1,200 provisional ballots rejected
Summit board takes dim view of dimples
Wednesday, November 17, 2004
Steve Luttner
Plain Dealer Reporter
Akron

About 1,200 provisional ballots were rejected Tuesday by the Summit County Board of Elections, where much of a morning meeting was devoted to a separate debate about dimples and piercings.


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Nearly 276,000 ballots were cast in the Nov. 2 election in Summit County. An additional 5,932 provisional ballots were cast but have yet to be counted and have been set aside for later consideration. Many of those votes are indeed legitimate, but workers at the Summit County Board of Elections have been poring over the provisional ballots for days, trying to determine how many are not.

Provisional ballots were issued to people who claimed to be registered voters but whose names did not appear on voter registration lists at the polling place.

The approximately 1,200 provisional ballots that were discarded Tuesday were rejected for a variety of reasons. Many were cast by people who weren't registered to vote.

In Cuyahoga County, the elections board staff is recommending that about a third of the nearly 12,000 provisional ballots reviewed so far be ruled invalid. Most of those invalid ballots were cast by voters who were not registered. Nearly 25,000 provisional ballots were cast in Cuyahoga County, the most in the state.

And in Geauga County, elections officials determined Tuesday that 77 of the 669 provisional ballots were not valid.

Unofficial statewide vote totals show that President Bush beat Sen. John Kerry by about 136,000 votes, although 155,000 provisional ballots were cast.

Summit County officials said Tuesday it is impossible to tell yet if the provisional ballots will affect any local election outcomes. In the village of Northfield, where an income tax increase passed by a mere 12 votes, there were 38 provisional ballots cast. Election officials said they plan to have all remaining provisional ballots counted by the end of the month.

Summit County election board members spent more than an hour discussing the effects of dimples and piercings on the punch-card ballots used in the county. In discussing 31 so-called "damaged" ballots which were either torn or placed incorrectly into the voting machine by voters the two Democratic board members were more inclined to count dimples impressions made in the ballot by the stylus. But the two Republican board members balked, favoring piercings instead, where the stylus had perforated the ballot.

The board ultimately decided to count only the piercings on a few damaged ballots, and it will ask the Ohio secretary of state to give it a ruling on dimples.

The board also said it would investigate instances where 18 voters appeared to have voted twice.

Perhaps the most unusual vote rejected was an absentee ballot that came with an unintelligible audiotape.

Plain Dealer Reporters Scott Hiassen and John Horton contributed to this story.

To reach this Plain Dealer reporter:

sluttner@plaind.com, 1-800-628-6689

http://www.cleveland.com/news/plaindealer/...87565159090.xml

Ohio provisional ballots tallied
Recount needed in one Ontario Charter Commission race
By David Benson, dbenson@nncogannett.com
News Journal

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Votes are in

The final vote tallies for major Richland County races are:


President: George Bush, 36,881; John Kerry, 24,641.

U.S. Congress, 4th District: Mike Oxley, 31,243; Ben Konop, 27,747.

Commissioner: Tim Wert, 26,212. Bridget McDaniel, 23,920. Stanley Pfeifer, 5,802.

Commissioner: Gary Utt, 29,825; Dan Hardwick, 27,893.

Clerk of Courts: Linda Frary, 29,486; Phil Scott, 28,470.

Sheriff: Steve Sheldon, 37,086; Richard Greer, 22,239.

Domestic Relations judge: Robert Konstam, 27,607; Bambi Couch-Page, 25,683.
Source: Richland County Board of Elections


MANSFIELD -- Ohio's provisional votes were counted Tuesday, but the 2004 general election is still not over at the national level or the local level.

"We'll have to have a recount in one Ontario Charter Commission race," said Board of Elections deputy director Paulette Hankins. "Sandra Lee and Kevyn Morehead are within one-half of one percent of each other, so under state law a recount is automatic."

That recount is tentatively scheduled for 10 a.m. Nov. 23.

No other local election results were altered by the provisional ballots, which were cast in all of the county's 126 precincts.

Tuesday, the board tallied 1,212 validated provisional ballots. On election day, 1,357 were cast, but 145 were ruled invalid when they were reviewed by the board last week. Of those, 28 were from voters registered in Richland County but casting votes in the wrong precinct, 92 were not registered in Richland County and 25 were not registered in another county as they claimed.

The presidential vote on those provisional ballots reflected almost exactly the percentages of the general vote, with 610 favoring President Bush and 578 going for Sen. John Kerry.

"It almost always turns out that way. There's never a big margin for one (candidate) or the other (from provisional votes)," Hankins said.

