Kennedy’s EVIDENCE.

RFK Jr. touched off a storm when he asserted that 2004 was probably stolen.
The compelling nature of his argument was supported by a powerful array of excellent
sources. He had 208 footnotes. Today ERD News provides you with the primary sources
for all of Kennedy’s linked footnotes, perhaps 1/2of the 208. These are a permanent
DU resource for reference as the storm spreads across the country. Be part of it.
Study, learn, advocate!!!

All members welcome and encouraged to participate.
Please post Election Reform, Fraud, & Related News on this thread.
1. Post stories and announcements you find on the web.
2. Post stories using the "Election Fraud and Reform News Sources" listed here:
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=203x371233
3. Re-post stories and announcements you find on DU, providing a link to the original thread with thanks to the Original Poster, too.
4. Start a discussion thread by re-posting a story you see on this thread.
Please

"Recommend"

for the Greatest Page

www.electionfraudnews.com

Thanks

-- 1) Manual Roig-Franzia and Dan Keating, ''Latest Conspiracy Theory -- Kerry Won -- Hits the Ether,'' The Washington Post, November 11, 2004.

Washington Post: 11/11/2004.
Latest Conspiracy Theory -- Kerry Won -- Hits the Ether

By Manuel Roig-Franzia and Dan Keating
Washington Post Staff Writers
Thursday, November 11, 2004; Page A02
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A41106-2004Nov10.html

MIAMI, Nov. 10 -- The e-mail subject lines couldn't be any bigger and bolder: "Another Stolen Election," "Presidential election was hacked," "Ohio Fraud."

Even as Sen. John F. Kerry's campaign is steadfastly refusing to challenge the results of the presidential election, the bloggers and the mortally wounded party loyalists and the spreadsheet-wielding conspiracy theorists are filling the Internet with head-turning allegations. There is the one about more ballots cast than registered voters in the big Ohio county anchored by Cleveland. There are claims that a suspicious number of Florida counties ended up with Bush vote totals that were far larger than the number of registered Republican voters. And then there is the one that might be the most popular of all: the exit polls that showed Kerry winning big weren't wrong -- they were right.

It was not until the early 20th century that the Senate enacted rules allowing members to end filibusters and unlimited debate. How many votes were required to invoke cloture when the Senate first adopted the rule in 1917?

Each of the claims is buoyed by enough statistics and analysis to sound plausible. In some instances, the theories are coming from respected sources -- college engineering professors fascinated by voting technology, Internet journalists, election reform activists. Ultimately, none of the most popular theories holds up to close scrutiny. And the people who most stand to benefit from the conspiracy theories -- the Kerry campaign and the Democratic National Committee -- are not biting.

"At this point the number of irregularities brought to our attention is not going to change the outcome of the election," said DNC spokesman Jano Cabrera. "The simple fact of the matter is that Republicans received more votes than Democrats, and we're not contesting this election."

www.electionfraudnews.com

2) The New York Times Editorial Desk, ''About Those Election Results,'' The New York Times, November 14, 2004.

EDITORIAL DESK
About Those Election Results

http://select.nytimes.com/gst/abstract.html?res=F70615FA3C5B0C778DDDA80994DC404482&n=Top/Reference/Times Topics/Subjects/E/Election Results

There have been a flood of reports, rumors and theories over the last 12 days about problems with the presidential election. The blogosphere, in particular, has been full of questions: Why did electronic voting machines in Ohio add nearly 4,000 phantom votes for President Bush, and why did machines in Florida mysteriously start to count backward? Why did the official vote totals for Ohio's largest county seem to suggest that there were more votes cast than registered voters? Why did election officials in yet another part of Ohio lock down the building where votes were being counted, turning away the press and public?

Defenders of the system have been quick to dismiss questions like these as the work of ''conspiracy theorists,'' but that misses the point. Until our election system is improved -- with better mechanics and greater transparency -- we cannot expect voters to have full confidence in the announced results.

Electronic voting proved to be, as critics warned, a problem. There is no evidence of vote theft or errors on a large scale. But this country should have elections in which the public has no reason to worry whether every vote was counted properly, and we're still not there. In Franklin County, Ohio, one precinct reported nearly 4,000 votes for President Bush, although the precinct had fewer than 800 voters. In Broward County, Florida election officials noticed that when the absentee ballots were being tabulated, the vote totals began to go down instead of up. Voters in several states reported that when they selected John Kerry, it turned into a vote for President Bush.

These problems were all detected and fixed, but there is no way of knowing how many other machine malfunctions did not come to light, since most machines do not have a reliable way of double-checking for errors. When a precinct mistakenly adds nearly 4,000 votes to a candidate's total, it is likely to be noticed, but smaller inaccuracies may not be. There is also no way to be sure that the nightmare scenario of electronic voting critics did not occur: votes surreptitiously shifted from one candidate to another inside the machines, by secret software.

www.electionfraudnews.com

4) Overseas Vote Foundation, ''2004 Post Election Survey Results,'' June 2005, page 11.

http://www.overseasvotefoundation.org/downloads/surveys/ovf_survey_01jun2005_v1.0_usletter.pdf

2004 Post Election Survey Results
June 2005 Page 1
Help support our research program with a donation:
Overseasvotefoundation.org

Potentially as many as 43% of Overseas Voters Disenfranchised
in the November 2004 Presidential Election.
Top 2 Reasons for Overseas Voter Disenfranchisement
1. Ballots are not arriving on time, or at all
2. Potential voters are missing overseas registration deadlines

The main cause of overseas voter disenfranchisement is that the ballots
are late or do not arrive at all. Voters are not sufficiently aware of alter-
native emergency ballots to remedy this problem.
The second cause is overseas voters not realizing that they should regis-
ter months in advance of elections to ensure time to confirm their regis-
tration and respond to any issues arising during the registration process.
We believe that this research is indicative of implementation problems in
the overseas registration and voting process and that when working with
the right agencies, most of these problems can be addressed and
resolved.

www.electionfraudnews.com

6)Meg Landers, ''Librarian Bares Possible Voter Registration Dodge,'' Mail Tribune (Jackson County, OR), September 21, 2004.

http://www.mailtribune.com/archive/2004/0921/local/stories/02local.htm

Librarian bares possible voter registration dodge
Company claiming affiliation with the non-partisan ‘America Votes’ group appears to represent the GOP

By MEG LANDERS
Mail Tribune

A local librarian checking on a company’s request to set up a voter registration booth in the library discovered the company was not affiliated with a non-partisan national group as it claimed.

Sproul & Associates, Inc. of Phoenix, Ariz., phoned and mailed the library in September, saying it had been hired by America Votes.

That came as news to America Votes.

"This organization (Sproul) absolutely has nothing to do with America Votes," said Kevin Looper, the state organizing director for America Votes.

www.electionfraudnews.com

9) Ellen Theisen and Warren Stewart, Summary Report on New Mexico State Election Data, January 4, 2005, pg.29
<http://www.democracyfornewmexico.com/democracy_for_new_mexico/files/NewMexico2004ElectionDataReport-v2.pdf[br />

Summary Report on New Mexico State Election Data

by Ellen Theisen and Warren Stewart
We have collected and examined the canvass report of the November 2, 2004 Presidential
Election in New Mexico, as well as other relevant data.
1
The results of our analysis cast serious doubt on the accuracy of the certified results.
• New Mexico led the nation with the highest rate of presidential undervotes (ballots with no
vote reported for president). A comparison of presidential undervotes with undervotes in
down-ticket contests suggests that a significant number of votes may not have been counted.
• Although only 41% of the state's voters cast their ballots on push-button electronic voting
machines, these machines accounted for 77% of the presidential undervotes, raising doubts
about their accuracy.

• In spite of the high statewide undervote rate, over half of the precincts reported zero
presidential undervotes in early, election day, and/or absentee voting. This unlikely
phenomenon raises the possibility of programming irregularities, administrative errors, or
failure to follow proper canvassing procedures.

• Certified results show hundreds of precincts reporting phantom votes (more votes recorded
than ballots cast). Each of the more than 10,000 phantom votes in the canvass report is an
inexplicable anomaly.

• Strikingly higher undervote rates were reported in precincts with predominately Hispanic or
Native American populations. These findings are noteworthy and demand further study.
This report identifies a pattern of stunning errors and severe irregularities in the election data.
Until the paper ballots are examined and the electronic voting data verified, the canvass report
certified by the State of New Mexico cannot be regarded as an accurate reflection of the will of
the people.
www.electionfraudnews.com

10) James W. Bronsan, ''In 2004, New Mexico Worst at Counting Votes,'' Scripps Howard News Service, December 22, 2004. 10) ''A Summary of the 2004 Election Day Survey; How We Voted: People, Ballots & Polling Places; A Report to the American People by the United States Election Assistance Commission'', September 2005, pg. 10.


http://www.eac.gov/election_survey_2004/pdf/EDS%20exec.%20summary.pdf


www.electionfraudnews.com

13) Federal Election Commission, Federal Elections 2004: Election Results for the U.S. President

General Election and Primary Results, 2004, President

.

http://www.fec.gov/pubrec/fe2004/2004pres.pdf

OHIO (20 Electoral Votes)

Bush, R 2,859,768 50.81%
Kerry,D 2,741,167 48.71%


www.electionfraudnews.com

14) Democratic National Committee, Voting Rights Institute, ''Democracy at Risk: The 2004 Election in Ohio'', June 22, 2005. Page 514)

http://a9.g.akamai.net/7/9/8082/v001/www.democrats.org/pdfs/ohvrireport/fullreport.pdf

“Democracy at Risk”

Pages 5-6

B. Scarcity of voting equipment caused long lines and deterred people
from voting. These problems varied significantly by race and type of
voting machine.
•
Scarcity of voting machines caused long lines that deterred many
people from voting. Three percent of voters who went to the polls
left their polling places and did not return due to the long lines.
•
Counties using DRE (touchscreen) voting machines witnessed longer
waits, with more than half (52 percent) of voters in these counties
waiting more than twenty minutes.
•
Of the counties using DRE (touchscreen) voting machines, Franklin
County (Columbus and surrounding cities) was the worst-- 74
percent of voters waited more than twenty minutes to vote. There
were also proportionally fewer voting machines in Franklin County's
minority neighborhoods than in its predominantly white
neighborhoods.
•
Statewide, African American voters reported waiting an average of
52 minutes before voting while white voters reported waiting an
average of 18 minutes.
•
Overall, 20 percent of white Ohio voters reported waiting more than
twenty minutes, while 44 percent of African American voters
reported doing so.
C.
Provisional ballots were vastly overused in Ohio and the types of
voters forced to vote provisionally varied significantly by registration
status, residential mobility and race. Anecdotal evidence suggests
these problems were due to extremely faulty election administration.
•
158,642 provisional ballots were cast in Ohio, equaling 2.8 percent
of all votes cast for President--compared with 0.9 percent for
Pennsylvania and 0.3 percent for Florida. Indeed, only 27,742
provisional ballots were cast in Florida, which had 135 percent more
votes cast for President than were cast in Ohio.
•
New registrants were much more likely to be required to cast ballots
provisionally: 26.5 percent of voters who first registered to vote in
2004 were required to cast a provisional ballot versus 2.5 percent of
voters who registered before 2004.
•
Residential mobility was also associated with the likelihood of
casting a provisional ballot: Voters who had moved since the last
time they voted were 6.7 times more likely to vote provisionally.
5
Voters who had lived at their current address for less than five years
were seven times more likely to cast provisional ballots than those
who have lived at their current address for more than five years.
•
Persons who rent their homes were 2.1 times more likely to cast
provisional ballots than homeowners.
•
Again, in order to do a more intensive study, the DNC team did two
surveys of voters in Cuyahoga County (Cleveland and surrounding
areas)--a survey of those who cast provisional ballots in Cuyahoga
County and a survey of non-provisional voters in Cuyahoga County.
Of provisional voters in Cuyahoga County, 35 percent were African
American, compared to 25 percent of non-provisional voters,
matched by geography. African American voters were 1.2 times
more likely than white voters to be required to vote provisionally.
•
These racial differences hold even when related differences in
mobility are accounted for: African American voters who had voted
in the past but had moved since the last time they voted were nearly
twice as likely to be forced to vote provisionally than white voters
who had voted in the past but had moved since the last time they
voted.
•
Voters between the ages of 18 and 54 were far more likely to be
forced to vote provisionally than voters over the age of 55, even
when registration and residential mobility effects were taken into
account.
•
Overall, 78 percent of provisional ballots in Ohio were counted
whereas only 66.2 percent of provisional ballots in Cuyahoga
County were counted.
•
Reports submitted to the DNC's Voter Protection Teams made it
clear that many election officials and poll workers did not
understand the provisional ballot rules and made many significant
mistakes:
1. in requiring voters to vote provisionally;
2. in not offering ballots to voters when they should have been
allowed to vote provisionally;
3. in running out of provisional ballots; or
4. in failing to handle ballots as legally required.

www.electionfraudnews.com

2008 hasn't happened yet.

Thanks!

I. The Exit Polls

The first indication that something was gravely amiss on November 2nd, 2004, was the inexplicable discrepancies between exit polls and actual vote counts. Polls in thirty states weren't just off the mark -- they deviated to an extent that cannot be accounted for by their margin of error. In all but four states, the discrepancy favored President Bush.(16)

www.electionfraudnews.com

Tale of the Exit Polls

Link:
http://www.rollingstone.com/photos/gallery/10467024/was_the_2004_election_stolen/photo/1/large

www.electionfraudnews.com

12 Suspect Counties

Link:
http://www.rollingstone.com/photos/gallery/10467024/was_the_2004_election_stolen/photo/2/large

www.electionfraudnews.com

Ohio’s Missing Votes

Link: http://www.rollingstone.com/photos/gallery/10467024/was_the_2004_election_stolen/photo/3/large

www.electionfraudnews.com

16) Evaluation of Edison/Mitofsky Election System 2004'' prepared by Edison Media Research and Mitofksy International for the National Election Pool (NEP), January 19, 2005, Page 3

http://www.exit-poll.net/election-night/EvaluationJan192005.pdf

Executive Summary

On November 2, 2004, the Election System created by Edison Media Research and
Mitofsky International for the National Election Pool (NEP) produced election estimates and exit poll data for analysis in 120 races in all 50 states and the District of Columbia.

In addition, between January and March 2004, Edison and Mitofsky conducted exit polls for 23 Democratic Primaries and Caucuses. For every election, the system delivered on its main goals: there were no incorrect NEP winner projections, and the exit poll data produced on election day were used on-air and in print by the six members of the NEP (AP, ABC, CBS, CNN, FOX and NBC) as well as several dozen media organizations who subscribed to that data. However, the estimates produced by the exit poll data on November 2 nd were not as accurate as we have produced with previous exit polls.

Our investigation of the differences between the exit poll estimates and the actual vote count point to one primary reason: in a number of precincts a higher than average Within Precinct Error most likely due to Kerry voters participating in the exit polls at a higher rate than Bush voters. There have been partisan overstatements in previous elections, more often overstating the Democrat, but occasionally overstating the Republican. While the size of the average exit poll error has varied, it was higher in 2004 than in previous years for which we have data. This report measures the errors in the exit poll estimates and attempts to identify the factors that contributed to these errors.

The body of this report contains the details of our analysis of the performance of the exit polls and the election system. In addition to the information included in this report, exit poll data from this election is being archived at the Roper Center at the University of Connecticut and at the Institute for Social Research at the University of Michigan and is available there for review and further analysis. This is the procedure that we havefollowed for all previous exit polls, which are also available at the Roper Center and ISR.

18) Dick Morris, ''Those Faulty Exit Polls Were Sabotage,'' The Hill, November 4, 2004.

Those faulty exit polls were sabotage

http://www.hillnews.com/morris/110404.aspx

By now it is well-known and a part of the 2004 election lore how the exit polls by the major television networks were wrong.

Likely this faux pas will assume its place among wartime stories alongside the mistaken calls on Florida’s vote for one side and then for the other in the 2000 election. But the inaccuracies of the media’s polling deserve more scrutiny and investigation.

Exit polls are almost never wrong. They eliminate the two major potential fallacies in survey research by correctly separating actual voters from those who pretend they will cast ballots but never do and by substituting actual observation for guesswork in judging the relative turnout of different parts of the state.

So reliable are the surveys that actually tap voters as they leave the polling places that they are used as guides to the relative honesty of elections in Third World countries. When I worked on Vicente Fox’s campaign in Mexico, for example, I was so fearful that the governing PRI would steal the election that I had the campaign commission two U.S. firms to conduct exit polls to be released immediately after the polls closed to foreclose the possibility of finagling with the returns. When the polls announced a seven-point Fox victory, mobs thronged the streets in a joyous celebration within minutes that made fraud in the actual counting impossible.

www.electionfraudnews.com

Maybe that is a plan!

"When the polls announced a seven-point Fox victory, mobs thronged the streets in a joyous celebration within minutes that made fraud in the actual counting impossible."

It is a Bushevik Fraud which reframes the debate nicely (though this particular Bushevik meme was unnecessary and didn't catch on).

IT ACCUSES THE EXIT POLLSTERS OF COMPLICITY IN ALTERING THE EXIT POLLS IN FAVOR OF KERRY!

It follows the very same Bushevik/Bolshevik/Nazi/Accuse-the-Rape-Victim mentality, but is very wittilty structured. Hell, you could read the first 75% of the article and not realize what this smear of shit of the shoe of history is saying.

But you might want to remove this from your collection.

19) Martin Plissner, ''Exit Polls to Protect the Vote,'' The New York Times, October 17, 2004.
The Nation: Checking Up; Exit Polls To Protect The Vote

By MARTIN PLISSNER (NYT) 746 words
Published: October 17, 2004

http://select.nytimes.com/search/restricted/article?res=F40F10F83F5E0C748DDDA90994DC404482


WASHINGTON - SINCE the 1960's, the exit poll, that staple of election-night television, has been used along with other tools to declare winners when the polls close in each state, and its accuracy is noted later when the actual vote count proves it right. A landmark exception, of course, came in 2000, when the networks initially gave the decisive Florida vote to Al Gore.

But now exit polls are being used in some places to monitor the official vote count itself, either to validate the outcome or to mount a challenge to it. That has happened in several countries in the last year, and in the United States one organization plans to use exit polls in five closely contested states in November to measure whether there have been impediments to voting.

Last fall, an American firm, whose polling clients have included Al Gore and John Edwards, was hired by some international foundations to conduct an exit poll in the former Soviet republic of Georgia during a parliamentary election. On Election Day, the firm, Global Strategy Group, projected a victory for the main opposition party. When the sitting government counted the votes, however, it announced that its own slate of candidates had won. Supporters of the opposition stormed the Parliament, and the president, Eduard A. Shevardnadze, later resigned under pressure from the United States and Russia.

<snip>.

A few hours later, the official count, by an election commission under Mr. Chávez's control, declared him the winner, with 58 percent of the total. Both the Organization of American States and the Carter Center, the Atlanta-based human rights organization founded by Jimmy Carter, said that their observers had seen no irregularities at the polls. In response to the exit poll, they called for a random audit at selected polling stations and again found nothing suspicious.
Could exit polls also play a role in the American presidential election on Nov. 2? The potential is there.

www.electionfraudnews.com

20) Matt Kelley, ''U.S. Money has Helped Opposition in Ukraine,'' Associated Press, December 11, 2004. U.S. money has helped opposition in Ukraine

U.S. Money has Helped Opposition in Ukraine

by Matt Kelley
ASSOCIATED PRESS
December 11, 2004
http://www.signonsandiego.com/uniontrib/20041211/news_1n11usaid.html

WASHINGTON – The Bush administration has spent more than $65 million in the past two years to aid political organizations in Ukraine, paying to bring opposition leader Viktor Yushchenko to meet U.S. leaders and helping to underwrite an exit poll indicating he won last month's disputed runoff election.

U.S. officials say the activities don't amount to interference in Ukraine's election, as Russian President Vladimir Putin alleges, but are part of the $1 billion the State Depatment spends each year trying to build democracy worldwide.

No U.S. money was sent directly to Ukrainian political parties, the officials say. In most cases, it was funneled through organizations such as the Eurasia Foundation or through groups aligned with Republicans and Democrats that organized election training, with human rights forums or with independent news outlets.

But officials acknowledge that some of the money helped train groups and individuals opposed to the Russian-backed government candidate – people who now call themselves part of the "Orange Revolution."]

Daniel Williams, ''Court Rejects Ukraine Vote; Justices Cite Massive Fraud in Runoff, Set New Election,'' The Washington Post, December 4, 2004.

23) Mitofsky International

http://www.mitofskyinternational.com/company.htm

Mitofsky International is a survey research company founded by Warren J. Mitofsky in 1993. Its primary business is conducting exit polls for major elections around the world. It does this work exclusively for news organizations. Mitofsky has directed exit polls and quick counts since 1967 for almost 3,000 electoral contests in United States, Mexico, Russia and the Philippines.



Mitofsky International also specializes in legal proceedings. Its cases included the change of venue portion of the Amadou Diallo shooting by four New York City police; the challenge in the U.S. Senate to seating Diane Fienstein after her victory over Michael Huffington; the South Carolina video poker law suit; the First Amendment law suits by the news media challenging the anti-exit poll statutes of the states of Washington, Florida and Georgia; the change of venue portion of the Orange County, California, law suit agains Merrill Lynch; a trade mark law suit concerning Billy Banks’ Tae-Bo exercise video; an arbitration proceeding among 17 oil companies that banned together with DOJ approval to avoid takeover by Libya’s Mu'ammar Al-Qadhafi; the authenticity of polling conducted for Oregon’s assisted suicide vote;

MI election research clients in the United States have included ABC, CBS, CNN, NBC, Wall Street Journal, New York Times, Washington Post, Los Angeles Times and Time; international clients include Televisa and the National Chamber for Radio and Television Broadcasting (Mexico), RAI (Italy), ZDF (Germany), Fuji (Japan), NTV and RTR (Russia) and Austrian and Finnish television.

MI conducted the only exit polls for the Russian presidential elections in 1996 and 2000. It also polled for the 1993 and 1999 Duma election. In 1994, MI conducted the only exit poll and quick count for the Mexican presidential election reported by the country's broadcast industry. Mitofsky received public commendation by President Carlos Salinas for his contribution to the election's credibility. MI and its Mexican partner, Consulta, have conducted exit polls for most governor elections between 1997-99 for Televisa, Mexico’s largest television network. Consulta/Mitofsky also covered the first PRI national presidential primary in 1999. MI started the only public opinion poll in Sri Lanka.

MI conducted exit polls for the 1994 mid-term U.S. elections for leading national newspapers. Since 1996, Mitofsky has done the electoral projections and analysis for president, governor and congress for CBS and CNN.

26) Jonathan D. Simon, J.D., and Ron P. Baiman, Ph.D., ''The 2004 Presidential Election: Who Won the Popular Vote? An Examination of the Comparative Validity of Exit Poll and Vote Count Data.'' FreePress.org, December 29, 2004, P. 9
http://freepress.org/images/departments/PopularVotePaper181_1.pdfThe 2004

Presidential Election: Who Won The Popular Vote? An Examination of the Comparative Validity of Exit Poll and Vote Count Data

Jonathan D. Simon, J.D.
Verified Vote 2004

Ron P. Baiman, Ph.D.
Institute of Government and Public Affairs
University of Illinois at Chicago

Executive Summary

• There is a substantial discrepancy--well outside the margin of error and outcome-
determinative--between the national exit poll and the popular vote count.

• The possible causes of the discrepancy would be random error, a skewed exit poll, or
breakdown in the fairness of the voting process and accuracy of the vote count.

• Analysis shows that the discrepancy cannot reasonably be accounted for by chance or
random error.

• Evidence does not support hypotheses that the discrepancy was produced by problems
with the exit poll.

• Widespread breakdown in the fairness of the voting process and accuracy of the vote
count are the most likely explanations for the discrepancy.

• In an accurate count of a free and fair election, the strong likelihood is that Kerry
would have been the winner of the popular vote
www.electionfraudnews.com

31) Analysis of the 2004 Presidential Election Exit Poll Discrepancies. U.S. Count Votes. Baiman R, et al. March 31, 2005. Page 3.

US Count Votes'
National Election Data Archive Project
Analysis of the 2004 Presidential Election Exit
Poll Discrepancies

http://electionarchive.org/ucvAnalysis/US/Exit_Polls_2004_Mitofsky-Edison.pdf
Response to the Edison/Mitofsky Election System 2004 Report
http://exit-poll.net/election-night/EvaluationJan192005.pd

Summary

There is already a strong case that there were significant irregularities in the presidential vote count from the 2004 election. Nevertheless, critics are asking for firmer proof before going forward with a thorough investigation

. We feel strongly that this is the wrong standard. One cannot have proof before an investigation.
In fact, the burden of proof should be to show that the election process is accurate and fair. The integrity of the American electoral system can and should be beyond reproach. Citizens in the world's oldest and greatest democracy should be provided every assurance that the mechanisms they have put in place to count our votes are fair and accurate. The legitimacy of our elected leaders depends upon it.
Well-documented security vulnerabilities and accuracy issues have affected voting equipment as far back as the late 1960s 26, and history shows that partisan election officials have long possessed the power to suppress and otherwise distort the vote counts.


The recent and ongoing proliferation of sophisticated computerized vote recording and tallying equipment 28 , much of it unverifiable and hence "faith-based", dramatically augments the opportunities for wholesale and outcome-determinative distortions of the vote counting process. That the lion's share of this equipment is developed, provided, and serviced by partisan private corporations only amplifies these serious concerns. The fact that, in the 2004 election, all voting equipment technologies except paper ballots were associated with large unexplained exit poll discrepancies all favoring the same party certainly warrants further inquiry.

The absence of any statistically-plausible explanation for the discrepancy between Edison/Mitofsky's exit poll data and the official presidential vote tally is an unanswered question of vital national importance that demands a thorough and unflinching investigation.


www.electionfraudnews.com

40) ''The Gun is Smoking: 2004 Ohio Precinct-level Exit Poll Data Show Virtually Irrefutable Evidence of Vote Miscount,'' U.S. Count Votes, National Election Data Archive, January 23, 2006.

Permission to quote extensively.

Show Virtually Irrefutable Evidence of Vote Miscount,''

http://uscountvotes.org/ucvAnalysis/OH/Ohio-Exit-Polls-2004.pdf
Abstract

Ohio's electoral votes were pivotal in the 2004 presidential election, where its exit polls predicted a John Kerry win, but official vote counts gave the victory to GW Bush. Precinct level Ohio exit poll data show virtually irrefutable evidence of vote miscount. Ohio 2004 presidential vote counts can be considered plausible only if it can be shown that substantially more Bush than Kerry voters lied on exit polls, or massive exit poll error, unnoticed by pollsters, occurred. If vote miscounts are the cause of the Ohio's exit poll discrepancy pattern, they probably altered the outcome of Ohio's presidential election and caused Bush to win Ohio's electoral votes. Ohio's exit poll discrepancy pattern includes three precincts with virtually impossible outcomes and an
unusually high number of precincts with significant discrepancy.
•
6% of Ohio's precincts each have virtually zero chance (less than one in 15,000) of occurring due to sampling error, given their Kerry official vote count.

