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http://fairnessbybeckerman.blogspot.com Dayton, Ohio Friday December 10, 2004 On Friday December 10 two certified volunteers for the Ohio Recount team assigned to Greene County were in process recording voting information from minority precincts in Greene County, and were stopped mid-count by a surprise order from Secretary of State Blackwelll’s office. The Director Board of Elections stated that “all voter records for the state of Ohio were ‘locked-down,’ and now they are not considered public records.” The volunteers were working with voter printouts received directly from Carole Garman, Director, Greene County Board of Elections. Joan Quinn and Eve Roberson, retired attorney and election official respectively, were hand-copying voter discrepancies from precinct voting books on behalf of the presidential candidates Mr. Cobb (Green) and Mr. Badnarik Libertarian) who had requested the recount. One of the goals of the recount was to determine how many minority voters were unable to vote or denied voting at the polls. Upon requesting copies of precinct records from predominantly minority precincts, Ms. Garman contacted Secretary of State Blackwell’s office and spoke to Pat Wolfe, Election Administrator. Ms. Wolfe told Ms. Garman to assert that all voter records for the State of Ohio were ‘locked down’ and that they are ‘not considered public records.’ Quinn and Roberson asked specifically for the legal authority authorizing Mr. Blackwell to ‘lock down’ public records. Garman stated that it was the Secretary of State’s decision. Ohio statute requires the Directors of Boards of Election to comply with public requests for inspection and copying of public election records. As the volunteer team continued recording information from the precinct records in question, Garman entered the room and stated she was withdrawing permission to inspect or copy any voting records at the Board of Elections. Garman then physically removed the precinct book from Ms. Roberson’s hands. They later requested the records again from Garman’s office, which was again denied. Ohio Revised Code Title XXXV Elections, Sec. 3503.26 that requires all election records to be made available for public inspection and copying. ORC Sec. 3599.161 makes it a crime for any employee of the Board of Elections to knowingly prevent or prohibit any person from inspecting the public records filed in the office of the Board of Elections. Finally, ORC Sec. 3599.42 clearly states: “A violation of any provision of Title XXXV (35) of the Revised Code constitutes a prima facie case of election fraud within the purview of such Title.” A Monday morning email: Hey Brave REcounter Clan, Never did hear any follow-up on that "press release", How is Green county doing? None of the lawyers, sec of state employees or county BOE people I've spoken to have heard of it. Certainly in my county there is no "lock down" where/ who or what did this "story" come from? Anyone with any updates? A Monday morning email: Tuesday starters, Give em Hell! I beleive ANY difference in the 2 counts, like in Medina, should trigger a FULL recount. Who were those "2 girls in the alley" punching their cards on styrofoam. What sort of a story is that. If some one has actually tampered with or manipulated the system, they are'nt going to admitt it. This story doesn't tnegate the pure "fact" that those 2 vote counts just didn't match.. plus no "random" selection. This is a direct quote from SOSs own directive.. 3% must be selected "randomly" and the 2 counts, hand count and computer or tabulation count must match exactly. IF not.. REcount. All these disparates are exactly why there is a RE count in the first place. Their "COUNT" didn't work, is seriously flawed, if not broken and possible fraudulent and illegal. Our RECOUNT is only here because their "count" just didn't work. We must be aggressive and vigorously vigilant in our REcount, made necessary by their BROKEN "count" Good luck tomorrow, Good work and good hunting, JBK A Monday morning email: Kim, Thank-you for all of the hard work that you and everyone involved has been doing! I do have one concern, though, and that is with #1, where you stated that the machines were tested without you being able to view them. Why did that happen? Did they say they were already tested when you and the other recounters first showed up? The reason that I have concern is because in Congressman Conyers' hearings today in Columbus, there were signed affidavits from people stating that machine repairmen had been in some precincts to work on the machines prior to the recounts. One precinct had a witness who swore that a Triad repairman was there on Friday doing something with the tabulating machine. He said he was replacing the battery, but there should have been no one touching those machines. This is not hearsay, it was sworn testimony that was broadcast during the radio coverage of the hearing today. Because of these very irregular incidents, it concerns me that the machines where you recounted were not tested in plain view. May I ask another question? Were the 3 precincts already selected upon your arrival, including the one precinct that there were concerns with, or were the ballots from the 3 precincts already waiting and ready for recount? I think everyone seems to have done a marvelous job! But it would help to have some clarity on these points thank-you! Diep A Monday evening email: I observed the Medina recount this morning and found the following problems: 1.) The precincts to recount were not chosen randomly. According to Mr. Thomas E. Wolfe, Chairman of the Medina County Board of Elections, "I took two Medina precincts because I knew they had a high vote." "I could have taken five precincts, but then we'd be counting for another hour." "Brunswick Hills A was the first with enough votes to get to 3%" after the two Medina precincts were chosen." 2.) Witnesses were not allowed to review the selection and preparation of the ballots to test the voting machines, nor did we have an opportunity to examine them, either before or after they were used to test the machines. We did not see the testing of the machines. 3.) Two ballots in Medina City 4F each had one vote on position 9, which was between position 8, a vote for George Bush, and position 10, a vote for John Kerry. These were separated from the votes for other candidates, but we were not allowed to examine them at the end of the process, or at any other time, to see whether other votes on that ballot might also be offset by one position, thus allowing us to ascertain the intent of the voter, and these ballots were not saved for Mr. Wolfe to examine. 4.) Two ballots in Medina City 4F had votes in both position 8 and position 9. Those ballots were not rejected as overvotes, but were counted as votes for George Bush (position 8). I was refused time to examine these ballots in order to ascertain positions of other votes, and these ballots were not saved for Mr. Wolfe to examine. 