Didn't post article because it's loaded with images:
http://www.chuckherrin.com/hackthevote.htm
Interesting thread:
http://smalltownilblue.mydd.com/story/2004/11/6/194844/563
Cuyahoga (Cleveland) OH data weirdness
by zigzig
There's some issues in the Cuyahoga County election data. By "issues" I mean, not obvious indefensible errors like seeing 600 voters resulting in 4000 votes (as was reported in Franklin County, Gahanna 1B), but the data looks beyond the realm of realistic possibility. And these particular Cuyahoga issues, if straightened out, add about 580+ votes to Kerry. These issues have been pointed out by others elsewhere, but I don't think a strong case has been made.. or that there has been any follow-up.
Diaries :: zigzig's diary :: Sat Nov 6th, 2004 at 07:48:44 PM EST
First off, most OH counties give county-wide summary results. Many of these summaries can be accessed via an index here. Four of the counties give precinct-level data. These are Frankin (Columbus),Cuyahoga (Cleveland), Butler(north of Cincinnati), and Lucas (Toledo). It looks like Franklin has already taken it's report off the web (though many of us already have the 414pg precinct-level data). Cuyahoga appears to be rerunning their totals with Friday's run here. Cuyahoga also gives the precinct-level data from the Gore/Bush contest in 2000 here. The Cuyahoga precinct maps are also there.
The data irregularies show up in the east side of Cleveland (that is, the part of Cleveland east of the Cuyahoga river - not "East Cleveland"). This area is represented by wards 1 through 10, with letters denoting the precincts within each ward (about 200 total precincts, each with roughly 500 registered voters).
This region is very democratic. Gore beat Bush in these precincts 61,444 to 2,256 in 2000, about a 27-to-1 ratio (check the links above to verify... I'm not including absentee ballots). Kerry beat Bush in these precincts by 74,934 to 3,816 in 2004, about a 22-to-1 ratio. It is no surprise that in 2004, Kerry took the median precinct with 96% of the vote here, nor is it surprising that he won 3/4 of the precincts by at least 94%.
The precincts that stand out are the following 7:
precinct BAD BC K/E PER Bal Sp %Kerry
CLEVELAND 4F 0 21 290 215 554 28 55.1
CLEVELAND 4N 163 11 318 7 507 8 63.7
CLEVELAND 5B 0 12 74 16 102 0 72.5
CLEVELAND 8G 51 19 225 1 305 9 76.0
CLEVELAND 3I 1 13 464 70 567 19 84.7
CLEVELAND 8I 0 8 245 27 318 38 87.5
CLEVELAND 3B 41 17 456 1 533 18 88.5
Bad is Badnarik, BC is Bush/Cheney, K/E Kerry Edwards, Per is Peroutka. Bal is the total number of ballots cast, and Sp are the number of spoiled ballots for the presidential race.
In each of these precincts, either Badnarik or Peroutka received a disproportionately high number of votes (as if one or more voting booths at these locations were labelled incorrectly, or some levers punched the wrong column). It's not like people in this urban area will be drawn to the Texan Badnarik or the Constitution Party's Peroutka. If you take these 580+ votes in these 7 precints away, these two guys received 260 votes in all other 200 precincts in these 10 wards in the east side of Cleveland (an average of 1.3 third-party votes per precinct). Again, this is in a region where it is surprising if Kerry receives less than 90% of the vote (in each of these precincts, Bush is still receiving 2-6% of the vote, except for 5B where he gets 11%). It's not possible to argue that these third-party votes were meant for Bush.. he rarely received more than 5% in any of the 200 east-side Cleveland precincts.
Because this is such an extreme case, it's an easy argument that these 580+ voters were disenfranchised by either bad equipment or by being deceived... and that these votes are meant for Kerry.
Lastly, this shows how useful it is to have precinct-level data publically available. I suspect the data irregularities are much more likely to show up in the rural areas..and in counties that are not confident enough to publically publish the data.
