There may BE no hanging chads, look at these sample ballots!

[truehawk]

http://boe.cuyahogacounty.us/BOE/ballots/PDF/PARMA08E.pdf
http://boe.cuyahogacounty.us/BOE/ballots/PDF/PARMA08D.pdf

If you voted for Kerry in Parma 8D and the ballot was read in Parma 8E, you voted for a disqualified spot.

If you voted for Kerry in Parma 8E and the ballot was read in Parma 8D, you got Bush.

Now I don't know if these preticular precincts voted at the same polling place or not, but multiple precincts at one location seems to have been common. Someone who knows Ohio streets could check the precincts which voted together. Some combinations of swapped ballots will yeild votes for the disqualified space.

[helderheid]

1. can't get the links to work

[truehawk]

4. try them now

[mdb]

2. I talked about this last Friday.

This video is on Democracy Now where co-host Juan Gonzalez talks exactly about this.

Here is the Democracy Now site with the video.
http://www.democracynow.org/article.pl?sid=04/12/03/164231

And here is the direct link to the video.
http://play.rbn.com/?url=demnow/demnow/demand/2004/dec/video/dnB20041203a.rm&proto=rtsp&start=11:44.00

[truehawk]

6. Is there ANY 2ed check against swapped punchcards???

Other than writing on the precinct line on the bottem???

[proudtobeadem]

12. maybe start a thread asking that to Ohio poll workers?

I'm sure there are a few in DU

[proudtobeadem]

3. I don't get it, I went to the site

and saw the ballots for both Parma 8D and parma 8E but I don't see what you mean. Am I looking in the wrong place?? Please explain. :)

[truehawk]

5. Look at page 2 of each ballot

[proudtobeadem]

8. OMG I see it now !!

So that means that when a voter in 8D voted for Kerry, but had their ballot read by machine for their precinct (8E), it counted as disqualified. And for a Kerry vote in 8E that was read in 8D it counted as a Bush vote, Right?
So, a hand recount should yield a lot more votes for Kerry. Correct?

[truehawk]

15. Only if some of the ballots in 8D were not actually labled 8E and Vise Ver

They could have mixed the ballots in the desired preportion later in the day but before the ballots were voted.

Lets HOPE they mixed them up AFTER they were voted.

[Zan_of_Texas]

29. Thank you, Truehawk! It's so visual! Woo!

Is there no end to this sort of tricks?

I wonder if they can be recounted in the proper precinct now, or if the shuffle is uncoverable?

[troubleinwinter]

7. Ahah!

I think I get it. In polling places with more than one precinct, the precinct ballots differ (this is normal, as the position of candidates are "shuffled" from precinct to precinct, so as to be random & give no candidate an advantage by being placed at the top of the list). But if the ballot is COUNTED on the other precint's machine, it would count the punch for an incorect candidate. Do I get it?

[truehawk]

17. Yes, you get it.

When they do this kind of thing, people often use different colors, or a seperate line where the voter fills out the precinct, or punches out a given number to indicate the precinct.

But I did not see any indication of any of that in the ballot instructions.

[troubleinwinter]

30. So in the examples where 3rd party gets a ridiculous # of votes...

it is something of a red flag. BUT in other precincts where K votes simply go to B, no "flag" would be necessarily be evident.

[spoogly]

9. Interesting. My personal observation

was not in Ohio. It was in Wisconsin. My polling place contained two prcincts. Both stood in the same line. When they handed you your ballot, they gave out a colored ticket...Green and Pink I believe. They were just the old fashioned movie admission ticket. They were the type of ballot that you blocked in the circle with a pencil...like the old SRA exams. After you filled out the ballot, you were supposed to deposit them in the cooresponding colored box. (One box for each precinct with something, I do not recall what, indicating the color)

There was an older couple about 20 people in front of me that ended up almost right next to me when they finished their vote (I was standing about 10 feet from the deposit boxes.) They were confused about which box to place their ballot in and apparently had not caught on to the colored box cooresponding to the ticket they had been given. I was about to go over and help them but they said something to the effect that they were just going to deposit their ballot in one of the boxes and let the election people figure it out. They did not think it was a big deal to get the deposit boxes straight.