Today, the final ballot numbers (minus the Ontario recount) will be certified by the county and submitted to the Ohio Secretary of State's office, which in turn is scheduled to certify all votes Dec. 6. But that might not be the end of it.

A statewide recount of the presidential vote appears inevitable after a pair of third-party candidates said they have collected enough money to pay for it after that certification date.

Libertarian Michael Badnarik and the Green Party's David Cobb said Monday they raised more than the $113,600 needed to pay $10 for the recount in each of the state's voting precincts.

Badnarik and Cobb said they aren't trying to overturn President Bush's 136,000-vote victory in Ohio, but just want to ensure that all votes were counted properly in the face of concerns about Election Day irregularities.

"It looks like this election might go until the Electoral College meets in mid-December," Hankins said.


Email this story

Originally published Wednesday, November 17, 2004


http://www.mansfieldnewsjournal.com/news/s...ws/1605240.html

the second article doesn't sound too promising, right?

so the recount is not going to take place until after the certification and the electoral college has been appointed (which means reps for ohio)?

am i interpreting this right?

I don't think you're reading it quite right. My understanding is that the electoral college voters are already chosen and the formality is that they cast their votes for whoever their state chose. So, IF Kerry were to pull it out in Ohio, then they would vote Kerry. If not, their votes would go to Bush. And, there's wiggle room here. The electoral college voters are NOT required to vote in line with their state's vote, so conceivably, you could have a couple of really po'ed voters who refuse to cast their electoral votes for Bush-- I believe there's already a guy in WV who refuses.

What I got from that second article (even though the first interested me more because that's where I'm from and where I voted) was that while some counties are done counting and certifying their results, it won't matter because a recount is all but guarenteed to ensue (via Cobb and Badnarik's requests), and that the recount is tenatively scheduled for next Tuesday, the 23rd.

http://www.rise4news.net/extravotes.html

93,000 Extra Votes In
Cuyahoga County -
Outrage In Ohio

By Teed Rockwell
Philosophy Department, Sonoma State University
11-12-4



Smoking Gun

You may have seen the associated press story about the precinct in Cuyahoga county that had less than 1,000 voters, and gave Bush almost 4,000 extra votes.

But that turns out to be only the tip of a very ugly iceberg. The evidence discovered by some remarkably careful sleuthing would convince any reasonable court to invalidate the entire Ohio election.

In last Tuesday's election, 29 precincts in Cuyahoga County, Ohio, reported votes cast IN EXCESS of the number of registered voters - at least 93,136 extra votes total. And the numbers are right there on the official Cuyahoga County Board of Elections website:

Bay Village - 13,710 registered voters / 18,663 ballots cast
Beachwood - 9,943 registered voters / 13,939 ballots cast
Bedford - 9,942 registered voters / 14,465 ballots cast
Bedford Heights - 8,142 registered voters / 13,512 ballots cast
Brooklyn - 8,016 registered voters / 12,303 ballots cast
Brooklyn Heights - 1,144 registered voters / 1,869 ballots cast
Chagrin Falls Village - 3,557 registered voters / 4,860 ballots cast
Cuyahoga Heights - 570 registered voters / 1,382 ballots cast
Fairview Park - 13,342 registered voters / 18,472 ballots cast
Highland Hills Village - 760 registered voters / 8,822 ballots cast
Independence - 5,735 registered voters / 6,226 ballots cast
Mayfield Village - 2,764 registered voters / 3,145 ballots cast
Middleburg Heights - 12,173 registered voters / 14,854 ballots cast
Moreland Hills Village - 2,990 registered voters / 4,616 ballots cast
North Olmstead - 25,794 registered voters / 25,887 ballots cast
Olmstead Falls - 6,538 registered voters / 7,328 ballots cast
Pepper Pike - 5,131 registered voters / 6,479 ballots cast
Rocky River - 16,600 registered voters / 20,070 ballots cast
Solon (WD6) - 2,292 registered voters / 4,300 ballots cast
South Euclid - 16,902 registered voters / 16,917 ballots cast
Strongsville (WD3) - 7,806 registered voters / 12,108 ballots cast
University Heights - 10,072 registered voters / 11,982 ballots cast
Valley View Village - 1,787 registered voters / 3,409 ballots cast
Warrensville Heights - 10,562 registered voters / 15,039 ballots cast
Woodmere Village - 558 registered voters / 8,854 ballots cast
Bedford (CSD) - 22,777 registered voters / 27,856 ballots cast
Independence (LSD) - 5,735 registered voters / 6,226 ballots cast
Orange (CSD) - 11,640 registered voters / 22,931 ballots cast
Warrensville (CSD) - 12,218 registered voters / 15,822 ballots cast


The Republicans are so BUSTED.

http://boe.cuyahogacounty.us//BOE/results/...esults1.htm#top

...is the official website of the Cuyahoga county election board, providing irrefutable evidence that the vote was off by at least 93,000. Kerry lost Ohio by approximately 130,000, so this is not an insignificant figure that can be ignored, particularly when there are numerous other indications of voter fraud in Ohio and elsewhere.

