Question about Ohio Recount

[Higans]

I herd on the news that they had finished the recount. My question is this:

How did they recount the touch screen Paperless ballots???

If the touch screens were not used in the recount, How does that in any way reflect a random sampling?

[GregD]

1. 3% only

Only 3% of the precints were recounted. Selection of those precincts was not random. Rules and procedures for what happens when a mismatch is found (as in, recount everything) were ignored.

[berniew1]

2. It was not an attempt to count the legal votes; just recounted what was

already counted.
They didn't attempt to count:
the 93,000 undervotes(mostly hanging chads in Kerry precincts)
the legal voters who had provisionals rejected due to official malfeasance(many thousands)
the mistakes due to official malfeasance such as Cuyahoga County
the fradulent votes in counties with touchscreen fraud or other mechanisms of fraud that have been documented.

It wasn't a serious effort

[bemis12]

3. No, it was a 100% recount

but only 3% BY HAND.

[Higans]

5. so, how did they recount the Vapor votes?

and how would you "Hand count" a touch screen ballot?

[IndyOp]

10. In Auglaize an observer asked for printed images of 3% of the ballots

and was turned down:

"A witness inquired as to the capability of the DRE to print an image of the ballots as cast. The witness was informed that the DRE machines in question could produce the images. The witness then requested that images represented 3 percent of the ballots cast be printed and examined. The witness was informed, by the Director of the Board of Elections, that printing and counting the images was outside the scope of the recount requirements as set forth by the Secretary of State of Ohio in his directive concerning the vote recount."

In some DRE's you can print images of all ballots cast -- this is potentially useful if something goes wrong with some part of the memory that is 'counting' but the images survive elsewhere in the memory bank. The obvious problem is that software on the machine could save images that do not match what the voter selected.

In other DRE's you can print a list that shows the sequence of votes for each candidate in a race -- once again, this list may or may not match what each voter selected.

:grr:

[Higans]

4. Is it not Law that the 3% be random?

They did not need republican observers at the polling places because it didn't matter how the people voted, they were going to doctore the numbers any way.

[Bill Bored]

6. They fought the law and the law lost! n/t

[abbiehoff]

7. Recount by hand?

In theory, if there were any discrepancies between the hand count and the machine count of the 3% selected (supposedly randomly), the entire county would be recounted by hand. Does anyone know if there was a single county that was recounted by hand? It seems nigh on to impossible that all 88 counties matched exactly in the 3% selected for the hand recount, but everything I have seen indicates that they just kept counting the 3% until an exact match was reached (i.e. until they got tired of counting), and then they counted the remaining 97% by machine. Were there any counties where an actual hand count was done?

[Darkhawk32]

8. Yes, one county was fully hand recounted...

It was reported that over 1000 votes were found that mysteriously broke from the rest of the county pattern. Very bizarre.

[mdb]

11. I believe one county was hand counted.

In Coshocton County a full hand count of all county precincts was chosen by the BOE for the recount.

http://votecobb.com/recount/ohio_reports/counties/coshocton.php

"If ballots were tabulated on December 10, 2004, four days after certification by SOS, and four days prior to a scheduled pending recount, why?"

"Were ballots, left unsecured and unsealed, handled by board members/employees in the interim period following the certification and the recount? Witness P. stated that a board employee informed her that "a few precincts" had been already counted prior to the start of the recount, not in the presence of witnesses. Why, when?"

[mdb]

9. Franklin and Mahoning use paperless touch screen machines.

Mahoning:
http://votecobb.com/recount/ohio_reports/counties/mahoning.php

I can't even see Franklin posted.

Good article here.
http://www.buzzflash.com/contributors/04/11/con04517.html

5. Cuyahoga and Summit Counties use punch cards, as do most of the counties in Ohio. Franklin and Mahoning use paperless touch screen machines (made by two different manufacturers). Mahoning's is a true computer touch screen system, while Franklin's machines are an older touch pad type that is described in detail on the Franklin County Board of Elections web site. Mahoning was switched over to a touch screen voting system only recently. Both Franklin's and Mahoning's machines are considered to be DRE (Direct Recording Electronic) machines. They are "paperless" because they do not produce any paper trail that can be used for recounts. There is no TANGIBLE way to verify that votes were recorded and counted properly.

All of these facts together suggest that Franklin and Mahoning Counties actually had much higher turnout than was reported. I believe that a large number of Franklin and Mahoning County votes were "lost" by the touch screen machines. Look at these figures, which were obtained from the Secretary of State's official website:

Cuyahoga:
registered voters in 2000: 1,010,764
reported voters in 2000: 586,914
turnout rate in 2000: 58.07%
registered voters in 2004: 1,005,807
reported voters in 2004: 665,334
turnout rate in 2004: 66.15%
increase in registered voters 2000-2004: -4,957
increase in reported voters 2000-2004: 78,420
percent increase in turnout rate 2000-2004: 13.92%

Summit:
registered voters in 2000: 354,189
reported voters in 2000: 232,252
turnout rate in 2000: 65.57%
registered voters in 2004: 368,858
reported voters in 2004: 275,551
turnout rate in 2004: 74.70%
increase in registered voters 2000-2004: 14,669
increase in reported voters 2000-2004: 43,299
percent increase in turnout rate 2000-2004: 13.92%

Franklin:
registered voters in 2000: 681,949
reported voters in 2000: 417,800
turnout rate in 2000: 61.27%
registered voters in 2004: 845,720
reported voters in 2004: 494,792 (after corrections)
turnout rate in 2004: 58.51%
increase in registered voters 2000-2004: 163,771
increase in reported voters 2000-2004: 76,992
percent increase in turnout rate 2000-2004: -4.51%

Mahoning:
registered voters in 2000: 179,546
reported voters in 2000: 116,889
turnout rate in 2000: 65.10%
registered voters in 2004: 194,673
reported voters in 2004: 131,938
turnout rate in 2004: 67.77%
increase in registered voters 2000-2004: 15,127
increase in reported voters 2000-2004: 15,049
percent increase in turnout rate 2000-2004: 4.10%

You can see how Mahoning and Franklin differ from Cuyahoga and Summit. We can even combine the remaining "blue" counties (counties that went for Gore in 2000 and Kerry in 2004), and see the same pattern as Cuyahoga and Summit. These other counties include Trumbull, Athens, Lucas, Belmont, Lorain, Jefferson, Monroe, Portage, Ashtabula, Erie, and Montgomery. Although I've combined the counties here for efficiency, you can look at these blue counties individually and see the same patterns.

[cosmicdot]

13. Cuyahoga lost 4,957 registered voters between 2000 and 2004?

sorry if this has been asked ... but, anyone know why?

registered voters in 2000: 1,010,764
registered voters in 2004: 1,005,807
-4,957

[garybeck]

12. don't believe the news

the recount might have been finished but there is a mountain of evidence that the recount was a fraud.

check freepress.org

[Higans]

14. How do you recount Vapor Vote? n/t