Even if the "within precinct discrepancy" (WPD) is adjusted for all the precincts to remove any possible effect due to Kerry voters completing more exit polls, the probability of obtaining Ohio's exit poll discrepancies are virtually impossible.
•
Over 40% of Ohio's polled precincts have discrepancies having less than a 5% chance of occurring, given the official vote counts.

The expected number of such precincts in a sample of 49 precincts would be five such precincts, not the 20 found.
•
Ohio's exit poll discrepancies, when plotted against precinct exit poll share show a pattern that is consistent with vote miscounts that benefited Bush, and•

The pattern of Ohio's exit poll discrepancies cannot be explained by random sampling error or partisan exit poll completion rate differences.Without fair and accurate democratic elections, America is not a democracy. U.S. vote counts are not routinely independently audited to detect and correct errors; 5election data reporting practices in virtually all counties hide evidence of vote miscounts

The Gun is Smoking: 2004 Ohio Presidential Exit Poll Analysis

•
the payoff for election tampering is control of budgets, land use, and other issues in the millions of dollars just at the city or county level; and new voting equipment implemented under the 2002 "Help America Vote" Act empowers fewer persons to undetectably manipulate more vote counts and most digital recording electronic (DRE) voting machines are virtually impossible to independently audit. In other words, today insiders have freedom to manipulate U.S. vote counts with negligible possibility of detection.

Without American democracy, the fate of civilization could be as precarious as when Hitler ended the German Republic government. We ensure the integrity of future democratic elections by publicly releasing detailed exit poll and vote count data and analyzing it immediately following elections prior to any candidate conceding or accepting office. Common-sense safeguards such as routine independent audits of vote counts using hand-countable voter verified paper ballots.

U.S. Count Votes, National Election Data Archive, January 23, 2006.

www.electionfraudnews.com

II. The Partisan Official

No state was more important in the 2004 election than Ohio. The state has been key to every Republican presidential victory since Abraham Lincoln's, and both parties overwhelmed the state with television ads, field organizers and volunteers in an effort to register new voters and energize old ones. Bush and Kerry traveled to Ohio a total of forty-nine times during the campaign -- more than to any other state.(42)


www.electionfraudnews.com

42) The Washington Post, ''Charting the Campaign: Top Five Most Visited States,'' November 2, 2004.
43) John McCarthy, ''Nearly a Month Later, Ohio Fight Goes On,'' Associated Press Online, November 30, 2004.


Flash/charts:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/politics/elections/2004/charting.html

www.electionfraudnews.com

44) Ohio Revised Code, 3501.04, Chief Election Officer''

3501.04. Chief election officer

http://onlinedocs.andersonpublishing.com/oh/lpExt.dll?f=templates&fn=main-h.htm&cp=PORC

The secretary of state is the chief election officer of the state, with such powers and duties relating to the registration of voters and the conduct of elections as are prescribed in Title XXXV <35> of the Revised Code. He shall perform these duties, in addition to other duties imposed upon him by law, without additional compensation.
www.electionfraudnews.com

(47) http://www.kenblackwell.com/

48) Joe Hallett, ''Governor; Aggressive First Round Culminates Tuesday,'' Columbus Dispatch, April 30, 2006.

Aggressive first round culminates Tuesday

Sunday, April 30, 2006

Joe Hallett

THE COLUMBUS DISPATCH

Jim Petro Ted Strickland Bryan Flannery J. Kenneth Blackwell

An Ohio governor’s race that already has taken more twists than Chubby Checker’s dance finally will arrive at its halfway point Tuesday when voters go to the polls to select Republican and Democratic nominees.

Although the race between two popular Republicans — Secretary of State J. Kenneth Blackwell and Attorney General Jim Petro — has dominated the news since the Feb. 16 candidatefiling deadline, Democrats also have a choice between U.S. Rep. Ted Strickland of Lisbon and former state Rep. Bryan Flannery of Lakewood.

The winners Tuesday will vie Nov. 7 to replace Republican Gov. Bob Taft, whose eight-year run has continued a 16-year lock on the governor’s office for the GOP. But with Ohio continuing to bleed well-paying jobs and the young people who want them, and with a Republican-controlled Statehouse awash in scandal, Democrats see their best opportunity since 1990 to win back the governor’s office.

The rancorous battle between Petro and Blackwell is bound to render the primary winner bloodied and broke for the general election, leaving Strickland, the heavily favored Democrat, with at least a $1 million head start for the fall campaign.
www.electionfraudnews.com

50)Raw Story, ''Republican Ohio Secretary of State Boasts About Delivering Ohio to Bush.''
http://rawstory.rawprint.com/105/blackwell_campaign_letter2_105.php

Ohio’s Republican Secretary of State Kenneth Blackwell boasted of helping “deliver” Ohio for President Bush and said he was “truly pleased” to announce Bush had won Ohio even before all of the state’s votes had been counted in his own fundraising letter, RAW STORY has discovered. (Read the full story, including response from a Congressman, here.)

The letter, which was received by a Butler County resident Dec. 31, is a plea to support Blackwell’s campaign for governor. The resident has asked to remain anonymous.

In apparent disregard for his nonpartisan role as Ohio’s chief election official, the Republican Secretary and chairman of Bush’s Ohio reelection campaign slammed Senator Kerry as a “disaster” who would have reaped “terrible” and “horrible” results on both Ohio and the United States.

Further, Blackwell’s use of the word “deliver” finds striking resonance with another controversial fundraising letter sent by the CEO of voting machine manufacturer Diebold Walden O’Dell in the summer of 2003 when he said he was “committed to helping Ohio deliver its electoral votes to the president next year.”

www.electionfraudnews.com

51) In the United States District Court For the Northern District of Ohio Northern Division, The Sandusky County Democratic Party et al. v. J. Kenneth Blackwell, Case No. 3:04CV7582, Page 8.
http://electionlawblog.org/archives/10-20%20Order.pdf
N THE UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT
FOR THE NORTHERN DISTRICT OF OHIO
WESTERN DIVISION
The Sandusky County
Case No. 3:04CV7582
Democratic Party, et al.,
Plaintiff
v.
ORDER
J. Kenneth Blackwell,Defendant

This is a suit under 42 U.S.C. § 1983 to enforce provisions of the Help America Vote Act, Pub.
L. 107-252, Title III, § 302, 116 Stat. 1706 (codified at 42 U.S.C. § 15301, et seq.) (HAVA). Plaintiffs are the Ohio Democratic Party, the Sandusky County, Ohio, Democratic Party, and three labor organizations, all of whom sue as associational representatives of their members. The defendant is J.
Kenneth Blackwell, Ohio Secretary of State.

In prior proceedings in this case, I have: 1) held that Directive 2004-33, issued by the defendanton September 16, 2004, violate the provisional voting provisions of HAVA, 42 U.S.C. § 15482, and
issued injunctive relief requiring the defendant to file a HAVA-compliant directive with this Court (Doc. 26); 2) denied the defendant's motion to stay the mandate of the injunction pending his appeal of theinjunction (Doc. 35); and 3) issued a supplemental injunction directing defendant to file alternative versionsof HAVA-compliant directives (Doc. 39).

(Page) 2

Defendant filed a revised directive on October 18, 2004. Pending is plaintiffs' motion for immediate relief. (Doc. 40). That motion contends that the defendant has failed to comply with this Court's order to file a HAVA-compliant revised directive.
Plaintiffs' motion asks that, in addition to finding non-compliance with the injunction, I order the defendant to issue, by not later than noon, October 20, 2004, a directive that complies with HAVA and the Court's ruling of October 14, 2004. For the reasons that follow, I agree with the plaintiffs that the defendant's submission in response to the injunction that he file a HAVA-compliant directive fails to comply with that order. I agree also that immediate relief is necessary, though the form of relief that will be granted differs in some respects from that requested by the plaintiff.
Background

The exigencies requiring the relief being ordered herein are due to the failure of the defendant to fulfill his duty not only to this Court, as its injunction directed him to do, but more importantly, to his failure to do his duty as Secretary of State to ensure that the election laws are upheld and enforced.

The primary cause of the exigency is the defendant's failure to have issued Directive 2004-33 relating to provisional voting for nearly twenty-three months after HAVA's enactment. As noted in the order granting plaintiffs' motion for a preliminary injunction, the defendant himself acknowledged the need to bring Ohio's antiquated provisional voting laws into conformity with HAVA. In Ohio's HAVA State Plan (State Plan), 69 Fed. Reg. 14879, 14895 (March 24, 2004), authored by Blackwell in June, 2003, he assured Ohio's voters that he would "continue to refine and expand the scope of provisional voting in the state to comply with the spirit, intent and letter" of HAVA. Id. (Emphasis added).

(Page) 3

Despite Blackwell's assurance in the State Plan that he "embrac the concept" of "accommodat every voter who, for whatever reason, does not appear on the certified list of registered voters in any jurisdiction of the state," id. at 34 (emphasis added), he did not publish any regulations or directives relating to provisional voting under HAVA until issuing Directive 2004-33 on September 16, 2004 - about six weeks before the November 2, 2004, presidential election. Blackwell has never explained why he waited so long to do anything to bring Ohio's provisional election procedures into line with federal law. At no point during these proceedings has Blackwell contended that HAVA's statement of the right to vote provisionally and what must be done to ensure that right is complex, unclear, or administratively challenging. Nor could he make such contention: the statute is remarkably clear, cogent, and succinct. With regard to the provisions at issue in this case generally, and plaintiffs' pending motion in particular, the statute states:

If an individual declares that such individual is a registered voter in the jurisdiction in which the individual desires to vote and that the individual is eligible to vote in an election for Federal office, but the name of the individual does not appear on the official list of eligible voters for the polling place or an election official asserts that the individual is not eligible to vote, such individual shall be permitted to cast a provisional ballot as follows:

(1) An election official at the polling place shall notify the individual that the individual may cast a provisional ballot in that election.

(2) The individual shall be permitted to cast a provisional ballot at that polling place upon the execution of a written affirmation by the individual before an election official at the polling place stating that the individual is

(A) a registered voter in the jurisdiction in which the individual desires to vote; and
(B) eligible to vote in that election.

(Page) 4

(3) An election official at the polling place shall transmit the ballot cast by the individual or the voter information contained in the written affirmation executed by the individual under paragraph (2) to an appropriate State or local election official for prompt verification under paragraph (4).
(4) If the appropriate State or local election official to whom the ballot or voter information is transmitted under paragraph (3) determines that the individual is eligible under State lawto vote, the individual's provisional ballot shall be counted as a vote in that election in accordance with State law.

(5)

(A) At the time that an individual casts a provisional ballot, the appropriate State or local election official shall give the individual written information that states that any individual who casts a provisional ballot will be able to ascertain under the system established under subparagraph (B) whether the vote was counted, and, if the vote was not counted, the reason that the vote was not counted.

(B) The appropriate State or local election official shall establish a free access system (such as a toll-free telephone number or an Internet website) that any individual who casts a provisional ballot may access to discover whether the vote of that individual was counted, and, if the vote was not counted, the reason that the vote was not counted.
42 U.S.C. § 15482(a).

In the opening line of Directive 2004-33, which plaintiffs have successfully challenged for its noncompliance with HAVA's provisional voting requirements, Blackwell stated, "All boards of elections must instruct their pollworkers on the provisional voting procedures authorized by state and federal law." (Emphasis added). Despite that acknowledgment of his duty to instruct Ohio's election officials about their obligations under federal law (and HAVA is the federal law regarding provisional voting), Blackwell described not a single provision of federal law generally, much less HAVA in particular, in Directive 2004-

33.

The effect of Blackwell's failure to mention, much less discuss HAVA, was to leave the intended readers of Directive 2004-33 Ohio's election officials entirely unaware that there even is a federal law

(Page) 5

relating to provisional voting. Such reader is left entirely without guidance on how to apply that law, though it has been on the books and in effect for two years. Instead of describing the requirements of HAVA in Directive 2004-33, Blackwell gave a narrative description of Ohio's pre-HAVA, outdated provisional voting procedures. Those procedures indisputably fail to extend the right to vote provisionally, as mandated by HAVA, to all Ohio voters who are entitled under HAVA to do so.
By failing to discuss HAVA, on the one hand, and describing only outmoded, no longer applicable procedures on the other, Blackwell, in all likelihood, left Ohio's election officials more confused than they would have been if the directive had not issued. As a result of his failure to do the job he admitted in Directive 2004-33 must be done -- instructing Ohio's "pollworkers on the provisional voting procedures authorized by state and federal law," Blackwell, Ohio's chief election official, would, if Directive 2004-33 were to have been implemented, have disenfranchised large numbers of Ohio voters on November 2, 2004.

To avoid this result, the injunction that issued on October 14, 2004, in addition to restraining implementation of Directive 2004-33, directed Blackwell: to "forthwith, in compliance with this Order, prepare, and, not later than 4 p.m., Monday, October 18, 2004, file with this Court a Directive that complies with the Help America Vote Act, and shall otherwise be consistent with this Order."
Blackwell's "Proposed New Directive No. 2004 -," submission in response to this Court's order that he file a HAVA-complaint revised directive, states:

Proposed New Directive No. 2004-_____

October 18, 2004

(Page) 6

ALL COUNTY BOARDS OF ELECTIONS

The ability of Ohio voters to cast a provisional ballot existed prior to the enactment of the Help America Vote Act of 2002 (HAVA), as noted in Directive 2004-33. Provisional balloting as mandated by HAVA does not, however alter Ohio's long-standingprecinct-based voting system, as defined in R.C. 3503.01. HAVA requires states to provide voters with a provisional ballot if certain conditions are met, as outlined below. The validity of such votes shall be determined in accordance with state law eligibility requirements before any vote is counted. This Directive provides guidance to County Boards of Elections regarding how provisional ballots must be issued and cast. All poll workers should receive training on the contents of this Directive and be advised to contact your offices if they need additional information or have questions related to provisional voting. This Directive, or a summary thereof, should be included in each poll worker handbook and be available to poll workers as a resource on Election Day.

No voter should be turned away from the polling place without being given an opportunity to cast a vote; however, all efforts should be made to direct the voter to the proper precinct, the board of elections, and any regional centers designated by the board of elections, in order for his or her vote to be counted.

For Voters Whose Names DO NOT Appear in the Official Poll Book:

Pursuant to Section 302 of HAVA, if a person declares he or she is a registered voter qualified to vote at that precinct but his or her name is not on the official list of eligible voters ("Roster"), that person may vote a provisional ballot. Any voter who does not appear on the Roster because he or she has moved or changed names should vote provisionally..Casting a Provisional Ballot:

Provisional Ballots shall be (a different color/stamped with the word "Provisional" in large letters). Prior to voting the provisional ballot, the elector shall be required to sign an affidavit stating the following:

I do solemnly swear or affirm that my name is _____________, that my date of birth is ___________, and at the time that I registered I resided at _______________ in the City of ______________ in _____________ County of the State of Ohio and that this is the only ballot that I cast in this election, except that if I have already cast an absentee ballot, such ballot will be voided and this ballot shall count if the county board of elections official verifies my eligibility. I understand that pursuant to Ohio law, if I am voting in a precinct other than my assigned precinct, my vote may not be counted.

Signature of Voter


Current Address

(page) 7

After the provisional ballot has been cast, the individual shall place it in a secrecy envelope. The individual shall place the secrecy envelope in the provisional ballot envelope and shall place his signature on the front of the provisional ballot envelope. The judge of elections shall affix the voter's completed affidavit to the provisional ballot envelope. All provisional ballots shall remain sealed in their provisional ballot envelopes for return to the county board of elections.
(Doc. 37).

This submission does not comply with the command of the injunction. Blackwell has failed to comply with this court's order to submit a HAVA-compliant revised directive in several respects. First, the Proposed Directive fails to inform Ohio's election officials clearly and specifically that, pursuant to § 15482(a), any individual whose name "does not appear on the official list of eligible voters" or who is told by an election official that he or she "is not eligible to vote . . . shall be permitted to cast a provisional ballot." (Emphasis added).

Instead, the Proposed Directive expressly limits its scope to "Voters Whose Names DO NOT
Appear in the Official Poll Book." It likewise limits expressly the right to vote provisionally to "a person declares he or she is a registered voter qualified to vote at that precinct but his or her name is not on the official list of eligible voters ("Roster"), that person may vote a provisional ballot." The Proposed Directive remains as drastically under-inclusive as Directive 2004-33, and is every bit as much in violation of HAVA.

The right to vote provisionally under HAVA is not limited to persons whose names are not on the rolls. That right is also extended to any individual who is told by an election official that he or she "is not eligible to vote." This was one of the fundamental reforms in the right to vote provisionally accomplished under HAVA, and accomplishing this reform was a principal objective of Congress in adopting the Act.

1

This landmark legislation will help the Nation avoid another debacle like the one that occurred during the Presidential election in November of 2000. In that election, thousands of ballots in Florida and in my home State of Illinois went uncounted for a variety of reasons. In fact, over 120,000 voters in Cook County and thousands more throughout the rest of the State did their civic duty and cast a vote during the last Federal election, only to have their ballots discounted because of problems with machinery and inaccuracies on the rolls of registered voters. This is unacceptable in the United States of America, where we take pride in our freedom to cast a vote for our leaders.

148 Cong. Rec. S10488 (daily ed. Oct. 16, 2002) (Statement of Sen. Durbin)

(page) 8

www.electionfraudnews.com

52) Preserving Democracy: What Went Wrong in Ohio, Status Report of the House Judiciary Committee Democratic Staff (Rep. John Conyers, Jr.), January 5, 2005.

Executive Summary

Representative John Conyers, Jr., the Ranking Democrat on the House Judiciary
Committee, asked the Democratic staff to conduct an investigation into irregularities reported in the Ohio presidential election and to prepare a Status Report concerning the same prior to the Joint Meeting of Congress scheduled for January 6, 2005, to receive and consider the votes of the electoral college for president. The following Report includes a brief chronology of the events; summarizes the relevant background law; provides detailed findings (including factual findings and legal analysis); and describes various recommendations for acting on this Report going forward.

We have found numerous, serious election irregularities in the Ohio presidential
election, which resulted in a significant disenfranchisement of voters. Cumulatively these irregularities, which affected hundreds of thousand of votes and voters in Ohio, raise grave doubts regarding whether it can be said the Ohio electors selected on December 13, 2004, were chosen in a manner that conforms to Ohio law, let alone federal requirements and constitutional standards.

This report, therefore, makes three recommendations:

(1) consistent with the requirements of the United States Constitution concerning the counting of electoral votes by Congress and Federal law implementing these requirements, there are ample grounds for challenging the electors from the State of Ohio;

(2) Congress should engage in further hearings into the widespread irregularities reported in Ohio; we believe the problems are serious enough to warrant the appointment of a joint select Committee of the House and Senate to investigate and report back to the Members; and

(3) Congress needs to enact election reform to restore our people's trust in our democracy. These changes should include putting in place more specific federal protections for federal elections, particularly in the areas of audit capability for electronic voting machines and casting and counting of provisional ballots, as well as other needed changes to federal and state election laws. With regards to our factual finding, in brief, we find that there were massive and unprecedented voter irregularities and anomalies in Ohio. In many cases these irregularities were caused by intentional misconduct and illegal behavior, much of it involving Secretary of State J. Kenneth Blackwell, the co-chair of the Bush-Cheney campaign in Ohio. First, in the run up to election day, the following actions by Mr. Blackwell, the Republican Party and election officials disenfranchised hundreds of thousands of Ohio citizens, predominantly minority and Democratic voters:
•
The misallocation of voting machines led to unprecedented long lines that
disenfranchised scores, if not hundreds of thousands, of predominantly minority and Democratic voters.

This was illustrated by the fact that the Washington Post reported that in Franklin County, "27 of the 30 wards with the most machines per

1. See Powell and Slevin, supra.

(page) 5

"True eace is not merely the absence of tension: it is the p resen ce of justice."
-- Martin Luther King Jr.

registered voter showed majorities for Bush. At the other end of the spectrum, six of the seven wards with the fewest machines delivered large margins for Kerry."

1. Among other things, the conscious failure to provide sufficient voting machinery violates the Ohio Revised Code which requires the Boards of Elections to "provide adequate facilities at each polling place for conducting the election.”
•
Mr. Blackwell's decision to restrict provisional ballots resulted in the disenfranchisement of tens, if not hundreds, of thousands of voters, again predominantly minority and Democratic voters. Mr. Blackwell's decision departed from past Ohio law on provisional ballots, and there is no evidence that a broader construction would have led to any significant disruption at the polling places, and did not do so in other states.
•
Mr. Blackwell's widely reviled decision to reject voter registration applications based on paper weight may have resulted in thousands of new voters not being registered in time for the 2004 election.
•
The Ohio Republican Party's decision to engage in preelection "caging" tactics, selectively targeting 35,000 predominantly minority voters for intimidation had a negative impact on voter turnout. The Third Circuit found these activities to be illegal and in direct violation of consent decrees barring the Republican Party from targeting minority voters for poll challenges.
•
The Ohio Republican Party's decision to utilize thousands of partisan challengers concentrated in minority and Democratic areas likely disenfranchised tens of thousands of legal voters, who were not only intimidated, but became discouraged by the long lines. Shockingly, these disruptions were publicly predicted and acknowledged by Republican officials: Mark Weaver, a lawyer for the Ohio Republican Party, admitted the challenges "can't help but create chaos, longer lines and frustration."
•
Mr. Blackwell's decision to prevent voters who requested absentee ballots but did not receive them on a timely basis from being able to receive provisional ballots
likely disenfranchised thousands, if not tens of thousands, of voters, particularly seniors. A federal court found Mr. Blackwell's order to be illegal and in violation of HAVA.

Second, on election day, there were numerous unexplained anomalies and
irregularities involving hundreds of thousands of votes that have yet to be accounted for.
•
There were widespread instances of intimidation and misinformation in violation of the Voting Rights Act, the Civil Rights Act of 1968, Equal Protection, Due Process and the Ohio right to vote. Mr. Blackwell's apparent failure to institute a single investigation into these many serious allegations represents a violation of his statutory duty under Ohio law to investigate election irregularities.
•
We learned of improper purging and other registration errors by election officials that likely disenfranchised tens of thousands of voters statewide. The Greater Cleveland Voter Registration Coalition projects that in Cuyahoga County alone over 10,000 Ohio citizens lost their right to vote as a result of official registration errors.
•
There were 93,000 spoiled ballots where no vote was cast for president, the vast majority of which have yet to be inspected. The problem was particularly acute in two precincts in Montgomery County which had an undervote rate of over 25% each accounting for nearly 6,000 voters who stood in line to vote, but purportedly declined to vote for president.
•
There were numerous, significant unexplained irregularities in other counties throughout the state: (i) in Mahoning county at least 25 electronic machines transferred an unknown number of Kerry votes to the Bush column; (ii) Warren County locked out public observers from vote counting citing an FBI warning about a potential terrorist threat, yet the FBI states that it issued no such warning; (iii) the voting records of Perry county show significantly more votes than voters in some precincts, significantly less ballots than voters in other precincts, and voters casting more than one ballot; (iv) in Butler county a down ballot and underfunded Democratic State Supreme Court candidate implausibly received more votes than the best funded Democratic Presidential candidate in history; (v) in Cuyahoga county, poll worker error may have led to little known third- party candidates receiving twenty times more votes than such candidates had ever received in otherwise reliably Democratic leaning areas; (vi) in Miami county, voter turnout was an improbable and highly suspect 98.55 percent, and after 100 percent of the precincts were reported, an additional 19,000 extra votes were recorded for President Bush.

Third, in the post-election period we learned of numerous irregularities in tallying
provisional ballots and conducting and completing the recount that disenfanchised thousands of voters and call the entire recount procedure into question (as of this date the recount is still not complete) :
•
Mr. Blackwell's failure to articulate clear and consistent standards for the counting of provisional ballots resulted in the loss of thousands of predominantly minority votes.

(2) See, e.g. Susan Page, Swing States Lean to Kerry: Democrat Ties Bush Nationally, USA
TODAY , Nov. 1, 2004; Anne E. Kornblut, Big Push to the Finish: Bush, Kerry Make Last Stand in Crucial States, BOSTON GLOBE, Nov. 1, 2004; Mike Allen and LoisRomano, A FeverishPitch in Final Hours, WASH POST, Oct. 31, 2004.
(3)See Page, supra.
(4) See Ford Fessenden, A Big Increase Of New Voters in Swing States, N.Y. TIMES, Sept.26, 2004.


In Cuyahoga County alone, the lack of guidance and the ultimate narrow and arbitrary review standards significantly contributed to the fact that 8,099 out of 24,472 provisional ballots were ruled invalid, the highest proportion in the state.
•
Mr. Blackwell's failure to issue specific standards for the recount contributed to a lack of uniformity in violation of both the Due Process Clause and the Equal Protection Clauses. We found innumerable irregularities in the recount in violation of Ohio law, including (i) counties which did not randomly select the precinct samples; (ii) counties which did not conduct a full hand court after the 3% hand and machine counts did not match; (iii) counties which allowed for irregular marking of ballots and failed to secure and store ballots and machinery; and (iv) counties which prevented witnesses for candidates from observing the various aspects of the recount.
•
The voting computer company Triad has essentially admitted that it engaged in a course of behavior during the recount in numerous counties to provide "cheat sheets" to those counting the ballots. The cheat sheets informed election officials how many votes they should find for each candidate, and how many over and under votes they should calculate to match the machine count. In that way, they could avoid doing a full county-wide hand recount mandated by state law.

Chronology of Events

The Lead Up to the 2004 Ohio Presidential Election In Ohio In the days leading up to
election day 2004, a consensus appeared to have emerged among observers that the state of Ohio would be one of the battleground states that would decide who would be elected the Forty-fourth President of the United States (2) Both the Democratic and Republican Presidential campaigns, as well as outside groups, had spent considerable time and resources to win the state, but the day before the election, the Democratic candidate, Senator John Kerry, appeared to have the edge(3). The Democratic Party also had vastly outperformed its Republican counterparts in registering voters in this key state(4).

Election Day . Numerous irregularities were reported throughout Ohio. In particular, in
predominately Democratic and African-American areas, the voting process was chaotic, taxing and ultimately fruitless for many. The repeated and suspicious challenges of voter eligibility and a lack of inadequate number of voting machines in these areas worked in concert to slow voting

(5) See discussion infra.
(6) See discussion infra.
(7) Letter from John Conyers, Jr., Jerrold Nadler, and Robert Wexler (subsequently added to this letter were the following signatories: Robert C. Scott, Melvin L. Watt, Anthony Weiner, Rush Holt, John Oliver, Bob Filner, Gregory Meeks, Barbara Lee, Tammy Baldwin, Louise Slaughter, George Miller, Jan Schakowsky, Sam Farr, Bernard sanders, Elijah Cummings and Lynn Woolsey), to David Walker, Comptroller General of the United States, Government Accountability Office (November 5, 2004) (on file with the House Judiciary Committee Democratic Staff and at http://www.house.gov/judiciary_democrats/gaoinvestvote2004ltr11504.pdf. See also Subsequent Letters from Members of Congress requesting to be added as original requesters to the November 5 letter, (on file with the House Judiciary Committee Democratic Staff).

