DEPARTMENTS
ANTI-WAR
DEATH PENALTY
ELECTIONS
ENVIRONMENT
GLBT ISSUES
HEMP
INTERNATIONAL
NATIONAL
REVIEWS
|
Departments Election Issues Has American Democracy died an electronic death in Ohio 2005's referenda defeats? Once again, the Buckeye state has hosted an astonishing display of electronic manipulation that calls into question the sanctity of America's right to vote, and to have those votes counted in this crucial swing state. The controversy has been vastly enhanced due to the simultaneous installation of new electronic voting machines in nearly half the state's 88 counties, machines the General Accountability Office has now confirmed could be easily hacked by a very small number of people. Last year, the US presidency was decided here. This year, a bond issue and four hard-fought election reform propositions are in question. Issue One on Ohio's 2005 ballot was a controversial $2 billion "Third Frontier" proposition for state programs ostensibly meant to create jobs and promote high tech industry. Because some of the money may seem destined for stem cell research, Issue One was bitterly opposed by the Christian Right, which distributed leaflets against it. The Issue was pushed by a Taft Administration wallowing in corruption. Governor Bob Taft recently pleaded guilty to misdemeanors stemming from golf outings he took with Tom Noe, the infamous Toledo coin dealer who has taken $4 million or more from the state. Taft entrusted Noe with some $50 million in investments for the Ohio Bureau of Workers' Compensation, from which some $12 million is now missing. Noe has been charged with federal money laundering violations on behalf of the Bush-Cheney campaign. Taft's public approval ratings in Ohio are currently around 15%. Despite public fears the bond issue could become a glorified GOP slush fund, Issue One was supported by organized labor. A poll run on the front page of the Columbus Dispatch on Sunday, November 6, showed Issue One passing with 53% of the vote. Official tallies showed Issue One passing with 54% of the vote. The polling used by the Dispatch had wrapped up the Thursday before the Tuesday election. Its precision on Issue One was consistent with the Dispatch's historic polling abilities, which have been uncannily accurate for decades. This poll was based on 1872 registered Ohio voters, with a margin of error at plus/minus 2.5 percentage points and a 95% confidence interval. The Issue One outcome would appear to confirm the Dispatch polling operation as the state's gold standard. But Issues 2-5 are another story. The Dispatch's Sunday headline showed "3 issues on way to passage." The headline referred to Issues One, Two and Three. As mentioned, the poll was dead-on accurate for Issue One. Issues Two-Five were meant to reform Ohio's electoral process, which has been under intense fire since 2004. The issues were very heavily contested. They were backed by Reform Ohio Now, a well-funded bi-partisan statewide effort meant to bring some semblance of reliability back to the state's vote count. Many of the state's best-known moderate public figures from both sides of the aisle were prominent in the effort. Their effort came largely in response to the stolen 2004 presidential vote count that gave George W. Bush a second term and led to U.S. history's first Congressional challenge to the seating of a state's delegation to the Electoral College. Issue Two was designed to make it easier for Ohioans to vote early, by mail or in person. By election day, much of what it proposed was already put into law by the state legislature. Like Issue One, it was opposed by the Christian Right. But it had broad support from a wide range of Ohio citizen groups. In a conversation the day before the vote, Bill Todd, a primary official spokesperson for the opposition to Issues Two through Five, told attorney Cliff Arnebeck that he believed Issues Two and Three would pass. The November 6 Dispatch poll showed Issue Two passing by a vote of 59% to 33%, with about 8% undecided, an even broader margin than that predicted for Issue One. But on November 8, the official vote count showed Issue Two going down to defeat by the astonishing margin of 63.5% against, with just 36.5% in favor. To say the outcome is a virtual statistical impossibility is to understate the case. For the official vote count to square with the pre-vote Dispatch poll, support for the Issue had to drop more than 22 points, with