I think the only possible alternative is to invalidate the entire Ohio election, if not the entire national election. I'd say the game's up.

America, it looks pretty much like you've been had.


Sincerely,


Teed Rockwell
Philosophy Department
Sonoma State University

Rense.com

Wow!

BG -- you know I'm not a freeper, so take what I say in that light. Those provisional returns don't look all that promising for Kerry, do they? I hope I'm wrong or am missing something.

DOES ANYONE know what the international observers reported...I haven't seen a thing from them?

that is INCORRECT: there are dem and reps electors; if b has most votes in ohio, then rep electors are appointed, who will cast their vote for b

hi, i'm not an expert myself so i don't know

i'm just worried about all the time lines, and honestly, i'm about to give up hope

from the kerry interview and the article by one of his lawyers it is clear they are leaving it all up to the counting and THE PEOPLE

so i don't expect kerry to jump up and get involved in any of this

sorry to sound so negative

CUYAHOGA's overcount has been explained!!!!!!! They include a other people in their count so it just looks really bad! Why they post it this way I have no clue. Even if they include others..... those folks should be included as registered voters. Either way this is NOT what it appears!


Chill!!!!!

O.K. I read another article that this 4,000 was taken care of and corrected in another blog. What's going on?

This is what I have been asking about since the election. One would think that they would be the ones to question the fraud through e-voting.

do you honestly think anyone would be listening to them?

there have been many reports about their findings in the press

please do a google search and then come back and report about them

A count of ballots cast, yes. But is that necessarily a count of valid ballots?
I'd love to see this go forward more than anyone, but I'd rather be sure all the facts are in place before doing so.

The notion that Provisional ballots were nearly equally split between Republicans and Democrats flys in the face of allegations that Democratic voters were targeted in advance of voting and that the Provisional ballots were given disproportionately to Democratic voters as a strategic effort by Republicans to deny those voters their right to vote.

The internet reports squarely report that there was widespread imbalance in the allocation of Provisional ballots. How does one believe these reports when the Republicans have gotten so many Provisional votes whether as a percentage of allowed or total Provisional ballots cast?

Forgive my naiveté when it comes to election recount procedures and formal processes with respect to the electoral college, but I have a question here:

If Kerry already conceded the election, does it really matter if a recount changes Ohio from red to blue? I understand how it may blow the lid off the voter fraud thing, but can Kerry actually become President?

Oh yes, it matters no matter what, because than Bush loses Ohio and the other state. The only official certified votes are the electoral college in january and if the EC sees widespread disenfranchisement and lies, how much faith do they have in their own "process"? Don't think so, this goes straight to the baskets and the criminals go down big time.

that would be funny all the electoral college votes for Kerry!!! Has this happened where all the the E. C. voters in a state voted against the state's vote?

Only a tidal wave or avalanche of evidence of vote fraud at levels that are clearly election swaying, which is an extroadinary amount in excess of 100,000 votes per state, would justify or even compel an Elector to switch their vote to be for an opposing party candidate - Kerry, in this case.

Good point.

So if these 4000 votes were cleared up do the numbers reflect that? Does anyone have proof that those 4000 votes were taken back?

Actually the 4,000 votes for Bush was in Franklin County not Cuyahoga County. and the Cuyahoga Board of elections has offered this explanation:

To a casual observer, Cuyahoga County seemed to have more votes than voters in some areas on Election Day - a 90,000-vote disparity being hyped in cyberspace under headlines such as "Sto len Election" and "Ohio Fraud."

The problem stems from an election canvassing report posted on the county's Web site, where the number of "ballots cast" in several suburbs exceeds the number of registered voters.

For example, the documents suggest that 13,939 ballots were cast in Beachwood, though only 9,943 voters are registered there.

But county officials say that's not how the data should be read. The "ballots cast" is not a reflection of the votes within a city's borders; the numbers also include votes in the congressional and legislative districts that overlap with the cities.
A disclaimer on the elections board's Web site warns viewers not to count up votes in a city based on the "ballots cast" column.

To read the full text of the article click here: http://www.cleveland.com/election/plaindea...08988056520.xml

then how come other counties aren't reporting a lower number. This is a poor excuse. It still doesn't add up right.

What's the chances of an Ohio and Florida re-vote?

An actual re-vote?! I would say slim to none....I've never heard of a state-wide re-vote before...