[Mb-civic] Hearings on Ohio Voting Put 2004 Election in Doubt

[Michael Butler]

Also see below:     
68 Voting Machines Were Still in Warehouse as Voters Waited in Long
Lines    €

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    Hearings on Ohio Voting Put 2004 Election in Doubt
    By Bob Fitrakis & Harvey Wasserman
    FreePress.org

     Thursday 18 November 2004

     Highly-charged, jam-packed hearings held here in Columbus have cast
serious doubt on the true outcome of the presidential election.

     On Saturday, November 13, the Ohio Election Protection Coalition¹s
public hearings in Columbus solicited extensive sworn first-person testimony
from 32 of Ohio voters, precinct judges, poll workers, legal observers,
party challengers. An additional 66 people provided written affidavits of
election irregularities. The unavoidable conclusion is that this year's
election in Ohio was deeply flawed, that thousands of Ohioans were denied
their right to vote, and that the ultimate vote count is very much in doubt.

     Most importantly, the testimony has revealed a widespread and concerted
effort on the part of Republican Secretary of State Kenneth Blackwell to
deny primarily African-American and young voters the right to cast their
ballots within a reasonable time. By depriving precincts of adequate numbers
of functioning voting machines, Blackwell created waits of three to eleven
hours, driving tens of thousands of likely Democratic voters away from the
polls and very likely affecting the outcome of the Ohio vote count, which in
turn decided the national election.

     On November 17, Blackwell wrote an op-ed piece for Rev. Sun Myung
Moon's Washington Times, stating: "Every eligible voter who wanted to vote
had the opportunity to vote. There was no widespread fraud, and there was no
disenfranchisement. A half-million more Ohioans voted than ever before with
fewer errors than four years ago, a sure sign on success by any measure,"
Blackwell wrote. Moon's extreme right wing Unification Church has
long-standing ties to the Bush Family and the Central Intelligence Agency.

     Additional testimony also called into question the validity of the
actual vote counts. There are thus serious doubts that the final official
tally in Ohio, due December 1 to Blackwell¹s office, will have any validity.
Blackwell will certify the vote count on December 3.

     While Blackwell supervised the Ohio vote he also served as co-chair of
the Ohio Bush-Cheney re-election campaign, a clear conflict of interest that
casts further doubt on how the Ohio election and vote counts have been
conducted.

     At the Columbus hearings, witness after witness under oath gave
testimony to an election riddled with discrimination and disarray. Among
them:

     Werner Lange, a pastor from Youngstown, Ohio, who said in part:
 "In precincts 1 A and 5 G, voting as Hillman Elementary School, which is a
predominantly African American community, there were woefully insufficient
number of voting machines in three precincts. I was told that the standard
was to have one voting machine per 100 registered voters. Precinct A had 750
registered voters. Precinct G had 690. There should have been 14 voting
machines at this site. There were only 6, three per precinct, less than 50
percent of the standard. This caused an enormous bottleneck among voters who
had to wait a very, very long time to vote, many of them giving up in
frustration and leaving. . . . I estimate, by the way, that an estimated
loss of over 8,000 votes from the African American community in the City of
Youngstown alone, with its 84 precincts, were lost due to insufficient
voting machines, and that would translate to some 7,000 votes lost for John
Kerry for President in Youngstown alone. . . ."

 "Just yesterday I went to the Trumbull Board of Elections in northeast
Ohio, I wanted to review their precinct logs so I could continue my
investigation. This was denied. I was told by the Board of Elections
official that I could not see them until after the official vote was given."

    Marion Brown, Columbus:
 "I am here on behalf of a friend. My friend came to my home very upset
while she was away standing four hours in the voting, her husband passed
away. The funeral was on yesterday, November 13th, at 2:00. Perhaps had she
not stood so long in the line, she may have been able to save her husband."

    Victoria Parks:
 "In Pickaway County, oh, my goodness, in Pickaway County, I entered there,
I was shown a table, 53 poll books were plunked down in front of my. I
noticed there were no signature on file in any of the poll books, in any of
the poll books, and furthermore, a minute later the director of the Board of
Elections of Pickaway County came into the room and snatched the books away
from me and said you cannot look at these books. I said are you aware that
what you are doing is against the law? She said I have been on the phone
with the Secretary of State and he has instructed me to take these books
away and you cannot see them. I paraphrase very slightly here. She took them
away. I was persona non grata. I did not want to risk arrest, and I left. .
. . There were no signatures, and furthermore, the writing in the book
seemed to have been written in the same hand, because that is a
requirement."

    Boyd Mitchell, Columbus:
 "What I saw was voter intimidation in the form of city employees that were
sent in to stop illegal parking. Now, in Driving Park Rec Center there are
less than 50 legal parking spots, and there were literally hundreds and
hundreds of voters there, and I estimated at least 70 percent of the people
were illegally parked in the grass around the perimeter of the Driving Park
Rec Center, and two city employees drove up in a city truck and said that
they had been sent there to stop illegal parking, and they went so far as to
harass at least a couple of voters that I saw, and when they were talking to
us, they were kind. But when they didn't realize we were overhearing them
talking to voters, they were trying to keep people from parking where they
were parking. They went so far as to set up some cones, trying to block
people from getting into a grassy area..."