Reverend Jesse Jackson Receives Standing Ovation at December 13 Columbus Hearing to a crawl, with voting lines as long as ten hours.

(5) Voters reported bizarre "glitches" in voting machines where votes for Senator Kerry were registered as votes for the President.
(6) The counting process was similarly chaotic and suspect.

The Aftermath . On November 5, after receiving preliminary reports of election
irregularities in the 2004 General Election, Congressman John Conyers, Jr., the Ranking Member of the House Judiciary Committee, and 14 Members of Congress wrote to the Government Accountability Office (GAO) to request an investigation of such irregularities.
7
On November 22, at the request of the GAO, the House Judiciary Committee Democratic staff met with GAO officials. In this meeting, GAO officials advised that, on its own authority, the GAO was prepared to move forward with a wide ranging analysis of systemic problems in the 2004 elections. GAO officials also advised Judiciary staff that they would be unable to examine each and every specific election complaint, but would look at some such complaints as exemplars of broader deficiencies.

At the same time, the offices of Democratic Staff and of Democratic Judiciary Committee Members were deluged with e-mails and complaints about the election. While such complaints are still being processed, close to 100,000 such complaints were received. As of this writing, the Judiciary Democratic office alone is receiving approximately 4,000 such e-mails a day. More than half of these complaints were from one state: Ohio.
The Election Protection Coalition consists of the Lawyers Committee for Civil Rights
Under Law, the People for the American Way Foundation, the National Coalition for Black Civic Participation, and other groups.

9 Green Party Presidential Candidate David Cobb Testifies at December 13 Columbus Hearing Election Protection Coalition has testified that it received more complaints on election day concerning irregularities in Ohio than any other state.

8 On December 2, 2004, Members of the Judiciary Committee wrote to Ohio Secretary of State Kenneth Blackwell that these complaints appear collectively to constitute a troubled portrait of a one-two punch that may well have altered and suppressed votes, particularly minority and Democratic votes. The Members posed 36 questions to Secretary Blackwell about a combination of official actions and corresponding actions by non-official persons, whether in concert or not, worked hand-in-glove to depress the vote among constituencies deemed by Republican campaign officials to be disadvantageous.

Through his spokesman, Secretary Blackwell assured the public and the press that he
would be happy "to fill in the blanks" for the Committee and asserted that many questions were easily answered. In fact, Secretary Blackwell belatedly replied to the letter with a refusal to answer any of the questions. Ranking Member Conyers wrote back to Blackwell the same day requesting that he remain true to his promise to answer the questions. Congressman Conyers has yet to receive a reply.

At the same time, officials from the Green Party and Libertarian Party have been investigating allegations of voter disenfranchisement in Ohio and other states. Eventually, the Presidential Candidates for those parties, David Cobb and Michael Badnarik, filed requests for recounts to all 88 Ohio Counties. However, it appears their efforts too are being stonewalled and thwarted by nonstandard and highly selective recounts, unnecessary delays, and blatant deviations from long accepted Ohio law and procedure. Recently, Senator Kerry, a party to the recount action, joined the Green Party and Libertarian Party in requesting immediate action to halt these irregularities and potential fraud in the recount. The recount is still pending before the federal court, and valid votes have yet to be counted.

The Honorable Stephanie Tubbs Jones Calls December 13 Columbus Hearing to Order In addition, a challenge has been filed to the Ohio results asserting, to a level of sworn proof beyond a reasonable doubt, that Senator Kerry, not President Bush, was the actual victor of the Presidential race in Ohio. Kenneth Blackwell is adamantly refusing to answer any questions under oath in regard to election irregularities or results. He is apparently counting upon Congress accepting the votes of the electors and, as an immediate consequence, the Ohio Supreme Court dismissing the citizens' election contest. Committee Members and other interested Members have gone to substantial lengths to ascertain the facts of this matter. The investigation by Congressman Conyers and the Democratic staff of the House Judiciary Committee into the irregularities reported in the Ohio presidential election has also included the following efforts:

On November 5, 2004, Representatives Conyers, Nadler, and Wexler wrote to the GAO Comptroller David M. Walker requesting an investigation of the voting machines and technologies used in the 2004 election;
•
On November 8, 2004, Representatives Conyers, Nadler, Wexler, Scott, Watt, and Holt wrote to GAO Comptroller Walker requesting that additional concerns surrounding the voting machines and technologies used in the 2004 election be investigated;
•
On November 15, 2004, Representatives Lee, Filner, Oliver, and Meeks joined in the request for a GAO investigation;
•
On November 29, 2004, Representatives Weiner, Schakowsky, Farr, Sanders, and Cummings joined in the request for a GAO investigation;
•
On December 2-3, 2004, Congressman Conyers and other Judiciary Democratic Members wrote to Ohio Secretary of State J. Kenneth Blackwell concerning Ohio election irregularities;
•
On December 3, 2004, Representative Woolsey joined in the request for a GAO investigation;
•
On December 3, 2004, Congressman Conyers wrote to Warren Mitofsky of Mitofsky International requesting the release of exit poll raw data from the 2004 presidential election as such data may evidence instances of voting irregularities;
•
On December 8, 2004 in Washington, D.C., Congressman Conyers hosted a forum on voting irregularities in Ohio;
•
On December 13, 2004 Congressman Conyers hosted a second forum on voting irregularities in Ohio in Columbus, Ohio;
•
On December 13, 2004 Congressman Conyers and other Members wrote to Ohio Governor, Bob Taft, Speaker of Ohio State House, Larry Householder, and President of Ohio State Senate, Doug White, requesting a delay of the meeting of Ohio's presidential electors;
•
On December 14, 2004, Congressman Conyers wrote to Ohio Secretary of State J. Kenneth Blackwell in regards to the Secretary's refusal to cooperate with the Judiciary Democratic Members investigating election irregularities in Ohio;
•
On December 15, 2004, Congressman Conyers wrote to FBI Special Agent in Charge, Kevin R. Brock and Hocking County, Ohio Prosecutor, Larry Beal, requesting an investigation into alleged Ohio election problems;
•
On December 21, 2004 Congressman Conyers wrote to Ohio candidates requesting that they report any incidences of irregularities or deviations from accepted law or practices during the recount in Ohio;
•
On December 21, 2004, Congressman Conyers wrote to several major media outlets requesting the exit poll raw data from the 2004 presidential election;
•
On December 22, 2004, Congressman Conyers wrote to Triad GSI President Brett Rapp and Triad GSI Ohio Field Representative Michael Barbian, Jr. regarding the voting machine company's involvement in the Presidential election and Ohio recount and allegations that it intentionally or negligently acted to prevent validly cast ballots in the presidential election from being counted;
•
On December 23, 2004, as a follow-up letter to the December 22 letter, Congressman Conyers wrote to Triad's President Rapp and Ohio Field Representative Barbian upon learning that Triad had remote access to tabulating computers controlled by the Board of Elections; and
•
On January 3, 2004, federal and Ohio state lawmakers joined Reverend Jesse Jackson in Columbus, Ohio for a rally calling attention to the need for national election reform and the January 6th joint session of Congress where election results will be certified. Citizen groups have played a substantial role in acquiring relevant information. Citizens Alliance for Secure Elections in Ohio has organized hearings that have provided valuable leads for this report. We have been contacted by thousands of concerned citizens: they want a full and fair count of all of the votes and confidence in the electoral system, and they find both of these to be sorely lacking in this election. Many have investigated these matters themselves and have made considerable sacrifices to do so.

57) Fritz Wenzel, ''Purging of Rolls, Confusion Anger Voters; 41% of Nov. 2 Provisional Ballots Axed in Lucas County,'' Toledo Blade, January 9, 2005.
Article published Sunday, January 9, 2005

Toledo Blade
Purging of rolls, confusion anger voters
41% of Nov. 2 provisional ballots axed in Lucas County

http://toledoblade.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20050109/NEWS09/501090334&SearchID=73195662517954
Barbara and Ralph George had their provisional ballots rejected.
By FRITZ WENZEL
BLADE POLITICAL WRITER

Ralph and Barbara George are lifelong Democrats who first registered to vote for John F. Kennedy in 1960 and have lived in the same East Toledo house for 44 years.

They called the Lucas County Board of Elections early last year to make sure they still were registered to vote.

Informed that they were, they went on with life, including helping their son, just home from military service, to purchase a new home. Then, last fall, they applied for absentee ballots.
It was then that they were surprised to discover - too late to do anything about it - that they were somehow no longer registered and wouldn't be allowed to vote in the general election.

www.electionfraudnews.com

III. The Strike Force

In the months leading up to the election, Ohio was in the midst of the biggest registration drive in its history. Tens of thousands of volunteers and paid political operatives from both parties canvassed the state, racing to register new voters in advance of the October 4th deadline. To those on the ground, it was clear that Democrats were outpacing their Republican counterparts: A New York Times analysis before the election found that new registrations in traditional Democratic strongholds were up 250 percent, compared to only twenty-five percent in Republican-leaning counties.(61) ''The Democrats have been beating the pants off us in the air and on the ground,'' a GOP county official in Columbus confessed to The Washington Times.(62)

www.electionfraudnews.com

61) Ford Fessenden, ''A Big Increase of New Voters in Swing States,'' The New York Times, September 26, 2004.

http://www.nytimes.com/2004/09/26/politics/campaign/26vote.html?ei=5088&en=cd9ae70cb6e69619&ex=1254024000&partner=rssnyt&pagewanted=print&position=
September 26, 2004

New York Times:
A Big Increase of New Voters in Swing States

By FORD FESSENDEN
COLUMBUS, Ohio - A sweeping voter registration campaign in heavily Democratic areas has added tens of thousands of new voters to the rolls in the swing states of Ohio and Florida, a surge that has far exceeded the efforts of Republicans in both states, a review of registration data shows.

The analysis by The New York Times of county-by-county data shows that in Democratic areas of Ohio - primarily low-income and minority neighborhoods - new registrations since January have risen 250 percent over the same period in 2000. In comparison, new registrations have increased just 25 percent in Republican areas. A similar pattern is apparent in Florida: in the strongest Democratic areas, the pace of new registration is 60 percent higher than in 2000, while it has risen just 12 percent in the heaviest Republican areas.

While comparable data could not be obtained for other swing states, similar registration drives have been mounted in them as well, and party officials on both sides say record numbers of new voters are being registered nationwide. This largely hidden but deadly earnest battle is widely believed by campaign professionals and political scientists to be potentially decisive in the presidential election.

"We know it's going on, and it's a very encouraging sign," said Steve Elmendorf, deputy campaign manager for Senator John Kerry, the Democratic presidential nominee. The new voters, Mr. Elmendorf said, "could very much be the difference."

www.electionfraudnews.com

62) Ralph Z. Hallow, ''Republicans Go 'Under the Radar' in Rural Ohio,'' The Washington Times, October 28, 2004.

Washington Times: 10/28/2004.
Republicans go 'under the radar' in rural Ohio

By Ralph Z. Hallow
http://washtimes.com/national/20041027-115211-1609r.htm

COLUMBUS, Ohio — Republican and Bush campaign officials in the battleground state of Ohio say they have been operating "under the radar" to target 57 rural counties in the state, using direct mail and phone banks to boost turnout in those heavily Republican counties.

"These are the ones that will make a difference, giving us 150,000 additional votes," said Robert T. Bennett, chairman of the Ohio Republican Party.

The party's decision to funnel resources into increasing turnout in rural counties, other party officials say, has escaped the notice of pollsters and the press — and even misled some Republicans into thinking that President Bush's re-election ca"The Democrats have been beating the pants off us in the air and on the ground," confided a Republican county official in Columbus.

Polls indicate a neck-and-neck race for 20 Electoral College votes in Ohio, a state that Mr. Bush carried 50 percent to 46 percent over Democrat Al Gore four years ago. mpaign has let itself be outperformed by Democratic Sen. John Kerry in the state
www.electionfraudnews.com

63) Jo Becker, ''GOP Challenging Voter Registrations,'' The Washington Post, October 29, 2004. http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A7422-2004Oct28.html

Washington Post :GOP Challenging Voter Registrations
Civil Rights Groups Accuse Republicans Of Trying to Disenfranchise Minorities

By Jo Becker
Staff Writer
Friday, October 29, 2004; Page A05
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A7422-2004Oct28.html

Republicans yesterday continued to challenge the validity of tens of thousands of voter registrations in Ohio and other key states in the presidential election while a coalition of civil rights and labor groups sued the GOP, contending the Republican efforts were aimed at removing eligible minority voters from the rolls.

After initially saying he would not contest a Wednesday ruling halting the challenges, Secretary of State J. Kenneth Blackwell (R) worked with other election officials who asked the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 6th Circuit in Cincinnati to allow GOP challenges to 35,000 voters from mostly urban and minority areas to proceed before the election. As of late last night, the court had not ruled.
Also yesterday, Republicans in Wisconsin attempted to challenge the registrations of 5,600 voters in Milwaukee but were turned down in a unanimous decision by the city's bipartisan election board.

The Republican challenges in Ohio, Wisconsin and other battleground states prompted civil rights and labor unions to sue in U.S. District Court in Newark, saying the GOP is violating a consent decree, issued in the 1980s by Judge Dickinson R. Debevoise and still in effect, that prevents the Republicans from starting "ballot security" programs to prevent voter fraud that target minorities.
64) Janet Babin, ''Voter Registrations Challenged in Ohio,'' NPR, All Things Considered, October 28, 2004.

www.electionfraudnews.com

65) In the United States District Court for the Southern District of Ohio, Western Division, Amy Miller et al. v. J. Kenneth Blackwell, Case no. C-1-04-735, Page 2.
http://fl1.findlaw.com/news.findlaw.com/hdocs/docs/election2004/mlrblackwell102704ord.pdf
IN THE UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT
FOR THE SOUTHERN DISTRICT OF OHIO
WESTERN DIVISION
AMY MILLER et al.

Plaintiffs
v.
:
J. KENNETH BLACKWELL et al.
:
Defendants

Case No. C-1-04-735
District Judge Susan J. Dlott
ORDER GRANTING
PLAINTIFFS' MOTION FOR A
TEMPORARY RESTRAINING
ORDER AND THE MOTION TO
INTERVENE OF KEVIN CRAFT
AND GREG LAWSON

This matter comes before the Court on Plaintiffs' Motion for a Temporary Restraining
Order (doc. #2) and the Motion to Intervene of Kevin Craft and Greg Lawson (doc. #5).
Plaintiffs Amy Miller, Mindi Haddix, and the Ohio Democratic Party (collectively, "Plaintiffs") filed both the Complaint for Declaratory and Injunctive Relief (doc. #1) and the Motion for a Temporary Restraining Order (doc. #2) on October 26, 2004. For the reasons set forth below, the Court GRANTS Plaintiffs' Motion. The Court also GRANTS Craft's and Lawson's Motion to Intervene (doc. #5).

I.
BACKGROUND

Plaintiffs in this case are Amy Miller, Mindi Haddix, and the Ohio Democratic Party.
Amy Miller and Mindi Haddix have sued on their own behalf and on behalf of those similarly situated ("Plaintiff Voters"). The Ohio Democratic Party has sued on its own behalf and on behalf of its members. Defendants in the case are J. Kenneth Blackwell, the Ohio Secretary of State, in his official capacity, as well as the Lawrence, Scioto, Cuyahoga, Franklin, Medina, and Trumbull County Boards of Elections, and all of the Boards' members in their official capacities. Plaintiffs bring their claims pursuant to 42 U.S.C. § 1973gg-9 and 42 U.S.C. § 1983. Plaintiffs allege that the timing and manner in which Defendants intend to hold hearings regarding pre-election challenges to the Plaintiff Voters' voter registration violate both the National Voter Registration Act and the Due Process Clause of the Constitution. According to the complaint, the Republican National Committee has engaged in an effort to challenge voters' eligibility, culminating in the October 22, 2004 filing of pre-election challenges to the eligibility of approximately 35,000 Ohio voters. (Cmplt. 16, 24.) The challenges were aimed at newly registered voters in 65 counties. (Id. at 24.) The challenges alleged that the voters were ineligible to vote because a non forwardable mailing that was sent to each of the voters from the Ohio Republican Party was returned, which shows that these voters intend to vote in a precinct


1) Plaintiffs have requested that the Court certify a class of plaintiffs similarly situated to Plaintiffs Miller and Haddix. The Court will issue an order on class certification following this Order. In the meantime, the Court hereby certifies a class of Plaintiff Voters pursuant to Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 23. The Court defines the class as "all persons who have registered to vote in the State of Ohio whose eligibility to vote was challenged by the Ohio Republican Party's voter challenges submitted on October 22, 2004 and whose eligibility their County Board of Elections intended to challenge before the General Election to be held on November 2, 2004." The Court appoints Plaintiffs Miller and Haddix as joint class representatives, and appoints their counsel, Ms. Virginia Whitman, as class counsel.

2) Plaintiffs have filed a complaint and a motion for temporary restraining order supported by appropriate affidavits. Since the facts alleged in these papers have not yet been denied or contradicted by countervailing evidence, they must be accepted as true. See O'Connor v. Bd. Of Educ., 449 U.S. 1301, 1301 (1980).

www.electionfraudnews.com

72) Fritz Wenzel, ''Challenges Filed Against 931 Lucas County Voters,'' Toledo Blade, October 27, 2004. http://www.toledoblade.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20041027/NEWS09/410270361/-1/NEWS

Toledo Blade. 10.27.2004. Challenges filed against 931 Lucas County voters
Elections board skeptical of their validity, sets Saturday hearing

By FRITZ WENZEL
BLADE POLITICAL WRITER

The Lucas County Board of Elections sent notices yesterday to 931 people, informing them that their right to vote was under challenge, and that they must appear at a hearing Saturday morning at Government Center before they can cast a ballot in next week's election.
The hearing in Toledo City Council chambers will begin at 11 a.m.

"This is uncharted ground," said elections board counsel John Borell, an assistant Lucas County prosecutor. "I doubt that, in Ohio, this has ever happened - 1,000 challenges."
The Ohio Republican Party challenged 35,000 voters statewide last week after a mailing to them came back marked undeliverable.

The party said the undeliverable mail could signal voter fraud. The GOP has withdrawn 7,500 names in Fairfield, Hamilton, Montgomery and Wood counties, citing mistakes in their own computer systems.
The notices were sent yesterday, and the hearing scheduled, even though members of the elections board said they were skeptical about the validity of the challenges. They also said they were disturbed that the challenges were eating up so much time during the run-up to an election that has overtaxed the county elections staff.

www.electionfraudnews.com

73) In the United States District Court for the Southern District of Ohio, Western http://news.corporatecounselcentre.ca/hdocs/docs/election2004/mlrblackwell102704ord.pdf

Division, Amy Miller et al. v. J. Kenneth Blackwell, Case no. C-1-04-735, Page 4.

Page 4

advised the Court that their respective clients had sent notice or intended to send notice to
between 14 and 17,000 challenged voters within their respective counties advising them that their voter registration had been challenged and that a hearing would be held on their eligibility pursuant to Ohio Revised Code Section 3503.24. 4 Counsel advised the Court that these hearings had been set for various times, ranging from later that afternoon, Wednesday, October 27, 2004, at 4:30 p.m. to Saturday, October 30, at 8 a.m. Counsel also advised the Court that the notices were or would be sent to the address that the Counties had on file presumably the same address as that on the returned mail that is the basis of these challenges. The Court took Plaintiffs' Motion under consideration and conducted another telephone conference on the afternoon of October 27, 2004 with counsel for all parties. At the afternoon conference, the Court rendered an oral decision granting the Plaintiffs' Motion for a Temporary (Restraining Order to stay in effect until the Court rules on a preliminary injunction)

(The Sixth Circuit has held that burden to be minimal. Grutter v. Bollinger, 188 F.3d 394, 399 (674) LaRaye Brown, ''Elections Board Plan)

Cir. 1999) (internal quotations omitted). As the time-sensitive nature of a case may be a factor in the intervention analysis, see Michigan State AFL-CIO v. Miller, 103 F.3d 1240, 1248 (6 th Cir. 1997), and here time constraints would not permit Craft and Lawson to bring separate actions to protect their rights, intervention is appropriate. Finally, Craft and Lawson have interests divergent from those of the County Boards of Elections and Secretary of State Blackwell. The latter seek an efficient and accurate electoral process revolving around Ohio election laws. Craft and Lawson are concerned primarily with maintaining a process by which to challenge the eligibility of registered voters prior to the election in order to prevent possible dilution of their own votes. As Craft and Lawson have met the four elements of a Rule 24(a)(2) analysis and allowing them to intervene will not delay proceedings nor prejudice other parties to the case, their motion to intervene (doc. #5) is granted.

Section 3503.24 provides: Any qualified elector of the county may challenge the right to vote of any registered elector not later than eleven days prior to the election. Upon receiving such a challenge, the director must set a time and date for a hearing before the county board of elections and send notice to the challenged voter. The notice must be sent by first class mail no later than three days before the day of any scheduled hearing, and the hearing must be held no later than two days prior to any election. Finally, if the board decides that the voter is in fact not entitled to have his or her name on the voter registration list, the board must remove that person's name from the list.

www.electionfraudnews.com

77) James Drew and Steve Eder, ''Court Rejects GOP Voter Challenge; Some Counties Hold Hearings Anyhow; 200 Voters Turned Away,'' Toledo Blade, October 30, 2004.

http://www.toledoblade.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20041030/NEWS09/410300450/-1/NEWS

Toledo Blade: 10/30/2004.Court rejects GOP voter challenge
Some counties hold hearings anyhow; 200 voters turned away

By JAMES DREW and STEVE EDER
BLADE STAFF WRITERS

In a setback to Ohio Republicans, a federal appeals court yesterday ruled that thousands of newly registered voters won't have to prove at hearings that they live where they are registered.
Rejecting separate appeals from the GOP and state Attorney General Jim Petro, the three-judge panel in Cincinnati said it is "mindful of the practical difficulty" of county election boards arranging and conducting thousands of hearings for all challenged voters before Tuesday's election.

David Sullivan, voter protection coordinator for the Ohio Democratic Party, said: "Ohio voters throughout the state will be able to vote on Election Day, despite the calculated political decision by the Ohio Republican Party to challenge tens of thousands of them in an effort to suppress voting, especially by minorities in Ohio."

Mark Weaver, an attorney representing the Ohio Republican Party, rejected the charge, saying the GOP is using the 50-year-old state law to prevent voter fraud.

As an example, he cited a 14-year-old boy who registered to vote at a fair in Sandusky County and whose mother saw his name in a list of voters whom the GOP challenged.

www.electionfraudnews.com

78) United States Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit, Republican National Committee v. Democratic National Committee, No. 04-4186

http://moritzlaw.osu.edu/electionlaw/litigation/documents/petitionforrehearingenbanc.pdf

www.electionfraudnews.com

82) Greg J. Borowski, ''GOP Demands IDs of 37,000 in City,'' Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, October 30, 2004.

http://www2.jsonline.com/news/metro/oct04/271173.asp

Milwaukee Journal Sentinal: 10/30/2004. GOP demands IDs of 37,000 in city
City attorney calls new list of bad addresses 'purely political'

By GREG J. BOROWSKI
gborowski@journalsentinel.com
Posted: Oct. 30, 2004

Citing a new list of more than 37,000 questionable addresses, the state Republican Party demanded Saturday that Milwaukee city officials require identification from all of those voters Tuesday.
If the city doesn't, the party says it is prepared to have volunteers challenge each individual - including thousands who might be missing an apartment number on their registration - at the polls.

The move, which dramatically escalates the party's claims of bad addresses and potential fraud, was condemned by Democrats as a last-minute effort to suppress turnout in the city by creating long delays at the polls.

City officials, who already were trying to establish safeguards in response to the party's claim of 5,619 bad addresses, were surprised by the 37,180 number, nearly seven times larger.
"It's not a leap at all to say the potential for voter fraud is high in the city, and the integrity of the entire election, frankly, is at stake," said Rick Graber, state GOP chairman. "The city's records are in horrible shape."

www.electionfraudnews.com

83) ''The Disenfranchisement of the Re-Enfranchised; How Confusion Over Felon Voter Eligibility in Ohio Keeps Qualified Ex-Offender Voters From the Polls,'' Prison Reform Advocacy Center, Cincinnati, Ohio, August 2004. I. SUMMARY OF KEY FINDINGS AND RECOMMENDATIONS

http://www.prisonsucks.com/scans/Ohio Felon Voting Rights Paper.pdf

A. Introduction

This study finds that an Ohio ex-offender's right to vote may well depend on
where he or she lives in the state. Ohio law permits former prisoners to resume voting
after their release from custody, but election officials' knowledge of this law varies by
region. For example, representatives from the Cuyahoga County Board of Elections
consistently gave accurate information regarding ex-offenders' voting rights, and most
Cleveland ex-offenders knew they could vote. But in Cincinnati, nearly half of the ex-
offenders we surveyed did not know they were allowed to vote, and information on ex-
offender voter registration provided by the Hamilton County Board of Elections was
inaccurate and misleading. The other 86 County Boards of Elections were a mixed lot.
This study documents the problem and offers practical, simple solutions that can be
implemented before the October 4, 2004 registration deadline. The Prison Reform
Advocacy Center (PRAC) calls on the Secretary of State, the County Boards of Elections,
the Ohio Department of Rehabilitation and Correction (Prison System and Adult Parole
Authority offices), the Correctional Institution Inspection Committee, and other state and
county agencies to act promptly to help ex-offender citizens exercise the right to vote


www.electionfraudnews.com

87) Lynda Gorov and Anne E. Kornblut, ''Gore to Challenge Results; No Plans to Concede; top Fla. Court refuses to order resumption of Miami-Dade County,'' The Boston Globe, November 24, 2000. Gore to challenge results

Boston Globe: 11/24/2000:
No plans to concede; top Fla. Court refuses to order resumption of Miami-Dade count

By Lynda Gorov and Anne E. Kornblut, Globe Staff, 11/24/2000

MIAMI - The Florida Supreme Court yesterday dealt Al Gore a serious blow by refusing to force Miami-Dade County to resume its hand count of presidential ballots, but the vice president's camp vowed to keep fighting.

While Republicans celebrated the court decision, Gore's lawyers said they would challenge Miami-Dade's voting results no later than Monday, and that Gore would not yet concede a race that already has gone 17 days past Election Day.

Each candidate needs Florida's 25 Electoral College votes to win the presidency, and most observers say that Gore needed to pick up votes in Democratic-leaning Miami to overcome George W. Bush's slim lead.

But a Democratic Party leader yesterday said the two other Florida counties undergoing recounts still could give Gore a victory before the court-ordered deadline of 5 p.m. Sunday. Unofficial tallies of the recounts yesterday showed that Gore has gained 217 votes, leaving him 713 votes behind Bush.
''I believe that if we have a full and fair, accurate count in Broward and Palm Beach counties, those two counties will be enough to put us over the top,'' said Ron Klain, a member of the Democratic National Committee.

www.electionfraudnews.com

88) Al Kamen, ''Miami 'Riot' Squad: Where are they Now?'' Washington Post, January 24, 2005.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A31074-2005Jan23.html

Washington Post .01/25/2005
Miami 'Riot' Squad: Where Are They Now?

