Blocking the Vote in Ohio

In the comments of my Dkos post on Bob Herbert's Op-ed on Ohio Voter Fraud, I ran into a rather hard-headed individual who claims that "restricting provisional ballots wasn't an arbitrary decision by Ken Blackwell".

I countered that he had requested that provisional ballots that were missing the person birthdate should be rejected even the Ohio law didn't require this.

The person said - "Got a link".

I have him a link.

He then said - "Got anything better"?

Here's something better:

Secretary Blackwell’s failure to issue standards for the counting of provisional ballots led to a chaotic and confusing result such that each of Ohio’s 88 counties could count legal ballots differently or not at all. 371 In turn, this fostered a situation where subsequent to the election, Cuyahoga County mandated that provisional ballots in yellow packets must be “rejected” if there is no “date of birth” on the packet. This ruling was issued despite the fact that the original “Provisional Verification Procedure” from Cuyahoga County stated, “Date of birth is not mandatory and should not reject a provisional ballot” and simply required that the voter’s name, address and a signature match the signature in the county’s database.372

Now this comes from the Conyers Report on Ohio (Page 78). A careful reader might note that the source of footnote #372 happens to be Bob Fitrakis, the same reporter from the Free Press that I previously linked to. I could argue that if his data was good enough for Congress, it should be good enough for you - but after watching your any excuse in a storm routine all day, I probably shouldn't waste my time on that.

How about this, the http://www.clevelandvotes.org/news/reports/Analyses_Full_Report.pdf&e=9797">actual analysis of voter disqualifications in Cuyahoga County by the Greater Cleveland Voter Registration Coalition.

Over 900 provisional ballots may have been wrongfully rejected because of database problems alone. Between 624 and 938 rejected provisional ballots, mostly classified as “not registered”, were apparently mistakenly purged from the registration lists, or involved other clerical errors in searching or entering data. Since this error was detected by only one type of search, which did not detect other voters who reported similar errors, the true number of provisional ballots wrongfully rejected is likely to be higher.

We estimate that 2 out of every 5 provisional ballots that were rejected should have been accepted as legitimate. If we combine incorrectly purged provisional votes, projected votes rejected because of initial registration errors, provisional ballots lost through polling place misinformation and innocent errors filling out the provisional application, it appears that over 41% of rejected provisional ballots (or 14% of all provisional votes) may have been unnecessarily rejected.

We estimate that simply changing residence exposes voters to a 6% chance of being disenfranchised. Youth, the poor, and minorities are disproportionately affected. In fact, with respect to just provisional ballots, we found a two-fold
increase in rejection rate in predominantly frican-American compared to predominantly Caucasian precincts.

Avoidable errors and problems such as we studied amounted to over half the percent margin of victory in Ohio’s close 2004 Presidential lection.”Ballpark” extrapolation of our results to big cities statewide lead to the conclusion that in 2004 about 1.3% (range 0.9 to 1.6%) of votes (42,500 lost, 30,000 at risk) could have been lost statewide in a Presidential election decided by a 2.1% difference of votes cast (and our numbers probably understate the problem).

BOE errors: We project (Table 1) that the BOE totally failed to enter 2677 submitted new registrations and made serious errors (e.g. omitting voter’s date of birth) in entering another 1143 projected applications, for a total of 3,820 votes disqualified or at high risk of disqualification. Other types of entry errors, with low to possibly high risk of disqualification (numbering 8,131 + 4,114, Table 1) amounted to another 12,245 projected votes. About 40% of these 12,245 were address updates never entered, so that such voters would not receive information from the Board, might be purged for not having voted in 2 general elections, and would have to vote provisionally, with a 14% risk of rejection (see section 2, below).

Now if these voters had been purged and their votes lost consistently, then the net result would be an overall wash. But that isn't the case.

Americans who move more frequently are more often subject to the kind of registration errors described in this report because they need to re-register to avoid voting provisional ballot 11 . Those disproportionately affected include youth, home-renters (vs. home owners), the poor, African-Americans and Hispanics(Table 2).

