Massive Voter Fraud 2004

[Caroleeena]

Over the course of this election, I followed the dirty tricks all over the country to disenfranchise voters. I heard of so many, in fact, that I started recording them and doing a little research of my own and I found some patterns. Check out how many of these are in swing states, the voters they affect and the party affiliation of the people who have resigned in the cases where blame was actually assigned and, especially, check out what happened to the folks who got cold busted!

 

Florida – Broward County - 58,000 voters in largely Democratic Broward County Florida never received their absentee ballots. The US Postal Service says they were delivered to the elections office but does not know what happened to them after that.

 

Florida – Manatee County and other counties all over Florida – People claiming to be "election officials" are turning up on the doorsteps of voters who requested absentee ballots, offering to collect and turn in their ballots. One Pasco woman said she was led to believe they were from the elections office and that she told the strangers she hadn't completed the ballot, but they took it anyway. The woman had voted for Kerry but election officials were unable to find a record of her vote ever being turned in. "We've had a bunch of them - 100 at least," said Bob Sweat, elections supervisor for Manatee County. "It's probably going on all over the state of Florida."

 

Florida - Florida's secretary of state ruled that voter registrations would be deemed incomplete if those registering failed to check a box affirming their citizenship, even if they had signed an oath saying the same thing elsewhere on the form. Whose applications get rejected? A Washington Post examination of rejected applications in Duval County found three times as many were from Democrats, compared with Republicans. It also found a strong tilt toward rejection of blacks' registrations.

 

Florida - The case of Florida's felon list - used by state officials in 2000 to wrongly disenfranchise thousands of blacks - has been widely reported. Less widely reported has been overwhelming evidence that the errors were deliberate and continue. In an article coming next week in Harper's, Greg Palast, reveals that few of those wrongly purged are back on the voter lists. State officials have imposed Kafkaesque hurdles for voters trying to get back on the rolls. Depending on the county, those attempting to get their votes back have been required to seek clemency for crimes committed by others, or to go through quasi-judicial proceedings to prove that they are not felons with similar names.

 

Florida - Officials appear to be doing their best to make voting difficult for blacks who do manage to register to vote. Florida law requires local election officials provide polling places where voters can cast early ballots. Duval County is providing only one such location, while other counties with similar voting populations are providing multiple sites. And in Duval and other counties the early voting sites are miles away from precincts with black majorities.

 

Nevada and Oregon - Earlier this week former employees of Sproul & Associates (operating under the name Voters Outreach of America), a firm hired by the Republican National Committee to register voters, told a Nevada TV station that their supervisors systematically tore up Democratic registrations. The accusations are backed by physical evidence in the form of thousands of discarded Democratic registration forms. Officials have begun a criminal investigation into reports of similar actions by Sproul in Oregon.

 

Ohio - Ohio's secretary of state, J. Kenneth Blackwell, a Republican, tried to use an archaic rule about paper quality to invalidate thousands of new, heavily Democratic registrations. He said the paper was not thick enough. In this case, the courts stepped in and stopped him.

 

Ohio - A caller interrupting a Columbus couple's dinner earlier this week said he was from the Franklin County Board of Elections and told the elderly woman that her voting site had changed and that on Nov. 2 she and her husband should cast their ballots at a South Side precinct. This precinct is far from the elderly couple's (who are life long Democrats) home. When the woman called the Board of Elections to question the move, she was told no move had been made but that the Board of Elections had receive dozens of similar phone calls. The elections director, Matt Damschroder, said there are two scams going on that cause him concern: The caller tells voters their precincts have changed or the caller offers to pick up an absentee-ballot application, deliver the ballot to the voter and return the completed ballot to the elections office.

 

Wisconsin - A Republican county executive insists that this year, when everyone expects a record turnout, Milwaukee will receive fewer ballots than it got in 2000 or 2002 - a recipe for chaos at polling places serving urban, mainly Democratic voters.

