. [12]

KLAS-TV reports on voter registration companies whose "bosses trashed registration forms filled out by Democratic voters because they only wanted to sign up Republican voters":

"Russell worked for a company called Voters Outreach of America ... [He] says he got into a beef with the company over a pay dispute, and witnessed his bosses ripping up registration forms that had been filed by Democrats. "They were thrown away in the trash. I grabbed them out..." Russell doesn't know how many democratic registrations were tossed in the trash but guesses the number could be very high since Voters Outreach of America operated in Las Vegas for more than two months.

The FBI confirms that it is gathering information about the case but stopped short of calling it an investigation ... Nevada Democrats came out swinging Wednesday. "Most disturbing is that Voter Outreach of America is being paid by the National Republican Party and we ask how can people have faith in government if a national party is involved in trickery in depriving people the right to vote," said Clark County Commissioner Yvonne Atkinson Gates. Local party officials said there is no way the GOP would instruct the company to trash democratic registrations.

However, similar problems have been alleged elsewhere. In Washoe County, the registrar says he too has turned over information to the FBI about Republican backed registration efforts. In Oregon, the same company that was operating here has been criticized for its tactics in signing up voters. There, it used the name America Votes, which is actually the name of a Democratic organization. Employees in Las Vegas say they too were told that the name of the company was America Votes. "They confused us with the name. They told us one thing and told the temp force something else. They told us America Votes," Russell said.

Russell was a disgruntled employee. He admits that if he had been paid, he probably wouldn't have talked. Even so, discrediting him doesn't explain the existence of the trashed registration forms.

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. [13]

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. [14]

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.) [15]

Absentee ballots

Absentee ballots were also an issue. There were reports of absentee ballots being mailed out too late for most voters to complete and return them in time. (In some instances, officials argued that last-minute litigation over Ralph Nader’s ballot status or other issues had prevented them from finalizing the absentee ballots as early as they wanted to.) In Broward County, Florida, some 58,000 absentee ballots were delivered to the Postal Service to be mailed to voters, according to county election officials, but the Postal Service said it had never received them. [16]

Absentee ballots and Diebold (Postal issues)

The handling and processing of absentee ballots can be, and has been, subcontracted out. This is deemed a "high risk" fraud issue [17], since at the point of sorting, there is no auditable prior knowledge of the number of ballots received.

The prison release documents of Jeff Dean (Diebold) state that he was employed by Postal Services Inc (PSI), the company which counted these votes. The job was later subcontracted to Diebold's mail division, which he ran before passing it on to John Elder, another felon he met in prison. (See related article "Diebold management")

"There are two ways to manipulate absentee election results if an unscrupulous person gains access to the mail sorting process:

• Vote suppression — Lose outgoing ballots to a portion of voters in key precincts, forcing them to call and ask for a replacement ballot.
• Vote reduction — Lose or replace incoming ballots for a portion of voters in key precincts.

"PSI ... initially sorted just outgoing ballots, but now also sorts the incoming ballots. PSI Group employees have access to the most high-risk attack point for absentee ballot security. Though King County may claim that it employs an audit method, counting the ballots received before they go out to PSI Group, in fact they are unable to do this consistently. ... on some days up to 60,000 ballots at a time arrive, and King County is not staffed to do this. Therefore any ballots that disappear will have no audit trail."

Source: [18]

Provisional ballots

Provisional ballots are for would-be voters who assert that they are registered but whose names cannot be found in the list available at the polling place. The voter completes a written ballot, which is placed in a sealed envelope. The ballot is opened and counted only if the voter is subsequently found to be registered.

In 2004, there was contention over the standards for determining whether to count provisional ballots. In several states, officials said that they would not count provisional ballots, even those from properly registered voters, that were submitted at the wrong precinct. In Cuyahoga County, Ohio, although the original procedure had stated that the voter was not required to provide a date of birth, a new rule issued a week after the election called for rejecting any provisional ballot that lacked a date of birth. [19]

Provisional ballots in Ohio

There are currently 155,428 provisional ballots. The way they will be counted is to first examine them to see if they are valid, and to then tally the remainders.

Composition

Provisional ballots were more likely to happen in Democratic counties. Details in Ohio Provisional Composition. This could be because Democrats were targeted, but it could also be explained by Democrats being more likely to have inaccurate registration data (for instance, due to moving more often). But it also means that provisional ballots are expected to benefit Kerry. If provisional ballots merely mirror the vote breakdowns in their respective counties, Kerry would make up about 300 votes. But most expectations are for him to make up several thousand votes, since the majority of provisional ballots might have been in certain Dem-heavy precincts in those counties.

Judging

Ohio passed a law saying that provisional ballots cast at the wrong precinct would go uncounted. This was part of a contentious pre-election lawsuit. Blackwell, who is the Secretary of State as well as the chair of the Ohio Bush/Cheney campaign, was in favor of the precinct rule. Democrats wanted provisional ballots to be accepted at any precinct in the same county. This could reduce the number of valid ballots.

