Ohio has clearer picture of ballots now

[blitzburgh55]

11/16/2004, 6:41 p.m. ET
By MARK WILLIAMS
The Associated Press

COLUMBUS, Ohio (AP) — Most of the presidential election provisional ballots rejected so far in Ohio came from people who were not even registered to vote, election officials said after spending nearly two weeks poring over thousands of disputed votes.

The vast majority of provisional ballots have been legitimate, however. Of the 11 counties that have completed checking ballots, 81 percent of the ballots are valid, according to a survey Monday by The Associated Press.

http://www.mlive.com/newsflash/politics/index.ssf?/base/politics-7/1100648944126320.xml&storylist=electionmi

[batchdem04]

1. good news! eom

[politicasista]

2. DUH, but how is this good news?

curious?

[blitzburgh55]

7. 81%

That are legitimate. I really didn't think there would be that many. I figured the pukes would have the majority thrown out.

[Winamericaback]

3. From the same article:

"Some people thought because they had changed their mailing address at the post office, or had changed their utilities, that they had done everything necessary to be eligible to vote," said Nancy Moore, deputy director of the Belmont County Board of Elections. "They still have to change their address at the board of elections. We're not mindreaders."

Okay assuming that the person was previously a resident of Ohio before the "move" and had not updated their info with the board of elections, why not vote where they had before?

That is what my Husband did, We just bought a house. I called the election office and changed my address, my Husband forgot. So we had to go to 2 different precincts on Nov. 2nd.

And technically, if you can REGISTER to vote at the DMV, when you change your address on your license why don't they send that info to the Board of elections?

EDIT: Typo

[Tace]

5. Good Question

[MrUnderhill]

9. Well, in most cases it isn't legal.

I guess it varies from state to state, but it's pretty standard.

If you think about it, we;re all caught up (understandably) in the Presidential results, but if you move across town and still vote in your old precinct you are probably voting on several offices that are not "your" races. Sure the President line is the same, but it may be a different congressional seat or at least different state legislative districts.

Some states cover this by at least allowing you to vote for the state-wide races as long as you're registered in the state, some don't.

What your husband did is common - because it's virtually impossible for them to catch you... but it isn't always legal.

[Winamericaback]

10. Well I know that

But it was too late to change the registration. It has been changed but our cut off date was Oct. 4th so for this election he was still voting at the old precint which was 2 miles away from mine. Other than some local races I doubt it made all that much of a difference.

[MrUnderhill]

12. You asked "why not vote where they had before?"

and I pointed out it was probably illegal.

I consider that sufficient reason. It would seem you do not. :-)

If they lock him up.... do us a favor and have him say he's a Republican?

[Winamericaback]

14. ...

His drivers license had the new address which the poll workers looked at and they didn't care that it wasn't the same so evidently it WASN'T illegal here.


I'm not even going to comment on the rest of the diatribe.

[YellowDoginthehouse]

20. So what, a lot of people do that.

n/t

[MrUnderhill]

22. Why does "a lot of people do that" excure illegal behavior?

Why do we fight to PASS good laws if it doesn't matter?

The difference between a Democrat and a Republican may be that we would rather lose fairly than win by cheating?

[bones_7672]

16. It IS illegal to vote in an old precinct you don't live in. n/t

[Ducks In A Row]

4. so 20% of people stood in line for nothing, just to vote when ...

they weren't registered? What? they didn't have anything better to do that day then stand in line for 10 hours?

bullshit. these are the new voters who were fucked over by the rethugs throwing their registations away.

I hope these people call the hotline, find out their ballot was thrown away, go down and tell what happened.

That they did register and were cheated of their right to vote.

[ArthurDent]

8. 20% of _provisionals_

There were what, about 160k provisional ballots? 20% of that is 36,000. There were over 5 million votes cast for President in Ohio.

So, about .8% -- one in about 130 voters -- happened to not be registered. It is entirely reasonable, and more importantly, likely that these voters were not registered and honestly mistaken about their status. To suggest that this is evidence of a vote-suppression conspiracy is foolish.

