VOTEGATE
Links to Vote Fraud Websites & Info.
Sat Aug 6, 2005 14:20
Links to Vote Fraud Websites & Info.
http://www.apfn.org/apfn/votegate.htm
[3 articles]
Lawyers to challenge election in Ohio
http://www.cleveland.com/news/plaindealer/index.ssf?/base/news/110094683912880.xml
Saturday, November 20, 2004
Julie Carr Smyth
Plain Dealer Bureau
Columbus- A trio of activist lawyers armed with mysteriously wrong exit
polls and hundreds of voter horror stories announced plans Friday to
contest Ohio's presidential election as soon as the vote is official.
Their challenge could lead to widespread reconsideration of dozens of
alleged election irregularities around the state - from reported
computerized voting glitches to provisional-ballot mishaps to unusual
incidents involving voter rolls, poll workers and machine technicians.
But it is unclear whether the complaint will ever get that far.
Columbus attorney Cliff Arnebeck, a national officer in the Alliance for
Democracy, could not predict exactly when members of the coalition will be
ready or able to file their request.
And, after they do, the Ohio Supreme Court would have to rule in their favor.
To qualify to reopen consideration of the election, Arnebeck said, the
group needs find only 25 aggrieved electors and evidence of irregularities,
both of which he and his associates have collected in abundance at hearings
around the state, he said.
Another hearing is scheduled in Cleveland today.
Arnebeck said the national boards of the NAACP, Alliance for Democracy and
Common Cause are reviewing requests to sign on to the litigation, which is
not affiliated with either political party.
Carlo LoParo, a spokesman for the secretary of state's office, said many
glitches brought to light on Internet blogs and in the alternative press
will be corrected in the state's official canvass of the election.
That process, which turns unofficial election results into official ones,
is still under way.
LoParo said the canvass includes precinct-level auditing of results, poll
book reviews, provisional-ballot verification and an actual recount of all
ballots cast on Election Day. Official results historically have varied
from final totals only enough to affect the outcomes of very close local
races, nothing of the scale of a national race.
Susan Truitt, co-founder of Citizens' Alliance for Secure Elections and one
of the participating lawyers, said Ohioans need to know their vote was
properly counted.
"Our intent is to examine this election, and to prevail, so that we will
have a democracy in this country," she said. "So that we will not have our
voices shut down."
To reach this Plain Dealer reporter:
jsmyth@plaind.com, 1-800-228-8272
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Lawyers Plan To Challenge Election Results
http://www.onnnews.com/Global/story.asp?S=2592759&nav=LQlCTMEA
November 20, 2004
Lawyers who have been documenting voting may problems in Ohio say they'll
challenge the results of the presidential election as soon as the vote is
official.
The lawyers say documented cases of long lines, a shortage of machines and
a pattern of problems in predominantly black neighborhoods are enough
evidence to bring such a challenge.
The lawyers, who will represent voters who cast ballots November Second,
will use a state law that allows them to file a request to challenge the
election with the Ohio Supreme Court. The law allows the challenge to be
heard by the chief justice of the Ohio Supreme Court.
In the case of Ohio, that's Justice Thomas Moyer, a Columbus Republican.
The official vote will not be certified until early next month.
Requests strain election boards, county budgets
Groups checking election results are asking county elections boards for all
kinds of documents, everything from provisional ballot totals to voter
signature poll books.
Elections officials say such requests from political and advocacy groups,
media outlets and other organizations are straining their staffs and
budgets as they try to finish the official ballot count for the
presidential election.
Ross County elections director Nancy Bell says she's never experienced
anything like this in her 19 years at the elections board.
Bev Harris is founder of Black Box Voting, a Seattle-based nonprofit
consumer protection organization. She says her group has filed records
requests for every Ohio county to check the accuracy of the the final vote
report sent to the secretary of state.
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AfD to File Lawsuit Contesting Ohio Presidential Election Results
http://www.thealliancefordemocracy.org/html/eng/2163-AA.shtml
Coalition to contest election results
Lawsuit aimed at problems reported in presidential race
Saturday, November 20, 2004
Jon Craig
THE COLUMBUS DISPATCH
A coalition of citizen-action groups announced plans yesterday to file
a new lawsuit contesting the presidential election results in Ohio.
Columbus lawyer Clifford O. Arnebeck of the Alliance for Democracy
joined Upper Arlington lawyer Susan Truitt and political-science
professor Robert Fitrakis at a news conference outside the Ohio Supreme
Court to discuss their impending legal action.
