About once a week my work recieves a shipment of parts that are delivered by a 52 foot long semi (Plus of course the usual stock order everyday). The driver today was a 24 year old from Ohio, around 60 miles South of Toledo (I forgot the name of the town, sorry). We were yip yappin for a bit waiting for another guy to arrive with the forklift....ya know, small talk. But anyways, so i asked him what it was like to be in Ohio during the beginning of November. He said it was crazy, but people in Missouri are worse. Apparently, they havnt gotten over the election yet, there are Kerry and Bush stickers all over the place he said. Then i told him that i have talked to numerous people from Ohio and according to them, they thought for sure that Kerry was going to take Ohio. His response to this was "I definitely wouldnt have doubted it."

People, we were robbed.

Robbed or not, Ohio is geographically, historically, and culturely split North and South. Northern Ohio is blue, southern Ohio is red. To a real extent southern Ohio is a nothern extension of Kentucky. The Kerry campaign in many ways did not contest the election of George Bush in the South; that move made Ohio very difficult to win. Because of this, IMHO the loss of Florida is what cost Kerry the election.

UC Berkeley released a report


http://www.prnewswire.com/cgi-bin/stories....02462583&EDATE=

saying that up to 260,000 votes were stolen in Florida alone. I spoke with an AP news reporter in Florida who said that the hundreds of lawyers were only looking at the touch screen machines, not the optical scanning machines where the fraud took place.

Ohio is worse because there is far less data available. And it doesn't help that diebold is headquartered in Ohio. Even if Kerry gave out 1 million dollars for every vote, it wouldn't have mattered, because the vote was stolen.

Election Fraud Investigations ain't over yet... the phat lady isn't even in the building yet and she is certainly in no mood to be singin'.
http://www.house.gov/judiciary_democrats/c...ngltrpr2205.pdf

There is a lot of great and new information posted in the Fair Elections section.

The letter said "irregularities".

I agree that irregularities are a problem which should be looked at and dealt with.

But "irregularities" is not the same as "fraud".

Conyers and his people are being smart. They won't call it fraud until they have specific reason to. Once they do, why wouldn't they call it that?

I do not hold public office... I have a right to my opinion and am not afraid to express it, no matter how others may slice it - as 'irregularities' or whatever you want to call it or even if it is contrary to MSM spin... The deed is Fraud and as far as I am concerned a crime occurred and the people responsible need to be thrown in jail as traitors to the United States of America. There is a stench coming from O-HI-O and we can smell it all the way to California.

Well bully for you! I must say that how my post cast doubt on non-office holders such as yourself to hold your own opinion is beyond me. I was expressing my own opinion, which I think that I also have a right to.



"Irregularities" is what the Conyers committee called it. And how does MSM spin come up? The issue is what happened.



For people to be thrown in jail there has to be proof "beyond a reasonable doubt", not suspicion based on how some people read the statistics or machine glitches. For that investigation would be necessary. I'm glad that the Conyers committe is looking into things. If they suspect fraud I'm sure that he wouldn't shrink from using the word. This guy had a role in the impeachment process against Richard Nixon.

Well, bully for me!

Irregularities vs Fraud - I choose Fraud

For people to be thrown in jail there has to be proof "beyond a reasonable doubt" - Not anymore... Thanks to Presidential Election Fraud

Here's a little song we can sing together to find some common ground and a little common sense... smell anything?

Lost ballots and Diebold's counting
We're finally on our own
This winter I hear Bush laughing
Vote Fraud in Ohio

Gotta get real ballots
Paperless taking us down
Should have been done long ago
Keep blacks from voting and
TV won't make a sound
Kerry won, but he said no.

Vote Fraud in Ohio
Vote Fraud in Florida
Vote Fraud in Nevada
Vote Fraud in Iowa
Vote Fraud New Mexico ...

You lost me here.

I've given up on America. The news blares about the election irregularities in Iraq, but do they say anything about the investigation still going on in Ohio and Florida?

I don't think that's completely true. Large chunks of Cincinnati and Dayton are liberal, particularly in the inner city. If you look at a map of the election results, you'll see that Hamilton and Motgomery county are only barely red. And Athens county, also in the southern half of the state, is one of the bluest counties of all.

Actually, I would argue that the Appalachian counties (see this link) and the counties that border Kentucky are not as conservative as Northwest Ohio, like the Lima area (home of a tank plant and an oil refinery). Those counties in the NW are Bush country through and through (Allen County, Putnam, Mercer, Auglaize etc.). Check it out on CNN's election results map for Ohio.

I don't think the political views of different parts of the state have so much to do with north/south geography as with income levels, racial/ethnic makeup, and the types of jobs traditionally prevelent in different parts of the state. (ie, farmland vs. industrial/manufacturing.)

Just my $0.02... as a proud resident of Southern Ohio, I like to think that maybe it's not as red down here as it's rumored to be.

