Posted on 12/02/2004 6:01:10 AM PST by You Dirty Rats
Results in Ohio still contested
Disgruntled voters seek recount, may file suit over Bush's victory. No proof of fraud found
By Steven Thomma
Knight Ridder Newspapers
WASHINGTON - As Ohio counties certified election resultsWednesday, most showed that President Bush won the pivotal battleground state Nov. 2 and with it a second term. But the certifications didn't yet seal the results, and disgruntled groups alleging vote fraud plan to contest the state's results and demand a recount.
One coalition of disgruntled voters and interest groups plans to seek a recount. Another plans to file a lawsuit with the state Supreme Court today contesting Bush's victory.
Despite these challenges -- and rampant charges on the Internet that Republicans stole the election for Bush in Ohio -- there's still no proof of significant fraud, and there's no reason yet to think the election will be overturned. Consider:
• Democratic presidential candidate John Kerry, who conceded Ohio and the election Nov. 3 after his aides concluded there was no reasonable chance for him to overturn Bush's margin there of 136,000 votes, refuses to join the challenges.
• A federal judge has blocked efforts to start a recount quickly.
• Any recount wouldn't start until Dec. 11. That would leave only about 24 hours to find enough invalid votes to reverse Bush's victory in Ohio before the state's presidential electors vote for him on Dec. 13, which would seal his re-election.
``We haven't seen any evidence to suggest that the outcome of the election would change,'' Kerry spokesman David Wade said.
Kerry's campaign has filed one legal brief, but it argues only that if there is a recount, it should include all Ohio counties. It doesn't call for a recount.
Official results from the state's 88 counties were sent Wednesday to Secretary of State J. Kenneth Blackwell. He's expected to certify the tally Monday showing that Bush won the state.
Two legal challenges
The challenges are proceeding along two tracks.
The first -- by the Green and Libertarian parties, whose candidates each polled less than 1 percent in Ohio -- seeks a recount.
``There were widespread reports of irregularities,'' said Blair Bobier, an Oregon attorney for the Green Party. ``They range from computer glitches that recorded more votes for George Bush than there were registered voters, to people attempting to vote for one candidate and the screen showing they voted for another candidate.''
The machine that showed more votes for Bush than the number of registered voters was in Franklin County. A spokesman for Blackwell's office said the problem was detected and corrected. The votes weren't counted.
Touch-screen machines show the final vote before recording it so that voters have a chance to correct mistakes. Yet Bobier said some voters weren't able to correct their mistakes because they got incorrect instructions from poll workers or gave up and left the wrong votes on the machines.
One goal of a recount would be to examine 93,000 ballots that were spoiled or discarded for other reasons. ``Without a recount, those won't get counted at all,'' Bobier said. Another would be to ensure that problems are detected and corrected before the elections in 2006.
The second track is the group that plans to challenge the election, which said it would file a lawsuit today with the state Supreme Court. The group includes 25 Ohio voters and is backed by a Massachusetts-based interest group, Alliance for Democracy.
Among their complaints: Kerry was outpolled in southern Ohio -- a culturally conservative area --by a black female Democrat running for the state Supreme Court. The challengers say that's unlikely and reason that it means 70,000 votes were stolen from Kerry and given to Bush.
``In southern Ohio, there's no reason to believe a black female candidate would be outperforming Kerry,'' said Cliff Arnebeck, an attorney for the group. ``It's a fix. Whether they had the computers rigged to do this, we'll find out.''
Voting fraud alleged
Another complaint: The Ohio results contradicted exit surveys showing Kerry ahead in the state. Pressed to explain how that was evidence of fraud, Arnebeck said exit polls were better proof of voting than vote results.
``The exit-polling process is sponsored by news organizations, which are professionally committed to truth, not the distorted picture one party wants to convey,'' he said. ``It is a much more credible form of evidence of how people voted than this incredibly partisan machinery we have in place to conduct our elections.''
In fact, exit polls in many states were inaccurate throughout Election Day, misleading those privy to them until more complete results came in.
Arnebeck said Blackwell, the secretary of state, shouldn't judge the final election results because he co-chaired Bush's state campaign. ``He was a captain of one of the teams and the chief referee,'' Arnebeck said.
Carlo LoParo, a spokesman for Blackwell, said the charges were wrong.
He noted that each Ohio county's result is certified by local elections boards governed by equal numbers of Democrats and Republicans. The same boards would conduct recounts.
``We have seen no evidence to indicate fraud or widespread irregularities. We have had an outstanding election in Ohio,'' LoParo said.
``There are valuable checks and balances on our elections process.''
You can change a box of punch cards with another box of punch cards with no evidence whatsoever too.
At least with a box of punch cards you can dust for fingerprints or discern peculiar patterns in the holes, like pregnant chads from trying to punch through too many cards at once.
Well I'll give you this much. If Diebold is using ANY commonly used database whether it be Access, MS-SQL, Oracle etc., and worse yet if they are using a non-proprietary operating system then YES they are vunerable to problems big time.
I personally haven't looked into Diebold but I assume that they are using their own in-house-written operating system. If they are not, then they are foolish.
Ohio does not use Diebold machines.
End of argument.
It doesn't matter if Ohio uses Diebold or Cascio Calcuators found in 25 cent gum machines. If they a common database and operating system then they are asking for trouble.
Now THAT's the end of the argument.
Nope, they're using Microsoft Windows.
Check out the video at the first link on this page, which is a link to instructions on how to download the 160Mb BitTorrent-hosted video that demonstrates the exploitation of the Diebold software:
http://www.equalccw.com/voteprar.html
There's also a few screenshot-by-screenshot demos linked there too, plus interesting exceprts from the Diebold policy guides.
Thanks
"In southern Ohio, there's no reason to believe a black female candidate would be outperforming Kerry,'' said Cliff Arnebeck, an attorney for the group. ``It's a fix... ."
Correspondingly, there's no reason to believe a pro-traditional marriage amendment would be outperforming Bush, so clearly any votes for the amendment that didn't go to Bush prove it's a fix!
Whan an idiot. I was "exit polled" and I lied - - I hated that someone wanted to intrude on my private vote. So....sounds like there may have been a lot more ticked off voters than me!
I don't think the state government selects electors. I believe each party selects electors for its candidate; those whose candidate got most votes in the state get to cast their votes in the electoral college. So, you will find that electors are quite partisan. It's a privilege to be selected by your state party to be a presidential elector.
Obviously, these morons don't get that a spoiled ballot is one that is generally returned by the voter to be discarded and REPLACED WITH A NEW BALLOT! The spoiled ballots ARE NOT SUPPOSED to be counted! Dumb*sses. These puds think both the spoiled ballots AND the good ballots of the same voter should be counted.
These are not "spoiled" ballots. They are undervotes, ballots that did not have a vote for President. In a recount, they will be checked to see if there is a discernable vote.
They were inspected, but not counted, in the canvassing process. Obviously, the 88 boards already have an idea of what is on them. Also, Ohio has clear and uniform standards defining what constitutes a "vote" on one of these ballots.
What the GLIBS have done is abuse the system and waste time. Even Democrats on many of these county boards have complained to the press that this recount is "pointless".
As for the machines, whatever. They've already passed in the NH recount and no problems were found in Florida.
The irony is that a large number of these punchcard "undervotes" were in counties Bush won.
Apparently, not only did they put "Dem" next to her name in the judge's race (which is totally against Ohio law!) they put her race next to it, as well.
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