virtually all the undecideds apparently going into the "no" column. The numbers on Issue Three are even less likely. Issue Three involved campaign finance reform. In a lame duck session at the end of 2004, Ohio's Republican legislature raised the limits for individual donations to $10,000 per candidate per person for anyone over the age of six. Thus a family of four could donate $40,000 to a single candidate. The law also opened the door for direct campaign donations from corporations, something banned by federal law since the administration of Theodore Roosevelt. The GOP measure sparked howls of public outrage. Though again opposed by the Christian Right, Issue Three drew an extremely broad range of support from moderate bi-partisan citizen groups and newspapers throughout the state. The Sunday Dispatch poll showed it winning in a landslide, with 61% in favor and just 25% opposed. Tuesday's official results showed Issue Three going down to defeat in perhaps the most astonishing reversal in Ohio history, claiming just 33% of the vote, with 67% opposed. For this to have happened, Issue Three's polled support had to drop 28 points, again with an apparent 100% opposition from the previously undecideds. The reversals on both Issues Two and Three were statistically staggering, to say the least. The outcomes on Issue Four and Five were slightly less dramatic. Issue Four meant to end gerrymandering by establishing a non-partisan commission to set Congressional and legislative districts. The Dispatch poll showed it with 31% support, 45% opposition, and 25% undecided. Issue Four's final margin of defeat was 30% in favor to 70% against, placing virtually all undecideds in the "no" column. Issue Five meant to take administration of Ohio's elections away from the Secretary of State, giving control to a nine-member non-partisan commission. Issue Five was prompted by Secretary of State J. Kenneth Blackwell's administration of the 2004 presidential vote, particularly in light of his role as co-chair of Ohio's Bush-Cheney campaign. The Dispatch poll showed a virtual toss-up, at 41% yes, 43% no and 16% undecided. The official result gave Issue Five just 30% of the vote, with allegedly 70% opposed. But the Sunday Dispatch also carried another headline: "44 counties will break in new voting machines." Forty-one of those counties "will be using new electronic touch screens from Diebold Election System," the Dispatch added. Diebold's controversial CEO Walden O'Dell, a major GOP donor, made national headlines in 2003 with a fundraising letter pledging to deliver Ohio's 2004 electoral votes to Bush. Every vote in Ohio 2004 was cast or counted on an electronic device. About 15%---some 800,000 votes---were cast on electronic touchscreen machines with no paper trail. The number was about seven times higher than Bush's official 118,775-vote margin of victory. Nearly all the rest of the votes were cast on punch cards or scantron ballots counted by opti-scan devices---some of them made by Diebold---then tallied at central computer stations in each of Ohio's 88 counties. According to a recent General Accountability Office report, all such technologies are easily hacked. Vote skimming and tipping are readily available to those who would manipulate the vote. Vote switching could be especially easy for those with access to networks by which many of the computers are linked. Such machines and networks, said the GAO, had widespread problems with "security and reliability." Among them were "weak security controls, system design flaws, inadequate security testing, incorrect system configuration, poor security management and vague or incomplete voting system standards, among other issues." With the 2005 expansion of paperless touch-screen machines into 41 more Ohio counties, this year's election was more vulnerable than ever to centralized manipulation. The outcomes on Issues 2-5 would indicate just that. The new touchscreen machines were brought in by Blackwell, who had vowed to take the state to an entirely e-based voting regime. As in 2004, there were instances of chaos. In inner city, heavily Democratic precincts in Montgomery County, the Dayton Daily News reported: "Vote count goes on all night: Errors, unfamiliarity with computerized voting at heart of problem." Among other things, 186 memory cards from the e-voting machines went missing, prompting election workers in some cases to search for them with flashlights