Greetings from vmaus,
Do you think the elections in Ohio were honestly collected and tabulated? What is the opinion of your fellow Ohioians ? California wants to know what the sense is on the ground there...

I live about 30 miles north of Dayton in Miami County. Where I voted we used paper ballots where you darken the circle. I don't know how they tabulate them. I had no wait or other problems.
I worked at Democratic headquarters election night. There were many problems being called in around the county. One precinct ran out of ballots at 4:00 and didn't get more until 7:00. I know election night we had 75 volunteers there and 40 phones manned and made over 15000 calls that day. Republicans had two phones manned and 4 people there. In my town the yard signs were probably equaly divided. Miami County is considered a Republican County.
I noticed Miami County has been listed in the articles on election problems.

I have a strong distrust of Ken Blackwell, and I heard some things that made me suspicious-- that whole bit about needing to print your voter registration form on certain cardstock was rediculous, and I wonder how many people wound up not getting registered because of it. I think it is horrendous that there were extremely long lines in primarily poor or minority precincts. I don't like the idea of using electronic voting machines that leave no paper trail -- it made me glad for the confusing punch-card system my county has! However, these are problems that a lot of states have, and I think it's really difficult to say how much they may have impacted the outcome.

However, and I know I'll probably get attacked for this, I did not get a feeling that there was widespread voter fraud such that the overall election results were changed.

Kerry had eyes and ears all over the place here. I volunteered at two different polls in my county on November 2nd, and each one was staffed with two Kerry lawyers. One sat inside and kept an eye on things (including the Republican challengers) and the other stood outside, clearly identifiable in a white jacket that said "Voter Protection." They interviewed voters leaving the polls, and took detailed reports of any situation, regardless of how major or minor it was. When I went to vote at 6:30am, the poll worker with the ballots showed up 15 minutes late. I mentioned this to the voter protection lawyer when I left, and she was on the phone within 30 seconds to check up on the situation. She also took my name and number and wrote down a description of what happened.

I sat outside the polls for 8 hours handing out literature, and I watched as the Kerry people took care of every single person who had to fill out a provisional ballot instead of a regular ballot. I'd imagine they had a pretty good idea by the end of the day how many provisional ballots were cast in democratic areas of the state.

When a large, unmarked truck parked in front of one polling place blocking the view of it from the street, the police were summoned within 10 minutes to make sure that it was moved.

The ACLU was everywhere as well. I was actually so impressed with their volunteer workers that I signed up to be a card-carrying member myself just a few days later. Honestly, at some polling stations there were more vote protectors than voters. From what I heard from my family and friends, it was similar at other polls across the state.

So when Kerry conceeded the next day, I cried, but I trusted that he had gotten enough information to make an educated decision. I think if there had been clear evidence (the kind that would have stood up in a lawsuit) of fraud or misconduct he would have easily gotten word of it.

I feel like it would have been possible for Kerry to win Ohio, but definitely difficult and of course it was going to be a close race no matter what. The fact that Ohio's population is fairly evenly split between democrat and republican and that we were a "swing state" drew an unusual amount of attention to our election practices. Which is good, we needed it. But I don't think that there are any problems here that are worse than the problems of any other state -- I felt just as safe voting here as I would have anywhere else.

I know some of the people who were observers during vote counting and recounting, and I didn't hear anything from any of them that made me think that something strange was going on. Ohio was an important state in the election, and passions were high on both sides, but I still generally trust my fellow ohioans who signed up to be election workers.

I was glad Barbara Boxer challenged Ohio's electoral votes, but I thought of it more as symbolic of changes that need to happen across the board, in every state. Nobody's vote should be lost into a computer system without a paper trail, and nobody's secretary of state should also be the state's co-chair of a presidential campaign. I've written to my representatives about my concerns and have helped with petition drives.

I'm just a college student and hardly an expert on elections. Those are just my observations as an Ohio voter and volunteer for the Democratic party.

Wow... I am very impressed with your thoughtful and extensive description of events regarding your local election process in Ohio. I particularly appreciate your candid comments regarding your own biases and your conscience efforts to be neutral in a politically charged environment. Seeing what happened in Ohio through a television lens can be very distorted and easily manipulated by the medium.

In your opening comments about Blackwell; the paper weight requirement, the political conflict of interest, and the imbalanced allocation of voting machines and paperless voting equipment was not enough of a red flag for you to be convinced that a criminal event had occurred in Ohio's Presidential election precess. You commented that these types of problems were probably typical of other states and thus not a matter of sufficient importance to merit alarm or concern. Let me assure you that if such events happen in California, all he11 would break loose. If I remember correctly, the weather in Ohio that day was not very good so people standing in long lines for hours would suffer greatly, even to the point of personal peril. After making these comments you then state that you personally suspect that no widespread voter fraud occurred, at least not to the extent that would have effected the election outcome. You statements and your conclusion flies in the face of logic. The statements you made in above support the fact that election fraud did occur, that it was widespread and that it is possible that it had an effect on the election results.