Precinct by precinct comparison of the provisional ballot rejection as a percent of all votes cast in each Cuyahoga County precinct as a function of black/white percentages in the precinct population. Selecting precincts where there were at least 100 persons 18 and older, we found that the average rejection rate (as % of all votes cast) was 1.8% in precincts with 90% or more black residents, and 1.1% in precincts with less than 10% black residents. This result was highly statistically significant.

The report gets into quite some detail, but it does not unfortunately get specifically into the rejection of provisional ballots over the issue of a missing birth-date as mentioned by Fitrakis. It does however mention this:

What is the risk of any legitimate voter being forced to vote a provisional ballot and being disenfranchised? From the above, up to 938 such ballots may have been rejected due to purging errors and 825 due to BOE registration entry errors (unknown to the voter). Another 540 voters made errors of omission (e.g. missing signature, incomplete information) on the provisional ballot form that alert poll workers could have prevented.

That's 2303 legimate votes lost just for Cuyahoga County. How many more were lost throughout the state? Five times that? Ten? Twenty?

No need to randomly guess, the report provides it's own estimate.

By what factor should the errors in Cuyahoga County be multiplied in order to estimate their occurrence statewide in 2004? The majority of errors appeared to be concentrated in the most urbanized areas of the County where the most intense registration drives occurred.

Therefore, one approach to extrapolation is to find the combined populations of the 10 largest Ohio cities (1.72 million, assuming that about half of Columbus is urbanized) and to divide that by the population of Cleveland (478,000) to yield a factor of about 3.6. Using this factor and data cited or derived above, these cities together would have experienced 24,300 disqualifications due to BOE or voter error 13 , 45,500 registrations or change of address at varying degree of risk because of BOE or voter error 14 , and up to 21,600 because of applications handed in after the deadline 15 . In addition, about about 12,500 provisional ballots may have been incorrectly rejected 16 .

With an average turnout of 65%, this amounts to a “ballpark” projection of about 31,000 final votes actually lost (0.65 x (24,300 + 21,600)), and 30,000 (0.65x46,500) at risk of loss, in addition to the 12,500 provisional ballots lost. Because of the assumptions involved, these numbers could easily be off by 20% in either direction. However, the key point is that the sum of these avoidably lost votes or votes put at risk add up to 72,500 votes or about 1.3% (range 0.9-1.6%) of votes cast in a (2004) Presidential election decided by a difference of 2.1% of Ohio’s votes 17 . Therefore, despite the range of uncertainty, there is no doubt that these sources of error must be addressed by election reforms.

Whether one agrees that this was only an series of innocent "mistakes" or part of a larger plot, the fact remains that this report confirms and even increases Kennedy's estimate (of 40,000 votes lost due to purging and discarded provisional ballots) by providing a statewide estimation of 72,500 - predominantly Democratic and African-American - votes lost in an election that was was decided by on just 112,000 votes.

This is not a small issue.

And doesn't Bush have like a 2% approval from African-Americans?

Vyan

I notice that there has been no response to this.

this is no small issue - it is our democracy lost.
whoever was talking to you is probably stunned by the supporting documents and info.
then again, if it was a winger, they can't figure it out.

but I'm not optimistic about their becoming "enlightened".

Vyan

Here is another little tidbit to offer on Provsional ballots:

1,597 Provisional Ballots from Franklin Co categorized as Status 200-”Not Registered”, yet voters were registered

http://my.core.com/~rhh/index.htm

-U.S. Civil Rights Commission reports that ballots of “non-black” voters were rejected: 1.6% (1 in 63 did not count); while black voter ballots were rejected 14.4% or 1 in 7 African American votes went uncounted.

-The rejection of provisional ballots were cast over-whelmingly in Democratic precincts.

-In New Mexico, 9 out of 10 votes uncounted were cast by non-Anglo voters. (90% of this population vote Democratic.)

-Nationally, the total number of voters voting provisionally was 3,107,490 and the rejection rate was 1,090,729.