By Al Kamen
Monday, January 24, 2005; Page A13

As we begin the second Bush administration, let's take a moment to reflect upon one of the most historic episodes of the 2000 battle for the White House -- the now-legendary "Brooks Brothers Riot" at the Miami-Dade County polling headquarters.

This was when dozens of "local protesters," actually mostly Republican House aides from Washington, chanted "Stop the fraud!" and "Let us in!" when the local election board tried to move the re-counting from an open conference room to a smaller space. With help from their GOP colleagues and others, we identified some of these Republican heroes of yore in a photo of the event.

Some of those pictured have gone on to other things, including stints at the White House. For example, Matt Schlapp, No. 6, a former House aide and then a Bush campaign aide, has risen to be White House political director. Garry Malphrus, No. 2 in the photo, a former staff director of the Senate Judiciary subcommittee on criminal justice, is now deputy director of the White House Domestic Policy Council. And Rory Cooper, No. 3, who was at the National Republican Congressional Committee, later worked at the White House Homeland Security Council and was seen last week working for the Presidential Inaugural Committee.

www.electionfraudnews.com

89) Al Kamen, ''Walking the Talk,'' Washington Post, April 21, 2006.

Washington Post: 04/21/2006:
Walking the Talk

Walking the Talk

By Al Kamen
Friday, April 21, 2006; Page A21

At a Christian Science Monitor breakfast with reporters Wednesday, a leading politician opined on immigration policy and on how we're all immigrants. "Most of us weren't born in America at some point in our lives," he said. Think again. It was Democratic National Committee Chairman Howard Dean . A couple more of those and we may need to start monitoring "Dean-o-bites of the week." P.S. I Knew That

Despite President Bush 's strong endorsement this week of Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld , the sniping from folks who've left -- especially from those working on their memoirs -- is bound to continue.

For example, Robert Scheer , a columnist for liberal magazine the Nation, wrote last week that he chatted with former secretary of state Colin L. Powell at a reception in Los Angeles.
Scheer writes that he noted to Powell that "the October 2002 National Intelligence Estimate showed that his State Department had gotten it right on the nonexistent Iraq nuclear threat. I asked why did the President ignore that wisdom in his stated case for the invasion?"

"The CIA was pushing the aluminum tube argument heavily and Cheney went with that instead of what our guys wrote," Powell said, according to Scheer.

www.electionfraudnews.com

IV. Barriers to Registration

To further monkey-wrench the process he was bound by law to safeguard, Blackwell cited an arcane elections regulation to make it harder to register new voters. In a now-infamous decree, Blackwell announced on September 7th -- less than a month before the filing deadline -- that election officials would process registration forms only if they were printed on eighty-pound unwaxed white paper stock, similar to a typical postcard. Justifying his decision to ROLLING STONE, Blackwell portrayed it as an attempt to protect voters: ''The postal service had recommended to us that we establish a heavy enough paper-weight standard that we not disenfranchise voters by having their registration form damaged by postal equipment.'' Yet Blackwell's order also applied to registrations delivered in person to election offices. He further specified that any valid registration cards printed on lesser paper stock that miraculously survived the shredding gauntlet at the post office were not to be processed; instead, they were to be treated as applications for a registration form, requiring election boards to send out a brand-new card.(90)

www.electionfraudnews.com

93) Congress of the United States House of Representatives, Committee on the Judiciary, letter from Conyers to Blackwell
http://www.house.gov/judiciary_democrats/ohblackwellfollowupltr12304.pdf
(VerifiedVotingFoundation.Org…story substituted…go directly to PDF,HTML does not work)
http://www.verifiedvotingfoundation.org/article.php?id=5528

Beacon Journal 01/08/2005:
Blackwell Letter Asks for Illegal Contributions

The Beacon Journal (AP)

January 8th, 2005

COLUMBUS, Ohio -

In the five-page letter to GOP donors and activists, Blackwell said, "And with your help, I intend to provide fresh, new leadership and bold reforms to Ohio as our next Republican Gov.." A pledge card accompanying the letter said "corporate & personal checks are welcome." Corporate donations are illegal in Ohio.

Jeff Ledbetter, fund-raising coordinator for Blackwell's gubernatorial campaign, blamed a printer for using a template for an issue committee, which is allowed to accept corporate donations.
He told The Columbus Dispatch for a story on Saturday that no corporate donations have been received in response to the letter.

Blackwell's letter also praises Republicans for helping deliver Ohio to Bush. Ohio pushed Bush over the top in the race for president.

U.S. Rep. John Conyers, a Democrat from Michigan who prepared a report on election problems in Ohio, said the letter supports suspicions that Blackwell's actions as secretary of state during the election "stemmed from partisan political motivations" to help Bush.
Conyers said in a statement that the letter "evidences Secretary Blackwell's poor judgment at best, and the manipulation of election administration for partisan purposes, at worst." A group of voters citing fraud have challenged Bush's 118,500-vote win in Ohio with the Ohio Supreme Court. The voters, supported by the Rev. Jesse Jackson, have cited irregularities including long lines, a shortage of voting machines in minority precincts and problems with computer equipment.

Blackwell has rejected the criticism. As a Republican election official, he said he is permitted to campaign for Bush and that Ohio's election system has checks and balances to ensure fair elections.
"I have an obligation to follow the law," Blackwell said.

www.electionfraudnews.com

95) Analyses of Voter Disqualification, Cuyahoga County, Ohio, November 2004, Greater Cleveland Voter Registration Coalition, updated May 9, 2006, page 14.
Public document, No copyright applies

ANALYSES OF VOTER DISQUALIFICATION,
CUYAHOGA COUNTY, OHIO, NOVEMBER 2004

Norman Robbins, Study Leader, nxr@cwru.edu
Greater Cleveland Voter Registration Coalition (GCVRC)
Note Revision Data: May 9, 2006
TABLE OF CONTENTS

page
Overview Summary of Key Findings

Report
1. Registration Errors
2. BOE List of Disqualified Applications
3. Provisional Ballots
4. Populations at risk for
disenfranchisement
5. "Ballpark" estimates of avoidable errors
on a statewide basis
6. Some of the election reforms which
would reduce disenfranchisement

Table 4: Detailed results of studies of 9600
applications to the Board of Elections

Overview:

In a time when elections are decided by small margins and when the integrity of the
electoral process is often questioned, avoidable voter disqualification is not acceptable.
Quantitative studies in Cuyahoga County of the 2004 general election, summarized here,
help to define some of the sources of disqualification. Taken in conjunction with other
reported data, these studies lead to conservative estimates of votes that were avoidably
lost or put at risk. Statewide extrapolation indicates that about 42,500 votes may have
been lost and 30,000 put at risk ­ that is, over 1% of votes in a Presidential election that
was decided by about a 2% margin. We believe that almost all these errors (on the part of
voters, Board of Elections, or voter registration groups) were unintentional. Several
reforms could greatly reduce these flaws in the future. Results similar to those reported
here would be expected in many urbanized counties in the United States.
Summary of key findings:
(Non-technical summary given in underlined statements)

• In 2004, the registration/change of address applications of large numbers of voters
in Cuyahoga County are projected to have been lost or put at risk through errors on
the part of voters or the Board of Elections. Based on the findings of our studies of
both Board of Elections (BOE) and voter entry errors in about 9,600 applications
for registration or change of address, we project that nearly 7,000 Cuyahoga
County voters were probably disqualified and about 12,500 voters were put at
varying degrees of risk of disqualification.

2

• Large numbers of applications arrived after the deadline. The applications of
another 6,000 voters were lost because the applications were handed in after the
October 4 deadline.

• The BOE list of disqualified applications was even larger than our projections.
About 15,000 names (not including minor special categories) were on the BOE list
of disqualified or "at risk" voters. This number is greater than the projections of our
studies on BOE or voter error, possibly because our volunteers exercised careful
oversight of the voters we registered. About half of BOE categories of faulty
application were totally disqualifying unless corrected before the election, and the
other half potentially so unless corrected at the time of voting.

• 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 African-American compared to
predominantly Caucasian precincts. As noted in national studies, those Americans
who move more frequently are more likely to be subject to registration errors (and
also provisional ballot rejection). These include youth, those who rent rather than
own homes, African Americans and Hispanics, and the poor. In Cuyahoga County,
we estimate that each move brings about a 6% chance of disenfranchisement
through registration error. The national data on groups that move more frequently is
consistent with our findings of a nearly twofold rate of provisional ballot rejection
in precincts with over 90% black populations compared to those that are 10% black
or less. There is also a clear pattern of higher provisional ballot rejection rate in
predominantly African American wards of the city of Cleveland.

• Avoidable errors and problems such as we studied amounted to over half the
percent margin of victory in Ohio's close 2004 Presidential election."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).

• Election reforms ­ itemized here only for illustration -- would reduce the
disenfranchising errors discussed in this report. The Greater Cleveland Voter
Coalition is developing recommendations which will be presented later.
www.electionfraudnews.com

98) Lucas County Board of Elections -- Results of Investigation Following November 2004 General Election, April 5, 2005, Richard Weghorst and Faith Lyon.

2005 INVESTIGATION REPORT
LUCAS COUNTY BOARD OF ELECTIONS

Background

In May 2002, an investigative team from the Office of the Ohio Secretary of State was
dispatched to the Lucas County Board of Elections to look into allegations of verbal and
physical abuse by an office supervisor. The investigation revealed the Board to be
deficient in the training of its employees, lacking in communication between its members
and its day-to-day management team, inconsistent in its application of discipline and
replete with mismanagement in its administration of elections. As a result of that
investigation, on May 28, 2002, the Lucas County Board of Elections was placed on
administrative oversight. (Exhibit A)

In May 2004, the administration of election procedures in the primary election required
an investigation by Patricia Wolfe, Director of Elections, and Richard Weghorst, then,
Assistant Director of Elections. After reviewing the results of that investigation, on
September 16, 2004, it was decided to not only leave the Lucas County Board of
Elections on administrative oversight, but to impose additional terms to the original
oversight status. (Exhibit B) A collective public reprimand to all four Board members
was also issued at that time. (Exhibit C)

Most recently, following the general election in November 2004, another investigation
into the administration of this Board was required. As with the previous two
investigations, the Board's operation was thoroughly researched. The Board members,
the Director, the Deputy Director and all fulltime employees of the Lucas County Board
of Elections were interviewed, with the exception of one person who resigned prior to the
commencement of this investigation. Miscellaneous board minutes, e-mails, memoranda,
reports and notes were also reviewed as part of the investigation

Since the November 2004 election, several personnel changes have occurred at the Lucas
County Board of Elections. Paula Hicks-Hudson, who was the Director, announced her
resignation on December 3, 2004. Her resignation became effective on January 14, 2005.
Larry Loutzenhiser, who was the Manager of Voting Services, resigned on December 6,
2004. On January 24, 2005, the Board met and promoted Jill Kelly, previously the
Deputy Director, to the position of Director. Due to a procedural mistake, the Board had
to reconvene on January 26, 2005, to elect Diane Brown its chairperson. On February 11,
2005, the Board met and hired Michael Badik as its new Deputy Director. Mr. Badik's
first day as a Board employee was February 28, 2005.

Additionally, Board chairperson Bernadette Restivo-Noe, in a letter addressed to the
Ohio Secretary of State, dated December 22, 2004, announced her intent to resign as both
chairperson of the Lucas County Republican Party and as chairperson of the Lucas
County Board of Elections. (Exhibit D) According to her letter, her resignation from the
Board of Elections was to be contingent on and concurrent with the selection of a new
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party chairperson by the Lucas County Republican Party. Sam Thurber, in a letter to the
Ohio Secretary of State, also dated December 22, 2004, announced that he, too, would
resign as a member of the Lucas County Board of Elections and that his resignation
would also be contingent on and concurrent with the selection of a new chairperson by
the Lucas County Republican Party. (Exhibit E) At this time, the Lucas County
Republican Party has not selected a permanent chairperson. Therefore, Ms. Noe and Mr.
Thurber remain as members of the Lucas County Board of Elections.

Results of Investigation

As a result of the most recent investigation, it is the investigators' determination that the
members of the Lucas County Board of Elections, at the time of the November 2004
election, were directly responsible for the inefficient and unorganized management of the
election process in their county. Listed below, in order of importance, are areas of grave
concern:
• Failure to maintain ballot security;
• Inability to implement and maintain a trackable system for voter ballot
reconciliation;
• Failure to prepare and develop a plan for the processing of the voluminous
amount of voter registration forms received;
• Issuance and acceptance of incorrect absentee ballot forms;
• Manipulation of the process involving the 3% recount;
• Disjointed implementation of the Directive regarding the removal of Nader and
Camejo from the ballot;
• Failure to properly issue hospital ballots in accordance with statutory
requirements;
• Failure to maintain the security of poll books during the official canvass;
• Failure to examine campaign finance reports in a timely manner;
• Failure to guard and protect public documents;
• Lack of staff election plan;
• Current administrative operations; and,
• Non-compliant areas of the administrative oversight status mandates.

Ballot Security

One of the most important responsibilities a Board of Elections has is the duty to protect
the sanctity of the vote. One of the most important elements in protecting the sanctity of
the vote is the duty to ensure the security and integrity of the ballot. According to the
Director/Deputy Director Manual,

Beginning with absentee voting, the board must have in
place procedures to secure ballots. All ballots unused,
voted, or spoiled must be stored in a secure area, such as
a vault, storage room, or double-lock file. Access to the
ballots should require two keys. Only the director or the
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director's designee should have one of the keys or
combinations, and only the deputy director or deputy's
designee should have the other key or combination. No
one else should have copies of the keys or combination.
This procedure assures that no one person can gain access
to the ballots.

Director/Deputy Director Manual for Ohio County Boards of Election 69
(2000). (Exhibit F)

Ballots must be secured at all times by a Board of Elections, from the moment they are
received from the printer until the moment that applicable state and federal laws allow for
their disposal. Securing ballots should never be considered a responsibility of secondary
importance. With regard to the 2004 general election, the Lucas County Board of
Elections failed in its responsibility to secure its ballots.

While the administrative offices of the Lucas County Board of Elections are located on
the third floor of One Government Center in downtown Toledo, the Board also maintains
a work and storage area in a county-owned and operated warehouse located 4.6 miles
north of the main office on Berdan Avenue. Several other county agencies also have
offices in the Berdan Avenue warehouse. The Board of Elections has "control" of the
entire third floor and, just prior to the 2004 general election, was given additional space
on the second floor. Until just a few weeks before the 2004 general election, the third
floor was the storage location for several hundred bulky, lever-operated voting machines.
This space was, and continues to be, utilized for the packing of grips, as well. For the
2004 general election, the space on the second floor was primarily used to store optical
scanners.

In regard to external building security, the warehouse is armed with an alarm system that
requires security code access. By comparison, once entry to the building is obtained, the
internal security at the warehouse is not limited, and the ability to access other areas
within the building is unrestricted. There is no security barrier preventing non-Board of
Elections employees from gaining access to either the second floor, which is shared with
other county agencies, or the third floor, the entirety of which is under the nominal
control of the Board of Elections. An elevator in the building, which stops at every floor,
has no restrictions on its use. There are also two unrestricted staircases in the building
that provide access to both the second and third floors. The third floor consists of a large,
open workspace interrupted by numerous support columns, several smaller rooms, one of
which is a tool room, and a few offices. The offices are seldom locked during non-
business hours. The work area on the second floor consists of one large room with a
smaller room located within. The larger room may be accessed by either of two single
locked doors. The small room located within the larger room may be accessed through
one, double-locked door. This door, although double-locked, contains a large
windowpane in the upper portion, thereby reducing its value as a security deterrent.

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Having employed Diebold's AccuVote OS Optical Scan precinct count and central
accumulation voting system in the 2004 general election (as well as in the 2003 primary
and general elections and the 2004 primary election), it was necessary, unlike past
elections when lever voting machines were used, to store over 300,000 ballots. The
ballots, once received from the printer, Dayton Legal Blank, Inc., were stored at the
warehouse in an unsecured environment. One employee advised that both the Director
and the Deputy Director were well aware of the fact that the ballot room was not large
enough to handle the large number of ballots required to be put under double lock and
key, and they were equally aware that the overflow was being stored in an unsecured
location on the third floor.

On Friday, October 8, 2004, the first shipment of ballots, consisting of 149 precincts,
arrived at the warehouse from Dayton Legal Blank, Inc. A second shipment arrived soon
thereafter. The Board had earlier decided that the already crowded tool room could
double as a ballot room. The second lock on the door of the tool room/ballot room,
however, was not installed until October 13, 2004. (Exhibit G) Therefore, the first two
shipments of ballots to arrive at the warehouse, consisting of approximately four or five
skids, were stored, for approximately five days, in the tool room/ballot room under one
lock and key, not two, as required by our office. The tool room/ballot room was too
small to accommodate all of the ballots. As a result, the third and successive deliveries of
ballots, approximately ten skids, were stored in a corner of the third floor. Hence, over
one-half of the ballots printed and used in the 2004 general election in Lucas County
were stored in an open space on the third floor of the county warehouse with no security
measures in place.

In the week prior to the election, Mr. Loutzenhiser, the Manager of Voting Services,
oversaw the packing of the grips. Ballots, along with other election supplies, were placed
in the grips. The packing of the grips took place on the third floor of the warehouse.
Fulltime board employees, as well as temporary, seasonal employees, assisted Mr.
Loutzenhiser. When this process began, the ballots were stored either in the tool
room/ballot room under double lock and key, or, out in the open on the third floor. For
each precinct, there were more ballots than would fit in a grip. As a result, it was decided
to place approximately 200 ballots into each grip. There was one grip for each precinct.
The majority of the remaining ballots were shrink wrapped and placed into ballot boxes
owned by Diebold Election Systems, Inc. There was one sealed ballot box for each
precinct. Throughout this process, the ballots, including those packed in grips and ballot
boxes, remained, at all times, out in the open on the third floor, never under double lock
and key, or, in any other way secured.

Another problem pertaining to ballot security was the day-to-day management team's
initial plan for the distribution of extra ballots (the ballots that were placed into ballot
boxes) to polling locations prior to the 2004 general election. At a meeting attended by
Ms. Hicks-Hudson, Ms. Kelly, Mr. Loutzenhiser, Mr. Bruce Temple and Mr. Marty
Limmer a couple of weeks before the election, it was collectively decided that privacy
booths, optical scanners and ballot boxes containing extra ballots would be delivered to
all polling locations prior to election day. To effectuate that plan, two, bi-partisan, four-
5
man teams were organized and sent out to make these deliveries starting on or about
Monday, October 25, 2004. These teams were instructed to leave the voting equipment
and ballot boxes in a locked room at each polling location. The recent investigative
interview with Ms. Hicks-Hudson revealed that she instructed the employees delivering
the equipment and ballots "not to tell anyone what was in the boxes." During the
interview, Ms. Hicks-Hudson stated it was her belief that the Board members were aware
of this plan.

On or about Thursday, October 28, 2004, after approximately one-half to two-thirds of
the polling locations had been visited and the equipment and ballots had been delivered,
the teams were recalled. A principal within the Toledo Public School system contacted
the Board of Elections and informed Ms. Hicks-Hudson that he was uncomfortable with
live ballots being placed in a building under his control and for which he was responsible.
He did not want to assume liability for the potential theft or destruction of those ballots.
Ms. Paula Ross learned of this matter as she was in the Board office when Ms. Hicks-
Hudson took the principal's telephone call. Upon learning that live ballots were being
delivered to polling locations a week in advance of the election, Ms. Ross instructed Ms.
Hicks-Hudson to call Mr. Temple immediately and to instruct him to retrieve all ballots
that had thus far been delivered. Ms. Hicks-Hudson placed the call to Mr. Temple, and,
as a result, he, along with Mr. Charles Poore, a seasonal employee of the Board of
Elections and member of the opposite party to Mr. Temple's, proceeded to retrieve the
ballots that had already been delivered. With Mr. Poore at his side, Mr. Temple took it
upon himself to complete this task, as he had re-assigned the other employees under his
supervision to other duties. According to Mr. Temple and Ms. Hicks-Hudson, all ballots
that were delivered to polling locations prior to the election were successfully retrieved.
One Board employee, however, who was assigned to the warehouse, informed us that he
did not believe all of the ballots were successfully retrieved.

As a sidebar, it should be noted that Ms. Ross did not immediately inform all of her
colleagues about this matter. After instructing Ms. Hicks-Hudson to call Mr. Temple,
Ms. Ross proceeded to inform Ms. Brown, who was also present at the Board office that
day, about the matter. Ms. Ross did not, however, inform either Ms. Noe or Mr. Thurber
of the matter, as she was concerned that if they learned of it, Ms. Noe would inform the
local media. In fact, Ms. Ross did not tell Ms. Noe about this matter until after the 2004
general election.

Another issue of a security nature is the custody of the keys for the ballot rooms' doors at
both the administrative office and the warehouse. During the investigation, it was
determined that numerous staff members either keep in their possession or have easy
access to the various ballot rooms' keys. There is no system in place to track the chain of
custody for the ballot rooms' keys. It was also determined that the office's ballot rooms'
keys were often not kept secured.

Finally, a note-worthy incident relating to security occurred on November 2, 2004, the
day of the general election. At approximately 7:00 p.m., aforementioned Secretary of
State representative, Richard Weghorst, arrived at the warehouse to observe ballot
6
distribution. Also present at that time were Mr. Temple, a couple of Democratic seasonal
employees, a couple of Republican seasonal employees and Mr. Robert Diekmann of
Diebold Elections Systems, Inc. Soon, two groups of partisan volunteers totaling
approximately twelve people arrived at the warehouse. Since their purpose for being
there was not immediately known, nor requested, they were asked to leave the premises.
Their refusal to leave prompted Mr. Weghorst to place a telephone call for emergency
assistance. Upon arrival of the authorities, the police escorted the partisan volunteers
away from the building where the ballot materials were maintained. Later, it was learned
that these volunteers had been instructed to go to the warehouse at the request of two
Board members, Ms. Ross and Ms. Noe.

Ballot Reconciliation

Prior to last year's general election, it was discovered by Secretary of State employees
that the Lucas County Board of Elections failed to record and reconcile ballot stub
numbers of absentee voters' ballots as required by statute. Ohio Revised Code
(hereinafter "Revised Code" or "R.C.") § 3505.23 reads, in relevant part,

The voter shall then leave the voting compartment, deliver
the voter's ballots, and state the voter's name to the judge
having charge of the ballot boxes, who shall announce the
name, detach Stub A from each ballot, and announce the
number on the stubs. The clerks in charge of the poll lists
or poll books shall check to ascertain whether the number
so announced is the number on Stub B of the ballots issued
to such voter, and if no discrepancy appears to exist, the
judge in charge of the ballot boxes shall, in the presence of
the voter, deposit each such ballot in the proper ballot box
and shall place Stub A from each ballot in the container
provided therefore.

Although this statement refers to a polling location on Election Day, the Board of
Elections assumes the responsibility for absentee ballots, since they are statutorily
required to distribute and process all absentee voters' ballots. (See R.C. § 3509.01)

In the past, the Lucas County Board of Elections employed an archaic and insufficient
system to track and reconcile absentee voters' ballots. Instead of tracking this
information in their voter registration system, which offers a field to enter ballot stub
numbers for the purpose of reconciliation, the Board chose to track this information
manually. While it is not unheard of to track ballot stub numbers by hand, the manual
method used by this Board failed to capture the requisite information needed for
reconciliation. Instead of linking the individual ballot to the voter as R.C. §§ 3505.23
and 3509.01 require, the Board staff recorded on a piece of paper, titled "Absent Voter
Ballot Processing Log," the ward, precinct, total ballots sent, date the envelope was
sealed, date mailed and a staff person's initials. By not making a link between the voter
7
and the ballot, the Board had no way of confirming who received which ballot, thereby
making ballot reconciliation impossible.

By not making a link between the voter and the ballot, the Board had no way of knowing
whether or not a voter had been mailed his or her absentee voter ballot, or, in fact, several
absentee voter ballots, as was the case with one individual. Two weeks prior to the 2004
general election, it was reported to the Lucas County Board of Elections by an elector
that her mother had received not one, but three absentee voter ballots. There are two
reasons why this oversight occurred. First, the Board of Elections did not track the
absentee voter ballots or application numbers. Second, the staff created mailing labels
for the absentee voter envelopes without comparing them to the actual absentee voter
ballots requested. Had they taken these steps, this would have ensured that a voter's
information had not been entered into the system more than once or that a printing error
had occurred. Fortunately, this concerned citizen returned all three absentee ballots to the
Board office and a new ballot was issued and delivered to her mother by Board
employees. There is no way to determine if incidents similar to this have occurred in the
past and, if so, how often. None of the Board members knew that ballot stub numbers
were not being entered into a trackable system. Nor did they know that, in the past,
ballots had not been properly and fully reconciled.

A few days later, Secretary of State staff member Toni Slusser discovered that Ms. Ross
had instructed Board employees to allow voters who had requested, but had not yet
received, their absentee voter ballots, to vote provisional ballots at the Board office.
Upon hearing this, Ms. Slusser instructed Ms. Ross and the staff that they should not do
this due to the fact that they were unable to reconcile absentee voters' ballots. By failing
to track ballot stub numbers, the Board had no way to cancel absentee voters' ballots that
had not been received. Therefore, a provisional ballot could not be issued with certainty
that only one ballot per voter would be counted.

Prior to Ms. Slusser's discovery, the office tried to reconcile the number of ballots sent to
absentee voters against the number that was actually returned by them. Although they
came close, Board employees never succeeded in balancing the ledger in regard to
absentee voter ballots. It was not until Ms. Slusser trained the Board staff to match stub
numbers against absentee ballot requests that they were they finally able to reconcile their
absentee ballots. Since then, the Lucas County Board of Elections has adopted this
method and now enters ballot stub numbers into their voter registration system.

Processing of Voter Registration Forms

R.C. § 3503.19 (C) reads, in relevant part, "A board of elections that receives a voter
registration application and is satisfied as to the truth of the statements made in the
registration form shall register the applicant and promptly notify the applicant of the
applicant's registration and the precinct in which the applicant is to vote." R.C. §
3503.19 (C) continues, in part, by saying,

8
The notification shall be by nonforwardable mail, and if the
mail is returned to the board, it shall investigate and cause
the notification to be delivered to the correct address; or if
it determines that the voter is not eligible to vote for
residency reasons it shall cancel the registration and notify
the registrant, at the last known address, of a need to
reregister.

The members of the Board did not have a plan to deal with the volume of registration
forms they received leading up to the November 2004 election. The members of the day-
to-day management team, headed by the director, Ms. Hicks-Hudson, simply did not
grasp the urgency of processing voter registration forms in a timely and expeditious
manner. They did not realize, until it was almost too late, that their unhurried approach
to processing the voter registration forms could and, in fact, would impinge upon their
ability to discharge other election administration duties. While they did finally complete
the processing of the voter registration forms, they finished the processing so late that it
had a negative impact upon their ability to perform other statutorily imposed election
tasks. Hence, not only did they fail to comply with R.C. § 3503.19 (C), but they also
came close to not being able to perform other tasks essential to the administration of a
smooth and fair election, such as the preparation of signature books and the timely
completion of absentee voter ballot requests.