before all were allegedly found. In Tom Noe's Lucas County, Election Director Jill Kelly explained that her staff could not complete the vote count for 13.5 hours because poll workers "were not adequately trained to run the new machines." But none of the on-the-ground glitches can begin to explain the impossible numbers surrounding the alleged defeat of Issues Two through Five. The Dispatch polling has long been a source of public pride for the powerful, conservative newspaper, which endorsed Bush in 2004. The Dispatch was somehow dead accurate on Issue One, and then staggeringly wrong on Issues Two through Five. Sadly, this impossible inconsistency between Ohio's most prestigious polling operation and these final official referendum vote counts have drawn virtually no public scrutiny. Though there were glitches, this year's voting lacked the massive irregularities and open manipulations that poisoned Ohio 2004. The only major difference would appear to be the new installation of touchscreen machines in those additional 41 counties. And thus the possible explanations for the staggering defeats of Issues Two through Five boil down to two: either the Dispatch polling---dead accurate for Issue One---was wildly wrong beyond all possible statistical margin of error for Issues 2-5, or the electronic machines on which Ohio and much of the nation conduct their elections were hacked by someone wanting to change the vote count. If the latter is true, it can and will be done again, and we can forget forever about the state that has been essential to the election of every Republican presidential candidate since Lincoln. And we can also, for all intents and purposes, forget about the future of American democracy. Updated November 13, 2005 -- Bob Fitrakis and Harvey Wasserman are co-authors of HOW THE GOP STOLE AMERICA'S 2004 ELECTION AND IS RIGGING 2008, available at http://www.freepress.org/ and http://www.harveywasserman.com/, and, with Steve Rosenfeld, of WHAT HAPPENED IN OHIO, available from The New Press in spring, 2006. |
|
Recent Election Issues Articles An open letter to the Election Assistance Commission Diebold hack proven in county test! Diebold Inc. in a tailspin after resignation of CEO and filing of a class action fraud lawsuit Orr thinks machines make voting simpler, more secure Diebold "hack test" - Sec. State / Black Box Lawyer square off With new legislation, Ohio Republicans plan holiday burial for American Democracy Important daily voting news Poll shock Ohio's Diebold Debacle: New machines call election results into question Diebold attempts to evade election transparency laws Supreme Court stabs another GOP knife into US democracy by upholding ex-felon vote ban Has American Democracy died an electronic death in Ohio 2005's referenda defeats? What John Kerry definitely said about 2004’s stolen election and why it's killing American democracy Scrap the "secret" ballot - return to open voting Clarification of NEDA's withdrawal of Ohio exit poll paper Clarification of NEDA's withdrawal of Ohio exit poll paper Watergate-style money laundering indictments stoke Ohio's stolen election fires Powerful Government Accountability Office report confirms key 2004 stolen election findings Did you erase your own vote? Why can't the left face the Stolen Elections of 2004 & 2008? Carter/Baker Report can't face how the GOP stole America's 2004 election & is rigging 2008 Two Steps Forward, One Step Back FEMA Chief Brown Paid Millions in False Claims to Help Bush Win Fla. Votes Ohio recount lawsuit set for trial; election workers indicted Ohio Governor's ethics violations expose money trail to stolen 2004 election Diebold's failure in California Did the GOP steal another Ohio Election? Conyers-Kaptur seek special counsel for Noe probe Dramatic new charges deepen link between Ohio's "Coingate," Voinovich mob connections, and the theft of the 2004 election None dare call it stolen - Ohio, the election, and America's servile press Civic Engagement and the Restoration of Community from a voter activist’s view My report from Hocking County, July 5, 2005: An update on Sherole Eaton's unfolding Story Handbook for Ohio Voter Activists, Version 2.0 Direct testimony: Presented to Election Assessment Hearing Log Cabin Republicans in Ohio With a limp election theft report, Dems prove why they're unworthy Voting problems and uncounted votes in Lucas County, Ohio The DNC 2004 Election Report: An