Election Day Troubles in Ohio

On December 2nd, 2004, the Democrats in the House Judiciary Committee signed a letter addressed to Ohio’s Secretary of State Kenneth Blackwell (R). The letter outlined 12 points worth investigating prior to certification. Although the election has been certified and we’re awaiting the casting of the electoral votes in a Joint Session of Congress on January 6th, the House Judiciary Committee has agreed to investigate the election. I’ve condensed the letter sent to Sec. of State Blackwell for your convenience so that you know what to look for from the media, Congress, the GAO and others who are (or should be) investigating this matter.

This gives you an idea of the questions raised by Democrats in Ohio. I’m not sure how many of them will actually be investigated or how many of them have been thoroughly and sufficiently addressed to date. As far as I know, questions related to these points below remained unanswered (sorry, Republicans. Calling it a "computer glitch" doesn't count). If you want to review the original letter, then follow this link. Enjoy!

1. The Warren County Lockdown: County officials claim that an FBI agent issued a level “10” terrorist threat warning, which resulted in a decision to lockdown the polling place, barring reporters from monitoring or viewing the polling. The FBI has no records of such a threat and there are discrepancies coming from the County officials’ information.
2. Perry County Discrepancies: It appears that in some precincts, voters were counted twice or there were more votes tallied than registered voters.
3. Perry County Registration Peculiarities: Extraordinarily high level of voter registration (91%) with a significant amount voting for the first time with no signature on file. Of these, a significant amount registered on the same day in 1977, a non-presidential election year.
4. Democratic Supreme Court Candidate Gets More Votes than Kerry: In Butler County, the underfunded Democratic Candidate for Supreme Court totaled 5,000 more votes than Kerry-Edwards. Based on the State’s unofficial results, this happened in eight other counties in addition to Adams County where Kerry barely received more (179 more). As noted in the letter, the question seems to be how voters in such large numbers declined a Kerry-Edwards vote but still waited in line to cast a vote for such a poorly funded candidate for State Supreme Court.
5. Unusual Results in Cuyahoga County: In 10 precincts throughout highly democratic Cleveland, there was a dramatic increase from 2000 in the votes tallied for a third-party presidential candidate. In one precinct, the tally rose from 08 votes for a third-party candidate in 2000 to 215 in 2004 (in 2004 in this precinct, Kerry had 290; Bush had 21). The letter questions the possibility of problems with punch cards.
6. Spoiled Ballots: While it happens everywhere (2% of votes county-wide are thrown out because of no clear choice), 75% more undervotes (no choice for president) were in Democratic precincts than Republican precincts. Two precincts in one county had 6,000 votes thrown out as undervotes (a rate of 25% each).
7. The Famous Franklin County Overvote (Woo-Hoo! Columbus-area!): Although there were only 800 registered voters in the precinct in question and only 638 people cast votes there, 3893 extra votes were given to Bush-Cheney (due to a “computer glitch”).
8. Miami County Vote Discrepancy: Nearly 19,000 votes were added after 100% of the precincts reported in this county. 13,000 of these went for Bush-Cheney.
9. Mahoning County Machine Problems: Numerous voters in this county reported that when they attempted to vote for Kerry-Edwards, the vote showed up for Bush-Cheney. The problem continued after they attempted to correct their votes.
10. Machine Shortages: Lines in Franklin County often ranged from two to seven hours, at least partly because 68 machines were never placed on Election Day and 77 machines malfunctioned. Still, it’s unknown how many machines were actually available during the morning to noon rush on Election Day. In predominately Democratic areas, there were fewer machines than in primarily Republican suburbs. In some of these areas, the numbers of machines were fewer than the amount used for the primary elections! There was an eight-hour line at Kenyon College for students voting there.
11. Invalidated Provisional Ballots: As we know, there was a pre-election interpretation of the rules related to casting provisional ballots in Ohio, saying that only those cast in the correct precinct could be counted. So, voters, especially African-American voters, were sometimes direct by door-hanging pamphlets, phone calls, official-looking letterhead documents, and election workers to go to the wrong polling place, thus invalidating their votes. In Hamilton County, provisional ballots were not counted because they were cast at the wrong table.
12. Directive to Reject Voter Registration Forms Not Printed on White, Uncoated Paper of Not Less Than 80 lb Text Weight: The directive was not clear to begin with and was subsequently reversed on September 28 without sufficient instruction to Ohio counties. Meanwhile, votes were thrown out that otherwise would have been valid.