The general election of 2004 was like no other in recent times as far as the number of
newly registered voters was concerned. Boards of Elections in all of Ohio's 88 counties
saw unprecedented numbers of voter registration cards being submitted. Many
organizations, such as Project Vote, America Coming Together and the Association of
Community Organizations for Reform Now, submitted thousands of forms that were
either incomplete or improperly completed. Still, other Boards managed to handle this
task by anticipating it and planning for it.

One employee advised that Mr. Loutzenhiser, who, at the time, was the Manager of
Election Services, a man with over 16 years of experience and the dean of board
employees, made the comment to her in the latter part of August or first part of
September that he had `"...told Jill and Paula till was blue in the
face that they needed to start working overtime to get caught up voter registration cards]."' While Ms. Hicks-Hudson did have the staff come in a couple
of Saturdays in August and September to work overtime on the processing of the voter
registration applications, this was the extent of her efforts at this time to deal with the
backlog. Ms. Kelly, on the other hand, attempted, in late September or early October, to
convince Ms. Hicks-Hudson to start another fulltime shift to work on nothing but the
processing of the voter registration applications. Ms. Hicks-Hudson resisted the idea.

In talking to the staff, estimates as to when the mail trays loaded with voter registration
forms started stacking up around the office range from immediately after last year's
primary election to sometime shortly after the special election in August. Even Ms.
Hicks-Hudson said that she "...started noticing a huge influx of VR forms coming into
9
the office in July." Yet she took no real steps nor made any specific plans to handle this
influx. It was not until sometime in mid September that extra, part time employees were
hired to help specifically with the processing of voter registration forms. By that time,
the backlog of unprocessed forms was voluminous.

On September 1, 2004, one entity, Project Vote, delivered 7,000 voter registration forms
to the Board office for processing. In addition, voter registration applications were being
received from several other entities as well, including our office. Still, Ms. Hicks-
Hudson either refused to acknowledge or failed to comprehend the need to hire
additional, part-time employees. It was not until the middle of September that several
part-time employees were hired for the sole purpose of eliminating the backlog of
unprocessed voter registration applications. Many of the individuals hired as part-time
employees to help process the voter registration applications were friends and
acquaintances of Ms. Hicks-Hudson. Most had limited or no data entry skills. Therefore,
the backlog of forms was not eliminated.
On September 18, 2004, Ms. Hicks-Hudson and Ms. LaVera Scott, Supervisor of Voter
Services, initiated what they referred to as a "second shift." The fulltime employees
continued to process voter registration forms during their regular working hours, i.e.,
from approximately 8:00 a.m. to 4:30 p.m., while the part-time staff, which had been
working alongside the fulltime employees, was now told to work from approximately
12:00 p.m. to 8:00 p.m. As a result, a true second shift was not added in September. The
part-time employees were simply given a different work schedule.

October 4, 2004, was the filing deadline for new registrants wanting to vote in the 2004
general election. On that day, Project Vote delivered to the Lucas County Board of
Elections two boxes containing a total of approximately 10,000 voter registration forms.
One of these boxes contained approximately 7,000 forms while the other one contained
approximately 3,000 forms. Incidentally, in an interview with Ms. Hicks-Hudson
following the general election, she stated, "October 4 was when I realized that more
resources would be needed to complete the voter registration processing." It took
approximately 20,000 unprocessed voter registration applications at a point less than a
month before the election for Ms. Hicks-Hudson to finally recognize that "more
resources would be needed." Yet, other than sending an e-mail to the staff on October 8
informing them that, hence forward, they would be working 12 hours a day to eliminate
the voter registration backlog, Ms. Hicks-Hudson did nothing. She still did not sense or
appreciate the urgency of the matter.

Ms. Scott confused matters as well. On at least one occasion last fall, when Project Vote
employees delivered several thousand voter registration forms to the office, Ms. Scott
instructed Ms. Judy Werner, the office receptionist, not to date-stamp the individual
forms, but, rather, to simply date-stamp the boxes in which the forms arrived. Ms. Scott
did not realize that, by doing this, she was violating R.C. § 3503.19 (A). As a result, she
also ran the risk of frustrating the Board's ability to ascertain whether the applicants'
forms were received in a timely manner to qualify them as electors eligible to vote in the
2004 general election.
10

Also, several Board employees mentioned that Ms. Hicks-Hudson, Ms. Kelly and Ms.
Scott instructed them to process agency forms and mail-in forms first and to leave the
counter forms for last, rather than processing the forms in the order in which they were
received. There was no benefit to be realized by processing agency forms and walk-in
forms first and saving the counter forms for last. Nor was there any indication as to why
management wanted agency forms and walk-in forms processed first and counter forms
processed last, beyond a comment allegedly made by Ms. Scott, in which she said, in
referring to several thousand voter registration applications delivered to the office by
Project Vote prior to the October 4, 2004, filing deadline, "We may not get to them."

At least one mail tray containing between 4,500 and 7,000 (estimates vary) unprocessed
Project Vote applications was "discovered" by Ms. Scott on or about October 18, 2004.
After accepting the applications on October 4, 2004, Ms. Werner was instructed by Ms.
Scott to set them aside. Although she did as she was told, Ms. Werner, on an almost
daily basis for the next two weeks, kept reminding Ms. Scott not to forget about these
forms, that they, too, needed to be processed. Finally, after two weeks of having Ms.
Scott ignore her warnings not to forget the unprocessed voter registration applications,
Ms. Werner decided, on October 18, 2004, to have the tray of unprocessed applications
physically moved from her work area and placed on Ms. Scott's desk. The next day, Ms.
Werner was questioned by Ms. Hicks-Hudson, Ms. Kelly, Ms. Scott and Ms. Lori
Christie, who was Ms. Werner's team leader, as to why she had not informed her
supervisors earlier about these unprocessed forms. Ms. Werner responded that she had
informed Ms. Scott numerous times about these forms in the previous two weeks, but to
no avail. Ms. Scott denied that Ms. Werner had ever given her any notice of these forms.

In the final analysis, this entire episode never should have occurred. The Director should
have heeded the advice given to her by her more experienced staff members and prepared
a plan last summer to manage the processing of the large influx of voter registration
applications. Nor are the Board members without fault in this matter. They failed to
perceive there was a problem with the processing of the voter registration applications
until late October, weeks after mail trays full of unprocessed forms started stacking up in
the office.

Absentee Ballot Requests

On October 31, 2004, Secretary of State staff member, Richard Weghorst, discovered that
the Application for Absentee Voter Ballot used by the Lucas County Board of Elections
contained improper and inaccurate information. The application form being used by the
Board allowed voters to fax their absentee ballot requests and to request an entire years'
worth of absentee ballots, which is in direct violation of statute. (Exhibit H)
Furthermore, the allowance of faxed absentee requests and the ability for an individual to
request absentee ballots of all elections in a single year does not follow the guidelines as
set forth in prescribed Form Number 11A, Application for Absent Voter's Ballots, from
the Secretary of State's office. (Exhibit I)

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Faxing of absentee ballot requests can be traced back to approximately 1998, according
to Board employees. R.C. § 3509.03 states, in pertinent part, "The application...shall be
signed by the applicant." This statement, on its face, implies that the signature received
on an absentee application must be an original signature, not a faxed signature. The
signature must also be clear, so that it may be matched to the voter's signature on file
with the Board of Elections office, thereby making faxed copies insufficient.

Section 3509.03 of the Revised Code also states, in pertinent part, "The application need
not be in any particular form but shall contain words which...indicate the request for the
ballots, the election for which such ballots are requested..." (emphasis added) The
statute goes on to say, "Each application for absent voter's ballots shall be delivered to
the director..." Id. (emphasis added) Based on statute, it is clear that the intent is one
request per election. The practice of accepting faxed requests provides many
possibilities for fraud.

Since these discoveries were made and brought to light by our office, the Lucas County
Board of Elections has corrected their application for absentee voter ballots and began
using the new, corrected forms for the February 2005 special election. They have also
sent letters and new Applications for Absentee Voter's Ballots to those voters who have
already submitted a form requesting absentee ballots for an entire year.

Recount (3%)

On December 7, 2004, J. Kenneth Blackwell, Secretary of State, issued Directive 2004-
58, which outlined the requirements for a recount for the Presidential Election. On page
five, (§§ d-g) of the "Outline of Recount Procedures" included in Directive 2004-58, are
the guidelines for how to conduct the recount. Those procedures read as follows:
d) The board must randomly select whole precincts whose
total equals at least 3% of the total vote. These
precincts' ballots must be manually counted.
e) Run the manually counted precincts through the
computer.

f) If the computer count does not match the hand count,
and after rechecking the manual count the results are
still not equal, all ballots must be hand counted. If the
results of the computer count and the hand counted
ballots are equal, the remainder of the ballots may be
processed through the computer and results tabulated
electronically. (emphasis in original)

g) At the conclusion of the recount, the program must be
retested using the pre-audited test deck.
12
In accordance with the outlined requirements and at the request of Ms. Hicks-Hudson,
Mr. Limmer, Information Services Manager, selected, for the Board's approval, a sample
of single precincts with few poll book or clerks' book balancing problems and that
equaled just over 3% of the total vote. Upon receiving the sample, Ms. Kelly provided
this information to the Board members for their review.

Not long after providing the requested random sample to the Board members, Ms. Ross
asked that the breakdown of precincts for the 3% recount be amended to make it more
representational of the "central city." Once a new sample was prepared based upon Ms.
Ross' specifications, that sample was sent to the Board members for comment. Upon
reviewing Ms. Ross' sample, Ms. Noe responded that she was upset that one Board
member was trying to control the process and that no major suburban areas, such as
Maumee and Monclova Township, were represented.

In order to reach a compromise to begin the actual recount, Mr. Thurber began to act as a
mediator between Ms. Ross and Ms. Noe. While reviewing Ms. Ross' proposal, Mr.
Thurber noticed that when the 3% was broken out, it represented 80% of the "central
city" with the remaining 20% coming from the suburbs. This was unacceptable to Mr.
Thurber and Ms. Noe, since it made the election results seem as though they favored Mr.
Kerry more than the actual election results. Mr. Thurber then contacted Ms. Ross and
explained that her sample was not acceptable, since the presidential election results were
approximately 60% (132,715) Kerry and 40% (87,160) Bush in Lucas County. During
this discussion, it became clear that Ms. Ross selected her sample based upon votes cast,
while Mr. Thurber thought it was best to be representative of the presidential election
outcome in the county. After much discussion, it was agreed that Mr. Thurber would
work with the vendor and Board staff to select the 3% precinct ratios as agreed to and
based upon the presidential election results in both the "central city" and the suburbs.

After a great deal of work and compromise, the Board was able to agree upon the 3%
sample that would be used for the initial hand count portion of the recount. Although, in
doing so, it appears that once again, as in previous investigations, party politics played a
role in what should have been a simple non-partisan process. The requirements for the
selection of a random recount sample were clearly laid out in Directive 2004-58. Instead
of following these guidelines, Ms. Hicks-Hudson ordered a staff member to purposefully
select certain precincts that would easily balance during a hand recount. Then, Ms. Ross
took it upon herself to try to ensure that an overwhelmingly large Democratic population
was represented in the recount. Had Ms. Ross been permitted by the rest of the Board to
proceed, public perception of the presidential election may have been skewed from
reality.

Removal of Nader and Camejo From Ballot

On September 29, 2004, J. Kenneth Blackwell, Secretary of State, issued Directive 2004-
37 to all Boards of Elections. (Exhibit J) That directive stated: "Consistent with my
Order below rendered yesterday, you are to remove Nader/Camejo from the ballot
immediately. You will receive more detailed instructions by the close of business today."
13
Later that same day, you issued Directive 2004-38 to all boards of elections. (Exhibit K)
This directive, in relevant part, stated, "Boards of elections shall remove the names of
these joint candidates for president and vice president from the
ballot to the extent practicable in the time remaining before the election and according to
the instructions below." The directive continued by saying,


A board of elections shall do one of the following:

(1) Reprint the ballots without the names of these joint
candidates for president and vice president.

(2) Remove these names from existing ballots by use of
stickers or other method adopted by the board as in the case
of a withdrawn candidate.

(3) Post a notice in each precinct where the candidates'
names remain on the ballot informing voters that any vote
cast for these two candidates will not be counted, if the
board determines it is not feasible to remove the two names
from the ballots.

Directive 2004-38 states that, "In determining which method to use, a board of elections
shall consider all of the following factors: (a) The type of voting system used by the
county; (b) The number of precincts and number of ballots, including absentee ballots yet
to be distributed; and, (c) The time remaining before election day."

Because the Lucas County Board of Elections used an optical scan voting system in the
2004 general election, the second option given to Boards for handling the removal of
Nader and Camejo from the ballot was not feasible. Optical scan tabulating equipment
will not read ballots with stickers affixed to them. Ballots with stickers affixed to them
will jam optical scanners. Therefore, the Lucas County Board of Elections had only two
options available to them. They could have either re-printed their ballots or they could
have posted notices in precincts where the candidates' names appeared on the ballots. On
the day these directives were disseminated to the Boards, September 29, 2004, Dayton
Legal Blank, Inc. was in the midst of printing Lucas County's ballots. When word was
received that Nader and Camejo were to be removed from the ballot, Dayton Legal
Blank, Inc. had already printed approximately 96,000 ballots for Lucas County, some of
which were absentee voter ballots and some of which were precinct ballots.
On September 30, 2004, the Board met in special session to consider and discuss
Directive 2004-38. In this meeting, Ms. Ross moved that the Board direct Dayton Legal
Blank, Inc. to stop printing its ballots until the Board could obtain additional information
on the matter. The motion was seconded by Mr. Thurber and passed 4-0. (Exhibit L)
The next day, October 1, 2004, the Board again met in special session. In this meeting,
three motions were made and passed in regard to the Nader/Camejo issue. First, Ms.
14
Ross moved that the Board produce ballots on demand for all military and overseas
voters without Nader and Camejo appearing on them. The motion was seconded by Mr.
Thurber and passed 4-0. Then, Mr. Ross moved that, of the 96,000 ballots that Dayton
Legal Blank, Inc. had already printed with Nader and Camejo appearing on them, the
Board should only accept delivery of those that were absentee voter ballots (which
comprised approximately 13,360 ballots) and, further, that these absentee voter ballots
would only be used on the conditions that Nader's and Camejo's names be crossed out in
red, a bright-colored notice be sent with every absentee voter ballot warning that a vote
cast for Nader and Camejo would not be counted and, finally, that a similar warning
sticker be placed on every identification envelope. The motion was seconded by Mr.
Thurber and passed 4-0. Ms. Brown then offered the last motion on this matter. She
moved that the Board instruct Dayton Legal Blank, Inc. to re-print all precinct ballots
bearing Nader's and Camejo's names that were part of the initial 96,000 ballots already
printed and that all future ballots to be printed should also have Nader's and Camejo's
names removed. The motion was seconded by Mr. Thurber and passed 4-0. (Exhibit M)
Thus, rather than comply with directive as given, the Board chose to pursue a "hybrid"
strategy in regard to the Nader and Camejo dilemma.
Hospital Voting

Perhaps the most glaring defect that occurred on Election Day at the Lucas County Board
of Elections was the handling of hospital absentee ballots. R.C. § 3509.08 (B)(1) states,
in relevant part,

Any qualified elector who is...confined in a hospital as a
result of an accident or unforeseeable medical emergency
occurring before the election, may apply to the director of
the board of elections of the county where the elector is a
qualified elector to vote in the election by absent voter's
ballot. This application shall be made in writing and shall
be delivered to the director not later than three p.m. on the
day of the election.

R.C. § 3509.08 (B)(1) goes on to say "...the director shall arrange for the delivery of an
absent voter's ballot to the applicant, and for its return to the office of the board, by two
employees..." Furthermore, R.C. § 3509.05 (A) states, "...envelopes containing marked
absent voter's ballots, shall be delivered to the director not later than the close of the polls
on the day of an election."

In previous years, Board employee Kelly Mettler was responsible for the processing and
delivery of hospital ballots. This year, Ms. Mettler was assigned by Ms. Hicks-Hudson to
work at the Board of Elections' polling site, located on the first floor of their office
building. A seasonal employee was placed in charge of processing hospital absentee
ballots in addition to answering incoming telephone calls to the Board on Election Day.
The only training the seasonal employee received, given to her the day before the
election, was verbal training on how to process hospital absentee requests.

15
On Election Day, the seasonal employee began processing the hospital requests received
the day before along with the requests received throughout the morning. It is still unclear
who was assigned the task of supervising the seasonal employee to make sure the
requests were being handled properly. To the best of our knowledge, this supervisory
function belonged to Ms. Hicks-Hudson and Mr. Loutzenhiser, the Manager of Election
Services.

Early in the afternoon, Ms. Mettler left her assigned polling location on the ground floor
of the Board's office building and went upstairs to check on the processing of hospital
ballots. It became clear to her that the individual working on these ballots was falling
behind. At approximately 3:00 p.m., Ms. Mettler and Ms. Scott, Voter Services
Supervisor, assigned two other employees to assist in the processing of hospital ballots.
By 5:00 p.m. or 5:30 p.m., it appeared they were finally caught up. They began printing
the absentee envelopes and pulling ballots. While placing the ballots in the absentee
envelopes, it was discovered that some envelopes were missing.

The Board staff then began to compare the absentee requests for hospital voters to what
was entered into the database. Soon after, it became evident that one or more of the
individuals entering data did not check the "H" box to signify the voter was a hospital
voter. Thus, envelopes did not print for those individuals. Once this error was found, the
staff went through the hospital requests and entered the "H," while the rest of the ballots
were pulled for the volunteers to take to the hospitals.

As a result of the issues addressed above, volunteers were not able to leave the Board
office to begin hospital voting until approximately 7:30 p.m. on election night as the polls
were closing. The voting of the 211 hospital patients was completed between the hours
of 10:45 p.m. on November 2 and 1:30 a.m. on November 3, according to payroll records
kept by the Lucas County Board of Elections. (Exhibit N) This was a direct violation of
R.C. § 3505.09.

There is no doubt this error was caused by a lack of proper training and supervision by
the Board of Elections' leadership team. Neither the Director nor the Deputy Director
had previously supervised a presidential election. Thus, they were unable to judge if
hospital absentee requests were being processed in a timely manner. Also, there were no
written instructions provided to the individuals who entered the absentee hospital
requests that resulted in the data processing errors. Finally, according to their election
plans, no one was designated as being the person responsible for supervising the
processing of hospital absentee requests.

Official Canvass Missing Poll Book

Not earlier than the eleventh day and not later than the fifteenth day after a general
election, Boards are to begin their official canvass of election returns. (See R.C. §
3505.32) During this time, Boards are required to open and count all uncounted ballots
and recount the ballots counted on election night. Boards should also examine all poll
books, poll lists and tally sheets received from the polling places to ensure that no parts
16
are missing, incomplete or showing different results than the Boards' unofficial counts.
The Lucas County Board of Elections received all poll books, poll lists and tally sheets
from their polling places and began their official canvass as required by law.

The official canvass went well the first few days. Then, on Saturday, November 20,
2004, the Swanton 3 poll book turned up missing. Fulltime Board employee, Marjorie
Simmons-Davenport, and her partner, Ida Hartford, a seasonal employee, were auditing
the Swanton 3 poll book. At some point around the noon hour, they suspended their
work, cleaned up their work area and went to lunch. As was the practice of the Lucas
County Board of Elections, they left the Swanton 3 poll book on the desk where they
were working. When they returned from lunch, they realized the poll book was missing.
They began to ask other employees if they knew where it was and notified the Director
and Deputy Director. Once Ms. Hicks-Hudson and Ms. Kelly were made aware of the
missing poll book, the entire staff was asked to help locate it. No one found the poll book
that day, nor has it since been located. The Board should have conducted an
investigation into this missing poll book.

Campaign Finance

R.C. § 3517.11 explains where campaign finance statements are to be filed and by whom
they are to be reviewed. Specifically, R.C. § 3517.11 (A)(1) describes the circumstances
under which campaign committees, political action committees, political contributing
entities, political parties and legislative campaign entities must file their campaign
finance statements with the secretary of state. All other campaign finance statements are
to be filed with local Boards of Elections. R.C. § 3517.11 (A)(2) reads, in relevant part:

Except as otherwise provided in division (F) of section
3517.106 of the Revised Code, campaign committees of
candidates for all other offices shall file the statements
prescribed by section 3517.10 of the Revised Code with the
board of elections where their candidates are required to
file their petitions or other papers for nomination or
election.

When read in pari materia, it can be determined that candidates for local office, political
action committees and political contributing entities that only make contributions to local
candidates or issues and local political parties must file their campaign finance statements
with their local board of elections. R.C. § 3517.11 (B)(4)(a) states, in pertinent part,
"The secretary of state or the board of elections shall examine all statements for
compliance with sections 3517.08 to 3517.17 of the Revised Code." Here, a simple
extrapolation would suggest, correctly, that every campaign finance statement filed with
a local Board of Elections is to be examined by employees of that Board of Elections.

When the Board members and employees of the Lucas County Board of Elections were
interviewed in January 2005, only a few campaign finance reports from 2003 had been
17
examined. No campaign finance reports from 2004 had been examined. The Lucas
County Board of Elections did not examine one campaign finance report in all of 2004.

It is the opinion of the investigative team that the reasons this occurred are as follows:

• First, the Lucas County Board of Elections is understaffed. The employees
responsible for examining campaign finance reports are also some of the most
veteran, and therefore, experienced employees in the office. They have skill sets
in other areas, such as voter registration and absentee voter ballots. In an
extremely busy election year, like 2004, when their skill sets were sorely needed,
management pulled them off their campaign finance duties and gave them other
tasks.

• Second, neither Ms. Hicks-Hudson nor Ms. Kelly understood the importance of
examining campaign finance reports. As is the case in many Boards of Elections,
they did not view the examination of campaign finance reports, a statutory
mandate, with the same degree of consequence as other statutorily mandated
tasks.
• Third, the Board members, like the Director and Deputy Director, either did not
understand the importance of this responsibility, or they were unaware of it.
Neither of these possibilities is likely, as campaign finance workshops are held at
almost every elections conference. Campaign finance workbooks published by
the office of the Ohio Secretary of State are distributed to every Board of
Elections. In 2003, a campaign finance seminar, conducted by Secretary of State
employee Kelly Neer, Assistant Campaign Finance Administrator, was held in the
same building in which the Board of Elections is located.

In addition, during the last several years, the Board has referred only one committee to
the Ohio Elections Commission. While making referrals to the Ohio Elections
Commission may not necessarily be a pleasant task, it is, when warranted, the
responsibility of a local board of elections. There is no plausible explanation as to why
the Lucas County Board of Elections seldom makes referrals to the Ohio Elections
Commission. However, since they fail to properly process campaign finance reports, it
would be difficult to perform timely and accurate referrals.

Destruction of Public Documents

R.C. § 149.43 (A)(1) reads, in pertinent part, "Public record means records kept by any
public office, including, but not limited to, state, county, city, village, township, and
school district units..." R.C. § 149.43 (B)(1) states, also in pertinent part:

Subject to division (B)(4) of this section, all public records
shall be promptly prepared and made available for
inspection to any person at all reasonable times during
regular business hours. Subject to division (B)(4) of this
18
section, upon request, a public office or person responsible
for public records shall make copies available at cost,
within a reasonable period of time. In order to facilitate
broader access to public records, public offices shall
maintain public records in a manner that they can be made
available for inspection in accordance with this division.
(emphasis added)

Finally, R.C. § 149.351 (A) states, in relevant part:

All records are the property of the public office concerned
and shall not be removed, destroyed, mutilated, transferred,
or otherwise damaged or disposed of, in whole or in part,
except as provided by law or under the rules adopted by the
records commissions provided for under sections 149.38 to
149.42 of the Revised Code...

Although some of the details of the following incident are sketchy, the results of the
incident are not. Sometime in late September or early October, an employee of the Ohio
Republican Party contacted Mr. Thurber in regard to a public records request. The
person wanted to inspect and have copies made of all recently returned voter
confirmation postcards. Two or three days after contacting Mr. Thurber, representatives
of the Ohio Republican Party arrived in Toledo. The facts are somewhat muddied as to
exactly when they first appeared at the Board of Elections and with whom they talked in
regard to making arrangements for the requested inspection. However, it seems as though
Ms. Noe, Mr. Thurber, Ms. Hicks-Hudson and Ms. Kelly were aware of the request and
were all somehow involved in negotiations concerning how best to accommodate it. At
some point, as arrangements were being made, a representative from the Ohio Republican
Party offered to furnish volunteers to assist with the copying of the postcards. The offer
was accepted. Apparently, it was collectively decided by Ms. Noe, Ms. Hicks-Hudson
and Ms. Kelly that the Ohio Republican Party volunteers would be allowed behind the
counter at the Board office and that they would be stationed at a copier for whatever
period of time necessary to make the desired copies. In fact, it was related to us that the
partisan volunteers were asked by someone at the Board of Elections to make two copies
of the returned voter confirmation postcards, one for themselves and one for the Board of
Elections. There is some debate among the witnesses interviewed as to whether or not a
Board employee was assigned the duty of supervising these volunteers, or at least
keeping them under observation. It appears no one can confirm that any employee was
given this responsibility.

The first day the Ohio Republican Party volunteers were in the office went well. They
stood at the copier, made their copies and were as unobtrusive as possible given their
presence in a cramped office. The second day, however, was a different story. On the
second day, there were three Ohio Republican Party volunteers present in the office
making the copies. Then, as all seemed to be going well, Ms. Jennifer Bernath, the
Democratic booth official, saw the Ohio Republican Party volunteers peeling off the
19
yellow return stickers applied to the postcards by the post office. Ms. Bernath quickly
informed Ms. Patrice Webster, Ms. Kelly's executive assistant, what she had observed.
Ms. Webster suggested to Ms. Bernath that she inform Ms. Hicks-Hudson. At this time,
however, Ms. Hicks-Hudson and Ms. Kelly were both out of the office. They were at the
warehouse checking ballots. Ms. Webster then called Ms. Hicks-Hudson and Ms. Kelly
at the warehouse and informed them what Ms. Bernath had observed. At the same time,
Ms. Lykowski instructed the Ohio Republican Party volunteers to immediately stop what
they were doing. Within thirty minutes, Ms. Hicks-Hudson and Ms. Kelly were back in
the Board office. Upon their arrival, Ms. Hicks-Hudson told the Ohio Republican Party
volunteers to leave.

The Lucas County Board of Elections committed a series of egregious blunders that
ultimately resulted in the apparent violation of at least two laws. First, they allowed
individuals who were not employees of the Lucas County Board of Elections and who
were therefore not responsible for the office's public records to make copies of said
records, arguably a violation of R.C. § 149.43 (B)(1). Second, their apparent violation of
R.C. § 149.43 (B)(1) resulted in them becoming unwitting participants in the destruction,
mutilation and damage of public records belonging to the Board of Elections, arguably a
violation of R.C. § 149.351 (A).