 

South Dakota – Six Republican staffers and campaign workers have resigned for filling out absentee ballots in the names of student registering to vote Republican and discarding the absentee ballots of voters registering to vote Democratic. Chief among the staffers was Larry Russell, head of the South Dakota GOP's get-out-the-vote operation, the Republican Victory Program. In a statement, party executive director Jason Glodt says, "The South Dakota Republican Party has a zero tolerance policy regarding such matters, and on Friday and Saturday of last week accepted the resignations of the four independent contractors who were involved in the handling of absentee ballot requests." They also accepted the resignation of Russell. Today comes news, however, that Russell -- still under investigation in South Dakota -- has been reassigned to run President Bush's get-out-the-vote operation in Ohio. And Russell's bringing along with him to Ohio three of the five other GOP staffers who had to resign in South Dakota and who are also under investigation in that state.

 

New Hampshire – In February, the Executive Director of the New Hampshire Republican party, Chuck McGee, resigned when it was revealed that the state party had hired a telemarketing firm to jam the phone lines of the Democratic get-out-the-vote operation. At that time, McGee fingered Jim Tobin, the New England regional director of the Bush-Cheney campaign, as one of his accomplices. Tobin, however, did not resign from the Bush-Cheney position until last Friday, months after the voter fraud charges were filed.

 

Pennsylvania – Bush/Cheney campaign staff submitted last-minute requests on Friday in Philadelphia to relocate 63 polling places. Of the 63 requests for changes, 53 are in political divisions where the population of white voters is less than 10 percent.

 

That’s what happened BEFORE the election. Here’s what happened the day OF the election:

 

Ohio - An error with an electronic voting system gave President Bush 3,893 extra votes in suburban Columbus, according to elections officials in Franklin County. Franklin County's unofficial results had Bush receiving 4,258 votes to Democrat John Kerry's 260 votes in a precinct in Gahanna. Records show only 638 voters cast ballots in that precinct. Bush actually received only 365 votes in the precinct, according to Matthew Damschroder, director of the Franklin County Board of Elections.

 

South Dakota - Massive voter intimidation was reported in South Dakota where, on November 2nd, white men walked behind the back bumper of every vehicle belonging to a Native American Indian who'd come to vote and recorded their license plate number.

 

North Carolina - And then is the case of the 4,500 votes “accidentally lost” by voting machines in largely Democratic Carteret County right here in North Carolina. Apparently the machines only held 3,000 votes instead of the 10,000 each the election officials “thought” they held.

 

Ohio - Finally, there was the last minute, state-sanctioned intimidation of voters in Ohio, where Republican pollsters were allowed to harass voters in the polling places about their right to vote.

 

In Youngstown, Ohio, and South Florida, numerous voters complained that when they tried to cast votes for Kerry, the machines instead recorded their votes for Bush.

 

President Jimmy Carter citing the experience of his Carter Center in monitoring international elections, said "some basic international requirements for a fair election are missing in Florida." Most significant, he said, were requirements that a nonpartisan electoral commission or official organize and conduct the electoral process and that voting procedures be uniform for all citizens. He said Florida's top election official in 2000, Secretary of State Katherine Harris, was "highly partisan" and that Harris' successor, Glenda Hood, has shown "the same strong bias." He said Gov. Jeb Bush, the president's brother, had done little to "correct these departures from principles of fair and equal treatment."

 

Now, it was my purpose to investigate ALL voter fraud. I didn't overlook or fail to report incidents by Democrats or other partys. I simply didn't find any.

 

The abuses I did find, though, are not aberrations. They're the inevitable result of a Republican Party culture in which dirty tricks that distort the vote are rewarded, not punished. It's a culture that will persist until voters - whose will still does count, if expressed strongly enough - hold that party accountable.

 

All in all, more than 30,000 complaints have been gathered from across the country related to election day voting. In the midst of such turmoil, it's crucial that an independent authoritative investigation be undertaken to sort this all out.

 

I am saying it out loud now -- I think George Bush stole this election. AGAIN!

[Caroleeena]

I, myself, documented every incident of attempted voter fraud that I read about leading up to and on the day of the election. My list was four pages long and I learn something new every day. Something is wrong here! And it doesn't matter if these issues would have affected the outcome of the election; it matters that these people TRIED to affect the outcome of the election. If someone had robbed a bank but been unsuccessful in their attempt, we would still have prosecuted them for bank robbery.

 

Our democracy depends on a free and fair election. We must ensure that. Every tax paying citizen in this country deserves to vote and to have their vote count. If people were wrongly prevented from voting, or if legitimate votes were mis-counted or not counted at all, we need to know so the wrongdoers can be held accountable, and to help prevent this from happening again.