"Please make no mistake. There is nothing short of democracy at risk
here," said Truitt, co-founder of Citizens' Alliance for Secure
Elections in Ohio.
"There have been an abundant number of reports of irregularities in
the election," Arnebeck said. "The objective is to get to the truth."
Arnebeck said Common Cause, the National Association for the
Advancement of Colored People and People for the American Way also have
been asked to join the challenge, based on two sections of the Ohio
Revised Code. Arnebeck said a petition must be signed by at least 25
voters before it can be filed with the Ohio Supreme Court.
"Time is critical," he said. "We intend to file as soon as we can."
During the past week, Fitrakis, a lawyer who teaches at Columbus State
Community College, helped organize several public hearings in Columbus,
Cincinnati and Cleveland for people to voice election complaints.
Hundreds of people who were "disenfranchised, intimidated or somehow
discouraged from voting" gave sworn testimony that will support the
complaint, Truitt said.
At a minimum, the coalition thinks it can challenge the outcome of the
election based on scientifically designed nonpartisan exit polling that
found Kerry led in Ohio.
But Ohio State University law professor Edward B. "Ned" Foley
disagrees with the coalition's thinking.
"I do not believe that the discrepancy between exit polls and actual
(voter) rolls would be a sufficient basis for a contest action under
the statute," Foley said. "The case law is clear that it is very
difficult to prevail in one of these contest procedures.
"I would be extremely hesitant to bring a contest procedure in
general," Foley said. "I think it is unhelpful to dispute the result
when there isn't the evidence to support that dispute. We should be
focusing on fixing the process in the future."
The morning after the election, with President Bush holding an
unofficial 136,000-vote lead in Ohio over Sen. John Kerry and with
about 155,000 provisional votes yet to be counted statewide, Kerry
determined he could not win and conceded.
Arnebeck said the legal action would be aimed at protecting the
integrity of the election process, not deciding a clear winner. The
action is separate from a formal recount request planned by candidates
for the Green and Libertarian parties.
Among voting irregularities cited by the coalition:
* There was a shortage of voting machines in precincts in Franklin and
Knox counties more heavily populated by blacks or students expected to
vote Democratic.
* A Gahanna precinct mistakenly recorded 3,893 more votes for
President Bush because of an unexplained touchscreen machine
malfunction.
* People have been found to have voted both in person and by absentee
ballots in Madison and Summit counties.
* A printer in Trumbull County testified that he was asked to supply
punch-card ballots on heavier bond paper, possibly making voting more
difficult.
* Discrepancies were found in vote counts on machines in Miami County
and some ballots may have been counted twice in Sandusky County.
* New voter-registration cards reportedly were discarded in Hamilton
County.
* A former electronic-voting machine worker possibly tampered with
equipment in Auglaize County.
Earlier this week, the Ohio Democratic Party announced it would join a
lawsuit arguing that the state lacks clear rules for evaluating
provisional ballots, a move the party said will keep its options open
if problems with the ballots surface.
The federal lawsuit was filed Election Day against Ohio Secretary of
State J. Kenneth Blackwell alleging voters would not be treated
equally, as the Constitution requires, because the state's 88 counties
evaluated provisional ballots differently.
A separate federal lawsuit is expected to be filed next week over the
planned recount.
jcraig@dispatch.com
===================================================
Recount efforts in Ohio by Kerry intensify
http://www.northcountynews.com/view.asp?s=11-17-04/news5.htm
November 17 - November 23, 2004
by Adam Stone
A top-ranking official with Democratic Senator John Kerry's presidential
campaign told North County News last week that although unlikely, there is
a recount effort being waged that could unseat Republican President George
W. Bush.
"We have 17,000 lawyers working on this, and the grassroots accountability
couldn't be any higher -no (irregularity) will go unchecked. Period," Kerry
spokesman David Wade said.
A verbal firestorm erupted last week between an area supporter of
independent presidential candidate Ralph Nader and Wade after the Kerry
spokesman derided Nader for creating a "phony wedge issue between
progressives."
Nader has been calling on Kerry and his vice presidential running mate,
Senator John Edwards of North Carolina, to, in his words, "follow through
on their post-election promise to the American people to make sure every
vote counts, starting in Ohio."
A Kerry victory in Ohio means he would have the necessary electoral votes
to take the White House.
The local Nader supporter, Don DeBar, an Ossining resident, took umbrage
with Wade's remarks.
"It seems to me the (wedge) was created when Kerry, after promising to
ensure that every vote would count, conceded before they were counted,"
DeBar, who worked for the Nader campaign in San Antonio during the ballot
access drive, wrote in an e-mail message to Wade.
