Ohio recount -- what sense does it make? Somebody help me please

[Time for change]

We have recently been told that the Ohio recount failed to bring John Kerry any more than a few hundred votes closer to winning the election – a mere drop in the bucket.

Yet, my understanding is that few if any of the hand counts of sample precincts managed to trigger a full hand recount of the whole county. This was because by and large the sample hand recounts matched the machine counts. Consequently, the great majority of the state was recounted by machine rather than by hand. Our suspicions were that election fraud was accomplished by manipulation of the computer software that counted the votes. If that is the case, what good would a machine recount accomplish? It would merely provide the same results that were reported on election day. And yet, we hear numerous stories of efforts by Ohio election officials to fraudulently force the hand recount to match the machine count.

My question is this. Why should the standard for doing a full hand recount of a county be the matching of the sample hand recount with a sample machine recount – especially when there is evidence that these recounts were fraudulently forced to match – rather than a matching of the sample hand recount with the official vote tally.

For example, consider the following: Suppose that a large county cheated Kerry out of 50,000 votes. There were 100,000 votes cast in the county. In actuality Kerry received 50%, or 50,000 votes, and Bush received 50,000. But 25,000 of Kerry’s votes went to Bush (Kerry minus 25,000, Bush plus 25,000), giving Bush 75,000 and Kerry 25,000. A 3 % random sampling of the vote would be 3,000 votes. Of those, if they were representative of the county, Kerry would have been cheated out of 1,500 votes. The machine would have shown him to receive 750, when he actually received 1,500, and Bush would have been shown by the machine to have received 2,250 votes. A fair sample hand count would show this and trigger a full hand recount of the county, thus giving Kerry back his 50,000 votes. But instead, the company re-programs the machine, so that Kerry actually gets the 1,500 votes that he should have, and this matches the hand count. Then, when the machine does the full recount for the county, it is re-programmed, as it was on election day, to steal the 50,000 votes from Kerry.

Wouldn’t a way to get around this be to make the standard a match with the official count rather than the machine count (so as to avoid more fraud in the recount process)? In this way, the sample hand recount will show 1,500 for Kerry, this will be compared with the official 750 votes that he received on election day, the totals will be found not to match, a full hand recount will be done, and he will get back his 50,000 votes. Why can’t that be done? Or, why can’t we just match the sample hand recount with the official vote tally and claim that a failure for these to match provides reasonable cause to do a full hand recount of the county?

[Lenape85]

1. Although it might not yield a Kerry victory

It will still remain a symbol of how elections should be clean and honest.

[berniew1]

16. The recount was just an exercise to count the same votes by same rules

They didn't do anything that was intended by those requesting the recount. They didn't:
attempt to count the 93,000 undervotes(mostly hanging chad in Kerry precincts)
attempt to correct the obviously incorrect vote totals caused by official malfeasance in counties such as Cuyahoga.
attempt to assess or deal with the well documented vote machine fraud, ballot stuffing, phantom votes, etc. documented in many counties.
assess or deal with the widespread systematic voter suppression of minorities.
Whats clear from the process is that it has been documented that the election was not a fair election, massive suppression, dirty tricks, and fraud are documented; and its not clear who would have won in a fair election. But does the U.S. really want its leaders to be chosen in a fraudulent process controlled by partisan officials.
If so, the days of democracy are past for the U.S.

The same can also be said of Florida and New Mexico; maybe more.

[mdb]

2. When the precincts were NOT chosen in radom...

It was a total waste of time. You have Triad giving them a heads up on the machine count so they match. This was the "cheat sheets" talked about.

[GetTheRightVote]

3. Yup, that is the bigger picture ol'right

:kick:

[lonestarnot]

4. Oh yeah those cheat sheets were not even worth discovering. LOL

[Patsy Stone]

5. Stop asking smart questions and GET OVER IT! :) n/t

[IndyOp]

6. Why can’t that be done?

Katherine Blackwell

:grr:

[New Earth]

7. it wasn't a recount

it was a refraud. lol

the only things that were counted were how many laws they broke, how many lies they told, and how many voters they disenfranchised.