Election Plan

Though not required by the Ohio Revised Code, election plans are a basic and essential
element of proper Board operations. By having an election plan for the Board staff, the
coordination of various tasks and responsibilities relating to the administration of an
election is more easily managed. Additionally, the opportunity for overreaction and
chaos is less likely.

The management team of the Lucas County Board of Elections did not develop and
distribute to the Board members and office staff a comprehensive election plan. The
investigative team learned that none
of the regular fulltime staff ever received a written
election plan. A few employees may have received written confirmation of their Election
Day duties. For the most part, any direction the staff received from management
regarding the 2004 general election occurred verbally through impromptu staff meetings
or in passing conversation.

Upon request, the investigative team received five separate documents that were
considered to be the election plan. (Exhibits O, P, Q, R and S) The first document is a
one-page election schedule that was posted on the office refrigerator, which lists the
Board employees along with their Election Day duties. This document failed to list
several important items, such as, to whom the staff should escalate issues, lunch and
dinner breaks (only a handful of staff were able to eat on election day) and some Election
Day duties, such as the processing of hospital ballots. The second document is a project
plan from Diebold Election Systems, Inc., dated August 2003, regarding voting system
implementation. A note at the top of the page states, "Tasks That Back Up the Project
Plan." Although this document was intended to be used as an implementation plan for
20
voting systems, and not as an election plan, there are items contained in the plan that
should have been, and in some cases were, noted in the election plans. The final three
documents received are separate project plans for the November 2004 election. The tasks
listed in each document did not always correspond with one another, nor were there
always start and finish times for the projects. Though these documents were a step in the
right direction, it is clear that not much time or effort was put into developing these plans
into one comprehensive, uniform and cohesive document.

Administrative Operations

The recent investigation identified several administrative weaknesses that are
contributing factors to the current inefficient operation of the office. These weaknesses
have also played a major role in the sagging morale of the employees. Below are a few
of the problems that were uncovered:

• Lack of Communications: The most common complaint heard from the
employees when interviewed was the lack of communications in the office.
Examples include the lack of regularly scheduled, all-employee staff meetings
and the lack of universal e-mail access within the office. A couple of staff
members even said that inner-office communications are so bad that they watch
the local news and listen to local radio broadcasts to find out what is happening in
their office.
º
Lack of Regularly Scheduled Staff Meetings: Staff meetings, when they
are held, are called spontaneously and without any formal agenda. They
seldom have anything to do with elections, but deal more with human
relations issues. Last year, staff meetings were held with such infrequency
that, finally, management completely stopped having them about three
weeks before the general election.
º
Lack of Universal E-Mail Access Within Office: On many occasions
leading up to last year's general election, management used e-mail to
inform staff of changes regarding election administration processes and/or
procedures. Some employees did not (and still do not) have e-mail access.
The messages would instruct those employees with e-mail access to share
with their co-workers the messages contained in the e-mails. There were
numerous occasions when employees without e-mail access did not
receive the latest, most up-to-date information from their co-workers. As
a result, it was often the case that employees sitting next to each other
were applying different standards or rules to the same work before them.
• Lack of Training and Cross-Training: Training in the office is scarce at best and
non-existent at worse. For new employees, training consists of sitting with a
veteran employee and watching him or her work for a few hours to a couple of
days, at which time a new employee is then expected to understand his or her job,
nuances and all. There are no training manuals provided to employees, be they
21
new employees or seasoned employees, nor is there cross-training. During the
2004 general election, some employees with valuable skill sets were re-assigned
to other areas for cross-training purposes, but they were eventually re-assigned
back to the area that would benefit most from their skill sets.
• Poor Phone System: In the weeks leading up to last year's general election, the
Lucas County Board of Elections installed a new telephone system. The old
system was the type where incoming telephone calls were answered by a person.
The new system is automated, and the caller is directed to a menu of options for
routing the call. The results were less than successful. Employees from the Ohio
Secretary of State's office tested the system on two occasions and experienced
poor results. On both occasions, the calls were terminated due to being placed on
hold for over 45 minutes.

Jill Kelly

Director Kelly, previously the Deputy Director, was, during last year's general election,
and continues to be, extremely helpful to and cooperative with the Secretary of State's
office. She has repeatedly gone out of her way to seek knowledge and guidance to enable
her to do what is best for the Board of Elections. Overall, Ms. Kelly has shown a true
and sincere interest in bringing stability and uniformity to the Lucas County Board of
Elections.

However, a few staff members did discuss several behavioral concerns they have with
Ms. Kelly. Those concerns are:

• Poor staff interaction and lack of interpersonal skills;
• Too much reliance on her executive assistant;
• At times, seems threatening when speaking to staff members; and,
• Uses inappropriate language and demonstrates unprofessional conduct.

Previous Administrative Oversight

When the Lucas County Board of Elections was initially placed on administrative
oversight status

101)
Christopher D. Kirkpatrick, ''Noe Indicted for Laundering Money to Bush Campaign,'' Toledo Blade, October 27, 2005
http://www.toledoblade.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20051027/DEVELOPINGNEWS/51027023

Toledo Blade: 10/27/2005. Noe indicted for laundering money to Bush campaign
Tom Noe has been under investigation for about a year.

By CHRISTOPHER D. KIRKPATRICK
BLADE STAFF WRITER

A federal grand jury has indicted Tom Noe, the former Toledo-area coin dealer at the center of a state investment scandal, of illegally laundering money into President Bush’s re-election campaign.
The three-count indictment (view the indictment below) states that beginning in October 2003, Mr. Noe contributed to President Bush’s election campaign “over and above the limits established by the Federal Election Campaign Act."

“He did so, according to the indictment, in order to fulfill his pledge to raise $50,000 for a Bush-Cheney fund-raiser held in Columbus, Ohio, on Oct. 30, 2003,” Gregory White, the U.S. Attorney for the Northern District of Ohio, announced at an afternoon news conference.

The two other counts were for conspiracy and filing false statements.

One of the indictment accused Mr. Noe of giving money to 24 friends and associates, who then made the campaign contributions in their own names. In that way, he skirted the $2,000 limit on individual contributions, prosecutors said.
www.electionfraudnews.com

113) ''Remarks by the President at Victory 2004 Rally,'' Seagate Convention Centre, Toledo, Ohio, October 29, 2004, The White House.
For Immediate Release
Office of the Press Secretary
October 29, 2004
Remarks by the President at Victory 2004 Rally
Seagate Convention Centre
Toledo, Ohio
4:30 P.M. EDT

THE PRESIDENT: Laura and I are so honored so many came out to say hello. We appreciate it very much. I'm honored -- (applause.) We thank you for taking time out of your day. I've got something to tell you. I'm traveling Ohio a lot. I'm asking for the vote, and I'm asking for your help. (Applause.) We have a duty in this country to vote. You may have heard, the election is right around the corner. (Laughter.) And I'm asking, you get your friends and neighbors to go to the polls. Make sure our fellow Republicans vote. Make sure independents vote. Find some discerning Democrats, and there's a lot across the state of Ohio. (Applause.) And get them headed to the polls, and remind them, if they want a safer America, a stronger America, and a better America, to put me and Dick Cheney back in office. (Applause.)

One of the most important reasons why I think you ought to put me back into office is so that Laura is the First Lady for four more years. (Applause.)

AUDIENCE: Laura! Laura! Laura!

THE PRESIDENT: I don't want to offend anybody who is follically challenged, but I admit my great Vice President doesn't have the waviest hair in the race. (Laughter.) The people of Toledo will be proud to know that I didn't pick him because of his hairdo. (Laughter.) I picked him because of his judgment, his experience. He's getting the job done for the American people. (Applause.)

I want to thank Senator Mike DeWine for joining us today. I'm proud to call him friend; you're proud to call him Senator. (Applause.) I urge you to put George Voinovich back in the United States Senate. (Applause.) I want to thank your Governor for joining us. I want to thank Paul Gillmor, Congressman Paul Gillmor, for being here today. (Applause.) I want to thank Betty Montgomery for joining us. And I want to thank the next congressman from the 9th congressional district, Larry Kaczala, for joining us.

(Applause.)

I want to thank the Wil Gravatt Band. I want to thank the Anthony Wayne High Marching Generals for being here. (Applause.) I will try to keep my speech short so you can get home and do your homework.

THE PRESIDENT: I want to thank the grassroots activists. I want to thank my friend,

Bernadette Noy and Tom Noy (Noe) for their leadership in Lucas County. (Applause.) I remember our breakfast. She had me flipping pancakes. (Laughter.)

note: Bernadette and Tom Noe's last name is incorrectly spelled ''Noy'' in the official White House transcript.

www.electionfraudnews.com

.V. ''The Wrong Pew''

In one of his most effective maneuvers, Blackwell prevented thousands of voters from receiving provisional ballots on Election Day. The fail-safe ballots were mandated in 2002, when Congress passed a package of reforms called the Help America Vote Act. This would prevent a repeat of the most egregious injustice in the 2000 election, when officials in Florida barred thousands of lawfully registered minority voters from the polls because their names didn't appear on flawed precinct rolls. Under the law, would-be voters whose registration is questioned at the polls must be allowed to cast provisional ballots that can be counted after the election if the voter's registration proves valid.(114)

www.electionfraudnews.com

114) Help America Vote Act, Title III, Uniform and Nondiscriminatory Election Technology and Administration Requirements, Subtitle A Requirements, Section 302.
TITLE III--UNIFORM AND NONDISCRIMINATORY ELECTION TECHNOLOGY AND
ADMINISTRATION REQUIREMENTS
Subtitle A--Requirements
Sec. 301. Voting systems standards.
Sec. 302. Provisional voting and voting information requirements.
Sec. 303. Computerized statewide voter registration list requirements
and requirements for voters who register by mail.
Sec. 304. Minimum requirements.
<[Page 116 STAT. 1668>]
Sec. 305. Methods of implementation left to discretion of State.
Subtitle B--Voluntary Guidance
Sec. 311. Adoption of voluntary guidance by Commission.
Sec. 312. Process for adoption.
SEC. 302. <<NOTE: 42 USC 15482.>> PROVISIONAL VOTING AND VOTING
INFORMATION REQUIREMENTS.

(a) Provisional Voting Requirements.--If an individual declares that
such individual is a registered voter in the jurisdiction in which the
individual desires to vote and that the individual is eligible to vote
in an election for Federal office, but the name of the individual does
not appear on the official list of eligible voters for the polling place
or an election official asserts that the individual is not eligible to
vote, such individual shall be permitted to cast a provisional ballot as
follows:
(1) <<NOTE: Notification.>> An election official at the
polling place shall notify the individual that the individual
may cast a provisional ballot in that election.
(2) The individual shall be permitted to cast a provisional
ballot at that polling place upon the execution of a written
affirmation by the individual before an election official at the
polling place stating that the individual is--

<[Page 116 STAT. 1707>]

(A) a registered voter in the jurisdiction in which
the individual desires to vote; and
(B) eligible to vote in that election.
(3) An election official at the polling place shall transmit
the ballot cast by the individual or the voter information
contained in the written affirmation executed by the individual
under paragraph (2) to an appropriate State or local election
official for prompt verification under paragraph (4).
(4) If the appropriate State or local election official to
whom the ballot or voter information is transmitted under
paragraph (3) determines that the individual is eligible under
State law to vote, the individual's provisional ballot shall be
counted as a vote in that election in accordance with State law.
(5)(A) At the time that an individual casts a provisional
ballot, the appropriate State or local election official shall
give the individual written information that states that any
individual who casts a provisional ballot will be able to
ascertain under the system established under subparagraph (B)
whether the vote was counted, and, if the vote was not counted,
the reason that the vote was not counted.
(B) The appropriate State or local election official shall
establish a free access system (such as a toll-free telephone
number or an Internet website) that any individual who casts a
provisional ballot may access to discover whether the vote of
that individual was counted, and, if the vote was not counted,
the reason that the vote was not counted.

States described in section 4(b) of the National Voter Registration Act
of 1993 (42 U.S.C. 1973gg-2(b)) may meet the requirements of this
subsection using voter registration procedures established under
applicable State law. The appropriate State or local official shall
establish and maintain reasonable procedures necessary to protect the
security, confidentiality, and integrity of personal information
collected, stored, or otherwise used by the free access system
established under paragraph (5)(B). Access to information about an
individual provisional ballot shall be restricted to the individual who
cast the ballot.
(b) Voting Information Requirements.--
(1) Public posting on election day.--The appropriate State
or local election official shall cause voting information to be
publicly posted at each polling place on the day of each
election for Federal office.
(2) Voting information defined.--In this section, the term
``voting information'' means--
(A) a sample version of the ballot that will be used
for that election;
(B) information regarding the date of the election
and the hours during which polling places will be open;
(C) instructions on how to vote, including how to
cast a vote and how to cast a provisional ballot;
(D) instructions for mail-in registrants and first-
time voters under section 303(b);
(E) general information on voting rights under
applicable Federal and State laws, including information
on the right of an individual to cast a provisional
ballot and instructions on how to contact the
appropriate officials if these rights are alleged to
have been violated; and

<[Page 116 STAT. 1708>]

(F) general information on Federal and State laws
regarding prohibitions on acts of fraud and
misrepresentation.

(c) Voters Who Vote After the Polls Close.--Any individual who votes
in an election for Federal office as a result of a Federal or State
court order or any other order extending the time established for
closing the polls by a State law in effect 10 days before the date of
that election may only vote in that election by casting a provisional
ballot under subsection (a). Any such ballot cast under the preceding
sentence shall be separated and held apart from other provisional
ballots cast by those not affected by the order.
(d) Effective Date for Provisional Voting and Voting Information.--
Each State and jurisdiction shall be required to comply with the
requirements of this section on and after January 1, 2004.
www.electionfraudnews.com

116) In the United States District Court for the Northern District of Ohio, Western Division, The Sandusky County Democratic Party v. J. Kenneth Blackwell, Case No. 3:04CV7582, Page 8.

http://pdftohtml.spiritofanime.com/pdf2html.php?url=http://electionlawblog.org/archives/10-20%20Order.pdf

After the provisional ballot has been cast, the individual shall place it in a secrecy envelope. The
individual shall place the secrecy envelope in the provisional ballot envelope and shall place his
signature on the front of the provisional ballot envelope. The judge of elections shall affix the voter's completed affidavit to the provisional ballot envelope. All provisional ballots shall remain sealed in htheir provisional ballot envelopes for return to the county board of elections.

(Doc. 37).

This submission does not comply with the command of the injunction. Blackwell has failed to
comply with this court's order to submit a HAVA-compliant revised directive in several respects.
First, the Proposed Directive fails to inform Ohio's election officials clearly and specifically that,
pursuant to § 15482(a), any individual whose name "does not appear on the official list of eligible voters" or who is told by an election official that he or she "is not eligible to vote . . . shall be permitted to cast a provisional ballot." (Emphasis added).

Instead, the Proposed Directive expressly limits its scope to "Voters Whose Names DO NOT
Appear in the Official Poll Book." It likewise limits expressly the right to vote provisionally to "a person declares he or she is a registered voter qualified to vote at that precinct but his or her name is not on the official list of eligible voters ("Roster"), that person may vote a provisional ballot."
The Proposed Directive remains as drastically under-inclusive as Directive 2004-33, and is every
bit as much in violation of HAVA.

The right to vote provisionally under HAVA is not limited to persons whose names are not on the
rolls. That right is also extended to any individual who is told by an election official that he or she "is not eligible to vote." This was one of the fundamental reforms in the right to vote provisionally accomplished under HAVA, and accomplishing this reform was a principal objective of Congress in adopting the Act.
1
This landmark legislation will help the Nation avoid another debacle like the one that occurred
during the Presidential election in November of 2000. In that election, thousands of ballots in
Florida and in my home State of Illinois went uncounted for a variety of reasons. In fact, over
120,000 voters in Cook County and thousands more throughout the rest of the State did their
civic duty and cast a vote during the last Federal election, only to have their ballots discounted
because of problems with machinery and inaccuracies on the rolls of registered voters. This is
unacceptable in the United States of America, where we take pride in our freedom to cast a
vote for our leaders.
148 Cong. Rec. S10488 (daily ed. Oct. 16, 2002) (Statement of Sen. Durbin)

www.electionfraudnews.com

117) Gregory Korte and Jim Siegel, ''Defiant Blackwell Rips Judge; Secretary Says He'd go to Jail Before Rewriting Ballot Memo,'' Cincinnati Enquirer, October 22, 2004.

http://www.enquirer.com/editions/2004/10/22/loc_blackwell22.html

Friday, October 22, 2004

Defiant Blackwell rips judge

Secretary says he'd go to jail before rewriting ballot memo

By Gregory Korte
and Jim Siegel
Enquirer staff writers

MIAMI TOWNSHIP - Ohio Secretary of State J. Kenneth Blackwell said Thursday that he would rather go to jail than rewrite his guidelines on out-of-precinct voters - even when ordered to by a federal judge.
"Some of the best writing in history has been done from jail," Blackwell said, invoking the names of Mohandas K. Gandhi, the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. and the apostle Paul. "I wasn't going to write a directive that I believe violates Ohio law."

Blackwell made the comments in a breakfast speech to the Loveland Area Chamber of Commerce in Clermont County. Asked afterward whether he was exaggerating for effect, Blackwell said his critics "underestimate what I'm prepared to do" to ensure a fair election under Ohio law.

The Cincinnati Republican, in his second term as secretary of state and pondering a 2006 run for governor, has come under fire from Democrats who accuse him of trying to suppress turnout by issuing directives restricting where people can vote Nov. 2.

"Many civil rights leaders went to jail to defend the right to vote. If this official wants to go to jail to thwart it, that would be unfortunate," said Myron Marlin, a spokesman for the Ohio Democratic Party's Voter Protection Program.
www.electionfraudnews.com

122) David G. Savage, Richard B. Schmitt, ''Bush Seeks Limit to Suits Over Voting Rights,'' Los Angeles Times, October 29, 2004.

Published on Friday, October 29, 2004 by the Los Angeles Times
Bush Seeks Limit to Suits Over Voting Rights
Administration lawyers argue that only the Justice Department, not the voters, may sue to enforce provisions in the Help America Vote Act.

by David G. Savage and Richard B. Schmitt,

WASHINGTON — Bush administration lawyers argued in three closely contested states last week that only the Justice Department, and not voters themselves, may sue to enforce the voting rights set out in the Help America Vote Act, which was passed in the aftermath of the disputed 2000 election. Veteran voting-rights lawyers expressed surprise at the government's action, saying that closing the courthouse door to aspiring voters would reverse decades of precedent.

Since the civil rights era of the 1960s, individuals have gone to federal court to enforce their right to vote, often with the support of groups such as the NAACP, the AFL-CIO, the League of Women Voters or the state parties. And until now, the Justice Department and the Supreme Court had taken the view that individual voters could sue to enforce federal election law.

But in legal briefs filed in connection with cases in Ohio, Michigan and Florida, the administration's lawyers argue that the new law gives Atty. Gen. John Ashcroft the exclusive power to bring lawsuits to enforce its provisions. These include a requirement that states provide "uniform and nondiscriminatory" voting systems, and give provisional ballots to those who say they have registered but whose names do not appear on the rolls.

"Congress clearly did not intend to create a right enforceable" in court by individual voters, the Justice Department briefs said.

In one case the Sandusky County Democratic Party sued Ohio Secretary of State J. Kenneth Blackwell, arguing that the county's voters should be permitted to file provisional ballots even if they go to the wrong polling place on election day.

www.electionfraudnews.com

123) Key Judges (bios)

Judge Julia Smith Gibbons August 2, 2002
Judge John M. Rogers November 27, 2002
Judge Jeffrey S. Sutton May 5, 2003
Judge Deborah L. Cook May 7, 2003

US Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit

http://www.ca6.uscourts.gov/internet/court_of_appeals/courtappeals_judges.htm

www.electionfraudnews.com

125) David S. Bernstein, ''Questioning Ohio,''

The Providence Phoenix.
Questioning Ohio
No controversy this time? Think again.

BY DAVID S. BERNSTEIN ‘
http://www.providencephoenix.com/features/other_stories/multi_1/documents/04259695.asp


FOR AMERICANS, it’s bad enough that the 2000 election was such a fiasco that our government felt compelled to bring in international election monitors from Vienna, as though we were some Third World banana republic rather than the world’s oldest democracy. Worse, the monitoring group — the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE) — left unimpressed.

The OSCE won’t issue a final report for another six weeks, but its preliminary findings (available at http://www.osce.org/documents/odihr/2004/11/3779_en.pdf) are a litany of "questions of possible conflict of interest," "widespread ... allegations of electoral fraud and voter suppression," "significant delays ... may restrict the right to vote," "considerable confusion ... regarding the use of provisional ballots," "occasional faults and breakdowns of DRE machines," "concerns ... regarding the secrecy of the vote." Not only that, but "it was not clear that poll workers had generally received sufficient training to perform their functions."

On the plus side, the election "proceeded in an orderly and peaceful manner," the OSCE says. And according to many news reports, America was awfully glad, above all else, that there was no untidiness with this election. Once John Kerry conceded, it seemed, concerns about voter suppression, intimidation, and fraud could be safely ignored. The mainstream media refocused their attention on the Scott Peterson trial, while Internet bloggers chased phantom conspiracy theories into the void.
But there are at least two valid reasons why we should keep our eyes trained on November 2. First, a Phoenix analysis suggests that more Ohioans may have tried to vote for Kerry than for Bush, and couldn’t — in which case by rights W. should be packing his bags and shredding his files, rather than plotting his second-term agenda.

And besides — isn’t this kind of thing horrible even if it didn’t happen to tip the election this time?

Providence Phoenix, November 12-18, 2004.
www.electionfraudnews.com

2006. FACTS TO PONDER ABOUT THE 2004 GENERAL ELECTION

Norman Robbins
5-10-06 version

http://www.clevelandvotes.org/news/reports/Facts_to_Ponder.pdf

Public document. Copyright does not apply.

PLEASE NOTE: This report will be continuously updated as new information is added.
Please replace any previous version you may have (note the date) with this current
version. Updates will be posted at:
http://www.clevelandvotes.org/news/reports/facts.html

VOTER REGISTRATION:

Number of statewide Ohio provisional ballots rejected because
voter was declared "not registered" 22,000

Why did this happen? Results of studies in Cuyahoga County, where 5,400
provisional votes were rejected as "not registered" may explain this:

Legitimate provisional voters apparently mistakenly purged from the
list of registered voters 600-900

Other sources of potential unjustified provisional ballot rejection:

Submitted registration forms that were never entered (projected from
sample) 2,700

Submitted registration forms that were entered incorrectly with errors ranging
from minor to major (projected from sample) 13,400

Submitted registration forms in which voters made errors (projected from
sample)...3,300

Timely warning to voters to check their registration status if they have not
received written confirmation from the BOE ....None

Publicly available website database enabling voters to check their registration
status..None

Consistent written procedure for voters to correct errors in their registration
before or after the registration deadline ...None

1
Based on inquiries to 18 counties representing over 60% of Ohio's 35,000 rejected provisional ballots.
2
http://www.clevelandvotes.org/news/reports/Analyses_Full_Report.pdf
These and the next two lines, taken from a study of the fate of 9600 registration forms submitted by the
Greater Cleveland Voter Registration Coalition,
http://www.clevelandvotes.org/news/reports/Analyses_Full_Report.pdf
were projected to the total of 313,000 non-duplicate registration forms submitted from all sources to the Cuyahoga County Board of Elections prior to the 2004 election.
These and the next two lines, taken from a study of the fate of 9600 registration forms submitted by the
Greater Cleveland Voter Registration Coalition,
http://www.clevelandvotes.org/news/reports/Analyses_Full_Report.pdf
were projected to the total of 313,000 non-duplicate registration forms submitted from all sources to the Cuyahoga County Board of Elections prior to the 2004 election.

Conclusion: Most "not registered" rejections are likely due to Board of Elections clerical
or database problems or procedures, but voter errors or registrations handed in late are
also significant problems. However, many additional voters were probably
disenfranchised because some poll workers did not provide provisional ballots. Also,
after the registration deadline, many voters may have been incorrectly told that they were
not registered, when this was really due to BOE or voter registration errors, which caused
them not to be on the rolls or only in an unsearchable entry. If results of Cuyahoga
County studies (mainly on registrations in Cleveland) are projected to all the major urban
areas of Ohio, it is estimated that 24,300 registrants were totally disqualified and 45,500
are at some degree of risk of disqualification mostly because of BOE errors but partly due
to voter registration errors. Therefore, registration reforms will reduce both rejected provisional ballots and votes never cast.

www.electionfraudnews.com

127) Fritz Wenzel, ''Purging of Rolls, Confusion Anger Voters; 41% of November 2nd Provisional Ballots Axed in Lucas County,'' Toledo Blade, January 9, 2005.

http://toledoblade.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20050109/NEWS09/501090334/-1/NEWS

Toledo Blade: 01/09/2005. Purging of rolls, confusion anger voters
41% of Nov. 2 provisional ballots axed in Lucas County

FRITZ WENZEL
BLADE POLITICAL WRITER

Ralph and Barbara George are lifelong Democrats who first registered to vote for John F. Kennedy in 1960 and have lived in the same East Toledo house for 44 years.
They called the Lucas County Board of Elections early last year to make sure they still were registered to vote.=

Informed that they were, they went on with life, including helping their son, just home from military service, to purchase a new home. Then, last fall, they applied for absentee ballots.
It was then that they were surprised to discover - too late to do anything about it - that they were somehow no longer registered and wouldn't be allowed to vote in the general election.
At the last minute, they learned that they could cast provisional ballots, so they hustled down to their polling place and did so.

www.electionfraudnews.com

131) Ohio Secretary of State Web site, Provisional Ballots; Official Tabulation, November 2, 2004.

http://www.sos.state.oh.us/sos/ElectionsVoter/results2004.aspx?Section=148

VI. Long Lines

When Election Day dawned on November 2nd, tens of thousands of Ohio voters who had managed to overcome all the obstacles to registration erected by Blackwell discovered that it didn't matter whether they were properly listed on the voting rolls -- because long lines at their precincts prevented them from ever making it to the ballot box. Would-be voters in Dayton and Cincinnati routinely faced waits as long as three hours. Those in inner-city precincts in Columbus, Cleveland and Toledo -- which were voting for Kerry by margins of ninety percent or more -- often waited up to seven hours. At Kenyon College, students were forced to stand in line for eleven hours before being allowed to vote, with the last voters casting their ballots after three in the morning.(132)132) Michael Powell and Peter Slevin, ''Several Factors Contributed to 'Lost' Voters in Ohio,'' Washington Post, December 15, 2004.

www.electionfraudnews.com

132) Christopher Hitchens, ''Ohio's Odd Numbers,'' Vanity Fair.

http://www.vanityfair.com/commentary/content/printables/050214roco05?print=true

Ohio's Odd Numbers
By CHRISTOPHER HITCHENS

Are the stories of vote suppression and rigged machines to be believed? Here is "non-wacko" evidence that something went seriously awry in the Buckeye State on Election Day 2004 If it were not for Kenyon College, I might have missed, or skipped, the whole controversy. The place is a visiting lecturer's dream, or the ideal of a campus-movie director in search of a setting. It is situated in wooded Ohio hills, in the small town of Gambier, about an hour's drive from Columbus. Its literary magazine, The Kenyon Review, was founded by John Crowe Ransom in 1939. Its alumni include Paul Newman, E. L. Doctorow, Jonathan Winters, Robert Lowell, Chief Justice William Rehnquist, and President Rutherford B. Hayes. The college's origins are Episcopalian, its students well mannered and well off and predominantly white, but it is by no means Bush-Cheney territory. Arriving to speak there a few days after the presidential election, I found that the place was still buzzing. Here's what happened in Gambier, Ohio, on decision day 2004.

