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Commentary :: Elections & Legislation
votes > registrations? Current rating: 0
10 Nov 2004
Anyone know how this can happen? In Cuyahoga County, Ohio, several districts had more ballots cast than there were registered voters. This happened in the following districts:

district registered voted
BAY VILLAGE 13710 18663
BEACHWOOD 9943 13939
BEDFORD 9942 14465
BEDFORD HEIGHTS 8142 13512
BROOKLYN 8016 12303
BROOKLYN HEIGHTS V 1144 1869
CHAGRIN FALLS VIL 3557 4860
CUYAHOGA HEIGHTS V 570 1382
FAIRVIEW PARK 13342 18472
HIGHLAND HILLS VIL 760 8822
INDEPENDENCE 5735 6226
MAYFIELD VIL 2764 3145
MIDDLEBURG HEIGHTS 12173 14854
MORELAND HILLS VIL 2990 4616
NORTH OLMSTED 25794 25887
OAKWOOD VIL 2746 7099
OLMSTED FALLS 6538 7328
PEPPER PIKE 5131 6479
ROCKY RIVER 16600 20070
SOUTH EUCLID 16902 16917
UNIVERSITY HEIGHTS 10072 11982
VALLEY VIEW VIL 1787 3409
WARRENSVILLE HEIGH 10562 15039
WOODMERE VIL 558 8854

In these districts, then, 70,714 more people voted than were registered. This is one county.

You can check these numbers at the Cuyahoga County Board of Elections site: http://boe.cuyahogacounty.us/BOE/results/currentresults1.htm (maybe this site is sponsored by the liberal meda?).

Is there a good reason why these numbers would look like this besides some kind of error or cheating? I am not sure if the extra votes went for Bush, Kerry, or someone else.

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Re: votes > registrations?
Current rating: 0
10 Nov 2004
Maybe the site was scrubbed on one of the other Internets that George referred to (do you use one of those?), but on the one I use, it's still there. No, wait. I get it. You were red-lying (red-lying refers to a particular kind of lying that is very obvious and very checkable, relying on the audacity factor to go unchallenged). Imagine that.

I'm also wondering how much additional crack was necessary to get election officials to allow people to vote who weren't registered, and 70,714 of them at that...in one county. I hope they got a good deal.

As for the 3 million win, with rates like in Cuyahoga County, assuming all the overvotes went to George (and they probably did, just like in the Gahanna district in Franklin County, Ohio), it would only take about 45 counties to give Kerry the popular vote. I'm thinking Karl Rove is much more ambitious than to just rig 45 counties. How about you? Or do you have little faith in the architect?
Re: votes > registrations?
Current rating: 0
10 Nov 2004
If people voted who are not eligible to vote...like, yea right, that didn't happen, NOT!...then it cries out for people to be forced to prove that they are who they say they are before being allowed to vote doesn't it?
Re: votes > registrations?
Current rating: 0
10 Nov 2004
Sarcasm? Irony? Dictionary? No? OK, nevermind.
A Note On The Presidential Election in Ohio
Current rating: 0
10 Nov 2004
The 2004 presidential election was determined by the results of Ohio. The unofficial result, as reported on November 3, had George Bush with approximately 136,000 more votes than John Kerry. Senator Kerry conceded the election to President Bush. He also said every vote would be counted.

I have been vigilant in monitoring Ohio's election in 2004. Attorneys from my party closely monitored the election before and during election day. While there were some incidents of voter intimidation noted by the attorneys, most if not all cases were resolved at the scene because of quick action by challengers, witnesses, the Kerry campaign, and volunteers from other campaigns including my own.

The unofficial count gave Ohio to George Bush by approximately 136,000 votes. The official count by county Boards of Election will begin on Saturday, November 13, 2004. It is due at the Secretary of State's office by December 1. The Secretary of State must certify the election by December 3.

During this interim period, attorneys from both political parties, and those representing me, will be watching the procedures by county Boards of Elections carefully. Among the most important issues to note is the counting of the overvotes. Overvotes occur when more than one candidate is indicated on the punch card. Another issue relates to whether all properly cast provisional ballots will be counted.

My constituents have also brought other issues to my attention. In an effort to provide appropriate government oversight, I am reviewing every issue and bringing them to the attention of attorneys, congressional authorities, party officials, or Boards of Elections, as appropriate. I want to assure my constituents and others who have contacted me with their concerns, that I am paying c lose attention to this important period of time between the initial results and the official vote tabulation and will not hesitate to take appropriate legal action where supported by facts.

Serious problems surfaced in this election that must be addressed at the state and national level. Some were inefficiencies in handling the massive turn out. No citizen should have to wait for hours to vote, or worry whether their vote was actually counted.

Glitches in electronic voting in the Columbus area should move all legislatures to demand paper receipts for voting machines. Without such a paper trail, no true recount can ever be done. Note that no Diebold electronic voting machines were employed in Ohio.

Clear efforts at voter suppression and intimidation were well handled by the courts and election officials. Dirty tricks occurred across the state, including phony letters from Boards of Elections telling people that their registration through some Democratic activist groups were invalid and that Kerry voters were to report on Wednesday because of massive voter turnout. Phone calls to voters giving them erroneous polling information were also common. Attempts to subvert our right to fair elections must be investigated and prosecuted when possible.

