Federal judge orders 2004 Ohio ballots preserved
U.S. District Court Judge Algenon L. Marbley today issued an order directing all 88 county Boards of Elections in Ohio to keep all ballots and miscellaneous other election material from the 2004 election.
In response to a lawsuit filed Thursday by King Lincoln Bronzeville Neighborhood Association et. al. v. J. Kenneth Blackwell, and a subsequent petition by citizens and neighborhood groups, Marbley ordered the "preservation of certain evidence."
In his attached one-page decision, Marbley ordered all Boards of Election "to preserve all ballots from the Presidential election, on paper or in any other format, including electronic data, unless and until such time otherwise instructed by the court."
preservation%20order.pdf
Under federal law, county boards can destroy voting records 22 months after the presidential election, or this past weekend. On Friday, Secretary of State Blackwell directed boards to voluntarily save the records, although officials in Hamilton and Clermont counties conceded they already discarded unused ballots from Nov. 2, 2004.
Columbus attorney Clifford Arnebeck and other complainants said an ongoing investigation has found a pattern of tampering, that punch-card ballots in at least six urban counties including Hamilton show a systematic pattern of multiple punches or so-called overvotes that disproportionately favored President Bush over Democratic Sen. John Kerry.
13 Comments:
at 6:20 PM, September 07, 2006 
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at 7:25 PM, September 07, 2006 
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at 7:29 PM, September 07, 2006 
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at 8:08 PM, September 07, 2006 
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at 10:56 PM, September 07, 2006 
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at 11:04 PM, September 07, 2006 
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at 11:16 PM, September 07, 2006 
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at 11:20 PM, September 07, 2006 
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at 1:01 PM, September 08, 2006 
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at 2:29 PM, September 08, 2006 
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at 12:32 AM, September 09, 2006 
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at 11:54 PM, September 13, 2006 
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Post a Comment*Jon, It's a civil rights case about unequal treatment of African Americans and young people. There was a systematic pattern of longer lines, different rules in counting provisional ballots etc.
Blackwell should have ordered them to protect the ballots like he told the New York Times he would. He backpeddled and tried to act like he didn't have the authority. He knows he did have the authority and wasn't shy about send all kinds of crazy and contradicting directives.
Jim Crow lives and his new name is Ken Blackwell!
My God, are the Democrats ever going to give up on this issue. You lost get over it!!
How much you want to bet that some ballots have already been inadvertently destroyed by "over-zealous" BOE Directors. If this is done, those Directors need to be put under oath and asked if they received any orders from superiors.
If republicans can only win by suppressing likely democratic voters and by stuffing the ballot box or tampering with ballots in republican counties, that is not democracy. If this was baseball and the "red" team used a corked bat you would cry foul.
The GOP's Shameful Vote Strategy
Time was when Republicans were at least embarrassed by their efforts to keep African Americans from the polls. Today's Republicans have elevated vote suppression from a dirty secret to a public norm.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A707-2004Oct26.html
The New Poll Tax
Republican-sponsored ballot-security measures are being used to keep minorities from voting
One of the recurring scandals in American politics since passage of the Voting Rights Act of 1965 is the discriminatory use of so-called "ballot security" programs. These programs are invariably presented as good government measures necessary to prevent voter fraud, but far too often they are actually designed to suppress minority voting -- and for nakedly partisan purposes.
http://www.prospect.org/print-friendly/print/V13/23/mcdonald-l.html
Now They're Registered, Now They're Not
Election Officials Express Dismay at Extent of Misinformation, Variety of Tricks Targeting Voters
Students find their party changed, while residents of several cities report bogus phone calls telling voters their polling location has been changed.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A12514-2004Oct30.html
Voters report fake calls
Instructions to change polling place don’t come from board of elections
Franklin County, Ohio residents report suspicious phone calls detailing false precinct changes and absentee ballot requests.
http://www.dispatch.com/election/election-local.php?story=dispatch/2004/10/22/20041022-A1-00.html
NAACP, election officials caution voters of bogus letter
South Carolina officials warn of bogus letter on NAACP letterhead says voters must have a credit check, provide two forms of photo identification, a Social Security card, a voter registration card as well as a handwriting sample.
http://www.miami.com/mld/miamiherald/news/politics/10050609.htm?1c
Franklin County Elections Board Targeted Heavily Democratic Precincts
Analysis shows that the distribution of voting machines to precincts was not random but rather was severely discriminating against Democratic precincts, with nearly one out of three Democratic precincts had less voting machines in 2004 than in 2000
http://www.indybay.org/news/2004/12/1708672.php
Pushing to Be Counted in Fla.