The polls opened at 6:30 a.m. There were only two voting machines (push-button direct-recording electronic systems) for the entire town of 2,200 (with students). The mayor, Kirk Emmert, had called the Board of Elections 10 days earlier, saying that the number of registered voters would require more than that. (He knew, as did many others, that hundreds of students had asked to register in Ohio because it was a critical "swing" state.) The mayor's request was denied. Indeed, instead of there being extra capacity on Election Day, one of the only two machines chose to break down before lunchtime.

By the time the polls officially closed, at 7:30 that evening, the line of those waiting to vote was still way outside the Community Center and well into the parking lot. A federal judge thereupon ordered Knox County, in which Gambier is located, to comply with Ohio law, which grants the right to vote to those who have shown up in time. "Authority to Vote" cards were kindly distributed to those on line (voting is a right, not a privilege), but those on line needed more than that. By the time the 1,175 voters in the precinct had all cast their ballots, it was almost four in the morning, and many had had to wait for up to 11 hours. In the spirit of democratic carnival, pizzas and canned drinks and guitarists were on hand to improve the shining moment. TV crews showed up, and the young Americans all acted as if they had been cast by Frank Capra: cheerful and good-humored, letting older voters get to the front, catching up on laptop essays, many voting for the first time and all convinced that a long and cold wait was a small price to pay. Typical was Pippa White, who said that "even after eight hours and 15 minutes I still had energy. It lets you know how worth it this is." Heartwarming, until you think about it.

The students of Kenyon had one advantage, and they made one mistake. Their advantage was that their president, S. Georgia Nugent, told them that they could be excused from class for voting. Their mistake was to reject the paper ballots that were offered to them late in the evening, after attorneys from the Ohio Democratic Party had filed suit to speed up the voting process in this way. The ballots were being handed out (later to be counted by machine under the supervision of Knox County's Democratic and Republican chairs) when someone yelled through the window of the Community Center, "Don't use the paper ballots! The Republicans are going to appeal it and it won't count!" After that, the majority chose to stick with the machines.

www.electionfraudnews.com

138) ''The Battle Over Voting Technology,'' PBS, Online NewsHour, December 16, 2003.

PBS: The Battle Over Voting Technology

http://www.pbs.org/newshour/vote2004/primaries/sr_technology_debate.html

Posted: December 16, 2003
After punch card ballots led to a contested vote recount in Florida during the 2000 presidential election, Congress approved a $3.9 billion initiative to help states and localities update antiquated voting machines with electronic voting devices in time for the 2004 elections. The plan offered the hope that the ballot controversies of 2000 would not happen again, by providing Americans with more efficient and accurate computerized voting machines.

Despite the advantages of computerized voting, several academic researchers and security experts have questioned the integrity and reliability of the machines being marketed to states ahead of the deadline outlined in the 2002 Help America Vote Act (HAVA).

In March 2001, scientists from the California Institute of Technology and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology issued a pioneering investigation into why so many problems arose in Florida's ballot count in the 2000 election, voting technologies and recommendations to prevent a repeat occurrence.
The Caltech-MIT study concluded that the widely used "punch cards and lever machines should be done away with," calling "the performance of punch cards alarming." The report also ruled out Internet voting in the near future because of the threat of computer hacking.

www.electionfraudnews.com

Paul Festa, ''States Scrutinize e-Voting as Primaries Near,'' CNET News.com, December 8, 2003.

CNET: 12/08/03
States scrutinize e-voting as primaries near

By Paul Festa
http://news.com.com/States+scrutinize+e-voting+as+primaries+near/2100-1028_3-5114062.html

Story last modified Mon Dec 08 04:00:19 PST 2003

A growing voter backlash against e-voting machines could delay widespread adoption of the technology and force significant changes to current products.

<snip>

The affected companies say the weaknesses that have been identified to date aren't insurmountable, and most said they expect to fix them on time to meet the HAVA deadlines. But the biggest problem facing e-voting machine vendors may turn out to be political rather than technical, as belated resistance to e-voting systems mounts.

Individual counties in the United States have used electronic voting machines for years, but many voters have only learned about the potential hazards of e-voting recently, through the missteps of one company: Diebold Election Systems of North Canton, Ohio. The company has become a lightning rod for criticism following partisan political statements by its chief executive and revelations of security flaws within its flagship product.

"I think it's been a year of widespread awakening among the American public about the risks of computerized voting," said Kim Alexander, founder and president of the California Voter Foundation. "A huge movement has developed across the nation, with citizen activists joining computer scientists, academics, lawyers, and nonprofits to demand verifiable voting systems."
www.electionfraudnews.com

141) Matt Damschroder, chairman of Franklin County Board of Elections. 142) Preserving Democracy, pg. 26. 143) Michael Powell and Peter Slevin, ''Several Factors Contributed to 'Lost' Voters in Ohio,'' Washington Post, December 15, 2004.

WashingtonPost.online12/15/2004
Several Factors Contributed to 'Lost' Voters in Ohio

By Michael Powell and Peter Slevin
Washington Post Staff Writers
Wednesday, December 15, 2004; Page A01

COLUMBUS, Ohio -- Tanya Thivener's is a tale of two voting precincts in Franklin County. In her city neighborhood, which is vastly Democratic and majority black, the 38-year-old mortgage broker found a line snaking out of the precinct door.

She stood in line for four hours -- one hour in the rain -- and watched dozens of potential voters mutter in disgust and walk away without casting a ballot. Afterward, Thivener hopped in her car and drove to her mother's house, in the vastly Republican and majority white suburb of Harrisburg. How long, she asked, did it take her to vote? Fifteen minutes, her mother replied.
"It was . . . poor planning," Thivener said. "County officials knew they had this huge increase in registrations, and yet there weren't enough machines in the city. You really hope this wasn't intentional."

Electoral problems prevented many thousands of Ohioans from voting on Nov. 2. In Columbus, bipartisan estimates say that 5,000 to 15,000 frustrated voters turned away without casting ballots. It is unlikely that such "lost" voters would have changed the election result -- Ohio tipped to President Bush by a 118,000-vote margin and cemented his electoral college majority.
www.electionfraudnews.com

147) Mark Niquette, ''GOP Strongholds Saw Increase in Voting Machines,'' Columbus Dispatch, December 12, 2004.

THE COLUMBUS DISPATCH:12;12;2004
GOP strongholds saw increase in voting machines

Sunday, December 12, 2004
Mark Niquette

At first, Eric Davies didn’t mind waiting more than four hours to vote on Nov. 2. It was encouraging to see such strong voter turnout, he says.

But later, the Democrat was frustrated to learn that his Columbus precinct had one fewer voting machine than in 2000, while some precincts in the suburbs and elsewhere got more.

"I’m not someone who necessarily jumps on the conspiracy bandwagon, but it certainly shows some favoritism to one community over another," said Davies, 37.

In fact, a Dispatch analysis shows that predominantly Democratic precincts in Franklin County — almost all of them in Columbus — had fewer machines on Nov. 2 compared with 2000, while heavy GOP areas had more.


www.electionfraudnews.com

148) Michael Powell and Peter Slevin, ''Several Factors Contributed to 'Lost' Voters in Ohio,'' Washington Post, December 15, 2004.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A64737-2004Dec14.html
ashingtonpost.com
Several Factors Contributed to 'Lost' Voters in Ohio

By Michael Powell and Peter Slevin
Washington Post Staff Writers
Wednesday, December 15, 2004; Page A01

COLUMBUS, Ohio -- Tanya Thivener's …

She stood in line for four hours -- one hour in the rain -- and watched dozens of potential voters mutter in disgust and walk away without casting a ballot. Afterward, Thivener hopped in her car and drove to her mother's house, in the vastly Republican and majority white suburb of Harrisburg. How long, she asked, did it take her to vote?

"It was . . . poor planning," Thivener said. "County officials knew they had this huge increase in registrations, and yet there weren't enough machines in the city. You really hope this wasn't intentional."

Electoral problems prevented many thousands of Ohioans from voting on Nov. 2. In Columbus, bipartisan estimates say that 5,000 to 15,000 frustrated voters turned away without casting ballots. It is unlikely that such "lost" voters would have changed the election result -- Ohio tipped to President Bush by a 118,000-vote margin and cemented his electoral college majority.

But similar problems occurred across the state and fueled protest marches and demands for a recount. The foul-ups appeared particularly acute in Democratic-leaning districts, according to interviews with voters, poll workers, election observers and election board and party officials, as well as an examination of precinct voting patterns in several cities.
www.electionfraudnews.com

150) ''Voting Machine Allocation in Franklin County, Ohio, 2004: Response to the U.S. Department of Justice Letter of June 29, 2005,'' Walter R. Mebane, Jr., February 11, 2006, Page 13.

Government document. No copyright limitation applies

http://macht.arts.cornell.edu/wrm1/franklin2.pdf
Voting Machine Allocation in Franklin County, Ohio, 2004: Response to U.S. Department of
Justice Letter of June 29, 2005
Walter R. Mebane, Jr.
July 7, 2005 (original draft)
February 11, 2006 (this draft)
page
The information provided by Franklin County does not allow us to recover the information or the decision rules Franklin County officials used to allocate voting machines to precincts for the
12
2004 general election. The closest we can come to measuring the number of voters as of "mid-summer" 2004 is to use the number of active voters in each precinct as of April 27, 2004.
The active voter counts used in the analysis reported in the preceding section are dated November 4, 2004, two days after the election. The November active voter count is the best measure to use for comparing the allocation of voting machines to the electorate as it existed on election day. Allocation decisions made using "mid-summer" information would of course haveignored the surge in voter registration that took place between July and October.

According to the file provided by Franklin County, there was a net increase of 15 percent in voter registration in the county between April 1, 2004, and November 4, 2004. Between April 27, 2004, and November 4, 2004 the number of active voters in the county increased by 27.4 percent. The fifth and sixth columns of Table 6 show that, in terms of racial disparities, the November count of active voters and the April-June count of active-newly-purged voters present divergent pictures of the voting machine allocation. Using the November active voter counts, there are on average more active voters per voting machine in the precincts that have high proportions African

American (242 voters per machine) than in the precincts with low proportions (213 voters per machine). In percentage terms, this disparity is smaller than the one observed using the counts of registered voters. Using the registered voter counts there are on average 23.7 percent more votersper machine in the precincts with high proportions African American than in the precincts with low proportions, but using the November active voter counts there are 13.6 percent more. The disparity is nonetheless still large. Using the April active voter counts, however, there are more active voters per voting machine in the precincts that have low proportions African American (189 voters per machine) than in the precincts with high proportions (177 voters per machine), a difference of 6.8 percent.

The allocation of voting machines in Franklin County was clearly biased against voters in precincts with high proportions of African Americans when measured using the standard of the November, 2004, electorate. Measured against the active electorate in April, the machine allocations on average favored voters in precincts with high proportions African American. If we had reason to believe that the "mid-summer" information about the voters in each precinct was similar to the active voter counts in late April, then it might be plausible to argue that Franklin County election officials should be exculpated for the November disparities because the large increase in the active electorate from April to November simply caught them by surprise.

Beyond the fact that we have no reason to believe that the number of active voters in each precinct in "mid-summer" was close to the number on April 27 (new registrants are considered active voters), at least two considerations argue against deciding that the officials should be considered blameless. First, the total number of voting machines was inadequate even when compared to the size of the estimated active electorate in June. To reach an average of 100 voters per machine in the April electorate, the county needed 5,023 working voting machines, not 2,800.

The DOJ report states that the county plans to increase the number of voting machines to 5,000 (Tanner 2005, 4). If the size of the active electorate in November, 2004, is used, the number of working machines needed to reach 100 voters per machine is 6,404. It appears that Franklin County election officials are making plans that will again produce shortages of voting machines in future elections.
Second, to say that it was appropriate for Franklin County officials to rely on an assessment of the size of the active electorate made in "mid-summer" would be to say it was appropriate for them to ignore the clear signs during the late summer and fall that the November electorate would
13
be substantially larger. If nothing else, the surge of applications from new registrants should have been a clear indicator that plans made based on the earlier information would not be sufficient

============

Conclusion

The allocation of voting machines in Franklin County was clearly biased against voters in precincts with high proportions of African Americans when measured using the standard of the November, 2004, electorate. In precincts with high proportions of African American voters there were 13.6 percent more active voters per voting machine than in precincts having low proportions of African American voters. While shortages of voting machines caused long delays in voting throughout the county, the allocation of voting machines among the county's precincts affected different voters differently. The most severe effects in terms of reduced voter turnout were incident on voters in precincts that had high proportions of African Americans. The most conservative estimate--based on the reported size of the active electorate in November--is that typically the shortages of machines reduced voter turnout by slightly more than four percent in precincts in which high proportions of the voters were African American, while shortages in precincts where very few voters were African American reduced voter turnout by slightly less than 1.5 percent.

If the allocation of voting machines is compared to information about the size of the active electorate that was available to Franklin County election officials at the end of April, 2004, then the allocation of machines is not biased against voters who were active at that time in precincts having high proportions of African Americans. But if we use the April information to evaluate the allocation plans, then we must note that the plans involved using a total number of machines that was nearly 45 percent too small. Using the April measure of the size of the active electorate, 5,023 working voting machines were needed, not 2,800 machines as data supplied by the county indicate were actually deployed on election day.

Using plans made in "mid-summer" meant that Franklin county officials ignored information during the late summer and fall that should have showed them that the November electoratewould be substantially larger. Between April and November, the active voter population in the county increased by more than 15 percent. If nothing else, the surge of new registrants should have indicated that their plans made in mid-summer would prove woefully insufficient.

www.electionfraudnews.com

156) Affidavit of Richard Hayes Phillips, December 10, 2004.
http://www.yuricareport.com/2004 Election Fraud/AffidavitPhillipsShowsKerryCouldWinOhio.html
Public document. No copyright restrictions apply.

Affidavit of Richard Hayes Phillips Shows Kerry's Vote Margins Were Wrongly Reduced.
OHIO RECOUNT AFFIDAVIT December 10, 2004 From: http://web.northnet.org/minstrel/supreme.htm

I, RICHARD HAYES PHILLIPS, do swear and affirm the following:

1. I hold a Ph.D. in geomorphology from the University of Oregon. I am a professional hydrologist and am well versed in standard techniques of statistical analysis, with special expertise in spotting anomalous data. A copy of my curriculum vita is attached to this Affidavit as Exhibit A.

2. I have analyzed unofficial precinct level results from the November 2, 2004 general election in nine Ohio counties, including Cuyahoga, Franklin, Warren, Butler, Clermont, Miami, Montgomery, Hamilton, and Lucas. In have compared these results with those from the November 7, 2000 general election where such data is available. I have examined the unofficial and official results for the November 2, 2004 election, county by county. I have examined, in Franklin County, data on the number of voting machines deployed in each precinct. I have also examined United States census data for 2000 and 2003.

3. There are numerous examples of incorrect presidential vote tallies in certain precincts in Cleveland, Cuyahoga County. These irregularities include at least 16 precincts where votes intended to be cast for Kerry were shifted to other candidates’ columns, and at least 30 precincts with inexplicably low voter turnout, including 7.10%, 13.05%, 19.60%, 21.01%, 21.80%, 24.72%, 28.83%, 28.97%, and 29.25%, and seven entire wards where voter turnout was reportedly below 50%, even as low as 39.35%. Kerry won Cleveland with 83.27% of the vote to 15.88% for Bush. If voter turnout was really 60% of registered voters, as seems likely based upon turnout in other major cities of Ohio, rather than 49.89% as reported, Kerry’s margin of victory in Cleveland has been wrongly reduced by 22,000 votes.

4. The systematic withholding of voting machines from predominantly Democratic wards in Columbus, many of them with high black populations, severely restricted voter turnout in these wards and cost John Kerry 17,000 votes. I have meticulously compared election results with the number of registered voters per voting machine for each precinct in Columbus, and for each ward in Franklin County. In Columbus, the median Bush precinct had a 60.56% turnout, while the median Kerry precinct had only a 50.78% turnout. County wide, the 73 wards with fewer than 300 registered voters per machine had a 62.33% turnout; 58 were in the suburbs, and 54 were won by Bush. The 73 wards with 300 or more registered voters per machine had a 51.99% turnout; 59 were in Columbus, and 58 were won by Kerry. In addition, there were 68 machines not provided to anyone, according to data provided by the Board of Elections.

5. It has been widely reported that in Warren County, the administrative building was locked down on election night and no independent persons were allowed to observe the vote count. Based upon the official Board of Elections reports, there has been a 15.51% increase in voter registration in eight months time, and voter turnout was reportedly above 80% in 55 precincts. Since the 2000 election, voter registration was reportedly up by 79.0%, 38.3%, 32.4%, 31.0%, 29.7%, and 28.4% in six townships that provided 68.75% of Bush’s margin of victory in Warren County. While the county population has increased by 14.75% since the 2000 census, 87 of 157 precincts had shown declines in voter registration at other times since the 2000 election, and yet every single precinct, 157 of 157, showed increases in voter registration since March 2, 2004. In Butler County, there are nine precincts and two entire townships where Kerry received fewer votes than Gore despite a sharp increase in voter turnout; and there are precincts with reported increases in voter registration, since November 7, 2000, of 177.9%, 143.5%, 69.3%, 65.5%, 64.5%, 48.2%, 43.3%, 38.8%, 36.9%, 34.3%, 34.0%, and 33.8%, compared to an increase in population of only 3.12% county wide. In Clermont County, where the population has grown by 4.39% since the 2000 census, voter registration was reportedly up by 85.4% and 67.6% in two precincts, and down by 49.4% in another precinct, all in the same township; there were 23 precincts where turnout was up, but Kerry got fewer votes than Gore. All these data are indications that votes may have been shifted from Kerry to Bush. According to the official results certified by the Ohio Secretary of State, these three counties combined provided Bush with a plurality of 132,685 votes, which is 13,910 votes more than his statewide plurality of 118,775 votes. Given that George Bush carried these counties by 95,575 votes in 2000, the net loss for John Kerry could be as high as 37,000 votes.

6. It is my professional opinion that there is compelling evidence of fraud in Miami County. Early on election night, when 31,620 votes had been counted, and later, when 50,235 votes had been counted, John Kerry had exactly the same percentage, 33.92%, and the percentage for George Bush was almost exactly the same, dropping by 0.03%, from 65.80% to 65.77%. The second set of returns gave Bush a margin of exactly 16,000 votes, giving cause to question the integrity of the central counting device for the optical scanning machines. Compared to 2000, voter turnout increased by 20.86%, while the population increased by only 1.38%. Voter turnout was reported at 98.55% and 94.27% in two precincts in Concord, numbers nearly impossible to achieve. Voter turnout was reported to have increased by 194.58% and 152.78% in two precincts in Troy compared to the 2000 election, and by more than 30.0% in ten other precincts. There are no data for voter registration in 2000, so the ballots cast offer the only meaningful comparison. Comparing the results of the 2004 election to the results of the 2000 election, there is one precinct where the reduction in turnout exactly matched the reduction in votes counted for the Democratic presidential candidate. It is my professional opinion that these numbers are fraudulent, in that the true election results have been altered. Given that Bush officially carried Miami County in 2004 by 16,394 votes, and that Bush carried Miami County in 2000 by 10,453 votes, the net loss to John Kerry could be as high as 6,000 votes.

7. In Toledo, Lucas County, there were 50 precincts with less than 60% reported turnout. All of them were won overwhelmingly by John Kerry, by a margin of better than 5 to 1 in the aggregate. There were 45 precincts with more than 80% reported turnout; 12 were won by Bush, 33 were won by Kerry, and most were competitive. When the precinct numbers are combined into totals for each ward, data not provided by the Board of Elections, 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. It is my professional opinion that the election in Lucas County was rigged, most likely by altering the vote totals in each ward by a percentage chosen for that ward, plus or minus, based upon voting patterns in past elections. If turnout in Toledo had been as high as that reported elsewhere in the county, John Kerry’s plurality would have been 7,000 votes larger.

8. There are still 92,672 uncounted votes in Ohio, exclusive of any uncounted provisional ballots. According to unofficial results provided by the Ohio Secretary of State, there were 5,574,476 ballots cast, and 5,481,804 votes counted, which leaves 92,672 regular ballots (1.66%) still uncounted. The official results, now certified, do not include these ballots, but differ from the unofficial results only in the addition of provisional ballots and some absentee ballots to the tally. In Montgomery and Hamilton counties, these uncounted votes come disproportionately from precincts that voted overwhelmingly for John Kerry. In Montgomery County there are 47 precincts, all of them in Dayton, where the percentage of uncounted ballots is 4% or more. Kerry won all 47 of these precincts, by a margin of 7 to 1 in the aggregate. County wide in Montgomery County, the percentage of uncounted ballots was 1.70%. In Hamilton County there are 26 precincts, 22 of them in Cincinnati, where the percentage of uncounted ballots is 8% or more. Kerry won all 26 of these precincts, by a margin of 10 to 1 in the aggregate. Altogether there are 86 precincts in Cincinnati where the percentage of uncounted ballots is 4% or more. Kerry won 85 of these precincts, by a margin of 5 to 1 in the aggregate. County wide in Hamilton County, the percentage of uncounted ballots was 2.34%. Although I have not yet had time to examine similar data for Cleveland, Columbus, Toledo, Akron, Youngstown, Canton, or elsewhere, it is possible that the same pattern will emerge in these cities as well. If these 92,672 uncounted votes were cast for Kerry by a 5 to 1 margin, this would reduce the statewide margin between the candidates by another 61,781 votes.

9. There are still provisional ballots uncounted in Ohio. On election night the Ohio Secretary of State reported that 5,481,804 ballots had been counted, and 155,428 provisional ballots had been issued. According to the official results, now certified, 5,625,621 votes have now been counted, an increase of 143,817, which represents the number of newly counted ballots. Some of these were absentee ballots. The reported count of provisional ballots was 79,482 for Kerry, and 61,505 for Bush. This would leave 14,441 provisional ballots uncounted.

10. In summary, it is my professional opinion that John Kerry’s margins of victory were wrongly reduced by 22,000 votes in Cleveland, by 17,000 votes in Columbus, and by as many as 7,000 votes in Toledo. It is my further professional opinion that John Kerry’s margins of defeat in Warren, Butler, and Clermont counties were inflated by as many as 37,000 votes in the aggregate, and in Miami County by as many as 6,000 votes. There are still 92,672 uncounted regular ballots that, based upon the analysis set forth above of the election results from Dayton and Cincinnati, may be expected to break for John Kerry by an overwhelming margin. And there are 14,441 uncounted provisional ballots.

11. My research into the topics discussed in this affidavit is continuing, and I reserve the right to modify my conclusions as new information becomes available. TO THIS I SWEAR AND AFFIRM, ___________________________________ Richard Hayes Phillips, Ph.D.


www.electionfraudnews.com

158) In the United States District Court for the Southern District of Ohio, Western Division, Marian A. Spencer, et. al., v. J. Kenneth Blackwell, Case no. C-1-04-738, page 3.
159) James Dao, ''The 2004 Campaign: Ohio, G.O.P. Bid to Contest Registrations is Blocked,''

New York Times: 10/28/2004.
The 2004 Campaign: Ohio GOP Bid to Contest Registrations is Blocked

James Dao

The New York Times, October 28, 2004. COLUMBUS, Ohio, Oct. 27 - A federal judge on Wednesday blocked six boards of elections in Ohio from proceeding with hearings into Republican-initiated efforts to knock tens of thousands of registered voters off the voting rolls.

The temporary restraining order issued by Judge Susan J. Dlott of Federal District Court in Cincinnati made it likely that few, and perhaps none, of the challenge hearings would proceed before Election Day, state officials said.

''This is an important victory for all Ohio voters because it means this cynical and desperate effort by the Republican Party to prevent tens of thousands of legal registered voters from casting their votes has backfired,'' said David Sullivan, a lawyer for the Ohio Democratic Party.

The hearings had been scheduled in 65 of Ohio's 88 counties to review challenges that Republicans brought last week against what they said were 35,000 questionable voter registrations, most of them from urban, heavily Democratic neighborhoods.
www.electionfraudnews.com

161) Dan Horn, Howard Wilkinson, and Cindi Andrews, ''Supreme Court Justice Allows Challengers,'' Cincinnati Enquirer.

Cincinnati Enquirer: Enquirer News Update - Updated 6:40 p.m.
Supreme Court justice allows challengers

By Dan Horn, Howard Wilkinson and Cindi Andrews
Enquirer staff writers

http://www.enquirer.com/midday/11/11032004_News_mday_challengers03.html

A U.S. Supreme Court justice denied a last-ditch effort to prevent Republicans and Democrats from sending challengers into Ohio polling places.

At about 5 a.m. today, Justice John Paul Stevens denied two applications seeking to overturn a ruling issued a few hours earlier by a federal appeals court that cleared the way for challengers to work the polls.

"The allegations of abuse made by the plaintiffs are undoubtedly serious - the threat of voter intimidation is not new to our electoral system - but on the record before me it is impossible to determine with any certainty the ultimate validity of the plaintiff's claims," Stevens wrote.

"Moreover, I have faith that the elected officials and numerous election volunteers on the ground will carry out their responsibilities in a way that will enable qualified voters to cast their ballots."
Earlier, a panel of the U.S. 6th Circuit Court of Appeals voted 2-1 to allow the party-affiliated challengers in polling places today, overturning two lower court rulings in Cincinnati and Akron.
www.electionfraudnews.com

173) Tokaji, Page 1221.

174) Jim Konkoly, ''Volunteers Complete Local Recount,'' Coshocton Tribune, December 18, 2004.
175) New York Times, ''Voting Problems in Ohio Spur Call for Overhaul,'' James Dao, Ford Fessenden, December 24, 2004. Voting Problems in Ohio Spur Call for Overhaul

New York Times. 12/24/2004. 'Voting Problems in Ohio Spur Call for Overhaul

James Dao, Ford Fessenden,

By JAMES DAO, FORD FESSENDEN
and TOM ZELLER Jr.

Published: December 24, 2004

COLUMBUS, Ohio, Dec. 22 - William Shambora, 53, is the kind of diligent voter who once assumed that his ballot always counted. He got a rude awakening this year.
Mr. Shambora, an economics professor at Ohio University, moved during the summer but failed to notify the Athens County Board of Elections until the day before the presidential election. An official told him to use a provisional ballot.