With passion running so high in this country and specter of Florida 2000 still hanging over the presidential voting process, it is important to gather hard evidence prior to disputing the legitimacy of the election.

Meanwhile, it is obvious that the Help America Vote Act of 2002 needs to be refined. Arduous voter identification rules unfairly penalize the poor, lead to a violation of rights and defeat the intent of the act.

The official tabulation of votes for Ohio will begin on Saturday and will include four categories not reflected in the unofficial count: provisional ballots, late absentee ballots, overseas military and overseas civilian.

If the difference between George Bush and John Kerry is less than one quarter of one percent after the official tally is completed (about 16,000 votes) an automatic recount occurs under Ohio law.

If the margin is greater than one quarter of one percent, a candidate can request a recount at an expense to the candidate of $10 per precinct. Because there are approximately 12,000 precincts in Ohio, the recount would cost about $120,000, before legal fees. A recount would entail a visual inspection of every punch card ballot.

I believe we must pursue every lead which raises questions about the integrity of the electoral process. Our work may not change the outcome, but it will demonstrate that beyond our commitment to our candidates, we have a higher commitment to our democracy.


Congressman Dennis J. Kucinich (D-OH) is Co-Chair of the Congressional Progressive Caucus.
http://www.house.gov/kucinich/progressivecaucus
Re: votes > registrations?
Current rating: 0
11 Nov 2004
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.

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."

The Ohio vote-fraud theory appears to stem from the curious ways of the Cuyahoga County Board of Elections. During even-numbered years the county's canvassing board posts vote totals that include the results from outside the county from congressional districts that spill over Cuyahoga's borders. The quirk made it look as if the county had 90,000 more votes than voters.

The disparities were spotted, and urgent mass mailings began: "Ohio precincts report up to 1,586% turnout . . . 30 Precincts in Ohio's Cuyahoga County report 'over' 100% turnout!" Later, the county added a disclaimer to its Web site in an attempt to explain the numbers.

"It takes me about three times to explain" why the fraud allegation is untrue, said Kimberly Bartlett, community outreach specialist for the Cuyahoga County Board of Elections. "You have to ask them why no top Democrat is making these charges."

There also have been reports of more votes counted than voters in some counties in Florida and North Carolina. Steve Ansolabehere of the Caltech-MIT Voting Technology Project said the preliminary results do not add up. "We'll see if there's anything dramatic or widespread once we see the full certifications come in," he said.

The Florida case is more nuanced than the Ohio voting battle. Numerous bloggers have noted that President Bush's vote totals in 47 Florida counties were larger -- in some cases much larger -- than the number of registered Republican voters in the same counties. A widely distributed piece on Consortiumnews.com said the results "are so statistically stunning that they border on the unbelievable."

The article's main numbers are correct. But the central premise -- that there is something suspicious about Bush getting more votes than the number of registered Republicans in rural counties, which use paper ballots -- may not be suspicious at all.

It is does not account for thousands of independents or for voters who do not list party affiliation. It is also common for Florida Democrats, particularly the "Dixiecrats" in the northern reaches of the state and the Panhandle, to vote for Republicans, a pattern that is repeated in much of the Deep South.

"Florida has always been the land of the Dixiecrats," said Walter R. Mebane Jr., a professor of government at Cornell University who specializes in voting issues. "In Florida, as you go north, you go south."

Despite its apparent flaws, the Florida theory raises some interesting questions. For instance, a further look at Florida voting patterns shows that the number of counties with more Bush votes than registered Republicans jumped from 32 in 2000 to 47 in 2004. Bush's improved performance might be explained by Al Gore, a southern moderate, having had more appeal to Dixiecrats four years ago than Kerry, who is from Massachusetts, did in this election.

The theories on exit polls are even more slippery. Because the early exit polls that were leaked and caused so much excitement among Democrats are not publicly distributed, the criticisms have not been based on statistics. Instead there are comments such as those from Zvi Drezner, a professor at the California State University at Fullerton business and economics school, who wrote that "the exit polls did not 'lie' " and described "a gut feeling that the machines did not report the correct count."

Many voting experts say the theory that the exit polls were correct is deeply flawed because the polls oversampled women. MIT political scientist Charles Stewart III also has said focusing solely on the early polls favoring Kerry in Ohio and Florida is the wrong approach because exit polls in some Democratic-leaning states tilted toward Bush, evening out the national picture.

The U.S. Justice Department, which handles complaints fielded by a bipartisan commission formed after the 2000 election chaos, said the allegations of vote buying and voter-registration fraud were no different than the pattern of previous elections. But other sources are documenting huge numbers of complaints. Verified Voting, a group formed by a Stanford University professor to assess electronic voting, has collected 31,000 reports of election fraud and other problems, but nothing that would overturn the Nov. 2 outcome.

Still, messages posted on the aptly named Quixotegroup discussion cluster -- which takes its name from the literary figure Don Quixote who used his lance to tilt against windmills -- urged members to send fraud evidence to the law firm of Kerry's brother, Cameron Kerry, to persuade the Democratic candidate to "unconcede."

A high-ranking Democrat, mindful of balancing respect for the complainers and a desire to move on, summed up the conspiracy theorists with a line from Alexander Pope: "Hope springs eternal in the human breast."

Keating reported from Washington. Staff writers Paul Farhi and Susan Schmidt in Washington contributed to this report.
Re: votes > registrations?
Current rating: 0
12 Nov 2004
Thanks, Joe.