[indy_azcat]

11. registered or eligible status?

which are different concepts according to HAVA

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=203x55901

[bones_7672]

17. I worked a polling place 11/2

Some people came in and told me that they didn't know if they were registered or not. I know it sounds nutty, but some people just don't care enough to make sure they are elected. Also, Ohio law says that if people don't vote for two presidential election cycles (8 years) you are automatically purged from the roles.

[Toucano]

25. I'm not sure about that.

I think you may have expressed a common misconception I was recently corrected about.

As I now understand it, Ohio law does not "automatically" purge any registered voter. It provides the option for Boards of Election to perform a purge as you describe. In other words, the law permits it but does not require or mandate the purge.

It's a subtle yet significant distinction.

[bones_7672]

29. Oops, you are correct! n/t

[Grown2Hate]

6. Maybe this isn't GREAT news, or IDEAL news...

but it's a HELL of a lot better than what's going on in New Mexico, where over 50% of the provisional ballots are being tossed! The more provisional votes that count, the BETTER (I think all the votes should count, but this isn't a perfect world). Just sort it all out with the recount, GLIBS! Here we come.

THIS ELECTION IS NOT OVER YET.

[AJH032]

13. How do we know most of these will go to Kerry?

It seems like we're assuming these provisional ballots will go mostly for Kerry. Can someone explain to me why that is a safe assumption?

[Winamericaback]

15. I don't think it is

But I think the reasoing is that people were challenged at heavily Democratic counties so the provisionals would be from those same counties.

[consciousobjector]

18. these are the stats for Ohio

I posted this earlier today. It contains the breakdown of provisional ballots in Ohio according to counties. You can see that heavily Democratic counties are having the highest percentage of rejections - what a surprise

No registration is main reason provisional ballots rejected

By MARK WILLIAMS
The Associated Press
11/15/2004, 6:50 p.m. ET


COLUMBUS, Ohio (AP) — Most of the presidential election provisional ballots rejected so far came from people not registered to vote, election officials said on Monday.

Those people typically thought they were registered to vote in another county or another address, officials said.

Other reasons some of the 155,337 ballots were rejected included missing information such as addresses or signatures and people voting in precincts where they do not live.

"Some people thought because they had changed their mailing address at the post office, or had changed their utilities, that they had done everything necessary to be eligible to vote," said Nancy Moore, deputy director of the Belmont County Board of Elections in eastern Ohio. "They still have to change their address at the board of elections. We're not mindreaders."

"They swear up and down they're registered to vote and they're not," said Bill Thompson, deputy elections director in Pike County.

Unofficial vote totals show President Bush beating Democrat John Kerry by 136,000 votes in Ohio and Kerry has conceded there aren't enough outstanding votes to swing the state his way.

Some people, though, said they were holding out hope until all votes were counted. Lawyers with Kerry's campaign were in Ohio to check into voters' concerns about ballots, but said they weren't trying to challenge the election.

Most of Ohio's 88 counties are continuing the process of verifying the ballots cast by people who said they were registered but whose names did not appear on rolls on Election Day.

Of the 11 counties that have completed checking ballots, 81 percent, or 4,277 out of 5,310 ballots, are valid, according to a survey Monday by The Associated Press. Most of the counties are in rural areas.

Other counties that have completed partial tallies reported that most of the provisional ballots were being counted. In 2000, about 87 percent of provisional ballots were counted.

This year, Belmont County rejected 42 percent of the 1,067 provisional votes cast while other counties that completed their count showed percentages topping 90 percent.

Cuyahoga County, where Cleveland is located, has processed 40 percent, or 9,719 votes, of its 24,788 provisional ballots and rejected a third, according to a board tally. Most are being rejected because the voters were not registered.

In Montgomery County, 6,125 of the 8,000 provisional ballots processed so far are valid. Of the 1,875 invalid ballots, more than 1,000 were rejected because the people were not registered and 685 were rejected because voters went to the wrong precinct, according to the board.

The board still has to count 1,227 ballots.