[Melissa G]

9. Great Bumper Stcker Faye!

Ohio..not a Recount, but a ReFraWd

[mdb]

14. That's exactly what it was.

The whole reason to get a hand count match to the machine count is to hide fraud. I think they would like everyone to believe they are all lazy and just wanted to avoid hand counting the whole county.


If everything was random and no cheat sheets were needed (I feel) we would have seen the fraud. With no random count all we see is what the machine was programmed to count.

We may never know now unless preserving evidence of a crime is an important issue to the court.

[Patsy Stone]

15. LOL that was great. n/t

[Melissa G]

8. It is tough to ask reasonable questions in Wonderland...

This Down the Rabbit Hole feeling has my stomach queasy. When will MSM journalists wake up and ask intelligent questions? We gotta get out of this (metaphorical) place...

[many a good man]

10. And what if...

...somebody knew EXACTLY how many votes were switched and had a stack of punchcards pre-punched with exactly the right number of votes to make it match the hand count?

We have been maintaining the illusion of a democracy for over 200 years now. I have a feeling most of our fellow citizens do not really want to know. OTOH, maybe they already know...

[IndyOp]

11. Hey, those counties don't need 100% hand recounts...

The ONLY county that did a 100% hand recount showed in the hand count that the machines did a perfect job in the original count. :eyes:

The Green Observer thinks that Coshocton volunteered to do the 100% hand recount because they were convinced that the machines were 'malfunctioning' -- they actually recounted at least one precinct by hand before the 'recount.' (The had either recounted that precinct or the voters had voted in shifts that day -- all the Republicans voted, then all the Dems, then all the 'others').

A. Unofficial Vote Totals 11/3
B. Coshocton Tribune 11/19
C. As certified 12/06
D. Totals given to witnesses with Date of 12/10
E. Results of 100% hand recount on 12/14
F. Hand recount minus certified

------------A--------B---------C---------D---------E--------F
Bush------9,121----9,277---9,277---9,839---9,826----549
Kerry-----6,763-----6,878---6,878---7,378---7,412----534
Peroutka-----65-------67------67------68------68 -------1
Badnarik-----17-------17------17------15------13 ------(-4)
Schriner------0--------0--------2-------2-------2 --------0
Cobb---------0--------1--------1-------1-------1----------0
Total ----15,966---16,240--16,242--17,303--17,322---1,080

At certification: Bush (57.11%) & Kerry (42.35%)
The 1,080 votes 'found' in the hand recount: Bush (50.8%) & Kerry (49.4%)

The bit I still cannot figure out from the Green observer's notes is this: "Signature book examination conducted by the witnesses for the Democratic candidate looked at two different precincts, with BOE personnel recounting Jefferson Twp. Precinct. Discrepancy appeared to indicate a pattern of a 7-8% loss of votes for the Democratic candidate. Continued review and examination was thorough and resulted in some contentious debate centered around the degree of scrutiny."

Link to Coshocton report
<http://www.votecobb.org/recount/ohio_reports/counties/coshocton.php>

:wtf:

[Time for change]

13. I don't quite understand

So are you saying that you think that there was a fair recount in Coshocton?

[IndyOp]

17. I think the Green observers were very satisfied with the recount in

Coshocton (other than the fact that they were suspicious that it was done to hide a problem with the machines). The only bit I don't understand is this:

"Signature book examination conducted by the witnesses for the Democratic candidate looked at two different precincts, with BOE personnel recounting Jefferson Twp. Precinct. Discrepancy appeared to indicate a pattern of a 7-8% loss of votes for the Democratic candidate. Continued review and examination was thorough and resulted in some contentious debate centered around the degree of scrutiny."

:kick:

[shiina]

12. Not really...

The recount process is already laid out in Ohio law. They don't specify how the recount should be done based on how people think the fraud was committed.

Anyway, I don't think the precincts are large enough to do a large enough sample.