The Kerry spokesman said, so far, "there hasn't been any indication" of
swinging a state or the overall election.
"…But we'll make sure every single vote is counted," he added.
Nader press secretary Kevin Zeese said "I'm laughing," after being informed
of Wade's remark about creating a wedge issue.
"They used those same 17,000 lawyers to keep us off the ballots," Zeese
said during a telephone interview.
Wade said Nader "should be working with Democrats to guarantee the right to
vote is protected."
During a flurry of e-mail exchanges with Wade, DeBar said, "What about the
concession? If there are sufficient indicia of fraud and/or inaccurate
counting, will Kerry 'unconcede'?"
Former Vice President Al Gore conceded in his 2000 battle with Bush for the
White House before demanding recounts, which were ultimately halted by the
United States Supreme Court.
Two third-party presidential candidates have raised enough money to file
for an official recount of the vote in Ohio.
Green Party candidate David Cobb announced Monday the $113,600 needed to
file for a recount had been raised.
"Thanks to the thousands of people who have contributed to this effort, we
can say with certainty that there will be a recount in Ohio," Cobb said in
a statement.
The Green Party has been working with the Libertarian Party - both parties
were on the ballot in Ohio - in securing a recount. Both Cobb and
Libertarian Michael Badnarik say they've demanded that Ohio Secretary of
State Kenneth Blackwell, a Republican who co-chaired this year's Bush
campaign in Ohio, recuse himself from the recount process.
Cobb Media Director Blair Bobier said, "The Ohio presidential election was
marred by numerous press and independent reports of mismarked and discarded
ballots, problems with electronic voting machines and the targeted
disenfranchisement of African-American voters."
The Ohio vote will be certified on Dec. 3 at the latest, Bobier said.
The Electoral College votes on December 13, so it is unclear whether or not
a recount would be completed by then.
However, Jonathan Turley, a professor of constitutional law at George
Washington University, told WorldNetDaily.com that "those votes are not
opened by Congress until Jan. 6. So there is still time to challenge the
results in Ohio."
A demand for a recount in Ohio can only be filed by a presidential
candidate who was either a certified write-in candidate or on the ballot in
that state.
Bush won Ohio by a vote of 2,796,147 to John Kerry's 2,659,664. Despite
reports of irregularities and outstanding provisional ballots, Kerry
conceded Ohio and the election on November 3.
In the 11 Ohio counties that have finished checking provisional ballots
cast in the presidential election, 81 percent have turned out to be valid.
It is too early to know whether the ballots have benefited Bush or Kerry
because counties first need to determine their validity before conducting
the count.
Badnarik received 14,331 votes in Ohio and Cobb, as a write-in candidate,
received 24 votes.
When asked about how the Kerry campaign has reacted to Nader's efforts,
Zeese said, "You've got the closest thing to a response," referring to the
comments made by Wade to North County News.
According to a November 5 article by the Associated Press, elections
officials admitted that an error with an electronic voting system gave
President Bush 3,893 extra votes in a Gahanna precinct. Franklin County
reported Bush with 4,258 votes and John Kerry with 260, even though only
638 voters cast ballots in that precinct. Election officials in that county
now say a cartridge from a voting machine generated errors after the
precinct closed, and only 365 people voted for Bush, Nader notes in a press
release.
Additional machine errors in Ohio reported by VotersUnite.org, include:
• Mahoning County: The glass on top of one electronic screen
was too far from the screen, making it difficult for people to use their
fingers to cast ballots. A screen went blank on a Youngstown voter while he
cast his ballot.
• Mahoning County: 20 to 30 machines needed to be recalibrated
during the voting process because some votes for a candidate were being
counted for that candidate's opponent.
• Mahoning County: About a dozen machines needed to be reset
because they essentially froze.
• Cincinnati: Problems with punch card voting machines delayed
the start of voting for up to an hour Tuesday morning at a suburban
precinct. Voters were unable to slide their punch-card ballots all the way
into any of the six voting machines that had all evidently been damaged in
transit.
• Columbus: Overcharged batteries on Danaher Controls
ELECTronic 1242 systems kept machines from booting up properly at the
beginning of the day.
The resulting delays, combined with higher voter turnout, resulted in lines
of several hours, in one case 22 hours, and led to some citizens' voting
rights being taken away by administrative default, Nader contends.
The situation in Ohio and other states bears out, according to Nader, what
he warned against before the election.
Among them:
Computers are inherently subject to programming error, equi
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