I don't know what happened...whether their votes counted, whether they randomly deposited their ballot in the right box etc. But if it happened like this in Ohio, there was the rule that you had to cast your vote in the correct precinct. So likely if it was in Ohio, their votes would not have counted.

Incidently, I have no idea who they voted for although my precinct went narrowly for Kerry and the state went for Kerry.

Just an interesting illustration.

[rockedthevoteinMA]

10. where are these ballots designed?

"Vote for Not More Than One"?

Where in this country do people speak like that?

So in one precinct K/E is the third choice and B/C is the third in the other,

Would this possibly be the evidence Arbernack (sp?) has?

[proudtobeadem]

14. Sounds like chimpspeak to me :)

[ReneB]

11. at a recount..

are those ballots marked for "parma 8d" or "parma 8e" for example?
or are they not? if not, a recount in this case would be worthless.
if they are marked and would read (count) at the correct machine, then it would turn out to be good.

so, are those ballots marked with any infos like "parma 8d" ?

[proudtobeadem]

13. I think we're getting a hand recount which would look

at each ballot. so that would be good.

[Verve]

19. I think the hand recount is only 3% of the state. If all looks well than

the other 97 % goes through the machines. The question is what 3% will be hand counted? Someone needs to alert the Green party about this. They need to insist on hand recounts in these suspect precincts.

[proud_Kucitizen]

32. This is correct

I was told this last evening when I was contacted by the Green Party to confirm my spot to observe the recount.

That is my question also, who gets to choose the 3% that gets recounted. Not sure though at this point. My training is Saturday and maybe I will know more then.

[truehawk]

18. Look at post 6 of this thread

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=203&topic_id=119653&mesg_id=119653

See the line at the bottem on the left. Someone writes the precinct number there.

Lets just HOPE the right one was written and a recount will de-tangle the ballot.

BUT if there are a bunch of votes for DISQUALIFIED in Democratic Precincts, THEN the ballots were mixed BEFORE THEY WERE VOTED.

[Vote4Kerry]

16. Great post!..n/t

[AndrewClarke]

20. They didn't share a polling place.

8D was with 8G. 8E was with 8H, 8I, and 8J.

Here are those ballots:
http://boe.cuyahogacounty.us/BOE/ballots/PDF/PARMA08G.pdf
http://boe.cuyahogacounty.us/BOE/ballots/PDF/PARMA08H.pdf
http://boe.cuyahogacounty.us/BOE/ballots/PDF/PARMA08I.pdf
http://boe.cuyahogacounty.us/BOE/ballots/PDF/PARMA08J.pdf

Here are their results:
8-D: Badnarik 0, Bush 160, Kerry 205, Disqualified 0, Peroutka 2
8-E: Badnarik 0, Bush 118, Kerry 181, Disqualified 0, Peroutka 1
8-G: Badnarik 1, Bush 185, Kerry 212, Disqualified 0, Peroutka 0
8-H: Badnarik 2, Bush 179, Kerry 208, Disqualified 0, Peroutka 3
8-I: Badnarik 1, Bush 244, Kerry 279, Disqualified 0, Peroutka 0
8-J: Badnarik 0, Bush 139, Kerry 221, Disqualified 0, Peroutka 0

There were problems with this in Ohio, but not in these precincts.

[k8conant]

22. Here's a link to my spreadsheet :

http://www.frontiernet.net/~kconant/CuyahogaVoteSwitch.xls

There also may have been problems that don't show in the totals:

as in, Bush votes to Kerry and Kerry to Disqualified (which apparently wasn't even tallied at all)

The problem is just much more obvious when Badnarik or Peroutka get a whole chunk of votes.

[truehawk]

25. It is pretty critical to find out if Disqualified was really zero, or just

not counted.

Were precincts high in undervotes or ballot spoilage ones where Kerry was opposite disqualified?

[truehawk]

24. yeah these are hypothetical examples

So a vote for John Kerry in 8D would give you Badnarik counted in 8G
And a vote for Kerry in 8G would give you Peroutka in 8D.

The numbers you posted look pretty good, but there are others that look fishy.

I am just missing my computer that can handle them without overcrowding my little drive, so I dare not download the whole data set to look

[k8conant]

21. CUYAHOGA COUNTY has SAME problem - see my thread

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=203&topic_id=123586#123723

I was wondering if the same thing was showing up statewide.