 

Members of Congress are demanding an investigation to answer this question. Join me in supporting their call, at:

 

http://www.moveon.org/investigatethevote/

 

Walk in peace my friends.

[Guest Human]

You really want to waste the tax payers money on this? huh

 

 

Which Members of Congress are asking for an investigation on this?

Specifics please.

[Caroleeena]

You think it's a waste of taxpayer money to investigate voter fraud!?! I bet you wouldn't think that if it had affected your candidate. But the thing is, this problem affects EVERYONE. Everyone, every tax paying citizen in this country, deserves to exercise their constitutionally guaranteed right to vote and have that vote count!

 

Six prominent members of Congress have now called for an investigation. Representatives Conyers (D-MI), Holt (D-NJ), Nadler (D-NY), Scott (D-VA), Watt (D-NC) and Wexler (D-FL), have demanded that the U.S. General Accounting Office: immediately undertake an investigation of the efficacy of voting machines and new technologies used in the 2004 election, how election officials responded to difficulties they encountered, and what we can do in the future to improve our election systems and administration.

 

Also, here is ANOTHER incident that I have just learned about. Apparently in Broward County, Florida, (another largely Democratic county) electronic voting machines counted backwards: as more people voted, the official vote count went down. Here is more information about this particular account: http://www.palmbeachpost.com/politics/cont...WVOTE_1105.html

[Caroleeena]

The good we secure for ourselves is precarious and uncertain until it is secured for all of us and incorporated into our common life. - Jane Addams

[Guest Human]

So all cases of abuse must be Investigated? ALL CASES, there can be no exceptions?

 

Do you agree?

[Caroleeena]

Yes, I agree ALL cases of voter fraud must be investigated. Every one. And when we have a finding of voter fraud, I believe everyone involved must be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law. The law is not situational depending upon your party or perspective. Laws were made to protect all of us, all the time.

 

And here's another incident I've just learned about. Yesterday, California settled an electronic voting suit against Diebold (a Republican-owned company that makes voting machines) for $2.6 million dollars for selling the state faulty voting equipment. This faulty equipment forced at least 6,000 of 316,000 voters in Alameda County, just east of San Francisco, to use backup paper ballots instead of the paperless voting terminals. And, in San Diego County, a power surge disabled the faulty machines and resulted in hundreds of touch-screens that wouldn't start when the polls opened, forcing election officials to turn voters away from the polls.

 

http://www.sacbee.com/state_wire/v-print/story/113

[Guest Human]

Oh!!! you should send all of your findings to the DNC, as well as ALL The NEWS Organizations that you know of. PLEASE

[Luke_Wilbur]

"The vitality of America’s democracy depends on the fairness and accuracy of America’s election. Over two centuries our country has broadened the right to vote and sealed that right in law, making our government more accountable to the people, and more representative of the people.

 

When problems arise in the administration of elections we have a responsibility to fix them. Every registered voter deserves to have confidence that the system is fair and elections are honest, that every vote is recorded, and that the rules are consistently applied.

 

–President George W. Bush,

upon signing the Help America Vote Act,

October 29, 2002

 

I wonder even if all your statements of voter fraud are true Caroleeena would they equate to enough difference in the vote totals to give Kerry enough of the electorate to win the nomination. Never the less, it can possibly help improve the system in the future. The "system" can always use improving.

 

I have read that Republican dominated corporations, Election Systems & Software (ES&S), and Diebold Voting Systems, now control 80% of the vote count in the United States. I also found that Walden O'Dell, chief executive of Diebold Inc. told Republicans in a fund-raising letter that he was "committed to helping Ohio deliver its electoral votes to the president." This needs to be verified.

 

Here is the voting totals on the States Bush won that you mentioned:

 

Ohio Secretary of State

Division of Elections

General Election Results

 

Bush / Cheney (REP) 2,796,147

 

Kerry / Edwards (DEM) 2,659,664

 

Green Party presidential candidate David Cobb declared that in all likelihood he would demand a recount of all the votes in the Presidential election in the state of Ohio. Since David Cobb's name appeared on the Ohio ballot, it is his legal right to ask for a statewide recount.

 

Ralph Nader is also pushing for a vote re-count in Ohio, alleging wide-spread voter irregularities. Nader blasted Ohio Secretary of State Ken Blackwell, saying he should resign in disgrace.