indictment of incompetence Corporate control of the election process Introduction: Did George W. Bush steal America's 2004 election? Voter Confidence Committee Calls For Rejection of CA Special Election Activists from 25 states lobby for paper ballots on June 9 and 10 Fear of riffraff Electoral Politics and the War: Lessons from 2004 and What the Anti-War Movement Should do in 2006 Optical scan machines hacked in Florida Does ES&S really want to sell the Automark machines? Attack on election board whistleblower and leaked Blackwell threats re-fire Ohio's election theft scandal Franklin County, Ohio Election Procedures – April and May 2005 Carter Gets It – But Will His Electoral Commission? Voter Perceptions and Political Deceptions: Federal, Ohio and Knox Electoral reform groups call for James Baker's resignation from electoral reform commission National Conference on Election Reform Opens with Civil Rights Panel View from Another Planet Democrats! Paper “Trails” Aren’t Good Enough. Count The Damn Ballots! Democrats, Paper ‘Trails’ Aren’t Good Enough; Count The Damn Ballots! Scientific Analysis Suggests Presidential Vote Counts May Have Been Altered As Blackwell Says, Ohio’s in 2004 was a National Model Understanding the difference between paper ballots and paper audit trails Save Our Democracy Republicans maneuvering to get Voting Rights Act killed Legal filing highlights Blackwell's hypocrisy in Ohio recount case Selma 40 Years Later Exit Poll Madness - Analyst Steve Freeman & Company Offer False Choice Libertarians To Testify in Ohio House: Modernize Ohio's Election Laws The New Voting Rights Movement Begins Here Today Voting in America The Mighty Texas Strike Force Blackwell presidential election sanctions briefs Representative Conyers and others file amicus brief in Ohio Supreme Court Congresswoman Tubbs Jones Outraged at Blackwell's Failure to Appear During House Administration Hearing Ohio Attorney-General's attack on election protection attorneys draws mountain of documentation on state's stolen election, including new study on exit polls Prominent Statisticians Refute 'Explanation' of 2004 U.S. Exit Poll Discrepancies in New Edison/Mitofsky Report and Urge Investigation of U.S. Presidential Election Results The last man to concede... Report on Washington DC, January 6, 2005 Arkansas in 2004: Did Bush Really Win? New links Voting Problems and Uncounted Votes in Lucas County, Ohio Plan B: Parallel Elections & Signed Ballots Open Letter to Ohio Attorney General Jim Petro from Representative John Conyers, Jr. Open Letter to Warren Mitofsky and Larry Rosin from Representative John Conyers, Jr. Ohio's GOP Attorney General launches revenge attack on Election Protection legal team What are they hiding in New Mexico? In the Shadow of Dr. King, counting the vote remains a civil rights issue Did the “Liberal Media” Get the 2004 Election All Wrong?
'COUNT EVERY VOTE. EVERY VOTE COUNTS' Moss v. Bush moves on and movement continues Rally Continues Drive for Democracy Estimated vote count in Ohio January 6 Washington, D.C. rally report Together, we moved three mountains What the election challenge means Progressive Democrats lead historic voting rights protest as Congress ratifies flawed 2004 Electoral College tally Arnebeck letter to Congress re Presidential Electoral Challenge Senator Barbara Boxer, D-CA and Representative Stephanie Tubbs Jones, D-OH contested the election The "Crime of November 2": The human side of how Bush stole Ohio, and why Congress must investigate rather than ratify the Electoral College (Part Two of Two) Status Report of the House Judiciary Committee Democratic Staff Seven key reasons why the vote must be challenged at the electoral college Ten preliminary reasons why the Bush vote does not compute, and why Congress must investigate rather than certify the Electoral College (Part One of Two) Verified election contest petitions and documents in Ohio Supreme Court Distribution of voting machines by county in Ohio Did We Bounce An Election? Presidential election congressional hearing transcript Read Election Issues Articles by Year: |
FREE PRESS EMAIL UPDATE
Donate to the Free Press Election Protection Fund to help us investigate and monitor election fraud in this year's election.
FOLLOW US ON
twitter
facebook
SEARCH THE FREEPRESS
1021 E. Broad St. Columbus, OH 43205 | 614.253.2571 | truth@freepress.org
All content © 1970-2012 The Columbus Free Press
Disclaimer