 "I calculated that I maybe saw about 20 percent of the people that left
Driving Park D and C, I personally saw and talked to about 20 percent of
them as they left the poll between 12:30 and 8 p.m. And I saw 15 people who
left because the line was too long. The lines inside were anywhere from 2
1/2 to 5 hours. Most everybody said 4 hours, and I saw at least 15 people
who did not vote, and I heard a gentleman who was earlier making some
mathematical calculations, well, if this is going on across town, and, you
know, in a precinct where it was going so heavily for Kerry, and me only
seeing 20 percent of the people coming out, I saw 15. We could just do the
math and extrapolate that out into a huge number of people who might have
voted had they had a chance."

    Joe Popich (entered into the record copies of the Perry County Board of
Election poll book):
 "There are a bunch of irregularities in this log book, but the most blatant
irregularity would be the fact that there are 360 signatures in this book.
There are 33 people who voted absentee ballot at this precinct, for a total
of 393 votes that should be attributed to that precinct. However, the Board
of Elections is attributing 96 more votes to that precinct than what this
log book reflects."

    Derek Winsor, Columbus:
 "Out of the six total voting machines that were at 14 C, three of them
showed some type of malfunction that at one point or another during the
three our so hours that we were waiting, and between my wife and me, we had
asked poll workers individually if they could explain what was going on and
what kind of reassurances they could give us that, for one machine in
particular that the votes had already been posted on, that machine would be
counted, and the response was just, oh, they will be counted. And how can
you be sure of that? What storage mechanism do they use to ensure that the
votes are stored, and, again, the response was just, well, they just are.
And that was a bit of a concern here."

    Carol Shelton, presiding judge, precinct 25 B at the Linden Branch of
the Columbus Metropolitan Library:
 "The precinct is 95 to 99 percent black. . . . There were 1,500 persons on
the precinct rolls. We received three machines. In my own precinct in
Clintonville, 19E, we always received three machines for 700 to 730 voters.
Voter turnout in my own precinct has reached as high as 70 percent while I
worked there. I interviewed many voters in 25 B and asked how many machines
they had had in the past. Everyone who had a recollection said five or six.
I called to get more machines and ended up being connected with Matt
Damschroder, the Director of the Board of Elections. After a real hassle --
and someone here has it on videotape, he sent me a fourth machine which did
not dent the length of the line. Fewer than 700 voted, although the turnout
at the beginning of the day would cause anyone to predict a turnout of over
80 percent. This was a clear case of voter suppression by making voting an
impossibility for anyone who had to go to work or anyone who was stuck at
home caring for children or the elderly while another family member voted."

    Allesondra Hernandez, Toledo:
 "What I witnessed when I had gotten there about 9 A.M. was a young African
American woman who had come out nearly in tears. She was a new voter, very
first registered, very excited to vote, and she had said that she had been
bounced around to three different polling places, and this one had just
turned her down again. People were there to help her out, and I was
concerned. I started asking around to everyone else, and they had informed
me earlier that day that she was not the only one, but there were at least
three others who had been bounced around. Also earlier that day the polls
had opened an hour late, did not open until about 7:30 A.M. The polling
machines were locked in the principal's office. Hundreds of people were
turned away, were forced to leave the line because they needed to be at
school, they needed to be at work, or they needed to take their children to
school. The people there who were assisting did the best they could to take
down numbers and take down names, but I am assuming that a majority of those
people could not come back because of work and/or because of school, because
they had shown up to vote, and that was the time that they could vote, and
that is why they were there. Also along the same lines, they ran out of
pencils for those ballots."

    Erin Deignan, Columbus:
 "I was an official poll worker judge in precinct Columbus 25 F, at the East
Linden School. We had between 1100 and 1200 people on the voter registry
there. We had three voting machines. We did the math. I am sure lots of
other people did too. With the five-minute limit, 13 hours the polls were
open, three machines, that is 468 voters, that is less than half of the
people we had on the registry. We stayed open three hours past 7:30 and got
about 550 people through, but we had one Board of Elections worker come in
the morning. We asked if he could bring more machines. He is said more
machines had been delivered, but they didn't have any more. We had another
Board of Elections official come later in the day, and he said that in Upper
Arlington he had seen 12 machines."

    Matthew Segal, Gambier:
 "In this past election, Kenyon College students and the residents of
Gambier, Ohio, had to endure some of the most extenuating voting
circumstances in the entire country. As many of you may already know,
because they had it on national media attention, Kenyon students and the
residents of Gambier had to stand in line up to 10 to 12 hours in the rain,
through a hot gym, and crowded narrow lines, making it extremely
uncomfortable. As a result of this, voters were disenfranchised, having
class to attend to, sports commitments, and midterms for the next day, which
they had to study for. Obviously, it is a disgrace that kids who are being
perpetually told the importance of voting, could not vote because they had
other commitments and had to be put up with a 12-hour line."