 

"When people are standing in line for four or five hours and they are told they've go to stand in line for another five hours and they leave because they've got to go to work or they got to pick up their child at day care, that's a constitutional crime," says Nader.

 

Warren County Ohio Board of Elections

General Election Results

 

Bush / Cheney (REP) 66,523

 

Kerry / Edwards (DEM) 25,399

 

Warren County officials, facing scrutiny of their decision to lock down the administration building on election night, say they were responding to a terrorist threat that ranked a "10" on a scale of 1 to 10.

 

The information, which Commissioner Pat South said was previously deemed confidential, is coming out a week after the public was barred from viewing the Warren County vote count. The Ohio Secretary of State's office doesn't know of any other county in the state to impose such a restriction.

 

County officials initially said they feared that having reporters and photographers present could interfere with the ballot counting. They subsequently cited homeland security concerns.

 

Now, they say an FBI agent told them that Warren County ranked a "10" on a terrorism scale. However, state and federal homeland security officials said Tuesday they were unaware of any specific threat against the county.

 

County officials locked down the administration building on Justice Drive after the polls there had closed. Officials say having both a polling place and the board of elections in one location increased security concerns.

 

Franklin County Ohio Board of Elections

General Election Results

 

Bush / Cheney (REP) 234,196

 

Kerry / Edwards (DEM) 275,573

 

A computer hiccup gave President Bush an extra votes in Franklin County precinct 1B. The county’s electronic voting machines gave Bush 4,258 votes in precinct 1B, but Matthew Damschroder, director of the Franklin County Board of Elections, told USA TODAY that that precinct only had 638 total voters.

 

Florida Department of State

Division of Elections

General Election Results

 

Bush / Cheney (REP) 3,956,346

 

Kerry / Edwards (DEM) 3,575,056

 

U.S. District Court Judge Alan Gold denied the motion for a preliminary injunction to include the late ballots in the final vote tally entered before the Nov. 12th election certification deadline.

 

The ruling comes after 13,300 absentee ballots were sent to voters late by the Broward County Supervisor of Elections office. In fact, 9,000 of those ballots were mailed to voters on the Saturday prior to the Nov. 2 election. In addition, the Miami-Dade Supervisor of Elections office expressed concern that "they had been put in a difficult position by their vendor, who still had not completed the delivery of absentee ballots" by as late as Oct. 27.

 

Expected voter turnout among Republicans increased by 128.45% in counties using optical scan voting machines while Democrats showed a -21% loss.

 

Here are some of the Florida counties with optical scan voting machines that showed the largest discrepancies with voter turnout:

 

Baker, Bradford, Calhoun, Columbia, Dixie, Gilchrist, Gulf, Hamilton, Hardee, Holmes, Lafayette, Liberty, Suwannee, Taylor, Wakulla, Washington

 

Nevada Secretary of State

Division of Elections

General Election Results

 

Bush / Cheney (REP) 418,691

 

Kerry / Edwards (DEM) 397,186

 

South Dakota Secretary of State

Division of Elections

General Election Results

 

Bush / Cheney (REP) 232,584

 

Kerry / Edwards (DEM) 149,244

 

North Carolina Secretary of State

Division of Elections

General Election Results

 

Bush / Cheney (REP) 1,910,936

 

Kerry / Edwards (DEM) 1,484,158

 

I added an 2004 election map done by Robert J. Vanderbei

[Luke_Wilbur]

DNC Urges Secretaries of State to Outline Process for Counting Provisional Ballots

 

The Democratic National Committee called upon all 50 Secretaries of State to, "explicitly outline the standards and timelines that will be used to count the remaining votes for the 2004 election." In the letter to the Secretaries of State, Chairman Terry McAuliffe said, "After such a highly charged and competitive election, I want to make sure that every American can be confident that our electoral process worked and continues to be the model for the world. The best way to achieve these goals is to ensure that every vote cast has been accurately counted. This is in no way an effort to question the outcome of this election, but to ensure trust in the outcome of every election going forward."

 

He continued, "One of the most important things we have learned during this election is that if voters don’t have faith in the infrastructure for casting and counting votes, they will not participate in the process. The critical issues confronting this nation require full participation by the electorate. I strongly believe that your efforts at transparency will go far to affirm the American people’s belief in our Democracy."

