Delays at polls weren't a scheme
When they stood on the floor of Congress recently to protest the results of Ohio's presidential vote, Democrats told a national audience about their suspicious hunch: People in Democratic strongholds were short-changed on voting machines on Election Day.
Voter groups and activists have lobbed the same accusation for weeks. Long lines in urban areas, such as Cleveland, kept John Kerry supporters from voting, they say.
But a Plain Dealer analysis shows that, in Cuyahoga County at least, the elections board distributed machines equally to city and suburban polling locations.
The long lines at some locations appear to be more the result of timing, new voters and overwhelmed poll workers, not necessarily a shortage of machines.
Before the Nov. 2 election, the elections board allotted each Cleveland precinct one machine for every 117 registered voters within its boundaries - the same ratio of machines that suburban precincts received.
In other words, the more registered voters a particular precinct had, the more machines it received, regardless of where that precinct was.
And in the end, the busiest precincts - when measured by the number of ballots cast per machine - were actually in the suburbs, not Cleveland, according to a Plain Dealer analysis of records from the Cuyahoga County Board of Elections.
Countywide, voters cast an average of nearly 71 ballots on each of the county's 8,000 machines. In Cleveland alone, voters cast an average of 62 ballots per machine. In the suburbs, the average was 74.
Brook Park's Precinct 3A had the most ballots cast per machine, with 163. Voters in that precinct were among those casting ballots at City Hall.
In Strongsville's Precinct 3C (at Edna Surrarrer School), voters cast 149 ballots per machine.
The busiest machines in Cleveland were on the West Side, in Ward 15's Precinct I, where voters at the YMCA on Pearl Road cast 101 ballots per machine.
The analysis does not include the more than 200 machines that the board distributed across the county on Election Day to replace broken machines or supplement precincts with higher-than-expected turnout. It also does not factor in voters who, facing long lines, walked away without voting. Neither election officials nor voting groups can pinpoint how many people left polls.
Despite charges that election officials failed to properly prepare for Election Day, it appears those in Cuyahoga County tried. In deciding how to distribute machines, the board used a liberal formula that included not only active voters but also inactive voters - those who had not shown up to the polls in years.
In Franklin County, which had some of the longest lines in Ohio on Election Day, officials distributed machines using a ratio based only on active voters.
Long lines did form at some of Cuyahoga's 584 polling locations. And those on Cleveland's East Side - where problems were most anticipated - received the most attention from politicians, voter groups and reporters on the lookout for glitches.
The lines formed for a number of reasons: waves of new voters; inexperienced or overwhelmed poll workers; a crush of voters during peak hours; and general confusion at larger polling sites that host multiple precincts.
Michael Vu, director of the Cuyahoga elections board, admits his office needs to improve some of its "process and procedures," but he said election workers and voters "should applaud themselves" for how Election Day unfolded.
One of the moves the board may study is better preparation for peak voting times. Unlike restaurants, which schedule staff size to accommodate their busiest hours, the elections board did not assign additional staff or machines specifically for peak times.
Each precinct had four poll workers, typically two Democrats and two Republicans. The board added a fifth poll worker to precincts it believed would be busy. Also, each polling location had an inspector to help direct voters.
That was not enough, however, to avoid lines at Woodbury Elementary School in Shaker Heights.
The polling location, which served voters from both Shaker Heights and Cleveland, housed tables and machines for six precincts.
Some voters complained of waits reaching 2½ hours.
An early morning crowd overwhelmed at least one precinct at Woodbury - Cleveland Precinct 4D - which led the chief poll worker to quit. That created a "domino effect" of problems, Vu said.
One problem pointed out by Zeola Mitchell, who worked her first presidential election on Nov. 2, was that the precinct didn't have enough machines to handle the morning rush, starting at 6:30 a.m. Woodbury was assigned nine machines for Precinct 4D, but the board sent an additional eight by early afternoon.
"After we got more machines, things were smoother after that," Mitchell said.
Still, Vu said predicting exactly where and when a surge of voters will appear is akin to "picking winning lottery numbers."
As it does in every election, the Cuyahoga board set up six offices across the county from which extra machines could be delivered quickly to crowded polling locations.
In contrast to Woodbury, Precinct 3A in Brook Park had a smooth Election Day despite heavy turnout. Voters had relatively few problems, said poll worker Sam Siverd.
"We had a crowd when we first opened, but it remained steady throughout the day," he said.
He attributed the precinct's success in part to experienced voters who needed little assistance and to a consistent flow of voters, as opposed to a sudden crush at peak hours.
The board is examining ways to reduce the congestion at some polling places, including reducing the number of precincts at certain locations. But that will take cooperation from public and private institutions that have become increasingly unwilling to host Election Day voting, Vu said.
He also said the board will consider ways to improve training of poll workers.
Other groups are planning more analysis. Last week, two senior Democratic lawmakers - U.S. Reps. Henry Waxman of California and John Conyers of Michigan - asked the Government Accountability Office, the investigative arm of Congress, to find what caused the long lines in Ohio.
Sharon McGraw, executive director of the League of Women Voters of Cleveland Educational Fund, has already done her analysis. She said "logjams" at some locations were partly the result of first-time voters relying on poorly trained or confused poll workers. She recently reviewed the Nov. 2 problems with other representatives of the league.
"It should move smoother, and part of it comes down to human errors, and part of that was confusion created by all the lawyers and everybody involved," she said.
To reach this Plain Dealer reporter:
mnaymik@plaind.com, 216-999-4849