Before the election, Democrats lost a court appeal seeking to allow people to cast provisional ballots in precincts where they do not live.

Votes cast in the wrong precinct made up the smallest portion of rejected ballots in many counties, which election officials attributed to poll workers directing people to correct voting places, public education campaigns and heightened media attention about provisional voting regulations.

"People were aware of the provisional ballots and they really tried to get in the correct precinct," said Janet Brenneman, director of Delaware County Board of Elections.

The counties have until Dec. 1 to complete their final count.

A third party was already promising to ask for a recount of the Ohio vote.

Green Party candidate David Cobb said on Monday that the party has raised the $113,600 needed to ask for the recount.

Cobb and Libertarian candidate Michael Badnarik have said they were concerned about reports of problems in Ohio's voting process.

Cobb must make his request to all the county election boards. The count cannot begin until the vote is officially certified, which can happen as soon as Dec. 3, said Carlo LoParo, spokesman for Secretary of State Kenneth Blackwell.

[Chili]

19. question:

Was Sproul active in Ohio? Because that story was not plastered all over the news, CNN barely touched it if at all - I don't remember hearing it reported anywhere. And if I or we didn't hear it reported, the average voter had no idea that voter registration forms filled out by new Democrats were being shredded in multiple states, and so didn't think to call the Board of Elections to check.

So... if these people thought they were registered, maybe there WERE. We'll never know.

[kk897]

28. Sproul in Ohio

There were many suspicious folks in Ohio leading up to the election. Here's from an October Columbus Dispatch article:

2 Ohio GOP employees charged in South Dakota

Saturday, October 23, 2004

Carson Walker

ASSOCIATED PRESS


SIOUX FALLS, S.D. — Six Republican notary publics, including two now working for the GOP in Ohio, face a misdemeanor charge in connection with absentee-ballot applications filled out on South Dakota college campuses, but there’s no evidence of voter fraud, Attorney General Larry Long said yesterday.

Long and Secretary of State Chris Nelson outlined a twoweek investigation in a document faxed to county auditors and state’s attorneys.

The document states "it is a near certainty that all absentee voters that had their application notarized by one of the six notaries" will be challenged in court.

Five of the Republican notaries were charged in Minnehaha County because the ballot applications were processed in Sioux Falls, even though some were gathered elsewhere.

Those five are: Joseph Alick, 28; Nathan Mertz, 20; Todd Schlekeway, 27; Rachel Hoff, 22; and Eric Fahrendorf, 24. Another GOP worker, Jennifer Giannonatti, will be charged in Pennington County because of ballots collected in Rapid City, Long said.

Mertz and Schleckeway last week began working in the Cleveland area as paid employees for the Ohio GOP on a getout-the-vote program. State GOP Chairman Robert T. Bennett said last night he was unaware of the charges.

MORE
http://www.dispatch.com/election/election-president.php?story=dispatch/2004/10/23/20041023-A4-02.html

And then there's this October Talking Points Memo:

As we told you a few days ago, six Republican party staffers and campaign workers in South Dakota resigned over a burgeoning voter fraud scandal. Chief among them was Larry Russell, head of the South Dakota GOP's get-out-the-vote operation, the Republican Victory Program.

To date, no criminal charges have been filed. But the state Attorney General says the investigation is "continuing."

Today comes news, however, that Russell -- still under investigation in South Dakota -- has been reassigned to run President Bush's get-out-the-vote operation in Ohio. Russell will now "lead the ground operations" for Bush in Ohio, according to an internal Republican party memo obtained by the Sioux Falls Argus Leader.

And Russell's bringing along with him to Ohio three of the five other GOP staffers who had to resign in South Dakota and are similarly under investigation in that state.
-- Josh Marshall


(October 15, 2004 -- 01:39 AM EDT // link // print)

Does anyone know if there's a connection between Russell and Sproul?

[Cronus Protagonist]

21. Now we'll see in these the same spreads, right?

The mail in ballots should pretty much reflect the exit voting or the calculated results, right?