[ElsewheresDaughter]

23. hope Arnebeck? has this info...send it to him just incase he doesn't

[flyarm]

35. arnebeck said..

he said that perhaps upt to 120,000 votes may have gone to bush that should have gone to kerry...i bet this is what he has in mind!!!
that a manipulation took place of the ballots with dual precints!!

because he was infatic that kerry won by the results that showed for bush on the night of election..his words were the margin of bushes win the night of election were actually kerrys margin of win!!

i wonder if this is how he came to that conclusion!!..fly

[RawMaterials]

26. I voted in Hamilton county and Kerry Edwards

were second from the bottom in the candidate disqualified.
bush was in the same spot as number two.

my prescient went heavily for gore in 2000 and still went for Kerry in 2004 but was much closer.

[truehawk]

28. Raw?? I tired and am not parsing this very well,

Your county had very few disqualified ballots, or lots?


Bush was in the number 2 spot and KE was in Number 3?

What precinct number is on your voter registeration card?

Was your polliong location shared with another precinct.

[trudyco]

31. I thought I saw an example of the rotating candidates

and Bush and Kerry are always next to each other I think (except when one rotates off the top). So how could you get one second from bottom and one second from top.

trudyco

[truehawk]

34. Ah No follow the links and take a look at the various ballots

We are talking about where there are 2 precincts voting at the same polling place and the ballot order is different for each precinct.

However it Does seem to me that you could have seen an instance where both ballots were the same. If the ballots are randomly distributed over the precincts 1/10th of the time or so both precincts it would be probable for the precincts to have the same ballot candidate order.

[trudyco]

39. But as I understand it they are rotated but kept alphabetical

So how could s/he have had a ballot with one candidate 2nd from top and one candidate 2nd from bottom. Wouldn't Bush and Kerry be next to each other except when BUsh is on bottom and Kerry on top of ballot?

I don't think the ballot he described fits ANY of the precinct's rotations?

I had been discussing where the machine that does the tabulation has been purposely given the wrong voter guide. Thus the voter unwittingly punches the wrong order because they are following the (incorrect) voter guide. I understand the idea of swapping some or all of one precincts voters to another precincts machine. The problem with that kind of fraud (I think) is that it would be detected in a hand recount.

trudyco

[skids]

27. Could someone set up a web form?

Maybe we need to set up and publicise a web form asking people who voted in Ohio, who can remember, what precinct they thought they were voting in, what was written on their ballot, and where Bush/Kerry or others were on the ballot?

The data could later be fleshed out by looking at the official ballot orders.

Another thing I'd like to see is whether the ballot orders in mixed precincts were truly random. That is to say, if more Kerry-damaging ballot order combinations were in the mixed precincts than statistically should have been.

[slay]

33. I see exactly what you mean

Why are the choices for president listed in a different order on ballots cast the same county? For the ballots shown, the only reason I can think of would be to allow the machines to subtract votes from Kerry and/or give them to Bush. Our whole political system needs a complete overhaul. So does the mainstream media. These people are corrupt. They have gotten too used to the power and the money and are clinging on for dear life. Well it's time to rock the boat. In no way is it possible that the republicans won this election. It is obvious to those of us that pay attention that this country has been taken over by the current republicans in power. They did not, could not, get there legally. And they could not take it by force, so they took it the only way they knew how - through fraud, lies, and deceit. It is heartbreaking and frustrating to see this happen. :( :grr:

[VTGold]

36. Oh My God! I bet they had fancy-shmancy in the burbs...

... I have to find it somewhere - but I read or heard that after 2002 5 states were reprimanded for having voting systems which dissenfranchised minority voters and Ohio was the only one to do nothing to change it - when called onto the carpet for it again Blackwell said they would "fix it after the 2004 election". Beauty.

[Dolphyn]

37. Here's a related thread showing anomalies in multiple-precinct locations

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=203x125611

... and a related story on Dailykos.com (also discussed in old DU threads):
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2004/12/2/44647/2043

Yep, the ol' "ballot shuffle" scam ...

[Catamount]

38. KICK!

This explains a lot. I hope someone sent it to Conyers.