Lawsuit Before Ohio Supreme Court

[MellowOne]

Lawsuit Before the Ohio Supreme Court
by Summarized by Mary Anne Saucier, Columbus, Ohio
December 24, 2004

NATURE OF THE ACTION On December 13, 2004, numerous Ohio citizens contested “the certification of the election of the electors pledged to George W. Bush and Richard B. Cheney for the offices, respectively, of President of the United States and Vice President of the United Sates for the terms commencing January 20, 2005…” and “…the certification of the election of Thomas Moyer for the office of Chief Justice of the Ohio Supreme Court for the term commencing in 2005.”

LAWSUIT REFILED On December 16, 2004, Chief Justice Thomas J. Moyer threw out the complaint because it had two election challenges. The following day, on December 17, thirty-seven voters and their lawyers refiled the election challenge for President and Vice President of the United States. The other case for the office of Chief Justice of the Ohio Supreme Court was refiled on December 20, 2004.

DEFENDANT-CONTESTEES are George W. Bush (candidate for the office of President of the United States of America), Richard B. Cheney (candidate for the office of Vice President of the United States of America), Karl Rove (chief election strategist and tactician for the Bush-Cheney campaign), the Bush-Cheney 2004 Committee, Thomas J. Moyer (Ohio Supreme Court Chief Justice candidate), J. Kenneth Blackwell (Ohio Secretary of State), and the 20 Ohio Bush electors.

ATTORNEYS filing the suits are Clifford O. Arnebeck Jr. (Chairman, “Ohio Honest Election Campaign” of The Alliance for Democracy, and Chair of Legal Affairs Committee for Common Cause-Ohio); Robert Fitrakis, PhD (Director/Editor, Columbus Free Press, and Professor of Political Science at Columbus State Community College); Susan Truitt (Co-founder of Citizen’s Alliance for Secure Elections-Ohio); Peter Peckarsky, Technology Lawyer, based in Washington, D. C.; and such other attorneys retained by them for the litigation.

ELECTION CONTEST The defendants are accused of being part of “the pattern of vote fraud and discrimination… which operated to deprive numerous Ohio citizens of their constitutional and statutory rights.

“CLAIM FOR RELIEF” cited:

· INITIAL STATE ELECTION EXIT POLLS INDICATE KERRY-EDWARDS WON The 2004 National and State Election exit polls (interviewing voters immediately after they voted), directed by “the respected and world-renowned Warren Mitofsky,” showed dramatic differences between initial (“uncalibrated”) exit polls and the corrected exit poll (adjusted later to conform to the voting) for Ohio and a number of other states. The initial poll results were only available for a very short period of time when Andrew Card (White House Chief of Staff) claimed victory for Bush in Ohio, and “called for a concession and an end to any inquiry into the results.” But, “…when these uncorrected results are compared to the ‘official’ state-by-state results, it is clear that election fraud (or other irregularity) occurred in the counting of the vote in Ohio and a number of other states.”

· NATIONAL EXIT POLLS INDICATE KERRY-EDWARDS WON “The vote fraud in connection with the national vote may also mean that the national exit poll is the most accurate representation of the votes actually cast. This means that candidate Bush probably did not win a ‘mandate’ of 3.5 million votes but actually lost the national vote by a significant margin to John Kerry. The chance of Kerry receiving a greater percentage of the popular vote than Bush in an honest election was 98.7%.”

EXHIBIT A contains a paper by Steven F. Freeman, PhD, University of Pennsylvania, entitled “Was the 2004 Presidential Election Honest? An Examination of Uncorrected Exit Poll Data. Part I: The Unexplained Exit Poll Discrepancy.” It presents “clear and convincing evidence of election fraud” in ten of the “battleground” states (Colorado, Florida, Iowa, Michigan, Minnesota, Nevada, New Hampshire, New Mexico, Ohio, and Pennsylvania).

· LAWFUL BALLOTS DESTROYED OR ALTERED; UNLAWFUL BALLOTS ADDED “On information and belief, plaintiffs-contestors allege that traditional means of vote fraud were used…that unlawful ballots were added to those cast by lawful voters and that lawfully cast ballots were either destroyed or altered.” In Ohio, it is believed that at least 130,656 votes were deducted from Kerry-Edwards and added to Bush-Cheney.

· ABSENTEE VOTES NOT LISTED Dr. Werner Lange studied poll books in Trumbull County and found “580 absentee votes were cast for which there was no notation of absentee voting in the poll books.”

· UNLAWFUL DENIAL OF ACCESS TO POLL BOOKS Secretary of State Kenneth Blackwell, also co-chair of the Ohio Bush-Cheney campaign, “ordered all 88 boards of election to prevent public inspection of poll books until after certification of the vote on December 6, 2004.” This “apparently caused violations of R.C. 3599.161(B) and (C) and may have caused such violations by every board of elections in the state…Each violation “of any provision of Title XXXv (35) is a separate instance of criminal election fraud pursuant to R.C. 3599.42” and could be a basis for removing Blackwell from office, if convicted.

· THERE WAS NON-TRADITIONAL TAMPERING WITH VOTES AND THEIR TABULATION Physical or electronic access can easily be gained to the voting and vote tabulating systems.

Exhibit B, written by Chuck Herrin, CISSP, CISA, MCSE, CEH, entitled “How to Hack the Vote: the Short Version,” (www.chuckherrin.com/hackthevote.htm) shows how this can be done by “changing the votes actually received by one or more candidates in a race, leaving the total votes cast in the race unchanged, and erasing or falsifying the electronic audit trail which could show the access to the computer and the spreadsheet.” Or unauthorized operating instructions could have been “inserted into the software used to operate either the vote tabulating machines or the voting machines.”