If they're all skewed one way or the other, we'll be able to tell what happened with the machine vote. Maybe it was a Republican win after all, right? The votes should reflect the winning percentage overall, right?

Help me out here, statisticians...

[lizzieforkerry]

23. Did Kerry at one time say they needed 80% of the provisionals to count and

then they needed 80% of the vote to go to him? Anyone remember that? It looks like the first part has come true.

[sabra]

24. It's 80% valid, not necessarily going to Kerry...

Which essentially means that he would need to get every single provisional vote, if it stands at 80% valid.

[CementDude]

"Provisional" analysis of Provisional Returns

Partial/Complete Results for 4 counties (from news reports). County name is followed by the reported 2004 Kerry-vs-Repub results of non-Provisional ballots. Preliminary projection is based on those percentages.

Cuyahoga (Kerry 67% - Repub. 33%)
12,000/25,000 (48%) Provisional Processed
8,000/12,000 Accepted (66% Acceptance)

Projection:
16,500/25,000 Accepted
Kerry: 11,055
Repub: 5,445


Summit (Kerry 57% - Repub. 43%)
5,932/5,932 (100%) Provisional Processed
4,732/5,932 Accepted (80% Acceptance)

Projection:
Kerry: 2,697
Repub: 2,035


Richland (Kerry 40% - Repub 60%)
1,357/1,357 (100%) Provisional Processed
1,212/1,357 Accepted (89% Acceptance)

Projection -vs- ACTUAL (This county has reported the actual results of the recount so we can compare.)

Kerry: 485 (projected) - compared to - 578 or 48% (actual)
Repub: 727 (projected) - compared to - 610 or 50% (actual)

(Side note: Results mirror that of general Ohio election. According to traditional thinking, provisional ballot voting mirrors general election results and rarely tilt heavily to either side.)


Geauga (Kerry 40% - Repub. 60%)
669/669 (100%) Provisional Processed
592/669 Accepted (89% Acceptance)

Projection:
Kerry: 237
Repub: 355


** GENERAL SUMMARY **

19,958/155,337 Provisional Ballots Confirmed Processed (13% - a good sample size.)
14,536/19,958 Confirmed Accepted (73% Accepted)

Democrat Counties (2/4 cited) have 71% Acceptance Rate
Repub. Counties (2/4 cited) have 89% Acceptance Rate

It has been suggested that 60% of the Provisional Ballots state-wide come from Dem. counties and 40% from Repubs. If that's the case, then here is how the final Provisional Totals might break down based on the numbers we're seeing now:

155,337 Total Provisional Ballots

93,202 from Dem Counties. Assuming the Dem. 73% Acceptance Rate, then only 68,038 will be counted.
62,134 from Repub. Counties. Assuming the Repub. 89% Acceptance Rate, then only 55,299 will be counted.

Finally, assume Kerry gets 80% of the vote in Dem. counties, and 48% in Repub. Counties (this is a realistic percentage based on the above results) then:

Dem. County vote breakdown:
68,038 Accepted Provisional Ballots
Kerry: 54,430
Repub: 13,608

Repub. County vote breakdown:
55,299 Accepted Provisional Ballots
Kerry: 26,544
Repub: 28,756

Net Gain for Kerry: 38,610
Which would cut down the state lead the Repubs. have from 132,000 to 93,390.

That's my optimistic look at the situation based on the numbers coming in. Of course, it's still entirely plausible that the percentages will resemble the final state totals, and Kerry's gain would be slim to none. We'll see how the rest of the numbers look. As they come in, I'll update my projection.

[On the Road]

27. Thanks, Cement

I calculated what Kerry would need a couple of weeks ago and your numbers seem consistent with that.

Kerry knew the provisional would only give him a fraction of what he needed. The Green Party recount will add another piece. However, to flip the results hard evidence of fraud is still needed.

[Wordie]

30. Thanks! I realize you are speculating, but it helps just to have some sort

of framework to try to understand this all. Maybe Kerry's people have already gone through this sort of analysis, and that's why he mentioned the number 50,000 in a recent interview.

[CementDude]

26. Dupe

n/t