5.) According to Mr. Wolfe, in Medina City 3F, "Two girls with Styrofoam and punchers were sent out to the line because the lines were so long." Some votes were offset from the correct voting positions. 6.) In Medina City 3F, a ballot with a vote on 11 that did not correspond to any candidate's position also showed every other vote to be offset by one, thus making the intent of the voter clear, but this ballot was rejected according to Al Junke. BOE Director Susan Strasser, BOE Chair Thomas E. Wolfe, and NE Ohio Field Representative for the Secretary of State, Madhu Singh all refused to allow further inspection of the ballots from Medina City that I requested to view in more detail. They stated that our purpose was to decide how the computer would count the vote, and not to determine the intent of the voter. Other problems with the voting process in Medina: 7.) In Medina City 1B, where there were long lines, the police were standing outsie all day, walking up and down the line, looking at people, and looking at cars according to Al Junke. Patricia Blochowiak, M.D. A Tuesday email: The Green-Libertarian recount in Medina was done on Monday at the Medina Board of Election [BoE]. The results did not change in the 3% hand recount so they did not count the other 97% by hand. 100% was counted by machine and any changes should be posted soon. Tom Wolf, Democratic Board Member, directed the recount. It was apparent to everyone in the room that Tom Wolf and the other board members were more concerned about getting the 3% hand recount done without any change in the tally [any change would allow for 100% hand recount of the County] than in having a fair investigation of the vote in Medina County. Shame on the BoE and Tom Wolf for being more concerned about "being right" and avoiding work than in conducting a fair inquiry into the voting in Medina County. We are disappointed in how Tom Wolf selected the precincts for the 3% hand count. He was aware of several "problem" precincts, that we had identified, but instead selected two precincts in Medina that were part of the Medina School Levy recount last Monday. That meant that those ballots had been out of the double lock situation and were handled several time since Monday. We believe that Tom Wolf should have selected precincts that were not subjected to such handling. We also believe that Tom Wolf should have selected precincts that showed anomolies. We identified one precinct that had 37 ballots without a recorded vote for president [6.2%]. The ones he selected had about 1% "no votes". We was extremely disappointed in how the BoE handled the process. They were very secretive and stonewalled when we asked to look at anything beyond the ballots. Even though we asked we were not permitted to see [for each of the 3 precincts being recounted]; the voter signature books, provisional ballot tallies, provisional ballots, the actual machines and ballot booklets used at the precincts. And they did not let us see the testing of the tabulation machine. Al Junke Co Coordinator for Medina Co. Green-Libertarian Recount A Wednesday email: Summit County is not going well. Our observers are not allowed to speak, only to raise their hand if they see a problem. They are not allowed to stand directly behind the tables, but at the head of them instead, back along the wall. Our County Coordinator is doing a good job but there is an immense amount of pressure on her there. People are counting very quickly. I don't know how anyone can actually understand anything that is taking place there, it is too fast and very intimidating. Our regional legal council advised our Coordinator to seek local legal council from someone who turned out to be on the Board! Our County Coordinator was calling back for further instructions when I left. I interviewed Bryan Williams the director (also on tape) - I asked him why this recount is being done differently from the others I've witnessed this week - he told me that is how recounts are done in Summit County. I have video of what is happening there for DemocracyWeek. I came home to get more tape and am going back now. Karen Kilroy Democracy Week A Thursday post on Black Box Voting's Thread on the Cuyahoga Recount #0, A Day Spent At the Cuyahoga County, Ohio Recount From Kathleen:
Just wanted to report to you all about my day at the Cuyahoga County Recount. Since I told the Cuyahoga Coordinator of Elections, Jackie Maiden, I would like to film the recount, I was told I would be relegated to the "media" section of the room. However, since I didn't have "official" media credentials, I was not allowed to walk around the room, while the recount was taking place. No problem, because the people who were there to observe the recount came to me and asked me who I was representing. After I told them I was there on behalf of Black Box Voting, they were more than willing to share their recount experiences with me. It was gratifying to see that they were very appreciative and somewhat relieved to hear that BBV was covering the event AND getting it on film. They wanted to know that someone would make sure what happened here today would reach beyond Cuyahoga County, since the main stream media wasn't covering it.
The only people representing a "media coverage" of the event (except for a couple of "drive by interviews" by the local media) was me and an independent film maker, who had been traveling around Ohio for the last month filming a documentary on the 2004 election in Ohio entitled: "Bleeding Ohio". Quite appropriate, considering the many reports of machine anomolies, voter suppression, and indescriminate voter purges throughout Ohio, not to mention a very partisan Secretary of State. He and I both were alarmed and noted the lack of the "real" media's attendance at the recount. We thought it would be fun to videotape our "media section" showing all the empty chairs and the non-existent media. I can assure you that the citizen observers noticed their absence too.
What I witnessed today was an event that looked "staged" and was totally controlled by the election officials. When the observers questioned their methods, they responded "this is the way we always do it" and would not accept any questioning of the procedures by the observers. I will be sending a copy of this tape to Bev for her review and analysis of the procedures used for this recount. I'm certain Bev will have some interesting observations about the Cuyahoga County Recount. A Friday post on the Ohio Recount Information discussion from Amy Kaplan, the Green/Libertarian Recount Coordinator for Franklin County: On Friday 12/10/2004, Amy Kaplan delivered a request to the Franklin County Board of Elections, asking that witness representatives of candidate David Cobb have the opportunity to examine the following: Home - Past Issues - eCards - Classifieds - Blog Spot - Free Subscription - About Us |