Counting

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 [20], but ultimately, that ruling was cancelled. [21]

Lawsuit: PFAW v. Blackwell

One third(33%) of the 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. [22] [23] 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

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. [24]

Purges of voter lists

State efforts to purge voter rolls have led to disputes, notably in Florida. Before the 2000 election, Florida officials purged scores of thousands of registered voters on the grounds that they were convicted felons (and therefore ineligible under Florida law). Many of those whose names were purged were “false positives” (not actually felons). (See Florida Central Voter File.) A post-election lawsuit brought by the NAACP and other organizations resulted in a settlement in which the state agreed to restore eligible voters to the rolls and take other steps to improve election procedures. [25]

The issue returned to prominence in 2004 when Florida announced another planned purge, again based on a list of felons. The state government initially attempted to keep the list secret. When a court ordered its release, it was found to contain mostly Democrats, and a disproportionate number of racial minorities. [26] Faced with media documentation that the list included thousands of errors, the state abandoned the attempt to use it. [27] Some of the voters improperly purged in 2000 had not been restored as of May of 2004. [28]

Misdirection of voters

• Voters were told to vote at different locations than was correct.
• Fliers were sent advising voters that different ID was required, or that they were not able to vote, or that criminal records would be checked.
• Voters in some areas were told that their voting day was two days later on Nov. 4, after the election. [29]

These measures appear to have impacted disproportionately on ethic minorities such as Afro-American voters, who are more likely to be Democratic voters.

Precinct squeeze

"Of Ohio’s 88 counties, 20 suffered a significant reduction — shutting at least 20 percent (or at least 30) of their precincts. Most of those counties have Republicans serving as Board of Elections director, including the four biggest: Cuyahoga, Montgomery, Summit, and Lucas.

Those 20 counties went heavily to Gore in 2000, 53 to 42 percent. The other 68 counties, which underwent little-to-no precinct consolidation, went exactly the opposite way in 2000: 53 to 42 percent to Bush."

From: (Boston Phoenix).

Testimony and official views

Democratic party

Source [30]

Dec.7 - "...the Democratic National Committee said it would appoint an expert panel to review voting problems in Ohio - including long lines, voting machine errors and understaffed polling stations - that it said had disenfranchised voters in predominantly Democratic urban districts."

"Democratic officials, walking a fine line between their angry liberal base and centrist voters who consider the election over, said they were not contesting the results. But they said they planned to use the results of their investigation, which is to be completed by the summer, to demand changes to the electoral systems in Ohio and other states."

"Like Florida in 2000, which gave us a lot of information and evidence that we used later on to improve our election system, Ohio will play that role for us this year," said Donna Brazile, chairwoman of the Democratic National Committee's Voting Rights Institute. "There's no question that there's been a long pattern, a chilling pattern, of voter intimidation, voter suppression across the country over the years."

Testimony from anonymous contributor to Wikipedia

Having been an official poll witness/poll checker in Summit County Ohio, I saw that the Democrats and the Kerry campaign had many names on their double/triple checked lists that were not anywhere on the official lists in the four precincts I worked in Cuyahoga Falls Ohio.

I don't think our lists were 100% perfect but I doubt we had as many names as I saw on my lists that were nowhere to be found on the official lists.

Furthermore, I know at least three people who voted last time, went to their normal place and found their name not on the list. In all three cases, these people were given incorrect information about provisional ballots. Three isn't very many - but combine all of the facts (things I heard or saw with my own eyes) and ask yourself, how do all of these events benefit Bush? [31]

Free Speech Zone Video

Excerpt from the source Press Release

"For the second Presidential election in a row African American voters have been subjugated to second class citizens through systematic efforts by Republicans to suppress, intimidate, and disenfranchise our vote," said Rev. Bill Moss, the original Plaintiff in Ohio, and founder of the Center for Freedom and Justice. "Whether its Katherine Harris or Kenneth Blackwell, the purpose is the same: do everything in their power to ensure George W. Bush becomes President. If those in power are willing and able to thwart democracy and abuse the civil rights of American voters, right in the face of the press and public, what won’t they do? I am contesting this election because tyranny, particularly in the guise of democracy, is our civic duty to fight."

The video footage provides a first hand glimpse of what transpired in Franklin County on Election Day, only in heavily leaning Democratic precincts, including unexplained voting machine shortages, organized campaigns directing voters to the wrong polling places, malfunctioning voter tabulation equipment, election worker confusion and incompetence, and a host of other problems. However, as detailed in an official affidavit by Richard Hayes Phillips, a geomorphology Ph.D. from University of Oregon, the extent of voter disenfranchisement was systematic and widespread in African American precincts throughout the state.

Dr. Phillips sworn testimony: http://web.northnet.org/minstrel/supreme.htm

Mirrors for the two videos:

1. Clip One,Clip Two
2. Clip One,Clip Two
3. Clip One,Clip Two
4. Clip One,Clip Two
5. Clip One,Clip Two
6. Clip One,Clip Two
7. Clip One,Clip Two
8. Clip One,Clip Two

See also

External links

• Vote Suppression list at Shadowbox [32]
• Vote Suppression in Cuyahoga County, Ohio at Shadowbox [33]
• Vote suppression preliminary report released by People for the American Way (pdf)
• Voters leaving voting lines (video, wvx)
• Ohio voting machine distribution, county-resolution (pdf)

Categories: 2004 U.S. presidential election controversy and irregularities

Last updated: 06-02-2005 12:42:02