Please post corresponding 2000 data (none / 0)
If you have it, please post the corresponding 2000 data for these precincts, so we can be absolutely sure the flow went from Kerry to Badnarik/Peroutka, rather than from Bush.
by Winger on Sat Nov 6th, 2004 at 09:22:16 PM EST
Re: Please post corresponding 2000 data (none / 0)
Data from 2000 for the same precincts (I'm don't know if there's been any tweaking of the precinct boundaries between 2000 and 2004)
LIB BUC BC G/L NAT NAD PH bal Sp %Gor %BC
4F 0 0 28 377 0 2 4 428 17 92.7 6.8
4N 1 0 3 315 1 0 0 330 10 98.4 0.1
5B 0 0 9 172 1 8 0 202 12 90.5 4.7
8G 0 3 1 241 2 3 0 265 15 96.4 0.0
3I 1 1 2 352 1 2 0 380 21 97.8 0.0
8I 0 0 0 267 1 0 0 281 13 99.6 0.0
3B 0 0 2 244 0 1 2 263 14 98.0 0.0
LIB - HARRY BROWNE/ART OLIVIER
BUC BUCHANAN/EZOLA FOSTER
BC - GEORGE W BUSH/DICK CHENEY
G/L - AL GORE/JOSEPH LIEBERMAN
NAT - JOHN HAGELIN/NAT GOLDHABER
NAD - RALPH NADER/WINONA LaDUKE
PH - HOWARD PHILLIPS/J CURTIS FRAZIER
by zigzig on Sat Nov 6th, 2004 at 09:46:56 PM EST
[ Parent ]
good work (none / 0)
keep it up.
turn over every rock and
let's see what crawls out.
by Woody on Sat Nov 6th, 2004 at 10:05:00 PM EST
I'd Been Looking At These Today (none / 0)
So thanks for the local background info. I was using a benchmark of surrounding precincts, plus the County Recorder's race. But it's always best to hear from someone local.
by Paul Rosenberg on Sun Nov 7th, 2004 at 02:13:29 AM EST
Is it true... (none / 0)
I read that there's an inverse correlation between percent voter turnout and percent of support for Kerry in Cuyahoga. That doesn't make sense, because it seems to me it's the pattern you'd expect if the GOP was doing a great job of mobilizing people, but Cuyahoga was where ACT and MoveOn was doing all its GOTV stuff to get out the Kerry vote. I haven't checked the numbers yet myself to see if the inverse correlation is for real, but I wonder, and if it is for real, what explanation could there be?
by kvh on Sun Nov 7th, 2004 at 10:37:53 PM EST
Re: Is it true... (none / 0)
p.s. I mean they said that in precincts with higher turnout, the % that went to Kerry was lower. So it has to be plotted precinct by precinct. Could the fact that there are almost 25,000 provisionals in Cuyahoga have anything to do with it?
by kvh on Sun Nov 7th, 2004 at 10:39:09 PM EST
[ Parent ]
Please post corresponding 2000 data (none / 0)
If you have it, please post the corresponding 2000 data for these precincts, so we can be absolutely sure the flow went from Kerry to Badnarik/Peroutka, rather than from Bush.
by Winger on Sat Nov 6th, 2004 at 09:22:16 PM EST
Re: Please post corresponding 2000 data (none / 0)
Data from 2000 for the same precincts (I'm don't know if there's been any tweaking of the precinct boundaries between 2000 and 2004)
LIB BUC BC G/L NAT NAD PH bal Sp %Gor %BC
4F 0 0 28 377 0 2 4 428 17 92.7 6.8
4N 1 0 3 315 1 0 0 330 10 98.4 0.1
5B 0 0 9 172 1 8 0 202 12 90.5 4.7
8G 0 3 1 241 2 3 0 265 15 96.4 0.0
3I 1 1 2 352 1 2 0 380 21 97.8 0.0
8I 0 0 0 267 1 0 0 281 13 99.6 0.0
3B 0 0 2 244 0 1 2 263 14 98.0 0.0
LIB - HARRY BROWNE/ART OLIVIER
BUC BUCHANAN/EZOLA FOSTER
BC - GEORGE W BUSH/DICK CHENEY
G/L - AL GORE/JOSEPH LIEBERMAN
NAT - JOHN HAGELIN/NAT GOLDHABER
NAD - RALPH NADER/WINONA LaDUKE
PH - HOWARD PHILLIPS/J CURTIS FRAZIER
by zigzig on Sat Nov 6th, 2004 at 09:46:56 PM EST
[ Parent ]
good work (none / 0)
keep it up.