But under Ohio law, provisional ballots are valid only when cast from a voter's correct precinct. Mr. Shambora was given a ballot for the wrong precinct, a fact he did not learn until after the election. Two weeks later, the board discarded his vote, adding him to a list of more than 300 provisional ballots that were rejected in that heavily Democratic county.


"It seems like such a confused system," said Mr. Shambora, a John Kerry supporter who blames himself for the mistake. "Maybe if enough people's votes had counted, the election might have turned out differently."


From seven-hour lines that drove voters away to malfunctioning machines to poorly trained poll workers who directed people to the wrong polling places to uneven policies about the use of provisional ballots, Ohio has become this year's example for every ailment in the United States' electoral process.


www.electionfraudnews.com

177) Lisa A. Abraham, ''Punch-Card Voting is Illegal,'' Akron Beacon Journal, April 22, 2006. Posted on Sat, Apr. 22, 2006

AkronBeacon: 04/22/2006.Punch-card voting is illegal
Professor: Appellate ruling in Ohio is first in U.S. to say a state's equipment violates equal protection

By Lisa A. Abraham

With touch-screen and optical-scan voting machines poised to be put to use across Ohio on May 2 -- many for the first time -- a court ruling declaring punch-card voting illegal may not seem like much of a victory.

But the American Civil Liberties Union of Ohio was reveling in its success Friday, when a federal appeals court reversed a decision by U.S. District Judge David Dowd in Akron on a case that challenged the legality of punch-card voting.

The 2002 case, which was decided in December 2004, was filed against Ohio Secretary of State J. Kenneth Blackwell by the ACLU on behalf of voters in Summit, Hamilton and Montgomery counties.
The suit claimed the use of punch-card voting in some Ohio counties but not in others violated voters' rights to equal protection under the law. The suit also claimed the system violated voters' rights to have their votes counted, and violated the Voting Rights Act of 1965 by having a larger negative impact onAfrican-American voters.

Ohio State University law professor Dan Tokaji, one of the lawyers who argued the case for the ACLU, said he was pleased with the decision, despite the belief that requirement of the Help America Vote Act to eliminate punch-card voting would make the case moot.
www.electionfraudnews.com

VIII. Rural Counties

Despite the well-documented effort that prevented hundreds of thousands of voters in urban and minority precincts from casting ballots, the worst theft in Ohio may have quietly taken place in rural counties. An examination of election data suggests widespread fraud -- and even good old-fashioned stuffing of ballot boxes -- in twelve sparsely populated counties scattered across southern and western Ohio: Auglaize, Brown, Butler, Clermont, Darke, Highland, Mercer, Miami, Putnam, Shelby, Van Wert and Warren. (See The Twelve Suspect Counties) One key indicator of fraud is to look at counties where the presidential vote departs radically from other races on the ballot. By this measure, John Kerry's numbers were suspiciously low in each of the twelve counties -- and George Bush's were unusually high.

www.electionfraudnews.com

189) ''Preserving Democracy,'' pages 58-59.
190) The Associated Press, ''News Groups Sue Ohio Elections Chief Over Poll Access,'' Associated Press, November 2, 2004.
and
Mark Crispin Miller, ''None Dare Call It Stolen,'' Harper's, August 2005.

None Dare Call It Stolen
Posted on Wednesday, September 7, 2005. What actually happened in Ohio in 2004. An excerpt from this report appeared in August 2005. The complete text appears below. Originally from August 2005. By Mark Crispin Miller.

http://www.harpers.org/ExcerptNoneDare.html

Whichever candidate you voted for (or think you voted for), or even if you did not vote (or could not vote), you must admit that last year’s presidential race was—if nothing else—pretty interesting. True, the press has dropped the subject, and the Democrats, with very few exceptions, have “moved on.” Yet this contest may have been the most unusual in U.S. history; it was certainly among those with the strangest outcomes. You may remember being surprised yourself. The infamously factious Democrats were fiercely unified—Ralph Nader garnered only about 0.38 percent of the national vote—while the Republicans were split, with a vocal anti-Bush front that included anti-Clinton warrior Bob Barr of Georgia; Ike’s son John Eisenhower; Ronald Reagan’s chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, William J. Crowe Jr.; former Air Force Chief of Staff and onetime “Veteran for Bush” General Merrill “Tony” McPeak; founding neocon Francis Fukuyama; Doug Bandow of the Cato Institute, and various large alliances of military officers, diplomats, and business professors. The American Conservative, co-founded by Pat Buchanan, endorsed five candidates for president, including both Bush and Kerry, while the Financial Times and The Economist came out for Kerry alone. At least fifty-nine daily newspapers that backed Bush in the previous election endorsed Kerry (or no one) in this election. The national turnout in 2004 was the highest since 1968, when another unpopular war had swept the ruling party from the White House. <1> Yet this ever-less-beloved president, this president who had united liberals and conservatives and nearly all the world against himself—this president somehow bested his opponent by 3,000,176 votes.

How did he do it? To that most important question the commentariat, briskly prompted by Republicans, supplied an answer. Americans of faith—a silent majority heretofore unmoved by any other politician—had poured forth by the millions to vote “Yes!” for Jesus’ buddy in the White House. Bush’s 51 percent, according to this thesis, were roused primarily by “family values.” Tony Perkins, president of the Family Research Council, called gay marriage “the hood ornament on the family values wagon that carried the president to a second term.” The pundits eagerly pronounced their amens—“Moral values,” Tucker Carlson said on CNN, “drove President Bush and other Republican candidates to victory this week”—although it is not clear why. The primary evidence of our Great Awakening was a post-election poll by the Pew Research Center in which 27 percent of the respondents, when asked which issue “mattered most” to them in the election, selected something called “moral values.” This slight plurality of impulse becomes still less impressive when we note that, as the pollsters went to great pains to make clear, “the relative importance of moral values depends greatly on how the question is framed.” In fact, when voters were asked to “name in their own words the most important factor in their vote,” only 14 percent managed to come up with “moral values.” Strangely, this detail went little mentioned in the post-electoral commentary.<2>

The press has had little to say about most of the strange details of the election—except, that is, to ridicule all efforts to discuss them. This animus appeared soon after November 2, in a spate of caustic articles dismissing any critical discussion of the outcome as crazed speculation: “Election paranoia surfaces: Conspiracy theorists call results rigged,” chuckled the Baltimore Sun on November 5. “Internet Buzz on Vote Fraud Is Dismissed,” proclaimed the Boston Globe on November 10. “Latest Conspiracy Theory—Kerry Won—Hits the Ether,” the Washington Post chortled on November 11. The New York Times weighed in with “Vote Fraud Theories, Spread by Blogs, Are Quickly Buried”—making mock not only of the “post-election theorizing” but of cyberspace itself, the fons et origo of all such loony tunes, according to the Times.

Such was the news that most Americans received. Although the tone was scientific, “realistic,” skeptical, and “middle-of-the-road,” the explanations offered by the press were weak and immaterial. It was as if they were reporting from inside a forest fire without acknowledging the fire, except to keep insisting that there was no fire.<3> Since Kerry has conceded, they argued, and since “no smoking gun” had come to light, there was no story to report. This is an oddly passive argument. Even so, the evidence that something went extremely wrong last fall is copious, and not hard to find. Much of it was noted at the time, albeit by local papers and haphazardly. Concerning the decisive contest in Ohio, the evidence is lucidly compiled in a single congressional report, which, for the last half-year, has been available to anyone inclined to read it. It is a veritable arsenal of “smoking guns”—and yet its findings may be less extraordinary than the fact that no one in this country seems to care about them
www.electionfraudnews.com

191) Incidents in Warren County were catalogued in a series of articles by the Cincinnati Enquirer:
Erica Solvig, ''No Changes in Final Warren Co. Vote Count; E-mails Released Monday Show Lockdown Pre-planned,'' Cincinnati Enquirer, November 16, 2004.
http://news.enquirer.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20041116/NEWS01/411160355/1056

CincinnatiEnquirer. 11/16/2004.
No changes in final Warren Co. vote count

BY ERICA SOLVIG | ENQUIRER STAFF WRITER

LEBANON - Warren County finished its vote count Monday without any results changing.
An additional 2,200 votes were added to the 93,321 that were tallied on Election Day, putting voter turnout at 76.3 percent. Most of the new votes were from provisional ballots, but about 600 of them were late-arriving absentee ballots, according to elections board Director Susan Johnson.

The final tally showed that President Bush carried the Republican-dominated county with 72.1 percent of the vote. Some close results - such as the Kings Schools levy that passed with 52 percent in favor - were also unchanged by Monday's count.

Warren County has drawn national attention for its election night problems, from three-hour-plus lines at the polls to locking down the administration building during the vote count because of terrorism concerns.

The Ohio Secretary of State's Office wasn't aware of another Ohio county taking that measure. Federal and local homeland security officials say they didn't know of an increased threat in Warren County..


www.electionfraudnews.com

Erica Solvig, ''Warren's Vote Tally Walled Off; Alone in Ohio, Officials Cited Homeland Security,'' Cincinnati Enquirer, November 5, 2004
192) Erica Solvig, ''Warren's Vote Tally Walled Off; Alone in Ohio, Officials Cited Homeland Security,'' Cincinnati Enquirer, November 5, 2004.
http://www.enquirer.com/editions/2004/11/05/loc_warrenvote05.html

Cincinnati Enquirer: 11/05/2004
Warren's vote tally walled off
Alone in Ohio, officials cited homeland security

By Erica Solvig
Enquirer staff writer
LEBANON - Citing concerns about potential terrorism, Warren County officials locked down the county administration building on election night and blocked anyone from observing the vote count as the nation awaited Ohio's returns.

County officials say they took the action Tuesday night for homeland security, although state elections officials said they didn't know of any other Ohio county that closed off its elections board. Media organizations protested, saying it violated the law and the public's rights. The Warren results, delayed for hours because of long lines that extended voting past the scheduled close of polls, were part of the last tallies that helped clinch President Bush's re-election.

"The media should have been permitted into the area where there was counting," Enquirer attorney Jack Greiner said. "This is a process that should be done in complete transparency and it wasn't."
Warren County Emergency Services Director Frank Young said he had recommended increased security based on information received from the U.S. Department of Homeland Security and the Federal Bureau of Investigation in recent weeks.

Erica Solvig and Dan Horn, ''Warren Co. Defends Lockdown Decision; FBI denies warning officials of any special threat,'' Cincinnati Enquirer, November 10, 2004.

Erica Solvig, ''Warren Co. Recount Goes Public; After Election Night lockdown, security eases up,'' Cincinnati Enquirer, December 15, 2004.
www.electionfraudnews.com

IX. Rigging the Recount

After Kerry conceded the election, the Green and Libertarian parties launched a recount of all eighty-eight counties in Ohio. Under state law, county boards of election were required to randomly select three percent of their precincts and recount the ballots both by hand and by machine. If the two totals reconciled exactly, a costly hand recount of the remaining votes could be avoided; machines could be used to tally the rest.


www.electionfraudnews.com

196) Joan Mazzolini, ''Workers Accused of Fudging '04 Recount; Prosecutor Says Cuyahoga Skirted Rules,'' The Plain Dealer, April 6, 2006.
http://www.cleveland.com/election/plaindealer/index.ssf?/base/cuyahoga/1144312870224340.xml&coll=2

Plain Dealer Reporter: 04/06/2006.:Workers accused of fudging ’04 recount
Prosecutor says Cuyahoga skirted rules

Thursday, April 06, 2006
Joan Mazzolini

After the 2004 presidential election, Cuyahoga County election workers secretly skirted rules designed to make sure all votes were counted correctly, a special prosecutor charges.

While there is no evidence of vote fraud, the prosecutor said their efforts were aimed at avoiding an expensive - and very public - hand recount of all votes cast. Three top county elections officials have been indicted, and Erie County Prosecutor Kevin Baxter says more indictments are possible.

Michael Vu, executive director of the Cuyahoga County elections board, said workers followed procedures that had been in place for 23 years. He said board employees had no objection to doing an exhaustive hand count if needed, meaning they had no motive to break the law.

Internet bloggers have cried foul since 2004 about election results in Ohio, one of the key states in deciding the election. They have been tracking Baxter's investigation with online posts about the indictments.

www.electionfraudnews.com

198) Affidavit, December 13, 2004, Sherole Eaton, Re: General Election 2004, Hocking County.

Triad affidavit of Sherole Eaton.

PDF: http://www.truthout.org/mm_01/5.121004.Robersondep.pdf

:yourock:
:patriot:
:woohoo:

199) Jon Craig, '' '04 Election in Hocking County; Worker Who Questioned Recount is Asked to Quit,'' Columbus Dispatch (Ohio), June 1st, 2005.

http://www.dispatch.com/news-story.php?story=dispatch/2005/06/01/20050601-B3-03.html&chck=t

Columbus Dispatch: 06/01/2006
'04 Election in Hocking County; Worker Who Questioned Recount is Asked to Quit,'

Jon Craig

A Democratic elections official from Hocking County who complained that a computer used to recount votes after the Nov. 2 election might have been tampered with has been asked to resign by June 30 or be fired.
A congressional committee took testimony in December from Deputy Director Sherole Eaton, of Logan, about irregularities during a recount of presidential election votes. Eaton, 65, was given her notice May 19 after a 4-0 vote of the Hocking County Board of Elections.

Eaton could not be reached for comment yesterday, but E. Dennis Muchnicki, a Dublin attorney whom Eaton is consulting, said, "I advised her there was a possible (legal) option. She doesn’t know what her (employment) status is."

In an affidavit, Eaton said a Triad Governmental Systems technician might have tampered with a computerized vote tabulator and told her how to create a "cheat sheet" for county employees conducting hand recounts.

www.electionfraudnews.com

205) Count Every Vote Act of 2005

http://www.pfaw.org/pfaw/dfiles/file_493.pdf

www.electionfraudnews.com

206) Dena Bunis, ''Senate Limits Immigration Debate,'' The Orange County Register, May 24, 2006.
http://www.ocregister.com/ocregister/homepage/abox/article_1153484.php

Orange County Register: 05/24/2006.
Wednesday, May 24, 2006
Senate limits immigration debate

Move means senators have 30 more hours to debate before a final vote on the comprehensive immigration bill. That puts the vote at sometime Thursday.
By DENA BUNIS
The Orange County Register

WASHINGTON – The Senate voted overwhelmingly this morning to end debate on the bill to overhaul the nation's immigration system, setting the stage for a final vote on the legislation by Thursday afternoon.

The vote to end debate on the comprehensive bill was 73-25. Sixty votes are required to cut off debate. Such a move triggers 30 more hours of debate before a vote on final passage. This means the Senate is set to vote on the overall bill sometime Thursday. California's two Democratic senators – Dianne Feinstein and Barbara Boxer – voted yes.

Such votes to end debate – called cloture votes – are generally indications of how many votes a piece of legislation is likely to get. In this case, a number of lawmakers who are opposed to the specifics and breadth of the comprehensive bill that has been debated on the floor for the past two weeks nonetheless voted to end the debate.

But it is likely that at least the 25 senators who voted to continue debating will oppose final passage.
www.electionfraudnews.com

207)Tokaji's blog, Election Law at Moritz, ''McConnell's Voter ID Amendment,'' May 22, 2006.

Equal Vote Blog: 05/22/2006
McConnell's Voter ID Amendment

http://moritzlaw.osu.edu/blogs/tokaji/2006/05/mcconnells-voter-id-amendment.html

Senator Mitch McConnell (R-KY) has proposed an amendment (SA 4021) to the immigration bill, currently being considered by the U.S. Senate. McConnell's proposal would amend the Help America Vote Act of 2002 ("HAVA") to require that all voters show photo identification in order to vote. Specifically, anyone seeking to vote at the polls in any federal election would have to show a current and valid government-issued photo ID. Citizens lacking the requisite ID wouldn't even be allowed to cast a provisional ballot, as is the case under HAVA. No provision is made for any outreach to those lacking photo ID.

Ironically, the bill applies only to those who vote at the polling place, not to those casting mail-in absentee ballots would be exempt. That's ironic because it's with mail-in ballots, not in-person voting, that the greatest opportunity for and evidence of fraud exists. This is one of the big facts that the Georgia federal district court pointed out in enjoining that state's 2005 photo ID law in Common Cause/Georgia v. Billups on constitutional grounds.
www.electionfraudnews.com

208) United States District Court Northern District of Georgia, Rome Division

http://moritzlaw.osu.edu/blogs/tokaji/Order Granting Preliminary Injunction email.pdf’

www.electionfraudnews.com

VII. Faulty Machines

Voters who managed to make it past the array of hurdles erected by Republican officials found themselves confronted by voting machines that didn't work. Only 800,000 out of the 5.6 million votes in Ohio were cast on electronic voting machines, but they were plagued with errors.(164) In heavily Democratic areas around Youngstown, where nearly 100 voters reported entering ''Kerry'' on the touch screen and watching ''Bush'' light up, at least twenty machines had to be recalibrated in the middle of the voting process for chronically flipping Kerry votes to Bush.(165) (Similar ''vote hopping'' from Kerry to Bush was reported by voters and election officials in other states.)(166) Elsewhere, voters complained in sworn affidavits that they touched Kerry's name on the screen and it lit up, but that the light had gone out by the time they finished their ballot; the Kerry vote faded away.(167) In the state's most notorious incident, an electronic machine at a fundamentalist church in the town of Gahanna recorded a total of 4,258 votes for Bush and 260 votes for Kerry.(168) In that precinct, however, there were only 800 registered voters, of whom 638 showed up.(169) (The error, which was later blamed on a glitchy memory card, was corrected before the certified vote count.)

www.electionfraudnews.com

165) ''Errors Plague Voting Process in Ohio, Pa.'' The Vindicator, November 3, 2004, Vindicator Staff Report

http://www.vindy.com/basic/news/281829446390855.php

Mercer County Vindy.Com: 11/03/04.
Mercer County used paper ballots in some precincts.
VINDICATOR STAFF REPORT
So much for advanced computer voting technology.

Mahoning and Mercer — the only counties in the Mahoning and Shenango valleys to use electronic voting machines and among only a handful in Ohio and Pennsylvania with the technology — encountered a series of problems that delayed results for hours Tuesday. The Mahoning County Board of Elections will begin an investigation immediately to find out the sources of the problems, said Mark Munroe, the agency's chairman.

"We've never seen anything like this before," he said.

Of the 16 precincts, 11 were in Youngstown, two in Boardman, one in Jackson ownship, one in Craig Beach, and one in Washingtonville.

Some of the machines malfunctioned, others had problems with the personal electronic ballot cartridge placed into the machines before each vote to count the ballots, and other problems were caused by human error, Munroe said.

That led to some races showing votes of negative 25 million, Munroe said.

www.electionfraudnews.com

166) Voters Unite catalogues news reports from around the country that give examples of dysfunctional voting machines, among other election stories.

http://www.votersunite.org/electionproblems.asp?sort=date&selectstate=ALL&selectproblemtype=Machine+malfunction
Date Problem Type State

Description

11/8/2005 Machine malfunction CA Riverside County. Voters said the machine would not allow them to vote for only one candidate. They tried on three machines and finally used paper ballots. One of the machines was taken out of service. Story Archive

11/8/2005 Machine malfunction CA Alameda County. Touch screen voting machines switched votes on statewide propositions. Story Archive

11/8/2005 Machine malfunction CA Contra Costa County. "A series of glitches in new voting machines and ballot-counting machines further postponed results from Contra Costa County, said county elections clerk Stephen Weir." Story 11/8/2005 Machine malfunction CA Monterey County. Ballot- counting machines "inexplicably overcounted the absentee ballots." Story

11/8/2005 Machine malfunction GA Fulton County. Diebold touch screen register votes incorrectly on the screen, require recalibration in at least five polling locations. Story Archive

11/8/2005 Machine malfunction GA Fulton County. Three machines at one polling place switched voters votes. They were taken out of service. "One candidate tells Channel 2, the discrepancy may force a race into an unnecessary run-off." Story Archive

11/8/2005 Machine malfunction OH Stark County. Poll workers ran into problems setting up the Diebold voting machines. Some panicked when they attempted to assemble the machines and the machines didn't work properly. 42 workers ran to polling stations to help. Operations weren't fully running until mid-morning. Story Archive

11/8/2005 Machine malfunction OH Montgomery County. Diebold touch screens show "low paper error" in 30 to 40 precincts (explained as a result of jostling during transport). Some poll workers had trouble inserting memory cards into the machines, and in two precincts machines were taken out of service in the morning because of malfunctions. Story Archive


11/8/2005 Machine malfunction OH Wood County. New Diebold touch screen machines weren't up an running at many precincts when the polls opened. "But all precincts had at least one machine up by 6:40 a.m. and all machines in the majority of the county were available for voters by about 7:30 a.m." Story

11/8/2005 Machine malfunction OH Butler County. "In Butler County, the debut of touch-screen voting machines -- and some technical foul-ups associated with them -- caused at least six or seven polling places to open up to a half hour late on Tuesday, county elections officials said." Phone lines were jammed with requests for technical assistance. Story

www.electionfraudnews.com

175)New York Times, ''Voting Problems in Ohio Spur Call for Overhaul,'' James Dao, Ford Fessenden, December 24, 2004. Voting Problems in Ohio Spur Call for Overhaul

New York Times. 12/24/2004. 'Voting Problems in Ohio Spur Call for Overhaul

James Dao, Ford Fessenden,
By JAMES DAO, FORD FESSENDEN
and TOM ZELLER Jr.
Published: December 24, 2004

COLUMBUS, Ohio, Dec. 22 - William Shambora, 53, is the kind of diligent voter who once assumed that his ballot always counted. He got a rude awakening this year.

Mr. Shambora, an economics professor at Ohio University, moved during the summer but failed to notify the Athens County Board of Elections until the day before the presidential election. An official told him to use a provisional ballot.

But under Ohio law, provisional ballots are valid only when cast from a voter's correct precinct. Mr. Shambora was given a ballot for the wrong precinct, a fact he did not learn until after the election. Two weeks later, the board discarded his vote, adding him to a list of more than 300 provisional ballots that were rejected in that heavily Democratic county.

"It seems like such a confused system," said Mr. Shambora, a John Kerry supporter who blames himself for the mistake. "Maybe if enough people's votes had counted, the election might have turned out differently."

From seven-hour lines that drove voters away to malfunctioning machines to poorly trained poll workers who directed people to the wrong polling places to uneven policies about the use of provisional ballots, Ohio has become this year's example for every ailment in the United States' electoral process.

www.electionfraudnews.com

177) Lisa A. Abraham, ''Punch-Card Voting is Illegal,'' Akron Beacon Journal, April 22, 2006. Posted on Sat, Apr. 22, 2006

AkronBeacon: 04/22/2006.Punch-card voting is illegal Professor: Appellate ruling in Ohio is first in U.S. to say a state's equipment violates equal protection

By Lisa A. Abraham

With touch-screen and optical-scan voting machines poised to be put to use across Ohio on May 2 -- many for the first time -- a court ruling declaring punch-card voting illegal may not seem like much of a victory.

But the American Civil Liberties Union of Ohio was reveling in its success Friday, when a federal appeals court reversed a decision by U.S. District Judge David Dowd in Akron on a case that challenged the legality of punch-card voting.

The 2002 case, which was decided in December 2004, was filed against Ohio Secretary of State J. Kenneth Blackwell by the ACLU on behalf of voters in Summit, Hamilton and Montgomery counties.
The suit claimed the use of punch-card voting in some Ohio counties but not in others violated voters' rights to equal protection under the law. The suit also claimed the system violated voters' rights to have their votes counted, and violated the Voting Rights Act of 1965 by having a larger negative impact onAfrican-American voters.

Ohio State University law professor Dan Tokaji, one of the lawyers who argued the case for the ACLU, said he was pleased with the decision, despite the belief that requirement of the Help America Vote Act to eliminate punch-card voting would make the case moot.
www.electionfraudnews.com

It hurts SO BAD!!!

we've got even more...dissemination.

You signed on here the second I finished the last message. Nice timing.

Can you believe my space bar is on the fritz! :argh:

Thank you, Autorank!

Check your PM :)

But just keep telling yourself that if you let it keep you down, they keep on winning.

We can't have that now, can we! Cheer-up. This is hitting the grapevines, and local rumor mills more then you may think.

Not everyone is online, and some are a tad intimidated. 9 out of 10 I bang into agree on a few things and that is the anger they feel knowing they've been duped badly, and lied to. Many feel pain over the Gore/Kerry loss and feel saddened they were taken in by the media. Trust me on that one.

Why do you think Faux News ratings have been in the tanker.

Keep up that fantastic, great work. It's paying off where I sit.

for the evening crowd. Hope this stays up wards on the k&n mode. Come on folks. Let's recommend for the Greatest Page.

His father would be so proud...

:kick:

...the KuroKurse is broken...another thread lives past your arrival...3 in a row now. You are too kind sir.

:hi: Again I must say, this is a perfectly bee-you-tee-full thread!

Absolutely amazing work. It looks like you put in an all-nighter for this one thread!

Thank you. I'm not forgetting to bookmark this one.:applause:

clarify that Kerry's campaign did NOT help the Libertarians and Greens pay for the Ohio "recount":



Heroic job, autorank! :patriot: :applause:

:kick:

I'm not near close to finished but I wanted to K&R...

don't know how you do it! K&R

I'm still in a "corporate media burka" ...;)

BTW, did you make them cry?

bushies would like to inflict on you to shut you up!

but in my repose, it's not all that off base. I'm just not one to get tied down;)

Belongs to the ages, tied up or not ;) Progressives are better-looking than bushies because they don't have to live under rocks.

(This is another kick to this amazing thread)

Wow, one of my favorites, whether or not that's it.

"Baby, you're the Greatest."

:kick:

My fingers hurt and my space bar is busted...small price to pay to see Jackie!!!

:hi:

Ohio Recount Fixed - Workers accused of fudging recount

Prosecutor says Cuyahoga skirted rules
Thursday, April 06, 2006

Joan Mazzolini
Plain Dealer Reporter

After the 2004 presidential election, Cuyahoga County election workers secretly skirted rules designed to make sure all votes were counted correctly, a special prosecutor charges.

While there is no evidence of vote fraud, the prosecutor said their efforts were aimed at avoiding an expensive - and very public - hand recount of all votes cast. Three top county elections officials have been indicted, and Erie County Prosecutor Kevin Baxter says more indictments are possible.

Michael Vu, executive director of the Cuyahoga County elections board, said workers followed procedures that had been in place for 23 years. He said board employees had no objection to doing an exhaustive hand count if needed, meaning they had no motive to break the law. (Continue reading story at Link

Go figure:shrug:

Jack Abramoff's former personal assistant, Susan Ralston!

Wow, look at all the phones and computers!

They must be following the returns from those machines very closely.

Uh...they are just *following* the returns, right?

Right?

the research forum, it's there for good. I'll correct the typo's and it will be an easy reference.

Thanks...you didn't see my "Homage to David Lynch" post did you? I thought that one was almost as
good;)