It is good to know that election observers and volunteers were there and that even the ACLU was there. Your comment that if there had been any evidence of election fraud, it would have been exposed based on what you and others observed. Your observations are not necessarily a means of determining if additional election fraud above and beyond what you stated in your opening comments happened or not. The fraud could be happening right under your noses and you would never know it. The paperless voting machines could easily mis-count votes and no one would be the wiser. So until that count is verified (which it can not be since there is no paper trail) can only lead to the conclusion that the validity of the count is in doubt. If the votes were recounted as in any other contested election the results could have been conclusively proven. Since they can not be verified, it is the conclusion of this Californian that the intent was to obstruct the true count, the validity of the election because the tabulations were false. The voters of Ohio as you stated, are most assuredly honorable and trustworthy, but as in most important events both personal and public, it is paramount that trust be verifiable. The fact that a Californian Senator (Barbara Boxer) sticks her neck out for her constituents all the way to the events in Ohio demonstrates her dedication to be a servant of the people of the United States regardless of her own personal fate in doing so. It is not enough that fraud may have occurred in Ohio, it is the lack of verification that throws the cloud of suspicion and trust in our entire national election process. We as a nation are now forced by these events to waste huge sums of money and thousands of hours of effort to turn over every rock to uncover the truth about whether or not the most treasonous crime in US history has allowed a Fascists takeover of our country. This is deadly serious stuff here and the citizen of America are not going to let Democracy slip quietly for our grasp. Nope, there is a stink in the air over America and it doesn't take a weatherman to know which way the wind blows. Sorry if I fail to cloak my bias and passions about this, its just that when I suspect my country has been hijacked, I get a little testy.

Ohio is two halves...North and South.

Its still true, there are exceptions of course.

- Another interesting aspect of the Ohio voter, many are conservative Democrats.

I got ur back all the way brother. Lets get Barbara Boxer's back too.

If there seems to be a stench coming from Ohio, maybe it's because it's the only state anybody was sniffing.

What might you have discovered in your state if the whole world descended upon it for an election? (I'm sure those from Florida understand.) The reason that problems were uncovered is because a lot of us here worked very hard before the elections to make sure they would be adequately monitored. I think everybody should be asking themselves: what if my state were the swing state?

The problems that exist here... diebold voting machines, biased secretaries of state, what have you... all exist in other states as well. Vote reform needs to be a coast-to-coast effort. Our problems were brought to light because of much increased voter registration and turnout, and because of overwhelming national and international attention to the results here. It doesn't necessarily mean that there was a massive conspiracy to steal the election. Again, just basing this on my own observations and experience over the last few months.

And, no matter how you look at it, our secretary of state really sucks at his job. Maybe if he hadn't been so busy schmoltzing with rich Republican donors so that he could use them for his run for governor, he would have had time to analyze which precincts might need extra voting machines to account for higher voter registration and turnout.

*shrug*

All very good posts! I learned alot! BUT, I already knew and was e-mailing and phoning my reps YEARS ago about the Diebold paperless voting machines!

I can't begin to describe my anger, even though I know that we all did what we could do!

The only silver lining for me is that I NO LONGER HAVE THE SLIGHTEST ILLUSIONS AS TO THE DEPTHS THE REPUBLICAN LEADERSHIP WILL SINK TO!

My only prayer, is that the rest of America realizes WHAT THESE PEOPLE ARE!

It depends who you talk to in Akron, Ohio. According to people who saw the lines and problems, it was not fair at all. We have friends in Columbus who waited in the long lines (Columbus is in the middle of the state) and Kent (Kent borders Akron, which is 120 miles northeast of Columbus) who saw fraud concerning provisional ballots. Most of Akron ran smoothly, but many of the punch cards were spoiled, we learned later. Friends of ours from Youngstown are also still talking about the election. Many of us are more political now than we have been in 30 years. My husband reports that people where he works still discuss the election as not being fair; this is in a department that at one time was Republican, but since one of his co-workers' son served in Iraq, has changed politics 180 degrees.

On the other hand, a few Republicans just spout stuff they've heard from the neo-cons.

Yes, there are still Kerry stickers on cars (not just mine). Most houses don't have signs out, because there have been a few snow storms since, and the snow kind of makes signs fall down. Very few Bush stickers that I've seen, although more than half the cars have support our troops ribbons, either yellow or as flags. Everybody is a friend of some family who has somebody in Iraq or who lost somebody in Iraq.

That person from southern Ohio is correct: the divide between red and blue isn't between north and south in Ohio, it is more between east and west. Towards Indiana it gets redder, for some reason not being influenced by Michigan. My sister lives in the Cincinnati area, and she reports it as a mixed bag.

I'm still sporting my Kerry bumper sticker here in CA. I'm in a Repub "Shut up and do as your told" area and still see almost all "W"imp stickers so I ain't goin to be removing my Kerry one anytime soon.