[Luke_Wilbur]

Spurred by last Tuesday’s announcement that state election officials in Ohio have completed the presidential recount, the Rev. Jesse L. Jackson, Sr., founder and president of the Rainbow/PUSH Coalition, said today that he is even more committed to supporting the election challenge and to host Monday’s rally in Columbus aimed at exposing irregularities in the nation’s voting system.

 

Rev. Jackson questioned the recount when election officials in most counties hand counted only 3% of the ballots and, in may cases, failed to randomly select these 3% sample as required by Ohio election law. In counties utilizing punch card and optical scan ballots, when both a hand count and a machine count of the 3% sample match, the county is allowed to proceed with a machine recount, as most Ohio counties did. Therefore, it is absolutely critical for the 3% sample to be randomly selected on the day of the recount to avoid any possibility of manipulation of the sample or the machine.

 

“The struggle continues,” Rev. Jackson said. “The recount was not conducted in a meaningful manner based on uniform standards as required by the equal protection and due process provisions of the 14th Amendment of the U.S. Constitution. The fact still remains that every citizen’s vote in Ohio was not properly or fully counted. We need a New Pro Democracy Movement in America.”

 

The RainbowPUSH Coalition has called for a forensic investigation of the voting machines. Ohio election officials, they said, did not use uniform standards to select the sites for the recount or to conduct the recount. The sites were handpicked when they were supposed to be randomly selected. Rainbow/PUSH Coalition officials also want to know why a technician from the Triad Company provided maintenance on some machines prior to the recount.

 

This information was disclosed in an affidavit provided by a Triad technician. Rainbow/PUSH Coalition officials support motions pending before the courts seeking expedited discoveries about this tampering by the Traid Co. Lawyers seek to interview the technician and Triad executives to learn why was he called in, what services were performed in Hocking County and in 41 other counties where Triad equipment is used.

 

“It is clear that the potential for vote tampering existed during the recount process, just as vote irregularities occurred during the November 2 election,” Rev. Jackson said. “We will not surrender until a full investigation of the vote irregularities and the voter machines and software is conducted.”

 

On Monday, January 3, 2005, the Rainbow/PUSH Coalition is leading a “Pro Democracy Count Every Vote Rally.” The rally, which will be held at the Capitol Theater, 77 S. High St, across from Ohio State Capitol, begins at 2 p.m. Coalition partners include Ohio Congresswoman Stephanie Tubbs-Jones, Moveon.org, Progressive Democrats of America, the anti-war coalition United for Peace and Justice, and Ohio State Senator Joyce Beatty, CASE Ohio and others.

 

Organizers said the rally, which is being held just days before Congress convenes to select the president, is an effort to keep the spotlight on the deepening investigation of voter irregularities that occurred in Ohio during the Nov. 2nd presidential election as well as to give birth to a new Pro Democracy Movement.

[Guest Blair Bobie]

Ohio Recount Lawsuit Set for Trial; Election Workers Indicted

 

On Tuesday, August 30, a federal district judge set a trial date for the Green Party’s Ohio Recount lawsuit and indictments were handed down against two Cuyahoga County elections officials for their roles in the bungled election audit. The timing was coincidental; the two actions are not related though they both stem from charges that the recount was conducted in violation of state and federal law.

 

Judge James Carr set the trial date for August 22, 2006. The lawsuit was initiated by Green Party presidential candidate David Cobb and his Libertarian counterpart, Michael Badnarik.

 

The Ohio election and recount has been the subject of a number of investigations and reports. A report by the U.S. House Judiciary Committee’s Democratic staff states 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.” The August issue of Harper’s magazine featured an article by Mark Crispin Miller on the Ohio election fraud and the lack of “mainstream” media coverage devoted to it, entitled “None Dare Call it Stolen.”

 

“The truth about the fraud, manipulation and voter suppression in Ohio is slowly coming out. The price of freedom is eternal vigilance and we will pursue this as long as necessary to protect the integrity of our democratic process. When Republicans steal elections and Democrats roll over and play dead, the public can rely on the Green Party to protect the right to vote and the right to have all votes counted,” said Blair Bobier, spokesman for the party’s 2004 presidential campaign.