http://www.votecobb.org/
Daily Update
Monday, December 27, 2004
Blackwell's Role Becoming Clearer
As more county recount reports flow into our office, it is becoming clearer that Secretary Blackwell's office had a direct role in making it harder to vote in Ohio and harder to recount the vote.
For example, the new Champaign County report describes how the precinct signature book, necessary to verify that the number of votes that were cast, will not be made available to our recount observers until after January 10, per orders of the Secretary of State (and, of course, Congress convenes on January 6 to receive the Electoral College votes, so irregularities discovered after that date are old news).
Another fact to emerge from the recount reports is that no one can say for sure whether the state-wide vote totals are accurate, because the "chain of custody" of vote tabulators and even paper ballots has been compromised by unsupervised access given to machine technicians. In Van Wert County, for example, our observer reported:
QUOTE
"When asked if Triad had serviced the machine, the deputy director and a board member stated that they had serviced the machine over the phone via modem on December 9th."
In Ashland County, there were other security issues:
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"The cast ballots are stored by precinct in open cubicles along one wall of this room, completely open and visible to anyone who enters this room....Piled on top of the cubicles holding the vote are baskets, Doritos, paper plates, mugs, cleaning products, Fresh-n-Soft, Glad Wrap, etc."
In another recent development, our website team received an email from our hosting company, saying that our bandwidth usage is so high that we will have to pay an extra fee this month (yes, your donations are still needed). In fact, traffic usually goes way down over the holidays, but not this website. Thousands of you have been spending an average of over three minutes per visit (the industry average is well under one minute), and website statistics show you are coming from all over America and from many countries overseas.
Please email this page to others so we can raise public awareness and keep the pressure on our Representatives in every state between now and January 6th, when the Electoral College meets. Also, please be sure to post your opinion in our new Ohio Recount Blog!
The latest County Recount Reports include: Ashland, Champaign, Guernsey, Hardin, Knox, Mercer, Miami, Montgomery, Noble, and Van Wert. These new reports describe more "irregularities" that are being investigated by our attorneys. Written to help the public understand the magnitude of the problems facing Ohio voters, the recount reports on this site were created by Green, Libertarian, Democratic, and independent recount observers. Check back daily to see the new reports and features added. Thanks again to the 6,000+ donors and 3,000+ volunteers who are making this happen.
Meanwhile, the New Mexico Supreme Court declined to hear our petition for a writ of mandamus, upholding a State Canvassing Board decision that Cobb and Libertarian Michael Badnarik pay the full cost of the New Mexico recount in advance (estimated by the Board at $1.4 million). That decision was contrary to New Mexico law, because there is no legal requirement that campaigns pay the full cost in advance, nor any way to accurately estimate the cost of the recount before it is completed. press release commentary: Mock the Vote more updates