Blackwell characterized Ohio¹s Election Day as "tremendously successful" in
the Washington Times. Several people at Saturday¹s hearing said they¹d like
to hear Mr. Blackwell testify under oath, preferably under a criminal
indictment.

     Bob Fitrakis, Ph.D, J.D., a legal advisor for the Election Protection
Coalition, convened and moderated the public hearings. Harvey Wasserman is
Senior Editor of the Columbus Free Press and freepress.org. Audio from the
hearings can be found at: www.theneighborhoodnetwork.org.

  

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    Document Reveals Columbus, Ohio Voters Waited Hours
    as Election Officials Held Back Machines
    By Bob Fitrakis
    FreePress.org

     Tuesday 16 November 2004

     One telling piece of evidence was entered into the record at the
Saturday, November 13 public hearing on election irregularities and voter
suppression held by nonpartisan voter rights organizations. Cliff Arnebeck,
a Common Cause attorney, introduced into the record the Franklin County
Board of Elections spreadsheet detailing the allocation of e-voting computer
machines for the 2004 election. The Board of Elections¹ own document records
that, while voters waited in lines ranging from 2-7 hours at polling places,
68 electronic voting machines remained in storage and were never used on
Election Day.

     The Board of Elections document details that there are 2886 "Total
Machines" in Franklin County. Twenty of them are "In Vans for Breakdowns."
The County record acknowledges 2886 were available on Election Day, November
2 and that 2798 of their machines were "placed by close of polls." The
difference between the machines "available" and those "placed" is 68. The
nonpartisan Election Protection Coalition provided legal advisors and
observed 58 polling places in primarily African American and poor
neighborhoods in Franklin County.

     An analysis of the Franklin County Board of Elections¹ allocation of
machines reveals a consistent pattern of providing fewer machines to the
Democratic city of Columbus, with its Democratic mayor and uniformly
Democratic city council, despite increased voter registration in the city.
The result was an obvious disparity in machine allocations compared to the
primarily Republican white affluent suburbs.

     Franklin County had traditionally used a formula of one machine per 100
voters, with machine usage allowable up to 125 votes per machine. The
County¹s rationale is as follows: if it takes each voter five minutes to
vote, 12 people an hour, 120 people in ten hours and the remaining three
hours taken up moving people in and out of the voting machines.

     Once a machine is recording 200 voters per machine, 100% over optimum
use, the system completely breaks down. This causes long waits in long lines
and potential voters leaving before casting their ballots, due to age,
disability, work and family responsibilities.

     A preliminary analysis by the Free Press shows six suburban polling
places with 100 votes a machine or less, and only one in the city of
Columbus meeting or falling under the guideline.

     The legendary affluent Republican enclave of Upper Arlington has 34
precincts. No voting machines in this area cast more than 200 votes per
machine. Only one, ward 6F, was over 190 votes at 194 on one machine. By
contrast, 39 Columbus city polling machines had more than 200 votes per
machine and 42 were over 190 votes per machine. This means 17% of Columbus¹
machines were operating at 90-100% over optimum capacity while in Upper
Arlington the figure was 3%.

     In the Democratic stronghold of Columbus 139 of the 472 precincts had
at least one and up to five fewer machine than in the 2000 presidential
election. Two of Upper Arlington¹s 34 precincts lost at least one machine.
In the 2004 presidential election, 29% of Columbus¹ precincts, despite a
massive increase in voter registration and turnout, had fewer machines than
in 2000. In Upper Arlington, 6% had fewer machines in 2004 One of those
precincts had a 25% decline in voter registration and the other had a 1%
increase. Compare that to Columbus ward 1B, where voter registration went up
27%, but two machines were taken away in the 2004 election. Or look at 23B
where voter registration went up 22% and they lost two machines since the
2000 election, causing an average of 207 votes to be cast on each of the
remaining machines. In the year 2000, only 97 votes were cast per machine in
the precinct. Thus, in four years, the ward went from optimum usage to
system failure.

     Jeff Graessle, Franklin County Election Operations Division Manager,
told the Citizen¹s Alliance for Secure Elections (CASE) Ohio voting rights
activists that Franklin County does not use a simple 100 votes per machine
guideline. Rather, they allocated their machines in the 2004 election based
on a new criteria determined by ACTIVE registered voters. Hence, an affluent
area like Upper Arlington which has shown a consistent pattern of voters is
rewarded with more machines and fewer losses. A less affluent area of
Columbus where voters miss voting at more elections and may only come out in
a hotly tested election, like Bush-Kerry, are punished with fewer machines.

     Of course, there¹s a direct correlation between affluence and votes for
Bush and below medium income areas and votes for Kerry. Franklin County,
Ohio¹s formula served to disenfranchise disproportionately poor, minority
and Democratic voters under the guise of rewarding the "likely" voter or
active registered voters.

  

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