turn over every rock and
let's see what crawls out.
by Woody on Sat Nov 6th, 2004 at 10:05:00 PM EST
I'd Been Looking At These Today (none / 0)
So thanks for the local background info. I was using a benchmark of surrounding precincts, plus the County Recorder's race. But it's always best to hear from someone local.
by Paul Rosenberg on Sun Nov 7th, 2004 at 02:13:29 AM EST
Is it true... (none / 0)
I read that there's an inverse correlation between percent voter turnout and percent of support for Kerry in Cuyahoga. That doesn't make sense, because it seems to me it's the pattern you'd expect if the GOP was doing a great job of mobilizing people, but Cuyahoga was where ACT and MoveOn was doing all its GOTV stuff to get out the Kerry vote. I haven't checked the numbers yet myself to see if the inverse correlation is for real, but I wonder, and if it is for real, what explanation could there be?
by kvh on Sun Nov 7th, 2004 at 10:37:53 PM EST
Re: Is it true... (none / 0)
p.s. I mean they said that in precincts with higher turnout, the % that went to Kerry was lower. So it has to be plotted precinct by precinct. Could the fact that there are almost 25,000 provisionals in Cuyahoga have anything to do with it?
by kvh on Sun Nov 7th, 2004 at 10:39:09 PM EST
[ Parent ]
http://www.freepress.org/columns/display/3/2004/997
How a Republican election supervisor manipulated the 2004 central Ohio vote, in black and white
November 23, 2004
By Bob Fitrakis and Harvey Wasserman
The Republican head of the Board of Elections in Franklin County, Ohio, manipulated the supply of voting machines on November 2, denying thousands of likely Democrats the right to cast their votes in a fair and timely manner.
As indicated in the sworn testimony below, offered here for the first time, the election was engineered to make voting as difficult as possible for inner city residents, and to drive away those who could not afford to stay away from work or families, or whose health made it imprudent or impossible to endure the long, cold, wet lines.
Amidst one of the hottest presidential elections in US history, voters in Columbus, capitol of Franklin County and of Ohio, faced 35 separate ballot choices. Eleven were extensively worded Issue questions. For Columbus voters, it was one of the longest ballots in history. Yet in many inner city precincts, the Republican-run Board of Elections demanded voters cast their ballots within five minutes after waiting in many cases more than three hours.
In addition to deciding whether George W. Bush would get another term in the White House, inner city voters faced Issue One, amending the Ohio Constitution to ban gay marriage and other forms of civil union. They also had to read through eight infrastructure bond issues, a zoo levy and a school levy.
The man running the show in Franklin County was Board of Elections Director Matt Damschroder, former head of the county's Republican Party. Damschroder now admits that at least 77 of his machines (out of 2866) malfunctioned on Election Day. The most infamous has been the machine in Gahanna Ward One-B that registered 4258 for George W. Bush in a precinct where only 638 people voted.
Damschroder's official records also show that while desperate poll workers called his office throughout the day, at least 125 machines were held back at the opening of the polls and an additional 68 were never deployed. Thus while thousands of inner city voters stood in the rain, were told their cars would be towed, and were then forced to vote in five minutes or less, Damschroder sat on machines that could have significantly sped the process.