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Here is a report that I got via a regional coordinator for the Green Party recount process. I am on a list to get updates, and I asked if I could forward some of these reports. My opinion: the election officials know that if we compare the signature books with the tallies, we will find substantial differences.
This is Jen Frigolette, coordinator in Cuyahoga County. We started our recount today, Thursday December 16, 2004. I have started composing a long description of what transpired, but it occurs to me now that I no longer have the capacity to finish in such detail.
So I want to get to you at least tonight/this morning a brief summary of what happened. (And as I am cutting and pasting now I realize that it is not quite so brief)
The recount process started out very smoothly. Our witnesses were instructed to arrive by 8am, when the mandatory BoE orientation would take place for all witnesses. There was a bit of a line, which I was near the end of at 8am. We were all directed to the media room, and at about 8:15am everyone was seated and the orientation began. We were each given a schedule with a brief description of what the recount would look like. The witness instructions were given with a description of the schedule, and then there was a question and answer period.
They explained that we would be following standard procedure for all county recounts. These rules had been signed off on by the County Prosecutor’s Office, of which a representative was present. Some of the important rules were the following:
Witnesses could not use cell phones, video or audio recording devices. Any witness found with recording devices would be immediately escorted out, with the ability to be replaced by a different witness. (of the same candidate).
All witnesses would receive a copy of the sheet stating the hand recount vote totals for each candidate in their precinct, as well as the computer count.
In the computer/tabulation room, we were allowed to have 2 groups of the five candidate witnesses. One group could watch the computer screen, while the other could witness the remakes of any ballots.
At the time of the orientation, Jacqui Maiden stated that there will be no visual inspection of the remaining 600,000-some ballots in the county.
Only ballots with holes punched through, with 2 or less chads remaining would be counted. Dimpled chads would not be counted, even if the entire ballot was dimpled chads.
Backward ballots should have already been remade but there were teams available to remake them if any additional were found.
Precinct selection was done on the basis of: only choosing precincts with 550 or more votes, and a cross-section of areas?one East side, one West side, one affluent, one non-affluent.
In response to the question “How are the ballots in order?” Jacqui Maiden’s response was “How they come out of the machine.”
The staff allowed questioning until there were more questions, and then they gave us a few minutes to organize our volunteers before the recount started.
At the beginning of the day, reports were that the process was going more smoothly and faster than expected. People arrived at our meeting room starting around 11am because they had finished couting their precincts at that time.
The actual 3% hand recount was finished by around 3pm, in my estimation. I can double-check this time. When this was completed, a Bush-Cheney representative (coordinator or attorney?) anounced that all the Bush-Cheney witnesses were free to leave, as there was nothing left to be discovered in the precinct log books. The precinct log books were then distributed, in alphabetical order, for the witnesses to check.
Anomalies were found. Almost all of the witnesses that I spoke with felt that the ballots were not in random order, that they had been previously sorted. There would be long spurts of votes for only one candidate and then long spurts for another, which seemed statistically improbable to most.
From what they were able to get through, witnesses found that signature counts were very much different from the official recorded number of ballots.
There was some confusion around 4pm, as volunteers started to wonder the importance of going through the signature log books of every single precinct. At this time Dora Rose was back and forth on the phone with Don McTigue and apparently submitting specific precincts of the log books that we wanted to check. After some confusion and then apparently a decision made by Michael Vu (the director of our BoE), per Dora Rose’s request, the alphabetical log books were taken away from witnesses, and replaced with only the log books of the 3% hand-recounted precincts, in addition to about 30 of the specifically-requested precincts. The volunteers began examining these log books.
Around 5:30pm, Attorney and Democrat Coordinator Dora Rose, Attorney and Green/Lib reps. George Taylor and Candice Hoke, the Bush Cheney attorney and Coordinator, and the Board of Directors met to discuss the process and what they were allowing for tomorrow.
