Reply #5: Hackett Loses a Squeaker - Ohio Special Congressional Election 2005

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http://www.scoop.co.nz/stories/HL0508/S00186.htm

The Veteran Of Fallujah Defeated By OH's Humidity
Tuesday, 23 August 2005, 10:54 pm
Michael Collins

DÉJÀ VU ALL OVER AGAIN?
DEMOCRAT HACKETT LOSES A SQUEAKER IN
OHIO’S 2nd CONGRESSIONAL DISTRICT:
THE NEW VOTING RIGHTS STRUGGLE 2004-2005

The 2005 Hackett-Schmidt contest for Ohio’s 2nd Congressional District took place in the midst of ongoing concerns about the 2004 Presidential election. Ohio was ground zero for Election Day irregularities, controversies, and charges of election fraud.

The Hackett-Schmidt contest began as an unlikely battleground for the new voting rights struggle. President Bush appointed Congressman Robert Portman as U. S. Trade Representative. Portman resigned from Congress on April 29, opening his seat for a special election. It seemed like an automatic Republican victory.

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Election Day.

Election Day was a tense event for both candidates and their supporters. Turnout reached 25%, considered respectable for a special election. There were some changes in voting locations in Clermont County and a reduction in precincts in Hamilton County, a populous Cincinnati suburb. There were few if any major incidents reported by those attempting to vote. There were reports of Jean Schmidt campaigning within the 100-foot perimeter candidates must recognize around the precincts. Until mid evening, this encroachment charge was the only event to remotely qualify as an election irregularity.

The humidity crisis.

Then it happened: the “humidity” crisis. For pure drama, it could not have occurred at a more dramatic point in the vote tabulation. Of Clermont County’s 191 precincts, 100 had been counted. Then the Board of Elections announced that excessive humidity had caused ballots to swell, making them difficult to count. As a result, there would be a delay in the count. At this point, the election was dead even statistically, at 50% for each candidate. The 91 precincts in Clermont represented about 12% of the remaining vote. When the crisis was resolved, the 50-50% tie changed into a 52% to 48% victory for Schmidt.

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Graph: Hackett won 38 of 191 Clermont precincts but lost ALL of the 54 largest

Hackett’s percentage by precinct group size:

46.9% in precincts under 100 votes
43.5% in precincts of 100-200 votes
39.6% in precincts of 200-300 votes
34.6% in precincts of 300 + votes

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The Clermont problems were just part of a larger set of strange occurrences in Southwestern Ohio in 2004. During vote counting at the Board of Elections, Warren County officials (Republicans and Democrats) told observers and media to leave the area. They announced later that this was necessary as a result of a Federal Homeland Security notice that Warren was subject to a terrorist threat. Feeling the extra people might get in the way of their response to the threat, officials asked them to leave. By the end of the night, there was no terrorist attack. There was, however, a substantial increase in Bush’s victory margin, from 29,176 in 2000 to 41,125 in 2004. FBI officials flatly denied issuing any special warning or terror alert to Warren County Board of Election officials.