KERRY WON OHIO AND THE PRESIDENCY; ELLEN CONNALLY WON THE CHIEF JUSTICE OF THE OHIO SUPREME COURT



· It is believed “that due to error, fraud, or mistake…” that at least 130,656 votes “were deducted from the total number of votes actually cast for the Kerry-Edwards ticket and added to the number of votes actually cast for the Bush-Cheney ticket.” Kerry-Edwards won Ohio by at least 142,537 votes. It is thereby requested that at least 130,656 votes be added to the Kerry-Edwards ticket and the Kerry-Edwards Electoral College electors be issued certificates of election.

· At the same time, it is believed “that due to error, fraud, or mistake…” that 216,779 votes were deducted from Ellen Connally and added to those cast for Thomas J. Moyer. This means that “Ellen Connally won the election for Chief Justice of the Ohio Supreme Court by at least 149,326 votes.”

more....

http://www.freepress.org/departments/display/19/2004/1028

[Jo March]

1. W00T! nt

[Quakerfriend]

2. Very nice indeed!

I like the fact that they have a technology lawyer on the team!

[Elise]

3. The Fatal Flaw

I don't mean to rain on everyone's parade, but, if the Supremes take this case, I smell a 5/4 decision AGAIN.

[ET Awful]

4. Umm, this is the OHIO Supreme Court, not the US Supreme Court n/t

[Darkhawk32]

6. Repukes have a majority there too.... how convenient... n/t

[Elise]

8. Thank you!

n/t

[Elise]

7. umm, as I posted:

if it eventually goes to THE Supreme Court ... i.e., the US (our country's) ... you don't really think they won't swat down anything in favor of the truth, do you? (5/4)

[Machiavelli05]

15. I am confident

that Sandra Day O'Conner would come around and support Stevens, Ginsberg, Breyer and Souter in a majority decision. However, I dont think it will even be an issue.. unfortunately.

[Name removed]

5. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[oscar111]

9. court GOPers is why rallys are so important: see Ukraine for instance

millions voted for us.. millions ought to be at our rallies.

Judges do look out the window at what is happening.

even a loss in courts , helps us by getting the damning details out to the public, who otherwise would not hear them.

A public educated, is a public on our side..that's helpful as more evidence is dug up over the months, and bush's theft unravells just as watergate did.. over a two year span.

[oscar111]

10. Evidence? someone pls post the part of the suit that gives the key evidenc

namely , for the 130,OOO vote switch.

"believed" is the word i see here. "believed, that thru error, fraud, or mistake"

OK, he believes. Judge will demand evidence. I am on Arnebeck's side, and not slamming him... perhaps evidence is in the part not in the brief summary posted here.

Would someone pls post that evidence from the papers of the suit? It is the biggest key part in this whole thing.

on edit, i see that the huge 130K switch of votes is alleged "on information" and was done by traditional ballot addition and deletion. Hmmmmmmm
So the evidence must be a person or persons who saw/knows of ballots being added and subtracted. Great! The public will understand that better than hacking or statistical reasoning.

KERRY WON, GET OVER IT.

NEW ELECTIONS NOW,
oscar

[ecoalex]

11. At the Fed Supreme court the 14 th amendment to the Constitution

Article 2 of the Fourteenth Amendment sets out penalties for massive vote suppression, since that is one of the problems the union faced after the Civil War. Northerners feared precisely what ended up happening – that the white elites in the South would take advantage of the increased number of citizens they now had once slavery was over but that they would not permit the freed slaves access to the ballot so they could successfully secure representatives they could trust. It says that if the right to vote in an election for president is “in any way abridged” then the representatives of that state will be reduced in proportion to the scale of the vote suppression. While this applies to representation in Congress, it also applies to the office of Elector, even though people only hold that office for a single day to do just one thing – vote for president. A Federal lawsuit backed by 550,000 affidavits from a state would be sufficient to reduce the number of electors from that state and as a consequence the number of electoral votes it has to cast on January 6th. Happily, the Internet makes it possible to put up a form necessary to produce a legal affidavit on Monday and have well over 550,000 of them from multiple states on the next day. Bold and messy, but plausible.

[troubleinwinter]

12. Here is Arnebeck's entire petition, outlining the numbers...

http://joeorgren.com/MossvBush1.pdf

[delphine]

13. Does Arnebeck ask for a full recount in any of his filings?

Because simply asking the court to set aside the certification and give it to Kerry is a loser proposition.

No way will the court do that absent real evidence. Like "we counted the votes in the county where we thought the fraud was and the REAL county proves the "official" count was manipulated".

Counting the votes is the key.

I keep thinking this stuff is self-evident, but the democratic party is not well-known lately for seeing and/or stating the self evident.

(For example: "The MEMOS may be fake but the official TNG records say the SAME THING" or "There were TWO bills for $87 billion and Kerry voted against the one that puts us further in debt and has no accountability." )

[jazzjunkysue]

14. This needs to be done regardless of the outcome

I say that no matter what the courts do with this, it takes the official election out of george's hand and turns in into 2,000: a selection by the repub courts. That's worth every penny, right there. If everyone knows that Kerry really won but it was rigged by law, for the second time, then this is the wake up call the sleepy majority needs. Reality is always my choice. It might just stop the neocons from starting another war. This is good, no matter what. Amen to al the lawyers and congresspeople involved, and God bless them all, in the name of truth and democracy. We'll have the names of the court judges to did this on all of our posters at every rally. We will not forget who stole the presidency and democracy from us. We will not let our democratic party sweep this under the rug.