When I returned to the security desk, a BoE staff person came up to me, in a frustrated voice, and told me that “The volunteers are done looking through the logbooks, and they want to go home. Can they leave now?” This woman was probably 5’1, African-American, with glasses on. She was wearing a green top. Unfortunately, I don’t know her name (it was suggested possibly Rosie) I can find out tomorrow. In my observation, the volunteers looked idle, but I foolishly did not go into the room and consult with each of them to definitively ascertain this.
I was concerned for the morale of the volunteers, in addition to the fact that many of them had been there for hours and were very tired. I didn’t want them to have to stay any longer, wasting their time and the Board of Elections time and money, if they were in fact done looking at the logbooks, since there was no further task they were instructed to do after that.
I interrupted the meeting with the attorneys and the Board, stating that our volunteers had completed their task and had nothing left to do. I asked if there was anything else the Board was allowing them to look at at that point. The woman with the blond hair and bangs (Gwen?) told me that there was nothing else, and that they would “release them” as soon as the meeting was done. I asked if our volunteers were free to leave, and she said yes. I returned to the room and asked Turo to make the announcement that if they were finished, any volunteers were free to leave, but before he and I could finish speaking, the board and attorneys returned to the room and made the announcement that they were finished for the day, instructing everyone to go home. I did not find out until conversation later that night that in fact many of the tables were NOT actually finished looking through the logbooks.
Tomorrow (Friday) the schedule is from 8am-5pm, with an hour break for lunch between noon and 1pm. The task for tomorrow is to inspect the voting machines of all 1400-some precincts, to make sure that the rotation of the ballots and the voting booklet of all the precincts match up. If they do not match up, there will be a form to fill out, and all the ballots from that precinct will need to be remade.
There is still discussion of a full visual inspection of the remaining ballots, or at least the under and over votes for President, but I did not have the final word on that last night. I also did not get the final word on whether or not the hand count and machine count for all of the 3% precincts added up, but I assume they did since I have not heard differently.
Other observations:
I was disappointed with the way many of the Board of Elections staff were treating the entire process. I instructed my volunteers, in emails and in person, to be nothing but cordial and respectful to the BoE staff. In our training that we made mandatory for any witnesses, Attorney and Law Professor Candice Hoke explained that the BoE staff are very tired?they have been working too long hours for too long, and haven’t had a break. She emphasized that we need to be conscientious and unflinching in our scrutinization, but also very understanding that these people are tired and probably stressed out. I was proud to see that our volunteers were being respectful. Unfortunately, as the day progressed I cannot say the same for all of the BoE staff.
For a good portion of the afternoon, I was stationed outside of the security desk, where I could see the entire room. I didn’t want to be confined to one witness table, and am not an attorney. We were instructed that only the candidate (if he or she chooses to show up) and the candidate’s attorney are allowed to circulate around the room, while the 20 witnesses must stay seated at the tables. I did not realize at this time that I could act as the candidate’s representative and circulate. Dora Rose explained this to me later.
At or around the security desk, there were about 2-3 security guards in this area at all times, and probably 1-2 BoE staff as well. The officer from the Sherriff’s Department and I struck up a friendly conversation. The BoE staff “gatekeepers” were often too busy to talk. As the afternoon progressed into late afternoon, I started hearing (firsthand) the negative comments. A staff person who had been observing for awhile said something like “This is madness--why can’t they get over it?” and “we need to stop working on this election and move on.”
After I started circulating around the room, I heard firsthand the questions and comments to our witnesses. “Why are you looking at the signature books? You aren’t going to find anything in them.”
I am very young and un-official looking, so I don’t think any of them realized that I was the coordinator. They were making these comments in a loud voice, as if to no one at all, but in my impression with the definite intention for me (and anyone in the general vicinity) to hear their disgust). This is unacceptable behavior. I understand that all the staff are tired and overworked. However, this is no excuse to be continually making derogatory comments to those citizens and taxpayers who are exercising their legal rights. If it is their personal opinion that the recount is unnecessary and somehow wasteful, then they have the right to express it, in a personal setting. But when they are making these comments in public, acting as an employee of the BoE, these statements become nothing short of intimidation.
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