Groups Say That Blacks May Not Be Heard at Polls
Black leaders said the scene at the supervisor's office last week was reminiscent of a blocked schoolhouse door at the height of desegregation. They charge that GOP officials are deliberately using the law to keep black people off the rolls and hinder them from voting.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A28107-2004Oct12.html
Something rotten in the state of Florida
Pregnant chads, vanishing voters... the election fiasco of 2000 made the Sunshine State a laughing stock. More importantly, it put George Bush in the White House. You'd think they'd want to get it right this time. But no, as Andrew Gumbel discovers, the democratic process is more flawed than ever.
http://news.independent.co.uk/world/americas/story.jsp?story=566688
Grand jury to reconvene in phone-jamming case
A federal prosecutor said he will reconvene a grand jury in a case involving the jamming of Democratic phone lines in 2002, raising the question of whether more Republicans could be accused.
http://news.mainetoday.com/apwire/D8C6VEF80-236.shtml
"If this was baseball and the "red" team used a corked bat you would cry foul."
and the empire's favorite son played for this red team.
I hope Ken Blackwell is watching the Katherine Harris debacle, cuz his days are right around the corner.
The long-term point of course is that our democracy depends upon elections. There are some who don't care about that as long as their guy "wins"; most Americans, however, want free, fair and demonstrably accurate.
Even the rather conservative DNC investigation of the '04 election in Ohio estimated 2% of would-voters did not vote due to long lines. Twenty-two percent of provisional ballots were discarded, 530-some in Hamilton County alone for voting literally at the wrong table in a multi-precinct polling location. Bogus flyers were distributed in Franklin County on BOE letterhead that said: Republicans vote on Tuesday; Democrats on Wednesday. Whether or not these shenanigans altered the final result, there was a clear, orchestrated effort to affect the outcome. That's unacceptable to me as an American.
We're at the point, frankly, where we have Bananna Republicans and Americans, regardless of party affiliation. I'll stick with the Americans.
When will the Democries learn to accept the results of the 2004 Elections?
The 2004 Elections have been decided. George Bush won. GET OVER IT!!
The Secretary of State does not control where voting machines are placed, local BOEs do that. Each county BOE is governed by 2 GOPers and 2 Dems.
Anon 7:25,
This isn't about the fact that the election was stolesn. (It was!)
It's about the electoral process being fair and accountable. (It's not!)
This is a non-partisan issues. If you don't want free and fair elections you're unamerican.
The judge wouldn't have had to order the ballots be protected if Blackwell would've. If he has nothing to hide than he should've just done it. (He does!)
Blackwell is named because he's the SOS (SOB) and is in charge of overseeing the process. There was massive disenfranchisement of a particular group and he hasn't done anything to account for all these "anomolies" across the state. It is his duty to do so.
This is about discovering the problems so they can be fixed. We need to restore the integrity of our elections. How can you be against fair elections?
If you are stupid enough to believe a flyer that said Democrats vote on Wednesday I don't want your vote to count. You're clearly too dumb to make a educated decision.
Again for you people who tend to ignore the facts,each of ohio's 88 counties BOE are supervised by both Democrats & Republicans. Each county records it's total on it's own. You really need to get over this. Maybe some professional help may be needed for some of you.
Some of you guys keep buying the talking points and spin about "bipartisan" boards of elections. The bottom line in this lawsuit: if punch-card ballots were tampered with BEFORE they even got to these boards -- that's a crime. Look at the photos of double-punched ballots submitted as evidence and you will understand why the federal judge took this seriously. The fact is some deputy directors admit being asleep at the wheel or shoved into submissive roles. (i.e. Clermont and Cuyahoga being deadlocked on appointing new directors and Hocking firing one of its BOE officials). If you want us to keep having elections like Third World counties, keep dissing the dissenters.
For those who don't understand punch card machines there is a shield and only holes that correspond to a candidate or issue can be punched when the ballot is inserted. Any punch outside of the shield could only be punched when the ballot is not inserted. These double punched overvotes are how someone can invalidate ballots fraudulently. Tabulating ballots from one precinct behind another precinct's precinct header identification card is how thanks to ballot rotation of candidates that a vote for candidate A can be assigned to candidate B's column and vise versa. This is ballot fraud.
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