http://www.ohio.com/mld/beaconjournal/news...te/10395902.htm

Posted on Sat, Dec. 11, 2004

Ohio county left 39 voting machines unused

Associated Press

COLUMBUS, Ohio - While some voters waited in long lines to cast a ballot, the Franklin County elections board left 39 voting machines unused on Election Day.

The unused equipment amounted to 1.4 percent of the county's 2,840 machines.

Twenty-two machines left in a warehouse as emergency replacements were never used on Election Day and 17 replacement machines were shipped but never activated at the polls, according to Elections Director Matthew Damschroder.

Damschroder said the day before the election, he ordered that all 99 reserve machines be sent to precincts where long lines were expected.

Damschroder said he learned the extent of the unused machines last the week. He said the new information meant that there were fewer unused machines than was thought, and he said no election results were affected.

Damschroder said the discrepancies occurred because information from the board's warehouse about the placement of machines wasn't communicated with his office staff when he prepared his postelection report.

Thomas Rosenberg, a lawyer who helped monitor the election for the Kerry-Edwards campaign in Franklin County, called the revelations "disturbing" but said it was too soon to jump to conclusions.

"We hope that it is nothing more than human beings made errors of judgment for which all we can do is take steps to make sure it doesn't happen again," he said.

Damschroder said technicians hired to repair and deliver machines on Election Day indicated they had tried to deliver all of the machines. In some cases, the polls were closed or workers said they weren't needed, Damschroder said.

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Thomas Rosenberg, a lawyer who helped monitor the election for the Kerry-Edwards campaign in Franklin County, called the revelations "disturbing" but said it was too soon to jump to conclusions

Just another accidental oversight, I presume?

Geez...how many more coincidences do they have to have before they finally do jump? :o

check this out - check out the date!!!!

Monday, November 01, 2004
Phone Lines Cut
This over at Daily Kos, from an Ohio phone bank volunteer:


I worked all day yesterday at the largest Toledo area Kerry GOTV phone bank at Gallon and Takacs law offices, 3516 Granite, Sylvania. Out of the 8 phone banks that we had here in the Toledo area yesterday, ours produced one third of all of the contacts made.

Both the local phone company and our phone systems provider have confirmed to us that phone relay point into the building was purposely severed. Many volunteers were rerouted to other locations and several also had to rely on cell phones when we found our lines down this morning. We thought it was a coincidence until the phone company verified to us that the lines were intentionally cut.

and this . . .

Monday, November 01, 2004
Franklin County hit with phony leaflets
Matt Damschroder, director of the Franklin County (Columbus area) Board of Elections held a news conference Monday afternoon to announce that parts of the county had indeed been victimized by people distributing the following flyer:



Now, this is pretty much old school dirty tricks. Nothing too slick or traceable, but just enough in the way of possibly authentic touches. The "Franklin County Board of Elections" header on the leaflet is a deft touch, but the kicker is the slogan on the bottom.

It's hard to tell how many people would fall for this, and the publicity that this scam is going to receive will dissuade a lot of people. The problem is that if just 1/2 of 1 % of the people fall for it, then we are going to have a problem. This is some sick, sinister Rovian stuff, but it's also an act of desparation.

___________________________________________________________________

the copy of the flyer didn't paste over here, but it said

Due to heavy turnout

Reps vote on the 2nd
Dems on the 4th

They really wanted Ohio, didn't they?!

This was reported in Toledo and Colombus dispatch too.

more....

Saturday, October 30, 2004
Coalition says many absentee ballots not arriving in Cuyahoga County
Yesterday the Greater Cleveland Voter Registration Coalition sent a letter to Cuyahoga County BofE Director Michael Vu, warning that "there is the potential for many thousands of absentee voters to be disenfranchised because they have not received their absentee ballot".

The letter was released to the media but no coverage has appeared as yet.

The letter contines: "With very minimal checking we were able to locate the names and addresses of over 100 voters who stated that as of yesterday [Thursday, October 28 -- ed.] they have still not received the absentee ballot for which they applied. Many of these voters are seniors whose application requests were copied by volunteer organizations before they were submitted to the Board."

The letter, co-signed by CASE Ohio, asked the the BofE to call all voters who submitted absentee ballot requests to let them know they can ask for a substitute by overnight mail, and to honor such requests through Saturday. As of 1:25 pm Saturday, no response had been received from Vu to this request, according to GCVRC staffer Judy Gallo

Wow what is common cause doing then...

Amazing. A direct slap in the face to democrats by the republicans in ohio. Is this verifiable?

Man, if this was real, it should be brought up by a congressman. Everyone wants a little drama, and it will most certainly help raise the salary of national news teams in local newspapers. Otherwise, they might get cut.