SOURCE: Greg Palast "Armed Madhouse"

Ohio rate for counting provisional ballots was 77%, the third highest in the nation, BUT the story was quite different in Dem strongholds, like Lucas County where 41% of the ballots were NOT counted:

Published on Sunday, January 9, 2005 by The Toledo Blade (Ohio)
Purging of Rolls, Confusion Anger Voters
41% of Nov. 2 provisional ballots axed in Lucas County
by Fritz Wenzel

******

Altogether, 86,472 of the 158,642 provisional ballots cast, or 54.5%, came
from the 16 counties Kerry won. An additional 18,789 came from other
urban counties – Clark, Hamilton, and Wood – where Bush won narrowly, with
50.78%, 52.50%, and 53.03% respectively. Traditionally, Hamilton County’s
provisional ballots are disproportionately cast in the African-American
majority wards of Cincinnati and not in the affluent Republican-dominated
suburbs. Thus, 105,261 provisional ballots, nearly two-thirds (66.35%)
came from areas where the provisional ballots are likely to be pro-Kerry.

Now that most of the provisional ballots have been examined and counted,
the disparity is even more pronounced. Altogether, 26,673 of the
uncounted provisional ballots, more than three-fourths (76.00%), came from
these same 19 counties. Only 78,588 of 105,261 (74.66%) were counted,
compared to 44,960 of 53,381 (84.22%) in the other 69 counties of Ohio.
<snip>

http://web.northnet.org/minstrel/provisional.htm

and voted in the right polling location, but at the wrong table/precinct did not have their provisional ballots counted.

how much I despise Kenny Boy?

I don't think I have... lol

ya know, in LICKING COUNTY (red-neck-ville mostly) there is an SUV (yes, and it's huge) that drives up and down 21st street with BLACKWELL FOR GOVERNOR written on the windows and placards on each side...

it makes me want to hurl... are they paid by Kenny Boy? It's always a guy driving and his wife/g.f. in the passenger seat - seen them at LEAST 10 times (and that's amazingly over HALF the times I've been on that road)

Anyone up for PROTESTING BLACKWELL on June 16th?
I have no idea how I got on Blackwell's email list, but as the last sentence in the email says..."We look forward to seeing you" I think he wants us to attend.

From The Franklin County Republican Party:

Dear Fellow Republican:

We are pleased to announce that on June 16, the Quarterly Leadership Luncheon will take place at the Athletic Club of Columbus at 12 noon. This should prove to be an interesting event.

Our special guest is our Republican gubernatorial candidate, Ohio Secretary of State J. Kenneth Blackwell. Secretary Blackwell will join us to discuss his gubernatorial campaign and show us why he is the clear choice this fall for all voters. When it comes to his agenda of job creation, fiscal restraint, and government integrity, Secretary Blackwell has a clear and consistent message that Ohioans are going to like to hear.

Secretary Blackwell has already accomplished an initiative that he has long championed, reducing state spending, by working with legislative leadership in the Ohio House and Senate to get a bill passed that will make unnecessary any constitutional action.

The cost of the luncheon is $50. Proceeds will support directly the Franklin County Republican Party. Checks should be made payable to the FCRP and sent to headquarters at 14 E. Gay Street, 2nd Floor, Columbus, Ohio 43215. Corporate checks are now acceptable. Credit card payments can also be made by calling John Campbell at 224-3939. You can also RSVP by calling the same telephone number and paying at the door the day of the event. We look forward to seeing you.

www.cafepress.com/warisprofitable <<<--- check it out, 100's of anti-bush and PRO-DEM stickers!

by the person in question?

The problem is that the 'lost' votes you cited do not appear to be lost through any sort of consipracy or malevolence. They are lost through errors which are always present.

On a different thread I recounted a story how my very own provisional was rejected despite the fact that I was registered. (In NYS). Turns out the the BoE misspelled my name in a most bizarre fashion by combining some letters of my last name and dropping others. My father and my brother who lived at the same address voted no problem. I was given a provisional and then since they couldn't find my real name on the rolls, the provisional was rejected. I do not attribute this to any sort of intentional conspiracy, but to mistakes that are inherent in data-entry, etc.

It is little wonder that people who move more often have a higher rate of error on tehir registration. If we assume for the sake of argument that 1 out of 20 registrations has an error (either by voter or the data-entry clerk) the more times you file a registration the higher the odds that at some point there will be an error.

I'm not one to normally gossip, but whaddayathink - Troll or Tool?

vyan